 Welcome in Aloha, I'm Mark Shklav, the host of Think Tech Hawaii's Law Across the Sea program. Today we're going across the sea to Tokyo, Japan to talk with my friend, Tatsu Nakayama. Tatsu is a lawyer in Japan and the managing partner of Nakayama and Partners. He is an intellectual thinker, writer, speaker and actor. Tatsu is listed in the 2020 edition of the Best Lawyers in Japan in the field of international business transactions. I've known Tatsu for many years. We are both active members of the Inter-Pacific Bar Association. We'd usually see each other every year at the annual IPBA meetings. I really believe that in-person social interaction is beneficial on many levels. However, for the last two years we have not been able to meet because of COVID pandemic restrictions. So I want to welcome Tatsu. How are you? Good to see you, Aloha. Aloha, Mark. I'm very excited and honored to be with you, my one of my closest friends in the world. I have known Mark for, I think about 15 years through the IPBA Inter-Pacific Bar Association. Mark is a great, one of the founders of this great Lawyers Association. I have been very honored to be with you. And now I'm excited to say something about Japan on this program. Thank you very much. You know, what really got me motivated to talk to you was a tragic event. That's the assassination of Shinzo Abe on July 8th. And that shocked us here in Hawaii and around the world because that just didn't seem to match what we know about Japan. So I've asked you, Tatsu, to share your personal views and insights concerning all these recent events. And let's start with Shinzo Abe. Okay, thank you very much. Yeah. Talk about that. There's a photo of him that we can display and put up there for a few moments to kind of remember. And there were a lot of concerns that this was a political act, this attack and where he was killed. And it was an attack on democracy and it was the beginning of more political violence. So I'd like you to share your thoughts. Are these valid concerns? Thank you for your good question. I may have to apologize. However, this is not any mournful attitudes anyway. I'll explain this later, but coming back to Shinzo Abe, it's very shocking to us Japanese as well. And first impression is, as Mark said, this could be an attack to democracy, but in a week later we see in Japan, this is not at all related to any political issue or political attack. Mr. Yamagami, the accused, is believed to have very deep personal grudge against Shinzo Abe and some religious body. That is the main reason. And we see that this tragedy is not any attack to democracy. This is what I see. Okay, and so that's, I guess that's a good thing in a way. I mean, it's something that was idiosyncrated or personal to this fellow Yamagami. And as I understand, it had something to do with the relationship of his mother. What was the cause of that? Was that what it had to do? Yes, you are correct. Mr. Yamagami's mother who was so into a religious body which is coming from Korea, the name of which is a unification church, somewhat related to Christian, which I'm not so familiar with it. Anyway, mother was so into that unification church and she donated a lot of money, which is believed to be more than one million US dollars. And that made her bankrupt and also his family, her family went so bad bankrupt in that way. And Yamagami's father and his brother, two of them, both of them committed suicide. Whoa, this is very tragic. That is another reason Mr. Yamagami had a personal grudge or the unification church is a very evil organization, that kind of something, yeah. And he thought that Mr. Abe was somehow connected to it, I guess, is that? Yes, correct. Yeah, Mr. Abe was one of the supporters of the unification church. This is how he believed, yeah. So what happens now in the justice system of Japan with this man accused of killing Mr. Abe? What, will there be a trial? What happens? There will be a trial. And in Japan about 10 years ago, we started to have a jury trial which is participated by a lay persons. And as far as I see, this case could be subject to jury trial, but I'm not really sure how it goes. And my view of his result of this criminal procedure could be a life sentence against Yamagami. Yeah, this is my guess. Yeah, well, we're still kind of waiting to see, I guess, what happens next. In Japan, do they, do you get legal counsel appointed for you? Is that something that he would have? Will he have a lawyer? I'm not sure, at this moment he has a lawyer, but definitely he will have because this kind of big case, another criminal procedure law, this carpet, the accused should be, must be subject to attorney. Even if he can't afford to an attorney privately by his pocket, I would say the nationally or the Japanese bar would afford. So he would be subject to attorney. So he will get, well, that's similar to the United States to appointment of counsel in a criminal case. There are pro bono or lawyers that are appointed. And so that sounds very similar to what we have in the United States. Now, has there been any reaction against the Unification Church by Japanese public or with respect to what happened? From the Japanese society or from Japanese government, we do not see any strong attack or strong restriction against Unification Church. Partly because Unification Church has been popular in this 30 years because 30 years ago, Japanese famous actress, Miss Sakurada Junko was into Unification Church. Now that surprised the Japanese society. And in this 30 years, we see Japanese, many of Japanese people see Unification Church as kind of cult, kind of strange organizations but it was something like this. So at this moment, Yamagami had a personal grudge against Unification Church, but this fact doesn't change the mindset or attitude against Unification Church. So the Japanese society seems to let that pass or let it be. How about with respect to his mother, the accused man's mother, how is she being treated and is she doing anything or is she saying anything? Newspaper says she still believes in so into Unification Church and I don't know other details. Yeah, any strong attack or any strong restriction against her mother, no information. Has she said anything? Has there been any comment from her? No, nothing particular as far as I see. So it's still an ongoing matter. Now, Mr. Abe was killed while he was campaigning, actually two days before the upper house election in Japan, as I understand it. Did his death have any effect on the outcome of the upper house selection? Generally speaking, I would say not big effect of this event to upper house election as expected because nowadays the opposition party in Japan is not so strong. We believe that the LDP, maybe the Democratic Party of Japan would win. So in this sense, this tragic event made no strong impact on the election. Was there any sort of a sympathy vote or anything like that at all or is it just, life is normal, life just went on? Yeah, I think many voters made a sympathetic vote to LDP because in the latter half of Abe's regime, he made some mistake or many mistakes. He was doubted by a people, some kind of bribery or something, some strong, very strong connection with somebody or something like this. So there was a strong win against Shinzo Abe or LDP, but that win is gone, it might be because of this tragic event because many voted for Shinzo Abe or LDP made a sympathetic vote. I see, so they were kind of expected to do well anyway and maybe they did a little better because of the sympathy vote. Now, has the death of Mr. Abe affected Japan in any other way? Has it brought people together or has it pushed them apart or neither? Has there been any type of reaction one way or the other? As far as I see, the deaths of Mr. Abe or the tragic event itself made no distinction, made no impact on making the political people apart. However, a couple of days ago, Japanese government announced that Shinzo Abe would be mourned, would be treated as a state funeral, state funeral, the funeral ceremony made and supported and run by government, which is rare in Japan, which is rare in that this is only second time after World War II, next to the Shigeru Yoshida, I think around 50 years ago. This is the second time, very rare, very big event and which announcement is opposed by opposing quite old making pain by tax to such wasteful ceremony or something like this, yeah. I see, so it has had some reaction negatively, I guess, and with respect to the state funeral, I see. Now, and I guess it's a little too early to see what would happen if there'll be any other political changes. Is there any, do you have any thoughts about, I mean, would there be any changes? There was a lot of talk in America about the constitution of Japan being changed. Is there any, do you see anything right now about that or in Japan? How does that look, any thoughts? About constitution of Japan, gradually, more and more people are for the amendment to the constitution. As you may know, the Japanese constitution has never changed in this 55 years or something. It was made right after the World War II, supported by the GHQ General Headquarters and it has made no changes. And all those generations, senior generation are for the constitution are opposing to the amendment, that this is a very good one because of that. Thanks to that constitution, we have never had any war. However, younger generation are now for the amendment to the constitution. It is very old, some phrases are too old to understand something like this. And this tragic event of assassination of Shinzo Abe made such gradual increase of the supporters of the amendment a bit more because many are for the still sympathetic to LEP. And so, yeah, and the amendment, as I understand it, talks about maybe more military spending, that type of thing. So that's still wait and see. That may happen, but you kind of, you feel that there may be some leaning towards that possible change. Yeah, yeah, it could be possible, but military spending is not so much related to not only constitution, but also political or diplomatic or, you know, countries issues, but it's not only constitutional. Yeah. So just to end our talk here about Shinzo Abe, how do you think, I mean, in your opinion, how do you think you'll be remembered in Japan's history books? In the history book of Japan, Shinzo will be remembered as the Prime Minister with the longest term in the history. This is one good thing and a very good thing because of the repetition of Japan, you know, before Shinzo Abe, Prime Minister of Japan changes every year, Miyazawa, Kaifu, blah, blah, blah, nobody can remember. Even Japanese can't remember who was the Prime Minister at that time, that kind of thing. This is not at all good, but Shinzo Abe maintained his regime for seven years or something. This is very good thing. And in this way, he will be remembered in a good way. Okay. All right, now let's talk about some other issues that have touched the shores of both Japan and Hawaii. The COVID pandemic, I mean, where are we in Japan? What is, what's happening in Japan? What's the status of life there during COVID now? Yeah, today is July 2022. Almost two years after COVID situation. I will say in Japan, very stable, nothing has changed. We hasty to go around, we hasty to go abroad, we see many, many of them, no, most of them, or all of them wear a mask, so with strong pressure, strong peer pressure in Japan. I will say this is very peculiar in Japan. We see others and they wear masks and we wear masks. This is a typical attitude of Japan, yeah. And so the status is the same. It's just everybody is just on guard, it sounds like, but what's the current state of COVID infections, especially in Tokyo? And nowadays in Tokyo or in Japan, we call it seventh wave, seventh wave, big waves coming again in the summer. Nowadays nationally, the number of victims with COVID infections is 15,000, 15,000, or it's going up to, it could be 20,000 in one day nationally, it is going up upward. So in terms of infections, it is going up. However, many of them or most of them are not so serious. No, no big death is announced or something like this. Yeah, this is a situation of COVID. Okay, now, I mean, I gotta tell you that we in Hawaii all wanna go to Japan sometime, but there's a lot of entry restrictions. When, I mean, can you, do you have, is there a clear idea? I mean, we can't get a good answer. When will Japan ease the entry restrictions for foreigners so we can travel to Japan like we used to before COVID? I would say it, unfortunately, unfortunately it will not be so soon because we Japanese or the Japanese government or the customs is very fearful of the spread of COVID. For example, if Hawaii people, American people, people from Europe came to Japan and COVID situation, the number of infections increases, then the government will be subject to very harsh opposition in this sense. So I would say it could be in that year or so, Japan's entry restrictions will be loosened in a year or so around. I don't be so optimistic to say at the end of year, Japan will be back to before COVID. It is, in my view, too optimistic. Okay, all right, well, yeah, we'll just have to wait and see on that too. These things are unpredictable. Now, talking about other current events, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, is there any common reaction in Japan to that? How does Japan feel about the Russia war in Ukraine? This is a very big event which opened the eye of Japan in terms of a country it is, as it would have been the case in many countries. You know, Japan is adjacent to, next to Russia. We have been subject to territory issues with Russia. And that event, Russia's invasion against Ukraine made a negative view against the issues of Japan's territory issues against Russia. It has been stuck in 80 years or 70 years. The four islands next to Hokkaido is invaded, in our view, invaded illegally by Russia. It has been taken away by Russia. And we had many diplomatic issues that many of us do not believe it will be solved in some good way. But this event, Russia's invasion against Ukraine made much more negative view against our territory issues. That's very interesting. I mean, in other words, there's a similar issue with the Kuro Islands, yes. And Japan that Ukraine is feeling and Russia's attempt, wow, 80, yeah, Russia's attempt to take over territory of another country. Yeah, that's a very interesting issue. I wanna ask you now, I will get into some personal things about you and your views of Japan culture. In December of 2021, you published a book titled Integrity. And I think we have an image of the book cover that we can put on the screen, Integrity. That's your book. What is that a book about? This book is about integrity. The word of which is not so familiar with Japanese people, but in terms of compliance, I am a lawyer, I'm a attorney, though I wear like this, that one of my expertise is advising Japanese company about compliance, very rigid terrorist issues. However, in this 20 years time, Japanese view about compliance too rigid, too red tape, too bureaucratic, they do not think by themselves. So I would like to change the view of Japanese people about compliance. So instead, I use a term Integrity, aiming to access more leadership to think about everything by themselves in that sense, yeah. So yeah, what I hear you saying is that compliance means, oh, just maybe following the appearances of what has been done in the past. And you're saying Integrity is more doing the right thing or choosing to do something else. Or choosing to do something that is right instead of just following compliance. Is that correct? Is it on the right track? Yeah, you are correct in understanding my intentions. For example, we see something and we see something but we have to do something. This is to do the right thing. We see something bad. We feel something uneasy about this in terms of compliance. We have to do some action. We have to be active or proactive. This is doing the good thing, but this incentive or motivation or moving forward, moving or accessing leadership would not be led, would not be made. We're only thinking about compliance, just compliance rules, just compliance rules. Instead, if we Japanese think about compliance, if we see something, we pretend to not to see something like this, I don't know that. I don't know that. You know the phrase, ignorance is bliss. We do not know that. I didn't know that. We pretend to not knowing anything. This is, I don't like this. This is not doing the right thing. Only by compliance, the society or the company or the employees can't behave good, can't do the right thing. So instead, I use the term integrity in order to encourage Japanese people to do the right thing. Okay, so not just go along but do the right thing. I hear you. And we have a similar feeling here in Hawaii too. It says, which is do the pono, do what's pono, which means do the right thing. Now, with all the problems that we've been talking about, do you have any hope for the world? Yes, I do. I try to. I try to be optimistic in everything somebody says. To be optimistic is intention, to be pessimistic is just feeling something like this. I have been optimistic not only to the world, but also in Japan itself. You know, the Japanese most aging society, the average age of Japan is 48, which is coincidentally exactly my age. Anyway, senior, many seniors, so elder society. However, we see many good younger generations very active, more into society issues. This is very good thing. I think this is a case in Hawaii and United States. So in that way, I've been better optimistic and what we should do is to show how we behave, what is to do the right thing, what to show, how happy we are. If the senior people are happy, I believe, younger generation would feel something in order to be happy like that, like Mark, like Tatsu. So younger generation would think how they behave. Yeah. Oh, and also I noticed on your website, you have one of your favorite quote is to live in hearts we leave behind is not to die. And that's a quote from Thomas Campbell, a Scottish poet. Why is that your favorite quote? I like that quote because my life will be completed only after I die. My reputation now in 2022, it's nothing to me. I don't care what they see me. I care, I do mine, what I would be seen after I die. I like another phrase is this, to seek acquaintances, to seek friends in terms of millennia, in thousand years time, to seek a blue bull from the peer concurrently at that time. This is just subject to peer pressure to do the right thing to our society in terms of Japan, Hawaii, United States, the world we should see. What is a right thing? So, yeah. And what I hear you saying too is how you are remembered, yeah, that's important. Now, one thing I wanted to mention and that you look like a Hawaii lawyer. You're dressed up and you have a ukulele. And I've seen a photo of you with. Yeah. But it also, yeah, on one of your websites. What is your connection with being the ukulele and looking like this? Thank you very much. This is not special clothes I do wear almost daily like this, carrying ukulele. I have been wearing like this in this five years or around because I have been to United States, I've been to Singapore, many of the world. In that society, I noticed the difference between Japan and other countries. In Japan, you may know, Japan is homogeneous society, strong peer pressure. Then we see others, less leadership. I do not like this. Instead, in Hawaii or Silicon Valley, United States, heterogeneous, black, white, yellow, many diversity and with heterogeneous society, less or weaker peer pressure. Then we can think freely. We can behave freely. We can do good without thinking of how they think of us or something like this. So in my life, I will have a lifetime hypothesis to change the society of Japan by wearing like this, carrying ukulele, wearing how I should and to make Japan a little bit heterogeneous society. All right, well, Tatsu, I wanna thank you for being my guest today and for sharing your personal insights, your personal opinions, your personal feelings. It's always good to talk to you. So I wanna thank you and Aloha, look forward to the next time we can be together in person. Aloha, Mark. I'm very honored to be on this program. Thank you very much. See you, see Hawaii or in Tokyo. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn and donate to us at thinktechhawaii.com. Mahalo.