Every cloud has a silver lining
Ah, how I’ve missed him. But former Foreign Minister Taro Aso was back in the news yesterday.
Mr Aso has been away from the limelight for a while, after getting shunted aside during the Prime Ministerial changeover from Shinzo Abe to Yasuo Fukuda last autumn.
But you knew he couldn’t stay quiet for long. He usually has a word or two to say on most subjects, well-judged or otherwise. And he seldom disappoints.
Mr Aso added his voice to the tumult over the poisoned Chinese gyoza scandal, by saying in a speech in Kumamoto yesterday -
“I’ve been saying that Japanese agricultural products are expensive but taste good and are clean and safe,” Aso said. “To be blunt, the agricultural cooperatives should thank China. Great value has been added (to Japanese products).”
Now that’s what I call optimism.
I think he’s right, after all, in Japan you could never have mad cow disease…oops, I mean bird flu…oops, I mean tainted milk products due to not cleaning out the pipes for years on end (Yukishirushi)…oops, I mean things past their expiration date being relabeled and resold. Well, dang it, those were all aberrations on an otherwise spotless health record in recent times; I mean, the government only started keeping track long after Minamata, I mean that strange thing that happened with fish. Probably due to Chinese pollution there as well.
I wonder when some enterprising reporter in Japan will try avoiding things made in China for a while. One did in the US and found it incredibly difficult.
February 4th, 2008 at 2:04 am“I wonder when some enterprising reporter in Japan will try avoiding things made in China for a while. One did in the US and found it incredibly difficult.”
That would be interesting. There are a surprising number of people (well, surprising to me, anyway) who subscribe to a myth of Japanese self-sufficiency. It’d certainly shake that up a bit.
February 4th, 2008 at 10:27 am