世論 What Japan Thinks

It’s been quite a while since I’ve looked at a political opinion poll, so with the recent changes at the top with Junichiro Koizumi being replaced by Shinzo Abe, and with North Korea being a tad unreasonable at the moment, I think this would be a good time to present a translation of a survey of public opinion by the Yomiuri Shimbun on the new cabinet and the recent trip to China and Korea.
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goo Ranking released the results of their latest ranking questionnaire, conducted over two days towards the end of August. An unspecified number of goo users replied to the question of what is your lasting impression of the Junichiro Koizumi premiership.

This departs from the usual fluff of these ranking surveys, but I cannot give any guarantee about how accurately the figures reflect true public opinion. As always, the score for each option is the percentage of the votes for the top answer. I’m impressed by Jun-chan’s Elvis impressions making ninth on the list, but disappointed that him dancing with his doppelganger Richard Gere didn’t get anywhere!

Additionally, I suspect that anything directly related to him backing Horiemon’s election campaigning was disallowed due to the ongoing court case.
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[part 1] [part 2] [part 3]

NTV did a survey on a number of hot topics in the news right now – a lot of questions, but not much detail, so the exact meaning of some of the answers is up for debate. They carries out the survey from the 14th to 16th of this month, asking 1000 people but only getting 479 sets of replies, so it’s a bit of a small sample.

Q6: The Koizumi cabinet has re-submitted their Post Office privatisation bill for splitting it into four companies and has it passed into law. Do you support this establishment of the bill? (Bad, possibly wrong translation!)

Support it	61.8%
Don’t support it	26.9%
Don’t know, no answer	11.3%

Q7: Of the 13 former LDP members who voted against the Post Office privatisation proposals in July, 11 of them voted in favour this time. Do you support the actions of these 11 who changed their votes?

Support their actions	24.2%
Don’t support their actions	64.7%
Don’t know, no answer	11.1%

Q8: There is less than one year to go until Koizumi retires from leadership of the LDP. What would you most want him to accoplish during this time?

Resolve North Korea and kidnapping problems	17.5%
Civil service reform	8.4%
Financial and taxation reform	20.5%
Public financial institutions merger or abolishment	3.3%
Pensions review	42.2%
Others	4.6%
Don’t know, no answer	3.6%

Q9: There are about 600 GSDF troops deployed in Samawah, Iraq until the 14th of December. Please tell me your opinion about the GSDP deployment.

Deployment should be extended	21.1%
Should withdraw in December	61.4%
Should withdraw now	13.8%
Don’t know, no answer	3.8%

Q10: On the 17th of October is the Yasukuni Shrine Autumn Festival, and there is the view that Koizumi may very well attend. Do you support Koizumi woshipping there?

Support him	47.6%
Don’t support him	45.5%
Don’t know, no answer	6.9%

A slight diversion – the Yasukuni Shrine has perhaps two aspects to it. The first is the enshrinement of Class A war criminals, which is the topic that most people seem to focus upon, but to me it seems very much to hinge on a technicality or two, and as such does not particulary interest me, especially as the other aspect is that the shrine is run by, apparently, a bunch of right-wing militaristic nut jobs, not to put too fine a point on it. Friends who have visited have noted that the text of many of the exhibits, in both English and Japanese, glorify the Second World War and the earlier East Asian adventures whilst glossing over, if not outright ignoring the evil that was committed in the process. A visit to their English homepage, for instance, reveals unapologetic nonsense like this, from their FAQ:

There were also 1,068 “Martyrs of Showa” who were cruelly and unjustly tried as war criminals by a sham-like tribunal of the Allied forces (United States, England, the Netherlands, China and others).

Can you really imagine a German leader, say, visiting a church that had a sign talking about how Goering was unfairly accused, or even a British leader visiting (in a not really official, honest, Guv kind of way) that statue of Bomber Harris near Trafalgar Square?

[part 1] [part 2] [part 3]