"The Japanese people have been more than indulgent in allowing political corruption and have coined a saying describing the phenomenon: tok-age no shipp kiri-"Cutting the tail of the lizard." Nature has increased the lizard's chances of avoiding capture by its enemies by equipping it with a detachable tail. When a predator seizes a fleeing lizard by the tail, it breaks off and the lizard escapes. But this loss is not permanent as the lizard can regenerate this portion of its anatomy"(Hayes, 107).

This metaphor perfectly describes the corrupt leadership in Japan. Most of corruption that takes place effects the party and its leaders but never causes anything per

voting is really their only way to show their disapproval. On the day of Japan's Upper House election, a housewife came on the Japanese radio and said "I went to vote - for anyone who didn't belong to the Liberal Democratic Party." Most people are fed up with the promise for reform but lack of action.

Probably the most popular scandal know in Japan is the Lockheed Scandal. In this case the Prime Minister was indicted on bribery charges. When Prime Minsiter Kakuei Tanaka was investigated, it brought up answers to many unanswered questions. There was questionable land and property deals, influence peddling, the purchase of an worthless dry riverbed whose value increased when it was bought by the government. In December of 1974 Tanaka resigned. This investigation brought about suspicions on illegal business involved in the sales of other aircraft's dating back to the 1960's. Information on wrong doings were found through many politicians but could not be tried due to the statue of limitations.

In Japan, there is the new party called the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ). This party increased its seats in the Upper House by nine, for a total of 27. This party was created by Naoto Kan for the Japanese people to express their anger of corruption and hopefully move toward change. Kan wants to force an election and start a public debate on the reform issues. The LDP has lost it's most popular seats and will hopefully be out of power soon.

"The scandal-Plagued system, driven by massive special-interest money, is now being blamed for contributing to the excesses of Japan's "bubble economy" in the late 1980's and for helping to prevent the ruling Liberal Democratic Party from taking long-overdue corrective action against some of its longtime backers to revitalize the moribund Japanese economy. This includes cracking down on banks saddled with bad loans and shutting off credit to nearly insolvent construction companies."

These cases do have something in common. They are not addressed as important issues. Using finances to gain or maintain a political position has been done forever in Japan. Under the Political Fund Control Law and the Public Affairs Election Law, money that goes in and out of politics needs to be regulated. According to the law, contributions from one source can not be over 1.5 million yen. This is a acceptable amount but faction leader, Kanemaru accepted 500 million yen when fully understanding this was wrong. The government , in an effort to curb these "gifts" a Council on Political Ethics was set up in the Diet to handle irregularities. This council was created in 1985 and never once held a session.

The Japanese press does not get into political corruption or investigate scandals because they don't want to embarrass their leaders. The Japanese have much more faith in their political structure then the US. They believe that if their leaders are doing well for the country, there is no reason to dig into how things are done. The American press takes the completely opposite view where we strive for personal business and look to find any flaws that the system might be involved in.

manent so it is very often that these immoral acts just "slide". This problem is what has caused political corruption to become almost a norm in Japanese society. The long term effects of this corruption has caused a severe damage to Japans political system but those who have gotten caught in scandals are treated with very little punishment. On a local level, there has been many cases of bribes connected to public works and bureaucratic favors. Vote buying has become very popular among the Japanese scandals. The money that was used was always aimed to be passed in an unseen manner. Most of the time these gifts were overlooked as political donations. Accounting regulations have been manipulated and fictitious expenses were reported. For example, overtime that was earned was not listed at many businesse

Some common words found in the essay are:
, Democratic Party, TanakaWoronoff320 Japanese, War II, House Representatives, Asian Crisis, Ryutaro Hashimoto, Political Ethics, Kakuei Tanaka, Ichiro Kawasaki, prime minister, democratic party, political system, political corruption, finance ministry's, japanese people, political ethics, political position, ministry's vice minister, political structure, 1996 election, liberal democratic party, world war ii, finance ministry's vice,
Approximate Word count = 3223
Approximate Pages = 13 (250 words per page double spaced)