Tom Coyner has a mischievous speculation in one of his recent email news updates.
I sometimes wonder if Pres Roh and PM Koizumi have these gentleman agreements, off the record of course, that allow each of them to act ridiculous so as to pander to local politics while knowing that the other politician is giving them the wink of the eye since its only a matter of time when he gets his turn to do the same for his domestic ratings. It’s something like ‘You get Yasukuni and I get Dokdo’ sort of pre-agreed antics arrangement. I could be hallucinating but over time I’m starting to doubt it.
I’ve got a niggling question of my own. That secret Japanese government report which talked about how President Roh was only playing the anti-Japanese card to boost his ratings at home. Who leaked it to the press and why? Is there a Korean sympathiser (or spy), or an anti-conservative element, within the Japanese foreign office who wanted to embarrass Koizumi? Was it a deliberate attempt by the Japanese to discredit Roh without actually doing so officially (we all know from our experience in Blair’s Britain how government departments deliberately leak stories to the press for political purposes)? If anyone has been monitoring the Japanese press and knows if these questions have been asked or answered anywhere, please let me know.