Japan's Official Statements of Apology are only four

What is an official Japanese government statement? What would make a Japanese apology official? The following paper answers this question by pointing out the three war apologies that have distinction of a Cabinet Decision (kakugi kettei) behind them. This is approval by Cabinet, which is the executive of the Japanese government. No war apology can be said to have been approved by the Diet, which would also be official.

The article below does not mention the fourth Cabinet Decision on a war apology. This was in 2009 to the American former POWs (buried in a February 6, 2009 reply, #171-22 [English, Question III, #3], to a Dietmember). Written answers to questions made in the Diet are kakugi ketteis. This apology by implication and vagueness included ALL POWs of Imperial Japan during WWII. It is the first war apology to a specific group.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in all his war statements has been very careful not to have them Cabinet approved. Neither his address to the joint meeting of the U.S. Congress or at Pearl Harbor were Cabinet approved. This substantially weakens them, and implies that the words are more personal than state sanctioned. There is then room for improvement.

The Prime Minister's Statements on Understanding of History

By Junichiro Shoji, director of NIDS Center for Military History, National Institute for Defense Studies Commentary, 18 February 2013. Provisional translation by Asia Policy Point. [National Institute for Defense Studies is a policy research institute under Japan's Ministry of Defense]

Introduction 

In a speech to a plenary session of the Upper House, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe stated that he "would like to make a future-oriented statement that is appropriate for the 21st century," while, as with his first cabinet, continuing to follow the tenor of the "Murayama Statement," indicating Abe's intention to issue a new "Abe Statement." Abe has referred a number of times to the idea of an "Abe Statement" up to now, but this was the first time he mentioned the possibility in the Diet.

In this article, I will focus on three "Prime Minister's Statements" addressing Japan's historical understanding that received cabinet approval in order to identify their respective particular features and differences among them (these statements being divided between those receiving cabinet approval and those not needing it).

1) Murayama Statement

The "Murayama Statement," officially entitled "On the Occasion of the 50th Anniversary of the War's End," was a statement issued by Socialist Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama on 15 August 1995, 50 years after the end of the Second World War, regarding Japan's recognition of its wartime history. The following is an extract from the statement.

During a certain period in the not too distant past, Japan, following a mistaken national policy, advanced along the road to war, only to ensnare the Japanese people in a fateful crisis, and through its colonial rule and aggression, caused tremendous damage and suffering to the people of many countries, particularly to those of Asian nations. In the hope that no such mistake be made in the future, I regard, in a spirit of humility, these irrefutable facts of history, and express here once again my feelings of deep remorse and state my heartfelt apology. 

The primary special aspect of this statement is Murayama's expression of "deep remorse" and "heartfelt apology" in regards to the "tremendous damage and suffering" inflicted on Asian and other countries through Japan's "colonial rule and aggression." Moreover, based on this recognition, Murayama expressed his commitment to peace and the renunciation of war to ensure that Japan never repeats this sorrow of history again.

Up to then, official documents, statements, speeches, and so on had often expressed Japan's "remorse," "apology," and "renunciation of war," but [the Murayama Statement] compiled all of these sentiments into one statement, and was given the weighty imprimatur of cabinet approval [kakugi kettei, emphasis added]. For example, in his policy speech to the Diet on 23 August 1993, then Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa stated, "I would like to express anew our profound remorse and apologies for the fact that past Japanese actions, including aggression and colonial rule, caused unbearable suffering and sorrow for so many people." Prime Minister Murayama himself in the "Statement by Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama on the 'Peace, Friendship, and Exchange Initiative,'" issued in August 1994, expressed similar sentiments.

The second aspect is that for the first time a reference to "following a mistaken national policy" was included in the Murayama Statement. Since a clear recognition was made of a "mistaken national policy," an animated debate subsequently ensued about who the main bearers of responsibility were and what the specific target policies and their timing were.

At that time, there were various views in Japan on the matter. For example, since disputes had arisen regarding historical understanding, the Resolution To Renew the Commitment to Peace on the Basis of Lessons Learned From History (War Renouncing Resolution) that was issued by the Lower House in June 1995 adopted the following mediating language: "Solemnly reflecting upon many instances of colonial rule and acts of aggression in the modern history of the world, and recognizing that Japan carried out such acts in the past, inflicting pain and suffering upon the peoples of other countries, especially in Asia, the Member s in this House express a sense of deep remorse."

That is, the words "aggression" and "apology" were replaced by "acts of aggression" and "deep remorse" respectively. A sentence calling for "transcending the differences over historical views of the past war" was also added. Moreover, although Diet resolutions are meant, in principle, to be passed unanimously, since many members from both the ruling and the opposition parties absented themselves during the voting, it was the rare case of a resolution being approved by less than half the total number of Diet members.

Although the Murayama statement was said, for external consumption, to have been led by the prime minister's office, in actuality, the statement was carefully vetted by the Foreign Ministry as part of its long-term processing of post-war policy. Moreover, the target countries for the resolution, particularly China, South Korea, the United States, and Britain, were kept well in mind, and letters from Murayama were sent to those four countries at the same time as the statement was released. (See The Murayama Statement and MOFA, by Ryuji Hattori.)

Accordingly, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson lauded the statement, saying, "The Japanese government has expressed deep remorse over their past history of colonial rule and aggression, and they have shown a positive attitude in apologizing to the peoples of Asia."

After that, the Murayama Statement policy was adopted and followed by successive cabinets, including those of the Liberal Democratic Party, and the policy has continued until today.

2) Koizumi Statements

On 15 August 2005, then Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi issued a statement marking the 60th anniversary of the Second World War's end. It basically followed the Murayama Statement, but Koizumi's statement was significant because it was issued by an LDP prime minister. It is certainly true that certain quarters in both China and South Korea were dissatisfied with the Murayama Statement because it was issued under a Socialist Party administration.

Koizumi's statement had the following characteristics. First, the references to the wartime period in the Murayama Statement, particularly those that sparked argument, such as "following a mistaken national policy," "ensnar[ing] the Japanese people in a fateful crisis," and "eliminat[ing] self-righteous nationalism," are gone, and in their place, much more prominence is given to emphasizing Japan's postwar history of peaceful development (achievements as a peace-loving nation). 

Thus, Koizumi's statement points out that postwar Japan adopted a completely pacifist position, and has contributed to peace and prosperity in the world (international contributions) through its Official Development Assistance (ODA), participation in UN peacekeeping operations (PKO), and so on. The statement reads, "Japan's postwar history has indeed been six decades of manifesting its remorse on the war through actions." Koizumi's statement has a "new aspect not found in the Murayama Statement," and as shown by the path taken by Japan after the war, Japan's past remorse is expressed not only in words [but also by international contributions], and "by emphasizing that Japan's actual actions are proof of this, the statement is all the more persuasive" (Takakazu Kuriyama, Wakai [Reconciliation]).

Incidentally, in a BBC opinion survey in 2012, Japan was ranked as the top country for "having a positive influence on the world," and in a survey by an Australian think tank in 2012, Japan ranked 5th in a list of "peaceful countries."

On the other hand, in the history education and media in China and South Korea, compared with the Second World War and Japan's colonial rule, Japan's postwar course has not been taken up very much. The Japan-China History Research Committee (December 2006-December 2009), of which I was a member, addressed not only the wartime period but also ancient and modern history, including the postwar period. In that sense, it had epoch-making significance (although at the request of the Chinese side, the section in the committee's report dealing with postwar history was not publicly released). This committee was established based on an agreement with the Chinese side when Prime Minister Abe visited China in October 2006. The Chinese side "positively appreciated the fact that postwar Japan has consistently followed the path of a peaceful country based on freedom and democracy."

Second, based on postwar Japan's pacifism, Koizumi's statement declared, "I believe it is necessary to work hand in hand with other Asian countries, especially with China and the Republic of Korea, which are Japan's neighboring countries separated only by a strip of water, to maintain peace and pursue the development of the region." While specifically naming China and South Korea, the statement penultimately concluded, "I intend to build a future-oriented cooperative relationship based on mutual understanding and trust with Asian countries."

At the Asian-African Summit (Bandung Conference) held in Jakarta in April 2005, Prime Minister Koizumi gave a similar speech, following the line of the Murayama Statement, but it was the first time a Japanese prime minister had referred to the matter of historical awareness at an international conference and expressed "remorse" and "apologies," making the speech exceptional.

Third, Koizumi's statement begins: "...I affirm my determination that Japan must never again take the path to war, reflecting that the peace and prosperity we enjoy today are founded on the ultimate sacrifices of those who lost their lives for the war against the their will. More than three million compatriots died in the war -- in the battlefield thinking about their homeland and worrying about their families, while others perished amidst the destruction of war, or after the war in remote foreign countries." Referring to the Japanese war dead, the statement expresses a remembrance of the Japanese who died as a result of the war and a desire for peace. This is an expression of Koizumi's logic (thinking) for visiting Yasukuni Shrine.

Prime Minister Koizumi's first visit to Yasukuni after becoming prime minister came in August 2001; because of his consideration of China, Koizumi made the visit on the 13th, ahead of the anniversary on the 15th. On that day, Koizumi issued a statement that began: "...Japan caused tremendous sufferings to many people of the world, including its own people. Following a mistaken national policy during a certain period in the past, Japan imposed, through its colonial rule and aggression, immeasurable ravages and suffering, particularly to the people of the neighboring countries in Asia. This has left a still incurable scar to many people in the region." This statement replaces the Murayama Statement's phrase "tremendous damage and suffering" with "immeasurable ravages and suffering." With the addition of the idea of an "incurable scar" and so on, Koizumi's statement was evaluated as going beyond the Murayama Statement. Although he continued to visit Yasukuni, Koizumi carried on the policy line of the Murayama Statement.

Moreover, when Koizumi visited China on 8 October, two months after his first Yasukuni visit, he went to the Museum of the War of Chinese People's Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (near Lugou Bridge), the first prime minister to do so since Murayama visited the Museum in 1995. "I looked at the various exhibits with a feeling of heartfelt apology and condolences for those Chinese people who were victims of aggression...We must look directly at our past history and must never cause a war again. Based on our remorse, Japan has been able to achieve prosperity as a peaceful country after the war," Koizumi said after he toured the museum. Koizumi expressed remorse and an apology more clearly than the Murayama Statement, which did not specify the other countries. The Chinese side highly appreciated Koizumi's remarks, and Chinese President Jiang Zemin said with surprise, "This is the first Japanese prime minister I can talk with to such an extent." Sources said that the Chinese side held expectations that Koizumi would not visit Yasukuni again (Yomiuri Shimbun, 28 July 2005). Thus, it has been pointed out that in response to Koizumi's subsequent repeated visits to Yasukuni, the main emphasis of China's criticism moved from the issue of historical understanding per se to the damage to the national sentiment of the suffering country.

3) Kan Statement

Prime Minister Naoto Kan issued a statement in August 2010, the 100th anniversary of the annexation of Korea. The statement referred only to South Korea, and it was the first statement issued by the Democratic Party of Japan.

Following the tenor of the Murayama Statement, Kan's statement made specific mention of Japan's colonial rule of Korea, and in reference to the March 1st independence movement [Samil Movement], the statement recognized the coerciveness of Japan's colonial rule: "...the Korean people of that time [were deprived of their country], and their ethnic pride was deeply scarred by the colonial rule, which was imposed against their will...." Expressing consideration for the sentiments of the South Korean people, the statement also said, "Those who render pain tend to forget it, while those who suffered cannot forget it easily."

On the other hand, around half of the statement, particularly the latter half, declares that Japan and South Korea should build future-oriented ties based on the 2,000 years of exchanges and friendship between the two countries, while also recognizing the sorrowful periods in the past. Thus the statement declares: "Japan and the Republic of Korea have become the most important and closest neighboring nations now in the 21st century, sharing such values as democracy, freedom, and a market economy." Referencing the idea of an East Asian community, the statement also stressed the necessity of building a "partnership where we cooperate and exercise leadership for the peace and prosperity of the region and the world."

Conclusion

As far as an Abe Statement, the specific timing and contents will be considered from now. Regarding the timing, it is said that, in accordance with custom, one option is the year 2015, which will mark the 70th year since the war's end. As regards the contents, Abe has stated, "We should issue a statement that is appropriate for one given 70 years after the war and which includes the postwar path taken by Japan and the path that should be taken from now." Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga has said, "We believe that a statement that is focused on a future-oriented outlook is necessary when we consider the stability, peace, and economies of Asia."

In other words, it is believed that the statement will aim for an "orientation towards the future," based on Japan's postwar course and not being solely tied to the past. It will likely reflect the transition, which I have taken up in this article, from the Murayama Statement, which took responsibility for Japan's wartime period, to the statements by Koizumi and Kan, which, while based on the sentiments of the Murayama Statement, also emphasized Japan's postwar path and future-oriented relations.

I had several opportunities to talk with scholars on the Chinese side through the Japan-China Joint History Research Committee, and I found that, in actuality, even the Murayama Statement is not sufficiently known in China. And since the impressions produced by Koizumi's repeated visits to Yasukuni ended up overshadowing the contents of his various statements and remarks, I was at first particularly surprised that members on the Chinese side said they wanted to read the full texts of Koizumi's statements and requested copies of them.

It is said that US President Bill Clinton, after reading an English translation of the Murayama Statement, praised it as being a "very courageous statement." From now, more efforts should be made to disseminate this series of statements by Japan's prime ministers more widely overseas.

References
· Kuriyama, Takakazu, Wakai -- Nihon Gaikou no Mondai (1) (Reconciliation -- Issues for Japanese Diplomacy), Gaiko Forum, January 2006.

· Hattori, Ryuji, Murayama Danwa to Gaimushou -- Shuusen 50 Shuunen no Gaikou (The Murayama Statement and MOFA -- Diplomacy in the 50th Year After the End of the War), in Nihonron: Gurobaruka-suru Nihon, ed., Tanaka Tsutomu, Chuo University Press, 2007.

· Shoji, Junichiro, Rekishi-Ninshiki o Meguru Nihon Gaikou -- Nitchuu Kankei o Chuushin To Shite (Japanese Diplomacy Regarding Historical Understanding -- Focusing on Japan-China Relations), Kokusai Seiji, No. 170, October 2012.

What if the tsunami never happened?

The Tokyo Diplomat provides a snappy, weekly roundup of news relevant to Tokyo’s foreign policy community. To find out more about this subscription service contact the Editor, Mr Michael Penn at the Shingetsu News Agency in Tokyo. He is the author of the piece below.

March 11 of this year has witnessed a tsunami of its own—a tsunami of news coverage of the anniversary. This entire week international news about Japan has been flooded with all kinds of stories about the disaster. The larger news organizations really geared up for this event and produced a number of very good reports which clearly had been in preparation for weeks or months.

It would be futile and just a bit repetitive to give an account here of rebuilding efforts in Rikuzen-Takata or the story of a family still suffering from the losses of that day. We recommend that you read some of the stories that are out there in the mainstream press, because in this case the international media is doing an excellent job.

What we want to do here is to play out a little thought experiment: How would Japan be different today had the 9.0 earthquake off the coast of Tohoku not occurred? Would this nation be radically different?

Needless to say, the lives of many people in the prefectures of Iwate, Miyagi, and especially Fukushima would certainly be quite different. About 20,000 more people would still be living and roughly a quarter of a million would be back in their own homes. Many of those regions would still be relatively poor and facing economic struggles, but their overall situation would obviously be much better than it is now.

At the national level, energy policy is the area that would be strikingly different. The national plan called for a massive expansion of nuclear power from 30% of the nation’s energy to 50% in the decades ahead. This plan had high-level political support in both the Democratic Party of Japan and the Liberal Democratic Party, and there were few effective forces countering them. The anti-nuclear groups were more marginal than they are today, and the mainstream was mostly indifferent. The biggest challenge was likely to come from local communities that didn’t want new nuclear plants to be sited in their immediate neighborhoods.

The struggle over nuclear power is ongoing, but almost no one argues in favor of expanding it beyond the March 11, 2011, level any more. Even the more conservative views now acknowledge that Japan’s reliance on nuclear power needs to be reduced below the levels of a year ago and that renewable energy needs to be pursued more keenly. Most of the arguments now are about speed and degree, not basic direction.

But what about Japanese politics? Have they been changed in any important way by the multiple tragedies of March 11?

We tend to think not.

When the disaster struck, Prime Minister Naoto Kan was on the ropes, and quite possibly within days of resigning. His administration’s star foreign minister, Seiji Maehara, had just resigned for accepting campaign contributions from a Korean national he had known in his youth. Another lawmaker who was a close ally of Kan had attended a conference in South Korea which demanded that Japan give up its territorial claims to Dokdo (Takeshima). Indeed, the story had just broken that Kan himself had received illegal donations from non-Japanese nationals. While the whole issue was basically a triviality whipped up into a national scandal by Japan’s far right and the media, the campaign was working and appeared to be on the verge of toppling Kan’s shaky government. The prime minister was in the Diet getting pounded by the opposition when the earthquake struck.

So the life of the Kan administration was extended from March to September, and Kan himself found a political cause (denuclearization) that had previously escaped him.

Would Yoshihiko Noda be prime minister today had there been no earthquake and tsunami? Possibly. He would have been a major contender had Kan been forced to resign over the campaign finance scandal in March. Maehara couldn’t have run and very well may have thrown his support to Noda. The Ozawa group’s situation was not dramatically altered between March and September, so Noda could very well have been the man to rise at that time too.

There’s no reason to think that the balance of power between the parties would be much different either. No one has really seen their political stock rise dramatically due to the March 11 tragedy—except arguably the Emperor Akihito and the Self-Defense Forces which both played positive roles. By the same token, no major political figure saw their career ruined by the disaster either. For most people in the political world, it made no significant difference to the trajectory of their personal fortunes.

Clearly, the anti-nuclear movement became more significant in the wake of the Fukushima Daiichi meltdowns, but they still remain on the edges of the mainstream political world and are not united behind any of the existing political parties.

We also hear much about how the trust of the Japanese people in their leaders has been eroded by gross mismanagement by the authorities. However, it remains unclear if this signifies very much. Whatever distrust that ordinary Japanese citizens may feel, when it comes to action there is very little to behold. Only a handful takes part in protest movements and there is little evidence that people are organizing themselves in any fashion that will have a meaningful effect on government policy. Indeed, a very common reaction is to complain about a lack of leadership in one breath and then shrug that “it can’t be helped” in the next. No “Arab Spring” is imminent in this nation.

In any case, were bureaucrats and the political class highly regarded before March 11? The handling of the tragedy has only exacerbated old trends rather than produced entirely new factors—outside of the aforementioned changes in energy policy, which did take an unexpected U-turn.

Some political force is eventually going to capitalize on the popular discontent and be swept into power. The most obvious candidate at present is Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto, although we frankly doubt if he is really the answer to Japan’s problems.

However, all of this is something that has been building for decades and is not a product of March 11. For the past several election cycles, the Japanese people have continued to “throw the bums out” and give electoral victories to opposition parties. The August 2009 general election in which 54 years of Liberal Democratic Party rule was terminated was supposed to herald the new dawn, but the Democratic Party of Japan has—to say the least—failed to live up to its promises, which is a judgment that most lawmakers inside the ruling party freely admit. If a fresh general election is held soon, there is no reason to believe that the situation will radically improve. The dysfunctional system seems to have at least a few more years in it.

Surveying the year that has passed, one is therefore struck with the sense of how little things have changed from the perspective of Japanese politics and government institutions. Yes, there is a lot of discontent in Japan and a political turning point will eventually come. We can now safely say, however, that the March 11, 2011, disaster may one day be counted as a contributing factor to that change, but it does not represent the political turning point itself.

This essay first appeared in the Tokyo Diplomat March 12, 2012 and then in the Asia Policy Calendar for APP members on March 18th.

Noda, Kan, & Ozawa: Two Views

I. Noda in Charge, Really

Prime Minister Noda is doing his best to display leadership and plug the policymaking gaps created by his predecessors Hatoyama and Kan. His first task, after reassuring China that he would not visit the Yasukuni Shrine, has been to restructure Kantei’s (Prime Minister’s Office) decision-making process. He is also pushing an agenda to tackle the country’s disaster-weakened economy, starting with a 10-11 trillion yen supplemental budget this fall, as well as revive Japan’s diplomacy in the international community.

A surprising number of foreign and security policy developments came just in the last week, during which Noda – accompanied by his Foreign Minister Koichiro Genba -- made his diplomatic debut with a speech at the United Nations session in New York and significant side-meetings with President Obama and other leaders.

Noda has been restructuring the decision-making apparatus in order to adjust the shared policy roles of the government and ruling Democratic Party of Japan and consolidate more policymaking authority, primarily on economic matters, under his direct control in the Kantei. The highest policymaking body now is the joint government-party executive council (Seifu-Minshuto Sanyakuin Kaigi), which beneath it is a newly-created government-party council on budget compilation.

The new apparatus abandons the 2009 campaign manifesto promise to “unify” policymaking under the cabinet. The Hatoyama government let relevant ministers, specifically finance and internal affairs, compile the budget, while the Kan administration tried the government-party unified approach by placing Koichiro Genba, then chair of the once-scrapped DPJ Policy Research Council and national strategy minister in charge of budget compilation. Kan then chaired a cabinet meeting that took its cues from a budget evaluation conference attended by relevant government and ruling party members.

Noda has taken a different approach that seems to hark back to LDP days of the Koizumi administration. He has weakened the role of the three parliamentary vice ministers attached to each ministry and agency, while strengthening the party’s involvement. Party policy input into the joint government-party leaders’ council will come from the Policy Research Council. Noda in turn will be supported by a National Strategy Council (now in preparation) under him that will reflect his views on economic policy. The process, though, will require him to assert active leadership to achieve successful policy results.

The Prime Minister on other policy issues will rely on a more traditional decision-making structure when it comes to diplomacy and security affairs. Over the last week, some of the results came out in the UN trip and other occasions. For example, Noda on Sept. 23 expressed willingness to send a Ground Self-Defense Force unit to join international peacekeeping operations in newly independent South Sudan. "Japan is eager to make contributions to the United Nations Mission in the Republic of South Sudan (UNMISS) in the fields in which Japan excels," the Prime Minister said at the 66th session of the U.N. General Assembly.

In addition, when Noda meets Philippine President Aquino in Tokyo on the 27th, the two will agree to regular bilateral talks on maritime defense, given China’s naval advances in the South China Sea, according to the Nikkei on Sept. 25. The Japanese government is dispatching a fact-finding team to Sudan in preparation for the expected dispatch of Ground SDF troops for engineering duties.

One surprise for the diplomatically untested Foreign Minister Genba came during his meeting with ROK Foreign Minister Kim Song-Hwan on the 24th. During what started out as a check-list conversation on bilateral matters, such as progress on an EPA (economic partnership agreement), Kim suddenly asked for talks on compensation to Korean “comfort women” (sex slaves for the Japanese military during WWII). Taken aback, Genba refused to discuss the issue.

“The issue was solved in the 1965 normalization agreement between Japan and South Korea, which dealt with outstanding claims,” he said, adding, “This issue should not be allowed to exert a negative impact on Japan-South Korea relations.” (This agreement was with an undemocratic South Korea and recently South Korea’s Supreme Court has ordered the Korean government to negotiate a new deal with Japan for the comfort women.) Japan has acknowledged its military used sex slaves, but refuses to directly compensate or apologize to the victims individually. In 1995, Japan set up a private fund, now expired, to help deal with claims by women who had been forced into providing sexual services to the Japanese military.

Meanwhile, in an article buried in the Nikkei on Sept. 23, Japan and the U.S. have reportedly agreed to continue for another two years development of the next generation of a ballistic missile defense system to be deployed at sea. Progress on this project began in 2006 and the missiles being developed were originally to be deployed in 2014. The U.S. would like to export the results of joint development to third countries, but Japan insists on tight controls on such.

President Obama used his bilateral time with Noda to press for speedy resolutions of four long-standing issues: Futenma base relocation, a decision on whether Japan will join the TPP, U.S. beef imports restricted since 2003 over the BSE issue, and Japan’s signing the Hague Treaty on child abductions.

Obama was favorably impressed by Japan's newest prime minister, Yoshihiko Noda, after the two met face-to-face for the first time on Sept. 21, sources from Noda's entourage revealed. According to the sources, President Obama was optimistic that the two could work together in a mutually effective partnership. Obama was also quoted as saying "I can do business with him," referring to Noda.

The President, though, may have felt the same way at first about the previous two prime ministers, and it remains to be seen whether Noda has the capability and the will to return to Japan to forge consensus on finally resolving any one of the thorny issues. His predecessors could not and were soon out of office. Noda, a wiser leader building a more effective decision-making apparatus, may just pull it off if this week’s momentum can be maintained.

William Brooks
APP Senior Fellow


II. Can Noda Lead?

Monday’s convictions of three former aides of Ichiro Ozawa for violations of campaign finance laws will affect Tokyo’s relationship with Washington. It almost certainly puts an end to Ozawa’s remarkable career as a vortex of power, the gadfly of the status quo, and annoyance to the Alliance Managers. Although the fate of his aides may not lead to his own conviction, how he manages his fall can either help or hurt the Noda government, which has put a priority on party unity.

Since Ozawa already has his rights as a party member suspended, the party has nothing to distance itself further from Ozawa other than expelling him. While the tradition of respect for the validity of conviction may prepare the way for Noda to suggest to Ozawa that he jump out rather than be pushed out, the affection many in the party have for Ozawa the man will make a speedy and painless divorce nearly impossible. The longer Ozawa remains a member of the DPJ, however, the harder the LDP, the New Komeito and the Your Party will try to hamstring Diet proceedings with demands that Ozawa either resign his seat, the DPJ expel him or Ozawa appears before the Ethics Committee or to give sworn testimony in the Diet. The passage of major items in the policy program of the Noda administration, even items so clearly in the public interest such as a third supplementary budget, will be in jeopardy.

What happens depends on whether Ozawa reacts to political pressures to draw himself in like a turtle into his shell -- which would clog up Diet proceedings as the opposition demands he come out and explain himself; breaks out with a handful (he can expect no more than a handful) of followers to form a new party or accepts his fate quietly, letting his followers find their own way around the changed political landscape.

The prospect of an Ozawa-free DPJ frightens both the LDP and the New Komeito. He has been the most convenient club with which they have been pummeling the ruling party on so-called money-and-politics ethical violations issue. With Ozawa gone, the LDP and the New Komeito would have little in the way of a positive political program with which to challenge the continued rule of the DPJ. Ozawa’s departure could lead to a precipitous realignment, where the New Komeito dumps its alliance with the LDP in favor of political cooperation with the DPJ. Such cooperation would give the DPJ a working majority in the currently deadlocked House of Councillors and override the supermajority in the House of Representatives.

Without Ozawa, the Ozawa allies in Cabinet and Party posts, namely Defense Minister Ichikawa, National Public Safety Commission Chairman Yamaoka, and DPJ Secretary-General Koshiishi will be less self-assured in their opposition to American demands on defense issues. Although Futenma-to-Henoko now looks more doable, Ozawa’s supporters did garner support by Asst Sec of State Kurt Campbell “kneecapping” of Noda in the presser he held after the Noda-Obama meeting last. Campbell said Obama “made very clear” that “we need to see results.” An embarrassed Noda denied this, saying that Campbell said instead “We are looking forward to progress.” There is no political plus for Noda to set or give the impression that he has a deadline for Okinawa.

Most important, the last thing that Noda wants to do is undo all his work craft a unified party by reaching out to Ozawa's supporters of Ozawa. Any move against Ozawa would undo that work. For the US, a continued indecisive Japan or another prime minister is not helpful on any issue.

Michael Cucek
Research Associate, MIT Center for International Studies
Blog
See Also: "Ozawa's Influence in Japan's DPJ Still Questionable," East Asia Forum, 9/23/11.

These essays appeared in the September 26th edition of APP's Asia Policy Calendar sent to APP members.

Hanging on by a slender thread

President Barack Obama most likely will meet a fourth Japanese prime minister this September on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly. He originally was supposed to have hosted Prime Minister Naoto Kan for a state visit in Washington. I, however, expect that PM Naoto Kan will be out of office in August, if not earlier, and his party, the DPJ, will just have time enough to elect a new party president and thus prime minister before the September UNGA.

Faulted for alleged ineptness in handling the earthquake-tsunami-nuclear disaster this spring, Kan, early this summer, promised to step down in order to avoid what could have been a fatal vote of no-confidence in the Lower House. Yet, he never said exactly when that would be. He has since sounded as if he is no rush to leave, angering the opposition camp and the many in his own party who want new leadership. The latest speculation is that he will step down sometimes in August after key legislation clears the extended session of the Diet.

Most Japanese have long ago given up on the Kan administration. Nothing that Kan has touched with his policy finger since coming into office a year ago has turned to gold. Instead, most of his agenda has ended up in the dustbin. With little to show in terms of domestic and foreign policy accomplishments, Kan’s once heady popularity has suffered accordingly.

Only weeks ago, his support rate in the polls was hovering in the low to mid-twenty percent range, but in the latest NHK poll, it plunged to 16 percent, a record low. Asahi’s poll was even worse, 15 percent, down from last month’s 22 percent. Kan’s predecessor, Yukio Hatoyama, had a 17 percent support rate in the Asahi poll when he resigned. The vast majority of Japanese, the polls show, want Kan out by August. The Asahi’s poll registered this view as being held by 80 percent.

Kan’s recent reshuffling of his cabinet was rather meaningless – one new appointee, Reconstruction Minister Ryu Matsumoto, was forced to quit after a week when he bad-mouthed earthquake victims (he was hospitalized recently). One disgruntled Cabinet member, METI Minister Banri Kaieda, has hinted at quitting over energy policy differences with Kan. The Prime Minister’s unilateral, uncoordinated decisions have left his cabinet and party frustrated. No one seems to know what he will do next, and many suspect he is just stalling in order to prolong his political life. Despite the chorus in the DPJ calling for his resignation, Kan still keeps chugging along as if he single-handedly can get things done. Kan has increasingly isolated himself.

Can Kan Survive?

Getty Images

By tomorrow we will know if the Kan government has survived. On Thursday, June 2 the opposition LDP and New Komeito coalition promises to bring a no-confidence motion to a vote. How many rebels within Kan’s own party, the DPJ, will join is the question. Note, it is not “whether” but “how many.” No matter the outcome, Prime Minister Kan’s leadership is shaken and the DPJ is shredded.

The G8 Summit and the bilateral with President Obama was important for Prime Minister Naoto Kan. They bolstered Japan’s international presence as well as the beleaguered leader’s image. At home, Japan’s triple disasters have created profound physical and psychological damage. Japanese remain panicked about the continued radiation from Fukushima.

Kan is under heavy criticism for his allegedly bungling responses, particularly to the nuclear accident. Kan and his cabinet have been pummeled daily in the Diet and the press. The U.S.-Japan summit meeting thus turned into an anchor of calm for Japan in a sea of political chaos at home.

Japan needed the personal assurances of its good friend and ally, the U.S., that the bilateral relationship remains high on the President’s agenda, including assistance to help its long-term recovery. That being said, the bilateral meeting did not address pending problems, nor was it supposed to. It simply gave Kan more time to work on domestic issues such as the future course of the Futenma relocation issue and Japan’s preparations for possibly joining TPP – hopefully by the Prime Minister’s official U.S. visit, now delayed to September.

That is, if Kan can survive politically beyond tomorrow.

Kan’s visible presence among the G8 leaders, his speeches that showed Japan’s resolve, and promises on the energy front were impressive. It was also good for the Japanese people to see their leader no longer in a crisis-management mode, but actively engaged in fulfilling the international responsibilities of his position. Press reaction initially to his summit diplomacy was positive. The media have been far less friendly, though, on the highly volatile issue of managing the nuclear crisis set off by the Fukushima disaster.

Kan may have bought some time with the U.S., but the political opposition in the Diet has not given him any slack. He returned from France not only with heavy Summit homework to address, but also a Diet in turmoil, key bills in limbo, and a reinvigorated opposition camp ready to submit a no-confidence motion against him. The irony of the U.S. President praising Kan’s leadership, when it is under severe attack at home, was not lost on the Japanese media.

It is likely that some of the anti-Kan forces in the DPJ, mostly loyal followers of former Secretary General Ichiro Ozawa, will bolt from the party to support the motion. DPJ leaders have warned that they would throw any rebels out of the party. Nevertheless, former Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has also indicated that he will support the no-confidence motion. Further, on Wednesday evening three Vice Ministers and two Parliamentary Secretaries turned in their resignations to the government. The five men, all close to Ozawa, said that they had to resign in order to vote for the no confidence motion.*

As of today (June 1, U.S. time), it still seems unlikely that there will be enough rebels (85 or so needed) to allow the motion to pass. Conventional wisdom, however, has the number at around 50. Kan told the Diet he was not about to resign with his job of reconstructing Japan undone, and the DPJ has warned that the Prime Minister might dissolve the Diet as punishment to the rebels and the LDP.

But an election could be political suicide for the DPJ. At least four political pundits have predicted that if there were a snap election, the DPJ would lose badly, with the LDP winning big enough to put it back into power with the Komeito. Recently, however, the Japanese Supreme Court ruled the previous Diet elections unconstitutional. They can prohibit another election until the Diet fixes the apportionment inequalities in the voting system. It is anybody's guess how this political drama will play out, but the mood of the public is very negative that at a time of national calamity the politicians are playing a game of chicken.

Assuming he survives this ordeal, Kan must then start to work on delivering on his G8 Summit homework. His still-to-fleshed out energy plan, announced at the OECD, is bold and ambitious, but the target, for example, of doubling reliance on renewable energy by 2020 is seen as admirable as it is unattainable. And whether the Japanese economy – and society – can take another 10 years of austere restrictions on energy – another target – remains to be seen. There is fear in industry that power restrictions and rising costs could drive even more production offshore.

On the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), Kan would like Japan to join, but the domestic obstacles to including agriculture among Japan’s concessions remain even more formidable now after the earthquake that destroyed precious farmland in the north. The delay in TPP preparations also has given anti-TPP forces the advantage in their campaign to convince the public that joining would “destroy” Japanese agriculture. The new arrival sections of bookstores are already filling with such propaganda.

It is the herculean task of finally resolving the Futenma base relocation issue that may ultimately make or break Mr. Kan. Committed firmly to implementing the current relocation plan, the central government must now do the kind of heavy lifting in Okinawa that it previously was loathe to do – namely, convince the governor and local officials to allow the base to agree to let the base be moved to another part of Okinawa and not out of the prefecture.

Defense Minister Kitazawa’s meeting last week with Okinawa’s Governor Nakaima went predictably nowhere. Whether the exhausted Kan Cabinet, assuming is survives the June crisis, has the will and the energy to devote to convincing Okinawa to swallow a very bitter pill that is likely to include offers of significant economic measures to affected areas to win them over remains unclear. And frankly, neither the DPJ rebels nor the too long ruling and opposition LDP have proposed better solutions.

Spiteful politics is no way to run a country.

William Brooks

APP Senior Fellow

Mindy Kotler

APP Director

*The five, all Lower House lawmakers, are Shozo Azuma, senior vice minister at the Cabinet Office, Wakio Mitsui, senior vice minister of land, infrastructure, transport and tourism, Katsumasa Suzuki, senior vice minister of internal affairs and communications, Akira Uchiyama, parliamentary secretary of internal affairs and communications, and Takeshi Hidaka, parliament secretary of environment.

Kan Isolated as Fractures Grow in DPJ

Prime Minister Naoto Kan’s May 20 decision not to present the second supplementary budget bill to the Diet for earthquake disaster relief and reconstruction may have been a fatal mistake. He wants to delay the bill to an extraordinary Diet session in August. This tactic, however, has upset even members of his own Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) not to mention the LDP-led opposition camp. A no-confidence motion against the Kan Cabinet is becoming increasingly likely, though it would probably take place after the Prime Minister returns from this month's G8 summit in France.

Calls for Kan to resign to take responsibility for allegedly poor handling of the aftermath of the earthquake-tsunami-nuclear plant disasters have grown in the DPJ. According to press reports, Kan allegedly delayed for an hour the emergency cooling of the nuclear reactors at Fukushima with sea water, possibly contributing to a meltdown.

The latest heavyweight to join the chorus of Kan bashers is House of Councillors President Takeo Nishioka, who demanded the immediate resignation of Kan in an article he wrote for the Yomiuri Shimbun May 19. He repeated his demand at a press conference the same day. Nishioka cited Kan's responses to the earthquake and crisis at the Fukushima nuclear power plant. Kan, undisturbed, simply said, "There is no reason at all for me to resign at this time."

But Nishioka's pressure on Kan to step down has grave implications, as the Upper House president has considerable authority over the fate of bills in the divided Diet. Moreover, Nishioka comes from the DPJ, having the left the party as is customary because he must remain neutral in his post. In addition, the DPJ is starting to see junior lawmakers quit the party.

Kan also continues to take a beating in the polls. Jiji Press’ latest opinion survey, released on May 20, found nearly 70% of the public want the Prime Minister to quit immediately or after dealing disaster response measures. Only 24.5% said they want Kan to stay in power. On the government’s response to the earthquake and subsequent nuclear crisis, 71.9% faulted Kan for a lack of leadership, the poll showed. The Kan Cabinet’s support rate stood at 21.9%, up 1.4 points from the previous month. Though rising for three straight months, the approval rating remains deep in the danger zone for an incumbent prime minister. The disapproval rating was 59.5%, down 2.1 points.

Meanwhile, there are signs of a possible future political realignment growing out of fractures in party unity in both the DPJ and LDP. On May 17, two bipartisan Diet member leagues were formed linking anti-Kan forces in the DPJ and forces in the LDP opposed to the presidency of Sadakazu Nakatani. Lawmakers joining the league are mostly junior to mid-level (five terms elected or below). At the first meeting, 87 DPJ and 22 LDP lawmakers or a total of 109 showed up. The league was formed ostensibly to counter the stalemate in the Diet over critical earthquake-recovery legislation, but its true aim seems to be ultimately unseat the president in their respective party. From such a grouping could come a future grand coalition of like-minded forces in both parties preconditioned on Kan’s resignation. In the latest Yomiuri poll, 56% of the respondents supported a grand coalition in order to speed up the recovery of Japan, so the concept is already acceptable to the Japanese electorate.

The same day, a second league was formed by 12 mid-level DPJ members who are loyal to former party secretary general Ichiro Ozawa. Again, the formal reason for the gathering was to promote the reconstruction of earthquake-stricken Japan, but the true aim ultimately is to topple Kan in favor of a party president who is more to Ozawa’s liking.

In the meantime, if the 87 anti-Kan DPJ members were to join a no-confidence motion against Kan fielded by the LDP, it could pass the Lower House. The New Komeito, the LDP’s former coalition partner, has already signaled its support for a possible no-confidence motion. In such a case, Kan would have no choice but to resign. Interestingly, he does not now have the option of dissolving the Lower House for a snap election, a card past prime ministers have used effectively to survive political challenges.

The Supreme Court in March ruled that the 2009 Lower House election was in principle unconstitutional because of the disparity of voting weight favoring rural areas over urban areas. It did not disallow the election results, but ordered a correction of the imbalance. Until a law is passed reducing the rural-urban voting gap, the Prime Minister cannot use that traditional card.

As is common with the intrigues of Japanese politics, the outlook for unseating Kan is unclear. There is already serious talk in both the DPJ and LDP about a small second supplemental budget that could be passed with bipartisan support before the Diet ends June 22. This might defuse the revolt against Kan – and Tanigaki—and allow Kan to introduce a much larger extra budget in late summer.

Still, political instability is likely to continue to grow. When the critical mass will be reached is not easily predictable. As for the impact on U.S.-Japan relations, one might say what is new? But issues that have been repeatedly delayed regarding the Alliance – such as the Futenma base relocation conundrum – will continue to be.

William Brooks
APP Senior Fellow

This analysis appeared in the May 23rd edition of Asia Policy Point's Asia Policy Calendar sent to APP's members every Monday. 

Kan unshaken by massive earthquake

It is premature to conclude the fate of Prime Minister Naoto Kan. The “March Crisis” that everyone predicted did not turn out quite as expected. For now, Kan has been strengthened by his management of the earthquake and tsunami. However, judgement of Kan’s competence is under keener scrutiny of the Japanese people. To an outsider the Prime Minister, Chief Cabinet Secretary Edano, and other aides have done a competent job in coping with the disaster.

The media have transmitted information from official sources and local sites with extraordinary skill, sensitivity, and thoroughness. As for the nuclear disaster, TEPCO’s briefings on TV have left much to be desired – NHK had to bring in a specialist afterwards to explain what the inarticulate and bumbling spokesman just said – but the workers at the scene risking their lives to contain the reactors, not to mention the teams of firefighters and SDF troops pumping water on the towers are true heroes.

From the start, Kan took charge and the people knew it. He rightfully ceded spokeman’s responsibilities to Chief Cabinet Secretary Edano, who also played a low-key, but responsible role. He even brought in a seasoned aide, former chief cabinet secretary Sengoku, when it seemed that Edano was wearing himself out. Kan issued important statements on TV and showed the public that he was clearly the man issuing critical orders from the emergency headquarters set up to handle the disaster. He looked weary when he appeared in public, and even showed his short temper when dissatisfied. He reportedly was observed yelling at TEPCO officials for their poor dissemination of clear and consistent information to the public about the state of the nuclear plant. Unfortunately, he has yet to make personal tours of the disaster area.

Following the 1995 earthquake, then Prime Minister Murayama received low marks for his handling the crisis, even reportedly rebuffing US offers of help. But this time, no such criticism seems warranted. Prime Minister Kan even urged the opposition to put aside differences and cooperate on an emergency fiscal package for the earthquake victims and localities, welcomed the assistance of the US forces in Japan and other foreign help, and oversaw a gradual restoration of normalcy in communications, transportation, and basic distribution in the broadly affected areas.

It may have seemed slow – a week is a long time when disaster strikes -- but by the week’s end, food and other supplies were coming into even the most badly affected areas. It will be a long process even before rebuilding starts, but people realize that, given the enormous scale of the devastation.

Even if Prime Minister Kan gets high marks for crisis management, he is not likely to regain his popularity for he carries too much baggage from the pre-earthquake months when his administration was rocked by scandals, policy failures, and a reputation of indecisiveness on key issues. It will take a lot for him for wipe away a prior history of policy mishandling. Many of these earlier problems remain to be resolved such as passing the budget-enabling bills, and of course resolving the Futenma base relocation issue. But at least Kan can rest assured that it will not be his handling of the Great Northern Japan Earthquake that will make or break his administration.

William Brooks
APP Senior Fellow

Maehara jumps overboard as Kan nears the rocks

March is shaping up to be a cruel month for the Japanese government. Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara's sudden resignation on March 7 capped a dicey week of falling public support for Prime Minister Kan and political stalemate in the Diet. Kan appears to be the only one who remains optimistic about his handling of the ship of state.

Like the feckless American actor, Charlie Sheen, he thinks he is "winning."

Maehara’s departure for accepting illegal political donations from a foreign national (a life-time resident of Japan but with South Korean citizenship) could be the beginning of the end for Kan. With a divided Diet, critical budget-related bills stalled, and the ruling DPJ beginning to splinter, the opposition parties smell Kan's blood.

The Japanese public seems to have given up on Kan. Losing Maehara at this juncture simply speeds up the inevitable. The foreign minister not only was seen as the heir apparent to Kan, but also was the chief architect of a pragmatic and straightforward foreign policy agenda, that included shoring up the alliance with the US left shaken by Kan’s predecessor, Yukio Hatoyama. Resolution of the Futenma relocation issue, on which Maehara had the lead, could be delayed by his departure, although there may be some welcome breathing space for all concerned.

Maehara was done in by a legal technicality. He received political donations of around $500 a year for five years from a supporter who happened to be a citizen of South Korea. Maehara said he was unaware of the transactions but stepped down over Kan’s entreaties to stay, in order to avoid further turmoil in the Diet, where the opposition LDP was already demanding his resignation. His successor will be chosen later this week, but it is rumored to be Senior Vice-Foreign Minister Takeaki Matsumoto (who is a cousin to the current Japanese Ambassador to the US Ichiro Fujisaki).

Just when one thought things could not get worse for the luckless Kan, they did. Maehara’s departure was preceded by the shocking revelation by former Prime Minister Hatoyama, who recently told the press that he had lied last May in justifying his decision to relocate the Marine air base Futenma to another location in Okinawa. He explained it as linked to maintaining “deterrence,” but he now admits that was an “expedient” excuse. His words outraged Okinawans, destroying any possibility of trust being built between the prefecture and Tokyo over the base issue.

The Kan administration was seen in the press as on the brink of collapse even prior to Maehara’s resignation. The latest opinion polls show the support rate of the Kan Cabinet has plummeted to the 17-20% range.

Collateral damage from Kan’s plunging popularity had already spread to his party. The DPJ used to command a support rate around 40% in the polls, but in the Mainichi’s February survey, its support was down five points since January to 15%. The Asahi’s poll placed party support at 19%. In both surveys, support for the former ruling party, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), was five or six points higher than the DPJ. Despite the slight edge, voters are definitely not flocking back to the LDP: many blame it in part for a gridlocked Diet with no legislation being approved. Up to 45% of the electorate remains unaffiliated with any party.

Calls for Kan to step down as president of the DPJ and thus prime minister have already spread across the party. Senior DPJ leaders are reportedly maneuvering to find a successor prime minister should Kan step down.

Kan himself has hinted he may dissolve the House of Representatives for a snap election to counter such calls for his resignation, though whether he is prepared to face the very real possibility of his party's annihilation at the polls just to cling on to his title is debatable. Further, with no party in Japan popular or presenting a decent candidate for the prime minister, it is not in anyone's political interest to press for an election.

Preparations were underway between Washington and Tokyo for a 2-plus-2 meeting of foreign and defense ministers in early May to release a new set of common strategic objectives shortly afterwards. It will be attended by a new and untested foreign minister. The meeting was to be a prelude to a summit meeting that would issue a new joint security declaration. If that now looks to be an optimistic timeframe, at least there is now political space to tackle contentious side issues such as child abduction, trafficking, and child porn, without disrupting negotiations considered more essential in national security and finance. These social values-focused issues, long said to be at the heart of the Alliance, are now the focus of the US-Japan relationship.

William Brooks, APP Senior Fellow
Mindy Kotler, APP Director
Patrick Sherriff, APP Editor at Large

Kan: The marked man

With his support rate sliding into the danger zone of 26 and 27% in the latest Mainichi and Asahi polls, Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan may not have long to go before he reaches the 19% that his predecessor Yukio Hatoyama hit before resigning.

This time though, it is neither the US base issue in Okinawa nor a personal money scandal that is doing him in; Kan is in deep trouble for a perceived serious mishandling of his entire portfolio. He has been slammed on foreign policy – particularly ineptness in dealing with the row with China over the Senkakus – for a collapsed domestic policy agenda, marked by a stalled legislature and a disappointing budget-waste screening, and for the outright foolishness of some members of his Cabinet, one of whom resigned under fire on Nov. 22.

The press is speculating about “domino resignations” of more gaffe-prone cabinet members. Already the Kan administration’s longevity is being questioned, with the tabloids screaming about a January or so dissolution of a deadlocked Diet.

Domestic debacles
Kan's fate may now be in the hands of his enemies: the opposition parties in the Diet and a unanimously hostile press which has been mercilessly pummeling Kan and his cabinet for allegedly bungling just about everything on the Democratic Party of Japan’s (DPJ) policy agenda. A much touted supplemental budget to stimulate the economy never passed the Upper House, which opposition parties control.
Budgets, however, can be enacted with only Lower House approval according to the Constitution.

Even the DPJ’s pride and joy, a televised series of budget screening exercises to eliminate waste of taxpayers’ money fell disappointingly far short of a much publicized goal to free up 4 trillion yen in hidden funds and is now being dismissed by critics as nothing more than a “political performance.”

The latest embarrassment for Kan has been a string of gaffes and goofs by members of his cabinet that infuriated the opposition camp, the press, and public opinion. Things came to a head on Monday, Nov. 22, when Justice Minister Minoru Yanagida, whose in-house remarks to supporters ridiculing Diet proceedings was leaked to the media, was forced by Kan to resign his seat.

The opposition threatened to file and pass a censure motion against Yanagida in the Upper House. Kan himself is under opposition fire for appointing an unqualified and inept person to a cabinet position. Yanagida admitted on appointment that he had no background in law, having dropped out of the science course in college to work as sushi chef and then for a steel company where he worked as a labor activist until entering politics 20 years ago.

The Yanagida case has been singled out by the press as exemplifying Kan’s inability to make quick decisions on critical issues. Kan has been slammed consistently in the polls as “lacking leadership” on the policy front. The Prime Minister dilly-dallied on what to do about the Justice Minister’s fate for days, letting the Diet fall into chaos. It was only apparently until his aides pushed him hard for a decision that he met with them on Nov. 21 to seal the fate of Yanagida, who had continued to tell the press that he would “hang in there” and not resign.

Kan is criticized for leaving much of the political management of his administration to others, especially his chief cabinet secretary, Yoshito Sengoku, who reportedly made key decisions in handling the Senkaku issue. But Sengoku is also under pressure from the opposition to resign for recently calling the Self-Defense Forces (SDF) an “instrument of violence,” terminology that harks back to the old socialist camp in Japan.

Over the weekend, on Nov. 20, the sports daily Nikkan Gendai – a fairly accurate bellwether of political trends – ominously predicted “domino resignations” that would include not just Yanagida – but also others like “shadow prime minister” Sengoku for their gaffes and affronts to the Diet.

In six days last week, six cabinet members have had to render apologies a total of 10 times for inappropriate words and deeds. Though the Gendai’s prediction may not come true, such speculation further underscores the scathing environment in which the Prime Minister is struggling in to survive. Appearing on TV last week, Kan looked weary, his usual smile gone from his face. His answers in the Diet seemed labored.

At any rate, though Yanagida has resigned, the opposition camp has not blinked. It has continue to use dilatory tactics before the Diet session ends on December 3. Having filed and passe censure motions against Chief Cabinet Secretary Sengoku and Ministry of Land and Transportation Sumio Mabuchi. Kan has shrugged off the moves, but the Diet remains gridlocked. Looking to the regular session of the Diet in January, the opposition may file and pass more censure motions against cabinet Ministers. They may also summon former DPJ secretary general Ichiro Ozawa to the Diet to testify on his money scandal. Commenting on the current state of Diet affairs, Nikkan Gendai on Nov. 23 said it all: “The DPJ is acting just like the LDP used to.”

Foreign policy failures
Kan’s troubles of course started with the Senkaku row with China, compounded by the leak of a video of the collision between the Chinese trawler and Japan Coast Guard cutters. It became worse when President Medvedev broke with tradition and officially visited one the four disputed northern islands taken by the former Soviet Union from Japan in the closing days of World War II. The ambassador to Russia was recalled in protest for several days, but there was no follow-up from the prime minister.

Sadly, even the children’s section of a major daily poked fun at Kan by running a cartoon showing
a weak and trembling Kan seemingly cowered by President Medvedev as they traded claims to the northern territories.

Kan’s performance at the G20 in Seoul and his hosting of the APEC conference in Yokohama, too, were generally panned by the press as lifeless and stilted. A telling photograph of his bilateral meeting at APEC with China’s President Hu Jintao shows Kan hunched over his briefing folder, which he always seems to carry, reading out talking points to an obviously bored Hu. In an interview, former close Diet colleague Shusei Tanaka said that Kan did not have the mettle to be a prime minister.

Alliance bright spot
Sunday’s headlines in the conservative Yomiuri on Nov. 21 about a “deepening of the US-Japan alliance” may have been the only good news for the Kan administration in a long time. The daily, which has been a constant critic of the DPJ government’s alleged slights to the alliance, trumpeted that progress has been made in bilateral talks in Washington toward a joint security declaration next spring. The statement reportedly would include a new set of “common strategic objectives” (the former set was issued in 2005) that would specifically deal with China’s maritime push into waters near Japan.

As if to underscore the new security emphasis, Yomiuri and other papers featured photos of Chinese patrol ships cruising near the Senkaku Islands where they were warned away by Japanese Coast Guard vessels.

North Korea provided more cement for the US-Japan Alliance. The latest provocative act, an unprecedented shelling of a South Korean island near disputed waters, killed two soldiers and two civilians, while devastating a small village.

That does not mean that alliance affairs will now go smoothly for Kan. Following the Nov. 28 gubernatorial election in Okinawa, in which the LDP incumbent won, he must soon make a meaningful decision on the Futenma relocation agreement. This is likely to trigger another round of bickering between the DPJ government and that prefecture's citizens that continue to demand that the base be moved outside of Okinawa. Although this situation takes tact and patience, it appears that the only tool that Kan has in reserve is a panic button.

LDP not gaining
The press has already begun speculating about the possibility of the Diet in regular session being so blocked by opposition intransigence that Kan would have to resign his post (in favor of Seiji Maehara) or dissolve the Lower House for a snap election. A January scenario is predicted by some magazines.
Even former prime minister Hatoyama in an interview hinted at a spring dissolution of the Diet. Such a worst case scenario as a general election, however, would not necessarily be an automatic victory for the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).

The former ruling party now leads the opposition camp and controls the Upper House. Even though the DPJ is losing favor with the public, the LDP has not benefited from the shift. In the Asahi’s latest poll, the LDP is indeed a point or so ahead of the DPJ in public support, but each party is only at the 16% range, far below their traditional levels.

Almost 60% of the electorate – a whopping percentage – do not support any party. These independent voters have been willing to switch parties in general elections and are responsible for the see-sawing of election results in recent years. If a snap election were to be called, it is unclear whether one party or the other would be the clear winner or loser. Indeed, a host of small parties that have proliferated in recent years might be the beneficiaries, further gumming up the political works in Japan.

Dr William Brooks
APP Senior Fellow

Kan caught between a rock and a hard place

Kan's ship of state is not an all-together happy one. Not only has the Kan administration’s handling of the Senkakus incident been universally condemned as weak-kneed, it also has set off alarms about Japan’s national security among the DPJ hawks.

A group of DPJ defense policy specialists led by Akihisa Nagashima last week handed a petition to Prime Minister Kan that criticized the “political” decision by Naha prosecutors to release the captain and let him return to China. The incident, they noted, gave an impression of Japan’s weakness to ASEAN countries, which are concerned about Chinese assertiveness in the South China Sea. The group called on the government to take steps to shore up security strategy in tandem with the US as ally.

Even Japanese Communist Party Chairman Shii appeared on television last week to excitedly condemn China for daring to claim the Senkakus. He cited documents to prove that the Japanese were there first, and insisted that Beijing only became interested in the isles during the 1970s, when it was learned that the sea area nearby harbored potentially great reserves of valuable natural resources.

If Kan got bad press, at least the US, with its early confirmation that the Senkakus came under the security treaty, came out smelling of roses. Most happy was the conservative Sankei newspaper, which reported from Washington on October 4 that the US and Japan were now planning military exercises to “take back the Senkakus,” although such a scenario has yet to be verified by the Pentagon.

And China is the bogeyman once more. A Sankei opinion poll released October 4 found 71.5% of the public viewing China as a threat to Japan’s national security, and 80% felt that the incident had worsened their image of that country. Moreover, 83.1% said they did not trust China.

In a Yomiuri poll, also released on October 4, 90% of the public said they wanted Japan to state more clearly to the international community that the Senkakus are part of Japanese territory. The same day, Mainichi reported that Prime Minister Kan did do just that at the Asia-Europe Meeting in Brussels last week. He also had a brief meeting with China's Premier Wen Jiabao.

The move may help Kan recover lost ground in the polls. The public has been unforgiving about his handling of the Senkakus incident, with the October 4 Sankei poll finding 81.5% of the public calling his administration “weak-kneed” for allowing the release of the captain. Public support for the Kan cabinet plummeted from an all-time high of 64.2% in September to 48.5% in the Sankei poll. Other polls had similar results.

For now.

Kan did defuse a potentially dangerous situation while allowing China to look unreasonable and aggressive. Better, Kan extracted from the US statements that the Senkakus are part of part of the US-Japan Mutual Security Agreement and that the US will protect its Asian allies from Chinese bullying. He even accomplished a bi-lateral meeting with his Chinese counter-part to confirm the importance of Japan-China bi-lateral ties and good relations.

Maybe, in time, the Japanese public will realize what the Chinese government learned. China lost a lot of goodwill by ramping up a minor maritime clash. And Kan did pretty well for someone who pundits say shows little interest or acumen for foreign policy.

Dr William Brooks
APP Senior Fellow

Dr Brooks is quoted in the October 10th Japan Times discussing Kan's handling of the Senkaku issue and Japan's press reaction.

Kan's policies float like a butterfly, voters sting like a bee

Stung by the loss of his party’s Upper House majority and his dramatic decline in popularity, Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan (right) is struggling to find the Calamine lotion.

He is now more sensitive to public opinion and more realistic about the domestic constraints on his actions. Not unexpectedly, Kan’s promise to resolve the Futenma relocation by the end of August is unrealistic and unlikely to soothe raw nerves any time soon.

The public continues to disapprove of how the DPJ is running the country. In the latest Yomiuri poll (July 14), the support rate for the Kan cabinet plummeted seven points from the July 2-4 survey to 38%, with a majority, 54%, welcoming the DPJ’s election loss. The non-support rate soared 13 points to an alarming 52%, overtaking the approval rate for the first time. Only a month ago (June 8-9 survey), just after Kan took over, the support rate was a healthy 64% and the non-support an insignificant 25%.

The DPJ’s support rate has also taken a beating, dropping from 34% to 28% in just one week. In contrast, the support rate for the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), the anointed "winner" in the recent election, jumped from 18% to 24% in a week. Support for the splinter party, Your Party, which picked up 10 seats in the election, placing it on the political map, jumped from 5% to 12%. Asked about the DPJ’s loss of 10 seats in the election, 38% of the public blamed it on Prime Minister Kan’s remarks about hiking the consumption tax, but a significant 31% said they were dissatisfied with the party’s campaign manifesto.

According to press reports, rather than confront the wrath of Okinawans opposed to any relocation of Futenma inside the prefecture, Tokyo is now pressing for an ambiguous late-August decision, veering away from any specific plan. Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada told the press on July 13 that the government would work to rebuild confidence in it in Okinawa even if it takes time. Chief Cabinet Secretary Sengoku separately added that he did not expect a final resolution of the Futenma relocation by November, when President Obama is scheduled to visit Japan. On July 16th, Okada told the press "I would like to continue mulling over whether to announce it publicly, or not to disclose it even if it becomes clear effectively."

Okinawa is now represented in the Upper House by a newly elected lawmaker from the Liberal Democratic Party, Aiko Shimajiri. She won not because of her association with the party that brought Okinawa the Futenma dilemma, but because she promised to do what the DPJ could not deliver: completely reject any Futenma relocation plan that left the facility in Okinawa. She also went one step further, promising in her campaign to follow the will of the prefecture to “establish a peaceful Okinawa with no bases,” and to “return to the starting point.” She says she plans to visit Washington soon to deliver that anti-base message.

In addition this new and unique LDP voice, Social Democratic Party head Mizuho Fukushima, who kept repeating her Futenma solution of kengai, kokugai (out of the prefecture, out of the country) during the election campaign, convinced an overwhelming number of Okinawa voters to choose her party in the proportional representation race. The SDP led the pack with 126,400 votes or 22.7% of the total, compared to the mere 3.8% of the vote that it tallied in the rest of the country. It unseated, ironically, the incumbent, a peace activist from the DPJ, who later bitterly denounced his party for its “betrayal” of Okinawa.

This angry mood across Okinawa is likely to affect the outcome of the Nago City assembly election on September 12 as well as the gubernatorial election on November 28. These are likely to pit an anti-base activist against the moderate incumbent. It is still unclear how much the rest of Japan is sensitive to the issues on Okinawa.

The Japanese people are feeling injured and less tolerant of central government prescriptions. Little wonder that the Kan government wants to postpone or not even announce its final decision on Futenma. Left as is, the open sores are unlikely to improve and could become inoperable. The inevitable clash of political forces in Japan has merely been delayed.

In response, the US-Japan Alliance will either have to restructure and adjust or cease.

Dr William Brooks
APP Senior Fellow
Mindy Kotler
APP Director

After the DPJ party: Japan wakes up to politics as normal

[corrected 7/13/10]

In Sunday’s Upper House elections, the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), barely a year in power, suffered a serious defeat. It lost its majority in that chamber, thus placing its policy agenda in jeopardy. The lesson is that Japan is finally experiencing the rough, fickle politics of a “normal” democracy.

The DPJ lost 10 seats to end up with 106 (44 this time and 62 not up for election). The tally is far short of the 122 seats the DPJ needs to maintain a sole majority. Making matters worse, its coalition partner, the People’s New Party (PNP), won no new seats and has only three seats not up for election – a total of 109.

Worse, no other opposition party is willing to form a coalition with the DPJ. In sharp contrast, the former ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) is overjoyed at having outpaced the DPJ to garnered 51 seats to the DPJ’s 44. But this is a limited victory since the LDP still only has a total of 84 seats in the Upper House, the result of its blood bath in the 2007 election that reduced the number of seats not up for election to a mere 33.

The other “winner” in the race was the LDP splinter party, Your Party (YP), led by former LDP lawmaker Yoshimi Watanabe. It came away from the election with an 11-seat first-time win. The New Komeito, former coalition partner of the LDP, dropped two seats to end up with a total of 19 seats, making its role in the legislative process in the upper chamber critical.

Conversely, the Social Democratic Party, which bolted from the ruling coalition in a pique over the Okinawa base issue, found no sympathy from the public. It continues to be a relic of the past, losing one seat in the election to end up with a mere four seats in the Upper House. Another fading force is the Japanese Communist Party, which also lost a seat to command only six seats.

[Tally updated 7/13/10]

Judgment Day

The DPJ had blown the Upper House election when Prime Minister Kan launched the campaign with a promise to raise taxes. He actually only meant to usher in a debate on tax reform including a possible consumption tax hike to 10%. But the “promise” to raise taxes became in essence the only campaign issue of the election. Historically, those prime ministers who introduced the taboo issue of a consumption-tax hike suffered defeat in the next election.

Political scientists in Japan liken Upper House elections, which occur every three years for half of the 242-seat chamber, to a mid-term election in the US, like the one the Congress faces this fall. Voters go to the polls essentially to evaluate the performance of the administration in office.

Most analysts of the July 11 Upper House election saw it as judgment day. The verdict was not only on Kan’s ill-advised promise to raise taxes. Since the administration of Prime Minister Naoto Kan in its month or so in office had virtually no achievements yet to tout, the election also became a referendum on the performance of his predecessor, Yukio Hatoyama, who resigned to take responsibility for a political scandal and a vastly unpopular decision to resolve a U.S. base issue in Okinawa.

Kan, who was deputy prime minister and then finance minister in the Hatoyama government, had to share blame for the DPJ administration’s inability to implement many of the campaign promises contained in its manifesto used in the campaign last summer. Moreover, Kan’s economic strategy of fiscal constraint raised further skepticism among the public. The result was a flight away from the DPJ by the electorate in Sunday’s poll.

Since 1989, three prime ministers have resigned as a result of poor party performances in the Upper House elections of 1989 (Takeshita), 1998 (Hashimoto), and 2007 (Abe). The Lower House elections determine which party will rule, but the Upper House elections can determine whether an administration will continue or fall.

Kan maintains that he will stay on at the helm despite his party’s defeat on Sunday, but this may only postpone the inevitable. He is already being strongly criticized from within the party for contributing to the party’s defeat by his kiss-of-death campaign promise to consider raising the consumption. In a month, the Prime Minister squandered his party’s resurgent popularity, something that his predecessor took nine months to do.

The election turnout was 57%, a point under the previous Upper House election in 2007. This means that many unaffiliated voters, who make up close to half of the electorate, stayed home. Those who did vote deserted the DPJ that they favored only last August in the Lower House election. They turned instead to the LDP and YP as the parties of preference.

An NHK exit poll showed a 21% drop in votes for the DPJ by the unaffiliated voters, compared to the Lower House election on August 30, 2009. The exit poll showed 21% of unaffiliated voters favoring Your Party and another 18% choosing the LDP.

Ozawa the Terminator?

Kan may stay on as prime minister, but his days may be numbered, particularly if his now arch-enemy Ichiro Ozawa has his way. Ozawa is still smarting from Kan’s words after he resigned as party secretary general. Kan said that Ozawa, having plagued the party with his politics and money scandal should now “stay quiet for a while.”

There are strong rumors in the press that he will make his next move in September to terminate Kan during the election for DPJ party president. Ozawa would either run for the post himself or field a proxy to unseat Kan.

Ozawa’s own fate is still far from certain, though, since he may still be indicted for the money scandal that has put three former aides in jail. Tokyo prosecutors, who twice rejected the possibility of indicting Ozawa, citing a lack of evidence, could be overturned by a review panel looking into the case if it reaches the same decision to indict a second time.

If Ozawa manages to avoid again indictment, Japanese voters this fall may see their third DPJ prime minister in a year. This man may very well bear the imprint of the very politician they thought they had finally dismissed. Again, the Japanese voter will be frustrated and disappointed.

Shattered Dreams

The DPJ had dreamed of becoming a full-fledged administration that could guarantee stable politics and policy-making by landing a sole majority of 122 or more seats in the Upper House to match its dominance in the Lower House. It needed to win 60 seats in the July 11 election to do so, but only attained 44. It had to attain 56 seats in order to reach a majority with its coalition partner, the People’s New Party.

That dream has been dashed. The LDP has emerged at the top, although far from a majority even with its former coalition partner, the New Komeito. However, the opposition in the Upper House is now able to block any legislation except the annual budget coming up from the Lower House for passage.

The LDP was able to survive three years of such a “twisted Diet” (nejire-Kokkai) situation because it had the constitutionally necessary two-thirds control of the Lower House to override bills rejected by the other chamber. The DPJ, however, does not have the votes in the Lower House even with its coalition partner to override bills, so the possibility is high that bills sent to the Upper House will be killed.

With this gridlock scenario in mind, the reinvigorated LDP is likely now to press hard to force a snap election of the Lower House that might raise the possibility of its return to power in some form of coalition. This is a feat that it managed to pull off in 1994 when it replaced the short-lived Hosokawa administration with a coalition that included its old enemy the then Japan Socialist Party.

Only through strategic cooperation on specific policy issues can the DPJ survive in power. Much like the situation in the US Congress. It is questionable, especially with politicians unused to this situation, as to how long such a tenuous situation can continue. And like voters in other industrial democracies, the Japanese electorate is likely to become impatient again.

Dr William Brooks
APP Senior Fellow

*After the Party by Andy Warhol, 1979

Tokyo to DC: We Kan work it out

Recent opinion polls show that the Japanese public may forgive the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ). They seem to accept that a government under Prime Minister Naoto Kan is in better hands than under Yukio Hatoyama. This is translating into a brighter outlook for the DPJ in the upcoming July Upper House elections.

Pollster Yoshiya Kobayashi has reported clear signs of a sudden return of electoral confidence in the DPJ. His latest election outlook published in the daily Fuji on June 17th was far more positive than earlier ones carried out by rival pollsters only a week or two ago.

Kobayashi, analyzing data from across the country, predicts that in the July 11 House of Councilors election the DPJ would gain five seats to a total of 121, only one short a majority in the 242-seat chamber. Teaming with its coalition partner, the People`s New Party and supportive independents, the DPJ would then command 128 seats in the Upper House, according to the simulation.

In contrast, the former ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) decimated since its defeat last August would lose three seats in the election to hold only 69 seats. Prior to Kan’s selection as PM, pundits predicted that the DPJ would lose its Upper House majority, creating another “twisted Diet” in which the opposition could block bills in the Upper House. Passage of controversial bill would therefore requiring a Lower House override vote each time. That situation existed during the last two years of LDP rule, paralyzing the legislative process.

This is not to say that there is clear sailing for the DPJ to an election victory next month. Japanese voters, although favoring the DPJ, have become loyal to none. The tabloid weeklies, always ready to draw political blood, are already in the hunt. Last week they alleged political-contribution improprieties against the prime minister, as well as alleging an extramarital affair.

The greater danger for upsetting the electorate lies in the DPJ's just released manifesto that surprisingly contains a promise to raise taxes, until now a taboo subject for the DPJ. Though couched in the context of tax reform and bipartisan cooperation, the decision to go into an election campaign with such baggage is high-risk politics.

The dailies on June 18 all top-played the words of Kan to consider doubling the current consumption tax to 10%. In the past, those prime ministers who promised to raise taxes were severely chastised at the polls.

Voters are already reacting. In a nationwide poll released June 21, Asahi found that the Kan Cabinet's support rate has dropped nine points in a week to 50%, with half of the public reacting negatively to Kan's reference to the possibility of the consumption tax doubling to 10%. The Sunday TV talk were dominated by the consumption tax issue, with opposition party representatives denouncing the DPJ’s promise to consider hiking the rate.

Alliance–friendly manifesto?

The new DPJ manifesto has significantly shifted gears in its treatment of the US-Japan alliance. Last year's version reflected the Party's desire to veer away from the US, review the Alliance relationship, and move closer to Asia. What stands out in the new manifesto is the priority placed on “deepening the Japan-US relationship.” The manifesto still calls for a revision of the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), but the part about “reviewing the US forces realignment and the modality of US bases in Japan” has been removed.

Washington policymakers will be also glad to see included the promise to “ease the burden on Okinawa based on the Japan-US agreement” on the relocation of Futenma Air Station to the Henoko area of Nago City.

The consideration given to the US and the Alliance can be said to reflect the pragmatism of Kan. He says he has learned from Hatoyama`s mistakes. Whereas the Hatoyama administration apparently saw Japan's relations with the US and with China as a zero-sum game, the Kan Administration seems to be trying to bring back a balance based on existing realities and not on wide-eyed idealism.

There appears to be a desire now to move toward a more cooperative and productive relationship with the US, something that the previous Administration avoided. In other words, the DPJ has inched closer to the traditional posture of the LDP in its security relationship with the US.

The manifesto stabilizes Japan’s relationship with the U.S. and allows the DPJ to focus on domestic issues. This should allow Washington to recover some of its confidence in Tokyo, while it determines what the new government can really deliver. It also should ease anxieties among the stability-minded Japanese public. In all, it is not that change in Japan is over, it is more likely that it will be more orderly.

William Brooks
APP Senior Fellow