August 7, 2020. At a June 30 opposition hearing, lawmakers criticized delays to Japan’s “Go To” tourism campaign and demanded earlier implementation. Weeks later, leading Constitutional Democratic Party figures called for postponement amid rising COVID-19 infections. This article revisits the statements of Jun Azumi, Takahiro Kuroiwa, Yukio Edano and others.

2020-08-07
In the summer of 2020, Japan faced two simultaneous crises: the spread of COVID-19 and severe damage to the tourism industry.
The timing of the government’s “Go To Travel” tourism-support program therefore became a major political issue.
At a joint opposition hearing on June 30, lawmakers criticized delays in launching the program and argued that reservations made in July should also qualify.
After the government decided to begin the program on July 22, however, figures in the Constitutional Democratic Party began calling for its postponement because of the renewed spread of infections.
The following is an article I published on August 7, 2020, after encountering information on the blog of a reader who had been visiting this site.
Some of the facts were new even to me at the time.
I believed that many other people, too, had probably never encountered them through television coverage.
I therefore republish this record as material for considering what the Constitutional Democratic Party said before the launch of the campaign and how its position subsequently changed.
Source: https://blog.goo.ne.jp/nozawa360
【Article and Quoted Argument】
It was the opposition parties, including Jun Azumi and other members of the Constitutional Democratic Party, that had been pressing the government at a joint opposition hearing to begin “Go To Travel” as soon as possible.
The CDP lawmaker who declared, “The start is far too late! It will have no effect!” was Takahiro Kuroiwa.
Nine years earlier, in September 2011, even Jun Azumi himself, then 49, was reportedly astonished when he was appointed finance minister in Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda’s Democratic Party government.
His appointment at that age was highly unusual, and the article compared him with former prime ministers Hayato Ikeda and Kakuei Tanaka, both of whom had served as finance ministers under the ministry’s former title.
Because the diminutive Azumi was known for making forceful statements, he was nicknamed the “Little Gangster.”
Under the preceding Kan administration, he had served as the Democratic Party’s Diet Affairs Committee chairman and negotiated with the opposition Liberal Democratic Party.
His experience sharpening his speaking skills in Waseda University’s debating society appeared to have served him well.
At the time of this article, Azumi was serving as Diet Affairs Committee chairman of the Constitutional Democratic Party.
On July 22, speaking to reporters about the start of the government’s tourism-support program, “Go To Travel,” Azumi said in substance that the government was forcing the campaign to begin even though people were saying it should be stopped.
He argued that the public had a stronger sense of alarm about the spread of infection than the government did, that neither people in the travel industry nor the public could welcome the campaign without reservation, and that the government was making a major mistake.
He went further, saying that if infections increased in regional areas, the government should bear political responsibility and that the matter could justify the resignation of the entire Cabinet.
He added that it was still not too late and that the campaign should be postponed until the situation had settled.
The expression “it is still not too late” reminded the original author of the February 26 Incident of 1936.
During that uprising, military authorities distributed leaflets urging the rebellious soldiers to return to their original units, including the famous appeal: “It is not too late even now. Return to your units.”
Yet the parties that had been pressing the government to launch “Go To Travel” as soon as possible at the opposition hearing included Azumi’s Constitutional Democratic Party and other opposition parties.
On the same day, Japan Tourism Agency Commissioner Hiroshi Tabata told a meeting of the Japan Association of Travel Agents that the program would proceed through proper procedures and that the agency hoped to achieve a rapid start, preferably in early August.
The government’s original schedule had therefore been an August launch.
Azumi dramatically declared that the issue could merit the resignation of the entire Cabinet.
The original article then turns to the record of the former Democratic Party government.
It recalls the behavior of Yukio Edano, then chief cabinet secretary under Prime Minister Naoto Kan, during the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident following the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11, 2011.
After explosions at Units 1 and 3, Edano repeatedly stated at press conferences that there would be no immediate effect on human health.
The source article also argues that the Self-Defense Forces were not ordered into a full-scale nuclear response until after a hydrogen explosion at Unit 4 four days after the earthquake.
It cites former Ground Self-Defense Force Chief of Staff Yoshifumi Hibako as criticizing the Kan administration for initially taking an overly optimistic view of the nuclear accident.
According to the quotation reproduced in the source, the government referred to what happened at Unit 1 as an “explosive event,” although it was in fact a hydrogen explosion.
Four SDF personnel were injured in the Unit 3 accident, and personnel at the scene reportedly reacted angrily because the reality differed from what they had been told.
The source further quotes criticism that the Kan administration failed to communicate the seriousness of the situation promptly and that SDF personnel were forced to carry out helicopter water-dropping operations under dangerous radiation conditions without sufficient information about the reactor buildings.
The author of the source blog condemns these actions in extremely severe terms.
The source also criticizes the evacuation of residents into areas downwind from the plant where radioactive material was moving and describes Edano’s response as profoundly irresponsible.
By 2020, Edano was leader of the largest opposition party.
The source article then returns to the “Go To” issue.
The CDP lawmaker who had complained that the program’s start was “too late” and that it would “have no effect” was Takahiro Kuroiwa.
At a joint opposition hearing on June 30 attended by opposition lawmakers and officials from the relevant ministries and agencies, participants criticized the delay in the government’s “Go To” campaign.
Among the arguments made was that unless reservations made in July were also covered, the program would fail to stimulate tourism demand.
The “Go To Travel” consumption-stimulus campaign was subsequently scheduled to begin on July 22.
Fifteen days after the June 30 hearing, on July 14, Constitutional Democratic Party leader Yukio Edano told a party officers’ meeting that the government needed to address the tourism industry’s serious difficulties but that, given the infection situation, launching the program at that moment would probably fail to produce the intended effect.
At another hearing between opposition lawmakers and the Japan Tourism Agency, lawmakers raised concerns that new infections were increasing in Tokyo and that the campaign might spread the virus nationwide.
Thus, only about two weeks after criticizing the government for moving too slowly, opposition politicians were arguing that the program should not proceed under the prevailing conditions.
The original author sharply criticized what he regarded as a complete reversal of position.
He asked whether this was not an example of politicians demonstrating an extraordinary inability to anticipate even the near future.
The article concludes by referring to professional shogi player Sota Fujii, who had just won the fourth game of the Kisei title match and, at age 17, become the youngest titleholder in history.
Shogi professionals are said to calculate dozens, even a hundred, possible moves in an extremely short period.
The author therefore ends with a sarcastic question.
Might these politicians improve enough to see even two or three moves ahead if they could somehow learn from Kisei Fujii?
And yet, as the old saying goes, there are some conditions for which no medicine exists.