Prime Minister Fumio Kishida moved to make peace with the Science Council of Japan, which is still fuming over the previous administration’s decision to block the entry of six scholars to the august body who had fallen afoul of the government by taking issue with official policy.

The Jan. 13 meeting at the prime minister’s office marked the first time for Kishida to hold face-to-face talks with the council’s president, Takaaki Kajita.

Kishida’s predecessor, Yoshihide Suga, point-blank refused the appointments of the six scholars to the council in 2020 and never offered an official explanation for his decision. The council is designated as a special organization under the jurisdiction of the prime minister that makes policy proposals independently of the government.

Suga’s decision represented unprecedented meddling by the government in the makeup of the council, which is fiercely antiwar as a matter of policy. 

This triggered widespread speculation the decision was in retaliation for the scholars’ refusal to tow the government line on, among other things, contentious national security legislation arbitrarily decided upon by the administration headed by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Suga’s immediate predecessor.

During the meeting, Kajita reiterated his request for Kishida to overturn Suga’s decision, but Kishida refused to budge, saying the matter was decided by the former prime minister and would have to stand.

Even so, Kishida tried to keep matters upbeat, stating that he wanted to initiate “future-oriented” dialogue with the council. In this regard, he said he had tasked Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno to act on his behalf.

The Science Council of Japan decided at its general meeting held in Tokyo in December that its priority was to request an audience with Kishida so Kajita could again raise the matter of the six scholars who were refused membership.

“I was told that (the non-appointment of the six scholars) was a decision made by the former prime minister,” Kajita told reporters after the 15-minute meeting. “At least the chief Cabinet secretary will be responsible for (dialogue with us in the future), so I want to stay positive.”

Kishida also met reporters afterward, telling them he wanted to “build a constructive relationship between the government and the Science Council of Japan to work together to find solutions to various issues” confronting society.

“Today’s meeting was a first step toward doing so,” he added.

He refused to entertain the notion of appointing the six scholars to the council because that “decision was made by the former prime minister and all relevant processes were concluded.”

Kishida’s stance came as no great surprise as he had repeatedly made his views known on the issue.

Although Kishida said he was keen to have constructive dialogue with the council, it remained unclear what he has in mind.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno, who was appointed the intermediary in future exchanges, seemed to be no wiser.

“I would like to consider in detail what we will talk about,” he told a news conference held Jan. 13 after the meeting, without mentioning anything about the timing of future discussions.

According to an official source, appointments of new members to the council are scheduled to be made next year, which will put the onus on the government to consider how nominees should be recommended as well as the fundamental form the council should take as an organization.

In October 2020, it was revealed that Suga singled out the six from 105 candidates recommended by the council for membership. The individuals in question are scholars of humanities and social science who had made critical remarks about policy measures adopted by the Abe administration. These included national security legislation that would ramp up the nation’s involvement in U.S.-led wars, an anti-conspiracy law that significantly expands authorities’ surveillance powers as well as moves by Abe to revise the pacifist Constitution.

Since the ban first came to light, the government and the ruling parties have called for a change in the way the council operates as an organization, a ploy viewed by many as an attempt to dodge the bullet over the appointments issue. They argued that the council’s structure and way of doing things were not compatible with funding provided by the government.

In November 2020, Shinji Inoue, who at the time served as the state minister for science and technology policy, told Kajita that the council should consider severing ties with the government.

The following month, a project team within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party also proposed that the council should formally “become independent of the government.”

The council has repeatedly refused to let the matter of the six appointments drop.

“The fact that the nominees recommended by us were not appointed to the council, nor has a reason been given for it after all this time, makes it difficult to build trust and have a dialogue between scientists and politicians,” Kajita said last September.

(This article was written by Keishi Nishimura and Rintaro Sakurai.)