This essay praises the professionalism and public service ethos of Tokyo Metropolitan Government officials,
while criticizing post-election political maneuvering that undermines Tokyo’s global standing.
By contrasting responsibilities that should have been fulfilled during parliamentary service with the demands of metropolitan governance,
the article argues for a strategic vision worthy of a truly global city.

September 29, 2016
It is no exaggeration to say that officials of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government are the finest and most capable in Japan.
During a time when Osaka remained in steep decline and employees of Osaka City Hall were even using tax money to make expensive clothing for themselves, I visited the Shibuya Ward Office and other metropolitan offices.
What I felt through their responses was their excellence.
Their awareness as public servants and their spirit of service toward residents and visitors alike were on a completely different level from Osaka’s ward offices.
That Yuriko Koike engages in power struggles with Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly members such as Mr. Uchida makes one wonder what it is all about, but one could say that is her own affair.
However, to slander Tokyo Metropolitan Government employees who chose public service as their life’s work and who labor day and night with kindness and courtesy that impress even visitors from elsewhere—
a spirit that could be called the gentleness at the service counter possessed uniquely by the Japanese—
is utterly unacceptable.
Because they were the most capable civil servants in Japan, Tokyo increasingly became the world’s TOKYO.
To speak from a television-oriented perspective and, for the sake of one’s own power struggles, to append objections to matters already decided by the majority simply because one has become governor is an intolerable posture.
In the first place, Yuriko Koike was a member of the National Diet elected from Tokyo’s 10th district.
If issues such as the relocation of Tsukiji Market or the venues and locations of the Olympic Games were truly so intolerable,
she should have raised her voice loudly, even at the risk of her political career, before or at the time decisions were made.
This is a matter at the level of a kindergarten child.
Members of the National Diet elected from Tokyo are supposed to live first and foremost for Tokyo and for Japan.
That I, an unknown private citizen, fought at the risk of my life against the absurd confusion surrounding the Kita Yard redevelopment in Umeda, Osaka, is something readers around the world know well.
Contrary to the way Asahi Shimbun and the wide shows of its affiliates celebrate her as a convenient topic, I hold Yuriko Koike in contempt as things stand.
In her current state, she is not good for Japan nor for Tokyo.
Making Japan larger and stronger, and turning Tokyo into the world’s TOKYO, has nothing to do with halving salaries.
What is required above all is a strategy that can stand shoulder to shoulder with other global metropolises.
Petty squabbles among politicians are precisely the posture farthest removed from the world’s TOKYO, and that is what should be recognized.