Originally published on July 5, 2019.
Based on a dialogue between Shintaro Ishihara and Shizuka Kamei in the August issue of WiLL, this essay sharply examines international politics by comparing diplomacy to a poker game and analyzing the power balance among Japan, the United States, Russia, China, and North and South Korea.
It reflects on former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s negotiations over Iran, offers severe criticism of the Moon Jae-in administration, addresses the threat from China and instability on the Korean Peninsula, and considers the historical role Japan should play.

2019-07-05
Diplomacy is like a poker game.
If there were five cards called Japan, the United States, Russia, China, and North and South Korea, how should they be arranged?

The following is from the serialized dialogue between Shintaro Ishihara and Shizuka Kamei, published in the August issue of the monthly magazine WiLL under the title, “The vivid shock of the chocolate we secretly ate, it made my whole body tremble.
From the bottom of my heart, I thought, ‘Ah, Japan has lost.’”
The introductory part is omitted.
Kamei.
When I became Minister of Transport, I visited the home of Professor Morozumi, who had already passed away, and offered my hands in prayer before his Buddhist altar.
I said, “The day before yesterday, I received my appointment as Minister of Transport.”
The reason I am who I am today is thanks to Professor Morozumi.
However, when I was in my third year of high school, I suffered pulmonary infiltration and could no longer study as I wished.
So I spent a year as a ronin and entered the University of Tokyo.
Ishihara.
I also spent one year as a ronin.
I was at Shonan High School, and before and during the war, they told us to study hard and go to the Naval Academy to become splendid naval officers.
But the moment Japan was defeated, they started saying, “Go to the University of Tokyo, enter the Ministry of Finance, and become a bureaucrat.”
They said that Takashi Ihara, who had served as Director-General of the Financial Bureau of the Ministry of Finance and later president of the Bank of Yokohama, was the greatest success story.
I thought, “What a ridiculous school,” and I stopped going.
All the fellows who were good at studying entered the University of Tokyo and became bureaucrats.
After I became a minister, those were the very men who brought documents to me (laughter from all).
Kamei.
You took me to Ishihara-san’s class reunion.
Ishihara.
Everyone had grown old.
Only one person had been involved in Iranian oil field development at a trading company.
Everything came to nothing because of the Iranian Revolution, but he remained calm.
Then Kamei, like a mad dog, suddenly burst in, so everyone was astonished (laughs).
Kamei.
When I sing, they all look blank…
Ishihara.
I had warned them in advance, “Don’t be shocked when you hear Kamei-kun sing” (laughs).
It is more like a speech than a song.
Kamei.
Ishihara-san has no sense of pitch, so that is a problem (laughs).
All the women who hear me sing shed tears.
Ishihara.
Tears of sympathy.
But just once, I would like NHK to broadcast Kamei’s singing voice.
Kamei.
Just wait, I might sing on the Kohaku yet (laughter from all).
Diplomacy as a Poker Game.
Ishihara.
Changing the subject, Abe-kun was asked by Trump to negotiate with Iran, wasn’t he.
He was made to carry an extremely heavy burden.
Kamei.
And on top of that, Trump announced that once the House of Councillors election was over, he would resume trade negotiations.
It is truly outrageous.
Ishihara.
When I dined with Abe-kun, I keenly felt that position makes the man.
He has become seasoned.
Kamei.
That is certainly true.
But if he faces Trump, Putin, Xi Jinping, and Kim Jong Un and ends up being looked down on, that would be disastrous.
Ishihara.
Diplomacy is like a poker game.
If there were five cards called Japan, the United States, Russia, China, and North and South Korea, how should they be arranged?
It would be good if one could make three of a kind, but Japan is in a situation where getting three matching cards is very difficult.
Especially regarding North and South Korea, unless the fool named Moon Jae-in is dealt with, nothing can be done.
He is not even aware that he is doing foolish things.
The United States is not taking him seriously at all.
Moon Jae-in went to Washington for a U.S.-South Korea summit, but he was treated like a scrap of paper.
Kamei.
The staff supporting the Moon administration are all former student activists.
In other words, it is a revolutionary regime.
Now the United States and North Korea have entered into direct negotiations, and the Moon administration has been left out in the cold.
So South Korea should bare its fangs not at Japan but at the United States.
It should at least have the courage to say, “We do not need to be protected by the United States.
We will get along with North Korea, so go home.”
If it did that, the United States would value it a little more.
Because it looks pleased to be completely dependent, South Korea cannot stand on its own.
Ishihara.
It is probably supporting the North behind America’s back.
It seems it will invest about eight million dollars as aid funds.
If it goes any further than this, even the United States will not remain silent.
Kamei.
If things go badly, there is even a possibility that it will become a military regime.
Ishihara.
All of South Korea’s postwar history has been made by the military.
It was Park Chung-hee’s military regime that overthrew the Yun Bo-seon administration.
Chun Doo-hwan also used the military to suppress liberal forces.
If the South is swallowed by the North, it is the South Korean military that will have no place to stand.
A military coup may occur.
Kamei.
Since they are a people said to be so quick-tempered as to suffer from hwa-byung, that is entirely possible.
Ishihara.
The Korean Peninsula is a fringe of conflict, where states have constantly suffered division and been ruled by the great powers behind them.
For that reason, the national spirit is servile, prone to looking right and left, and weak before authority.
Takeo Miki was called a “Balkan politician,” but in the same way, what Koreans say changes round and round.
It is due to the Korean national character that the chaebol were allowed to grow arrogant.
It is obvious that they will follow military authority.
Independence Was Thanks to Japan.
Kamei.
At this rate, the day when South Korea is swallowed up under Northern leadership may not be far off.
Ishihara.
There were once foolish Japanese intellectuals who said, “North Korea is an ideal country.”
Kenzaburo Oe was one of them.
How do they intend to take responsibility for that statement?
Kamei.
And the threat from China is also an important issue.
Japanese people cannot acquire land in China, yet Chinese people can freely buy and sell land in Japan.
There is nothing more absurd than that.
It must be based on reciprocity.
Ishihara.
When I told Abe-kun, “Why not change the law and regulate it,” he replied halfheartedly, “Yes, that is true.”
Kamei.
Even if such a law were made, no one would complain.
The Abe administration has already passed six years and has reached a turning point.
Ishihara.
What about the disgraceful state of the Diet?
They focus only on the gaffe of Maruyama Hodaka of the Japan Innovation Party, string him up like a lynching, and immediately put to a vote a “censure resolution” urging him to decide whether to stay or go.
Certainly, his statement was not praiseworthy, but it is strange, like bullying the weak.
Kamei.
There is freedom of speech, so it is wrong to subject him to punishment for that.
Ishihara.
Maruyama was a graduate of the University of Tokyo and a bureaucrat in the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.
He is a typical case of someone who is intelligent yet makes foolish statements.
It is certainly true that the Northern Territories were taken by war.
I understand that bitterness.
If he was going to use the word “war,” he should have said, “We should win through economic war.”
Kamei.
Territory taken by war is, by the inevitability of human history, recovered by war.
Ishihara.
Certainly, I too want someday to make Russia gnash its teeth.
What is satisfying now is Britain’s decline over Brexit.
In the great age of exploration, the adventurers Captain Cook and Stanley colonized all of Africa and the islands of the Pacific.
Wherever one went, British colonies spread, and Britain even boasted that it was “the country where the sun never sets.”
And what is its condition now?
It is truly miserable.
A country that commits wrongs in history is properly repaid.
I do not know whether there is a principle of history, but wickedness does not prevail.
Kamei.
Japan is similar in some ways.
Japan liberated the Asian countries that had been ruled by white people.
It was truly a “holy war.”
However, afterward, although Japan should have helped each country achieve ethnic independence, it instead imitated imperialism.
Ishihara.
That is not so.
Through an introduction by Tatsunosuke Takasaki, I once met both President Nasser of Egypt and President Sukarno of Indonesia.
Both of them said, “It is thanks to Japan that we were able to gain independence.
Because Japan fought hard against the Western powers, we too were able to follow that example and fight through our wars of independence.”
Kamei.
So there was that kind of insight.
To be continued.