Hatoyama's Hard Road for 2010

Thoughts from my recent trip to Japan (as well as China and Singapore) last month, re-posted from Huffington Post:

Just about four months in office, Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has paved an unnecessarily difficult path for himself and his Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) for 2010 as a crucial upper house election approaches this July. As one Diet aide told me during my recent trip to Japan, Hatoyama has chosen a hard road (ibara no michi) and the most vexing policy issues seemingly as a show of personal development rather than political astuteness. A reoccurring theme I heard in Japan was that Hatoyama is not demonstrating leadership skills. As a result, support for his cabinet has dropped below 50 percent.

One example of this leadership problem has been Hatoyama's decision to try to hastily fulfill his campaign promises and his party "manifesto" rather than attempting to compromise with his country's various constituencies or stand up to coalition partners. He has thus painted himself into a corner . Ironically, as one think tank executive told me, the party's platform contained some ideas that were irrelevant to most Japanese people and some that were untested with the leaders of industry and government. This executive complained about Hatoyama's government budget public vetting process, which he likened to a Maoist charade, and the administration's soft approach toward China, which he felt embarrassed Japan's hardliners. Hatoyama's ambitious but laudable targets on carbon emissions and recent plan for economic growth were met with skepticism by the business community. Hatoyama's personal leadership skills are not matching with his high ideals .

My trip coincided with a controversial visit by the presumptive next president of China Xi Jinping with Emperor Akihito. The visit caused a stir with conservatives and the imperial family because it ignored scheduling protocol. On my way to a meeting with business executives in downtown Tokyo, I witnessed something I have never seen: Right-wing sound trucks were protesting Xi Jinping's visit by blasting messages in Mandarin rather than Japanese.

Although right-wing protests should not be considered a barometer of Japanese public sentiment, it should be noted that Japan is aging and in this way becoming more conservative. This episode also does illustrate another problematic theme of the Hatoyama administration so far: While the new government has righteously focused on helping the vulnerable in Japanese society, especially given Japan's relatively high poverty rate, it also has consistently managed to alienate powerful people in the bureaucracy, business, associations, media, and the U.S. alliance--creating what Ian Bremmer and Nouriel Roubini call a "no-party system" in which new faces in the coalition have few connections with the business elite.

Meanwhile, Hatoyama has become beholden to his coalition partners who are not after his best interests. As one executive told me, Mizuho Fukushima of the socialist party only cares about the bottom of Japanese society, while Shizuka Kamei of the People's New Party only cares about himself. Ultimately, many Japanese see Hatoyama's prime minister-ship as doomed because he is under the thumb of the DPJ's iconoclastic chief Ichiro Ozawa and is therefore unable to take real leadership.

Several people lamented Ozawa's recent direction of backroom bullying, away from his more principled past when he urged Japanese people to rely less on government and more on themselves. When he recently visited China with a Diet delegation, Ozawa bizarrely declared he was the commander of the People's Liberation Army. "The tail is wagging the dog," as Doshisha professor Noriko Hama put it in the New York Times and if Hatoyama fails to get control, the economy will backslide. The economy has already slid to its lowest level since 1991.

The DPJ's uncomfortable coalition has resulted in disagreements over the government budget and tension with the U.S. alliance. Despite campaign promises to cut waste, Kamei has urged Hatoyama to expand a government budget that is set to reach a record $1 trillion, sparking fears over Japan's debt-to-GDP ratio, which at 181 percent, is already the highest among industrialized nations. I happened to catch Kamei's mid-December press conference at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan where he taunted Hatoyama and warned "so long as the CIA does not assassinate me, things will not go back to the way things were before, when Japan simply followed America's lead."

Gaffes from Japanese politicians are not unheard of but it is rare to come from cabinet members. Kamei's strategy appears to make the coalition so awkward for Hatoyama that he has to meet Kamei's demands on expanding social welfare. With a declining population and economic doldrums, the Japanese have long wondered if they were becoming a marginal player in the region or a "sick man of Asia," but with rhetoric like this cabinet's, the international image is more akin to Asia's dictatorships in Cambodia and North Korea, one executive said.

Several twists loom in the summer upper house election for Hatoyama. Most of all, electoral success will prove essential to the DPJ in regaining control of the agenda since poor results would only prolong the party's reliance on its coalition partners, making it more likely that it will continue to suffer from the perceived leadership problem. But until the election, Hatoyama must continue to accommodate his coalition partners on issues like the budget and the U.S. alliance but, in a catch-22, this accommodation is leading some voters to conclude that he is simply dithering on important issues.

Fortunately for the DPJ, its popularity remains higher than the opposition's and Hatoyama has been loosening up on his promises. But the party may calculate that its best path would be to replace Hatoyama. Speculation has already emerged over possible candidates: Deputy Prime Minster Naoto Kan is said to be a savvier politician, while younger transport minister Seiji Maehara has gained notoriety in his management of the restructuring of ailing Japan Airlines. The snag in this strategy would be that voters may conclude that the DPJ is no different from the previously-ruling Liberal Democratic Party and little change has taken place since last summer's elections after all. But if the DPJ fails, an already gloomy Japan will get gloomier. If the DPJ can't take off within four years, one of Japan's top public intellectuals Masaru Tamamoto told me, "Japan will be in a first class seat down the drain."

Photo by chez_sugi.

Japan Loves You, Brother - Newsweek piece

My take in Newsweek on Japanese Prime Minister Hatoyama's speech in front of the Diet this week and his notion of yuai (fraternity). Here is an excerpt:

...Hatoyama's vision would go far beyond that of his predecessors, who have been trying for decades to coin a catchphrase that would somehow provide a signpost for understanding Japan's place in the world. Some of these ideas understood Japan primarily in relation to the world's great powers. DPJ chairman Ichiro Ozawa talked of Japan as a "normal country"—by which he meant that Japan would have a foreign policy of its own, independent of the United States. Other ideas were more nationalistic in tone, such as former prime minister Shinzo Abe's idea of Japan as a "beautiful country" or Taro Aso's of Japan as the "thought leader" of Asia. Still others attempted to position the country as the premier power in Asia, with Japan dubbed the head of "the flying geese." But all of these formulations seemed to position Japan against others, rather than putting it in a truly global context. Yuai, by contrast, identifies Japan as an independent actor that is also part of a much larger and integrated global system. Indeed, the universal rhetoric seems appropriate for a time of universal problems.

Expect Minor Quake (No Tsunami) From Japan's Elections

Next week's lower house national elections in Japan will likely give the inexperienced Democrats (DJP) a majority, putting an opposition party in power for only the second time since 1955. Will the expected DPJ victory really spell a "tsunami" for the U.S.-Japan relationship as some have suggested? My view is that this concern is probably overblown.

Earthquakes are a fact of life in Japan. Some generate tsunami, some don't. During my recent trip there, I experienced three significant quakes, one of which was quite dangerous. Despite a lot of anxiety about what the expected Democratic Party of Japan's victory in the lower house elections on Aug. 30 will mean for U.S.-Japan relations, I expect only a minor quake in Japan's foreign relations. The tastelessness of using the cliche "tsunami" to describe the upcoming elections aside, I would argue that there are too many factors weighing against a Japanese foreign policy moving away from the U.S. alliance in any meaningful sense.

First, political opposition in Japan, just like in most places, likes to create rhetoric in all spheres that distinguish it from the ruling party. That doesn't mean a party will follow through on its campaign or opposition rhetoric. In the United States, one only needs to recall George W. Bush's 2000 campaign promise to carry out a "humble" foreign policy if elected. Once in power, parties have to come to grips with the realities of governing--or as my colleague David Speedie calls it the limitations on options and thinking strategically.

In other words, national interest will trump political rhetoric and most Japanese see close ties with the United States as a critical national interest. The DPJ's Secretary-General Katsuya Okada recently said in an interview that U.S.-Japan relations are "extremely important for Japan's national interests. We should consider how we can make US-Japan relations, the US-Japan alliance, more fruitful."

In fact, as it looks more probable that the Democrats will win in Japan, the DPJ has moderated its critiques of the U.S.-Japan relationship. As Dan Okimoto recently said in an interview, "What I've noticed over the past several weeks is that the DPJ statements have stepped back from commitments to make immediate and far-reaching changes. They've been backtracking from the positions of ending the refueling mission in the Indian Ocean and of moving quickly out of Futenma. What the DPJ leaders appear to be seeking is a smooth, seamless transition, where bilateral issues don't get entangled with domestic reform priorities."

Which brings me to another point: The DPJ (and Japan itself) already has a full plate. At the top of the DPJ's agenda is reviewing budget priorities and eliminating waste, as well as reducing the amount of nepotism in politics and increasing the power of local governments. The DPJ also wants to give more power to politicians in making policy at the expense of the elite bureaucracy. Then there are the long term policy issues, including the aging society and pension burdens on taxpayers. These priorities alone will keep the DPJ busy. It doesn't need another battle.

Some of what we are hearing from the DPJ is a matter of emphasis and being honest about Japan's capabilities. People have long advocated for tighter U.S.-Japan economic ties and collaboration in non-military areas such as energy and the environment. "Japan's relations with the U.S. have been heavily biased toward defense," DPJ head Yukio Hatoyama recently said. "Now it's time to shift our focus to economic ties. We will strengthen our economic ties and promote free trade while protecting our national interests." And above all, the Japanese, like most people, want to feel safe in a region that still looks like a dangerous neighborhood.

The refrain I kept hearing from everyday people in Japan was this: "The DPJ will become the LDP."

What does this mean? The most obvious interpretation is that it will be business as usual; the DPJ (which in fact has former LDP members in its ranks) will adopt the same policies as the LDP. Somewhat darkly, perhaps there is a success strategy in this thinking: For the DPJ to survive as the ruling party, it may be forced to adopt some of the policies and practices of the LDP. The expectations are so low for the DPJ, meanwhile, that if it can govern without being corrupt, it will have a shot at staying in power. Conversely, the phrase may mean that that LDP as the opposition will have to move closer to the DPJ's anti-corruption and pro-social safety net rhetoric.

But if the DPJ seems to be failing, I doubt the Japanese population will have much patience. The Japanese voters love Schadenfreude, and if the party gives them something to complain about, they will. The DPJ must therefore remember that their support from the population comes as a rejection of the LDP, not an explicit endorsement of the DPJ. The DPJ would be unwise to over-interpret their mandate.

But when it comes to the foreign policy differences between the LDP and DPJ, what are we really talking about? A stronger emphasis on the non-military elements of the U.S.-Japan relationship; better relations with Japan's Asian neighbors; more active involvement with multilateral initiatives through international organizations, like the United Nations. These are precisely the types of foreign policies the Obama administration would welcome. The concern among Japanese about U.S. foreign policy stemmed from Bush's unilateral action in Iraq, trashing of international treaties, and contempt for international organizations--the very things that concerned the Obama team, too. When you look at it, the Democrats in Japan and the Democratic Party in the United States are quite aligned.

Instead of sounding the tsunami alarm, Americans should be welcoming political change in Japan as a manifestation of a real, healthy democracy. Japan, which has been held up as the shining example of democracy in Asia can now walk the walk. Small quakes are a fact of life in Japan; a political tsunami in U.S.-Japan relations would be out of character and would probably require a much more dramatic shock to spark it.

Photo by Toe Stubber