The Upper House Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee last week questioned a defense equipment trader under oath about his business and other ties. Mr. Motonobu Miyazaki, former managing director of Yamada Corp. and founder of Nihon Mirise Corp., has been indicted on a charge of bribing former Vice Defense Minister Takemasa Moriya.
Although there were expectations that Mr. Miyazaki's testimony would shed light on politicians' involvement in defense-related business to gain privileges, the committee failed to extract meaningful statements from him. Lawmakers should have been more aggressive in conducting the hearing.
The committee session itself was unusual. Ruling party forces boycotted the session because opposition forces, which control the committee, decided to allow photographs to be taken of Mr. Miyazaki despite his request not to.
Mr. Miyazaki told the committee that Yamada Corp. paid about ¥100 million to the Japan-U.S. Center for Peace and Cultural Exchange, a Foreign Ministry-related organization, to join a project to dispose of chemical weapons abandoned by the Imperial Japanese Army in Kanda port in Fukuoka Prefecture. His testimony contradicted that of Mr. Naoki Akiyama, executive director of the organization, who in January, as an unsworn witness in the committee, had denied there was a payment. Mr. Miyazaki also said Yamada paid about $100,000 a year from 2003 to 2006 as a consultancy fee to Addback International Corp., a U.S. firm that Mr. Akiyama advises.
He acknowledged meeting with Mr. Akiyama and former Defense Minister Fumio Kyuma, and golfing or dining with politicians such as former defense chief Fukushiro Nukaga, now finance minister, but the panel failed to unravel the relationships. The Diet should not stop delving into ties among defense-related firms, politicians and Mr. Akiyama's organization.