Based on Rui Abiru’s essay in Seiron, this article criticizes the opposition parties’ attacks on the Abe administration and the media’s reporting posture at a time when responding to the novel coronavirus was urgent. It examines the real circumstances behind Prime Minister Abe’s remark that the question was “meaningless.”

March 3, 2020
The Disgraceful State of the Diet: Rui Abiru Exposes the Inversion of the Opposition and the Asahi Shimbun
The following is from an essay by Rui Abiru, one of the finest active journalists in Japan, published in the March 2 issue of the monthly magazine Seiron, in the special feature “The Calamity Called China,” under the title “The Disgraceful State of the Diet.”
Is something not fundamentally wrong?
What is the Diet?
According to the dictionary at hand, it is the highest organ of state power and the sole law-making organ of the state.
State power here refers to the authority of the state, the governing power of the nation.
It goes without saying that the Diet is indispensable for Japan to survive and develop as a democratic nation.
Yet what is the scene of the Diet that we now witness on television broadcasts and news reports?
In the opposition’s questions, urgent and important matters that should be discussed, such as the spread of the novel coronavirus, are treated perfunctorily.
What stands out instead are endless faultfinding, harassment, and nitpicking against the Shinzo Abe administration.
And the government and ruling parties have not been able to handle this well.
Do we really need a Diet that resembles a collapsed classroom, where bullying spreads unchecked?
Is Diet deliberation truly necessary?
For what purpose do the opposition parties exist?
Such serious doubts, which could shake the foundations of democracy itself, arise.
Furthermore, the mass media ignore priorities and the gravity of matters, and push the opposition’s misguided pursuit from behind.
For example, in its February 13 editorial, “A Desolate Diet: Prime Minister Abe Bears Heavy Responsibility,” the Asahi Shimbun one-sidedly condemned Prime Minister Abe and the government side as if they alone were at fault.
“Prime Minister Abe’s overbearing rebuttals and heckling, ministers’ confused answers. Through constructive debate, better conclusions should be reached. It is disheartening to see scenes so far removed from what the ‘forum of speech’ should be.”
“There is no sense of the broad-mindedness to accept criticism, nor the calmness to respond with persuasive words and logic.”
The heckling by Prime Minister Abe refers to his response to a question by Kiyomi Tsujimoto, acting secretary-general of the Constitutional Democratic Party, at the House of Representatives Budget Committee on February 12.
Tsujimoto once again, as if nothing had changed for ten years, took up the Cherry Blossom Viewing Party and the bureaucrats’ handling of the Moritomo and Kake Gakuen issues.
After her questioning ended, Prime Minister Abe said from the ministers’ seats:
“That was a meaningless question.”
Certainly, there are voices even within the ruling party calling for restraint when the prime minister himself heckles.
Generally speaking, it is better to have no heckling at all.
But the reality of the Diet is that, although television microphones do not always pick it up, during answers by the prime minister and ministers, opposition lawmakers’ heckling is often so loud that the answers cannot be heard.
At a time when the leader of the country must deal with urgent issues before his eyes, such as responding to the novel coronavirus in order to protect the lives of the people, measures against the accompanying economic losses, and analysis of the world situation, he is detained for long hours in the Diet and troubled by unnecessary and non-urgent questions that resemble accusations without substance.
It is not unreasonable that he would want to point out their meaninglessness.
Moreover, during the questioning, it was Tsujimoto who heckled first.
It is strange that this has been left unquestioned.
Although the Asahi editorial ended with the following sentence, it did not mention Tsujimoto’s heckling:
“The responsibility to realize debate worthy of the forum of speech belongs neither to the ruling party alone nor to the opposition alone.”
In fact, when one heard Tsujimoto’s following remarks, one could feel neither a fragment of dignity nor the logic of which the Asahi speaks.
“Prime Minister, I will say this at the end. Do you know the expression that a fish rots from the head? It exists in English and Russian as well. The freshness of a dead fish is judged by the condition of its head. Therefore, when the upper levels of a society, nation, or company are corrupt, the rest soon rots as well. Because the prime minister is said to be covered in suspicions over the cherry blossom issue, Kake, and Moritomo, officials cannot be disciplined. It is bad for children’s education as well. At this point, the cause is the head of the fish. Is it not necessary to change the head? I will say that it is about time for the prime minister himself to bring down the curtain.”
In other words, Tsujimoto insulted Prime Minister Abe to his face, without presenting evidence, by saying that he was corrupt.
Can this be called a question in the Diet?
No.
Is it not verbal violence and a violation of human dignity?
After being told even such things, Prime Minister Abe merely said, “That was a meaningless question.”
Yet the opposition parties refused to attend deliberations the next day, February 13.
The Diet, and the mass media that condemned Prime Minister Abe’s remark, can only be said to be deeply mistaken at a fundamental level.
When Seiji Osaka, policy research chairman of the Constitutional Democratic Party, questioned him after Tsujimoto, Prime Minister Abe explained his true intention as follows.
“Representative Tsujimoto’s remarks were not really questions to me. From my perspective, they were a continuous stream of abuse. She kept saying that if the head rots, the rotting body must be me. She repeated this endlessly without giving me an opportunity to respond in the questioning. She did it right in front of me, with television coverage. After she finished, I said, ‘Isn’t this kind of exchange meaningless?’ Is this a place for one-sided abuse?”
However, many mass media outlets did not properly report Tsujimoto’s abusive remarks or Prime Minister Abe’s explanation.
They instead decided that Prime Minister Abe’s irregular remark was an act of defiance.
The Asahi editorial also wrote that it was “an insult to the legislature, which monitors the administration.”
But it is Tsujimoto’s words and method that are the real insult to the Diet.
Rui Abiru’s essay points out the abnormality of the Diet with true accuracy.
At a critical moment when the response to the novel coronavirus would determine the lives and economy of the Japanese people, what were the opposition parties doing?
Were they conducting substantive discussions to protect the lives of the people?
How should the medical system be protected?
How should schools and companies be supported?
How should the spread of infection be prevented?
What should be done about entry restrictions from China?
Were they concentrating on such urgent issues?
The answer is no.
As always, they brought up the Cherry Blossom Viewing Party, Moritomo, and Kake, and used them as material for attacking the administration.
Media organizations such as the Asahi Shimbun then supported them.
Who is ruining the Diet?
Who is destroying the forum of speech?
Who is turning a crisis involving the lives of the people into a tool of political struggle?
The Japanese people must face this reality directly.
A single remark by the prime minister is cut out, and the opposition and the media together make a fuss over it.
But they do not report what happened before it.
They conceal the abusive words that went so far as to say the other side was rotten, and treat only the reaction to them as the problem.
This cannot possibly be fair reporting.
This is not journalism.
It is political manipulation.
The Diet exists for the Japanese people.
It does not exist for the self-satisfaction of the opposition parties, nor for the Asahi Shimbun’s attacks on the administration.
The fact that the Diet was in such a disgraceful state during the national crisis of the novel coronavirus should be recorded as a major stain in Japan’s political history.
This essay will continue.