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.

Hatoyama will weather the storm

Is Yukio Hatoyama and his administration "embattled" and drowning in a deluge of bad press?

Sorry to rain on the naysayers' parade, but the answer is "no," and nor do the fundamentals of Japanese politics appear completely against him. Unless the Democratic Party of Japan splits or the Tokyo prosecutors indict Mr. Hatoyama, he and his party will weather the storm. At first glance, this analysis seems overly sunny. The dramatic losses of the Nagasaki gubernatorial and the Machida City mayoral elections in Tokyo to LDP candidates do poke holes in the DPJ umbrella. With no more Lower or Upper House by-elections on the horizon, the Nagasaki gubernatorial election was presented as a bellwether prelude to the Upper House election in July.

But let's catch our breath here. There were seven candidates splitting the Nagasaki vote and five in Machida. The campaigns happened in the midst of the worst of the money politics accusations and indictments. The economy remains shaky and unemployment is only just beginning to drop.

In an Asahi Shimbun poll published Feb. 22, the rate of public support for Hatoyama’s cabinet fell below 40% for the first time since its launch. In this telephone-based nationwide public opinion survey conducted Feb. 20-21, the cabinet's support rate was 37%, down from the 41% rating in the previous spot poll conducted Feb. 5-6. Yet, this same survey showed that the LDP’s support rate had plateaued at 18% and the DPJ, maintained 32%. A similar Kyodo news poll found that Japanese still favor the DPJ over the LDP by 34% to 23%.

Nevertheless, the election defeat has given the DPJ and its Party Secretary Ichiro Ozawa pause. Ozawa’s soiled boots are visibly beginning to harm his party. The relentless negative press has worn on both Ozawa and the DPJ.

But in the DPJ’s favor is the continued disarray of the LDP. With six months left to the Upper House elections, the LDP shows neither the imagination nor leadership to move beyond its minority status. The result is that a number of LDP politicians – both Lower House members defeated last summer and incumbent Upper House members seeking re-election later this year – have resigned from the party and started plotting their comebacks under the DPJ coalition.

In the Upper House, on February 17th, these defections allowed the DPJ to gain a majority, thus dominating both houses of the Diet. In the more powerful Lower House, the DPJ’s 308 seats are considered a good indicator of the Party’s staying power. The result is both corporations and professional associations are moving toward the DPJ. The Japan Dental Federation recently dropped the LDP after decades of support to announce that they will back the DPJ in the Upper House elections in July. The new head of Keidanren, Hiromasa Yonekura, has pledged to explore ways to strengthen cooperation with the government by taking a pro-consumer stance.

DPJ party leaders believe the party can recover from its election defeats and regain the people’s trust. There is still a lot of time before the Upper House election and the 2010 budget will soon pass, putting DPJ policies into practice. The government will find a solution to Futenma and the Toyota mess is pushing politics off the front page. The DPJ rank and file are standing firm in support of Ozawa.

The Economist’s Banyan sees Hatoyama out as prime minister before the end of spring. He thinks a grand coalition is around the corner. But, for that to happen, a flood of lawmakers would need to exit the ruling party and the economy implode. That simply does not seem to be happening.

Although Ozawa's tenure is increasingly tenuous, one lesson learned from the brief respite from LDP rule in the 1990s was that you never step down, ever. Ideological differences on security policy and other issues do exist within the DPJ. Yet, for now all the major DPJ groups have effective representation in the cabinet, and no one really has anything to gain by dropping out and joining forces with a flailing and unpopular opposition.

Everyone is staying put.

Michael Penn,

APP Nonresident Fellow,

Shingetsu Institute

Mindy Kotler,

APP Director

Picture from here.

Why DPJ said 'no' to an Indian Ocean mission

It shouldn’t really be necessary to explain why the Hatoyama government allowed the refueling mission in the Indian Ocean to lapse this week.

For several years, Democratic Party of Japan leaders have made their objections to this military operation loud and clear. Yet somehow, the message doesn’t seem to have penetrated many quarters.

It is true that the DPJ didn’t really find a unified voice on this issue until around 2007, but under the leadership of Ichiro Ozawa an articulate party stance on the Maritime Self-Defence Force refueling mission was forged that was accepted by all but a handful of DPJ members. Ozawa’s position remains, in effect, the DPJ position.

Ozawa’s main argument has been that the Japanese Constitution permits the existence of the SDF and allows them to be deployed abroad on humanitarian relief missions and when specifically authorized by the UN Security Council. Ozawa has indicated, however, that the SDF may not participate in any “Coalition of the Willing” exercises, as this falls outside the bounds of his understanding of Article Nine of the Constitution.

Since taking power, the Hatoyama administration has put some degree of distance between itself and the very clear principles enunciated by Ichiro Ozawa in 2007, saying that Ozawa’s view is not necessarily the official view of the DPJ government. In practical terms, however, the DPJ has so far acted in a manner consistent with the Ozawa line.

Let's not forget that the DPJ has campaigned through several elections against the continuation of the MSDF refueling mission. Were they to suddenly come out in favor of the mission after fighting against it so fiercely for some years, this would raise many legitimate questions about the DPJ’s commitment to any of its stated goals.

Some commentators have made the questionable assertion that the August 2009 electoral victory of the DPJ was entirely attributable to the deficiencies of the LDP and had nothing to do with the manner in which the US-Japan alliance has functioned in recent years. As evidence, they point to polls that find large majorities of Japanese in favor of the alliance.

But this assertion is disingenuous. It is obviously quite a different thing to feel dissatisfied with the way the alliance has been operating and opposing the very notion of the alliance altogether. Anecdotal evidence suggests that most Japanese people have some misgivings about their American allies, but nevertheless see the importance and utility of the alliance for Japanese security interests.

While the LDP’s fall from power was related primarily to failures in its domestic policies, the demands made upon the former government by the US contributed significantly to that failure by tying up Diet affairs in battles over foreign policy irrelevant to Japanese interests. Doing the Pentagon's bidding did the LDP no electoral favors.

The DPJ also wants to assert civilian control of the military. The most alarming of recent scandals was the emergence of the outspoken ASDF General Toshio Tamogami, who has made a second career in shooting his mouth off not exactly in the spirit of the Japanese Constitution. Among those DPJ leaders who were clearly shaken by the Tamogami Tiff is Toshimi Kitazawa, the current defense minister. Ending the MSDF refueling mission now is an important measure to demonstrate the generals can't always get what they want.

Many of the intellectual leaders of the DPJ wish to move Japan’s anti-terrorism policies away from a military-oriented approach. Their thinking revolves around the notion that military action against terrorism only feeds the cycle of violence. Sure, the political coalition with the pacifist Social Democratic Party, which currently holds crucial votes in the House of Councillors, is a factor. To remain part of the governing coalition—and even to survive as a credible political party—the SDP must gain key concessions from Hatoyama and his cabinet.

Terminating the MSDF refueling mission is a necessary step to maintain harmony within DPJ-SDP coalition. Some analysts see this as a political accommodation that will soon be and can be easily compromised. It is important, therefore, to understand that the ideological distance between some DPJ members and the SDP is not very wide. Policy officials need to realize that they are dealing with a bigger intellectual shift in Japanese foreign policy than they suspect.

Michael Penn
APP Nonresident Senior Fellow
Executive Director Shingetsu Institute

Picture from here.

Korea beats the world to $20 billion nuclear jackpot

South Korea has beaten the US, Europe and Japan at their own game to land the country's first international nuclear power project.

Korea Electric Power Corporation (Kepco) has won a contract to build and operate four nuclear reactors in the United Arab Emirates, beating out rival bids from a U.S.-Japanese consortium comprising General Electric and Hitachi, as well as a French team of GdF Suez, Areva, and Total.

Construction of the reactors alone is expected to be worth more than $20 billion, not to mention Kepco will be in the driving seat for future lucrative service contracts. This deal, announced Dec. 28, marks the first full-scale nuclear development in the Arab country.

Although Japan’s main bid failed to be accepted by the UAE government, it is nonetheless a junior partner in the Korean consortium through Westinghouse and Toshiba Power Systems. These companies apparently possess patented technologies necessary to build third-generation light water reactors.

David Adam Stott reported for the Shingetsu Institute that Japan had become the fourth major player to sign a nuclear cooperation agreement with the UAE on January 19, 2009. This followed a week-long visit by a UAE delegation, led by Muhammad al-Hammadi, CEO of the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation, to Tokyo in December 2008 to meet representatives of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, visit a nuclear power plant, and tour Hitachi and Toshiba nuclear factories.

Westinghouse is to supply equipment, engineering, and fuel-service contracts to the Korean consortium. The precise value of these Japan-affiliated contracts is unclear, but is likely to be substantial.

Michael Penn

APP Nonresident Senior Fellow

Executive Director, Shingetsu Institute

Largest Japanese delegation to Iraq in 20 years

Koichi Takemasa, Japan State Secretary for Foreign Affairs (pictured), toured Iraq and Jordan mid-December to enhance the DPJ government's political and economic relations.

On the 20th, Takemasa attended the Second Japan-Iraq Business Forum, which was held at Baghdad Airport. A high-level delegation of Iraqi officials, led by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, greeted the 100-strong Japanese delegation, by far the largest Japanese business group to visit Iraq since the Persian Gulf Crisis of 1990.

Prime Minister al-Maliki said his country had become a constitutional democracy, and he called on Japanese firms to help with Iraq’s postwar reconstruction, saying the country presented a great business opportunity: “We want Japan to use its experience of rehabilitation from World War II.

“This forum represents a landmark in the history of investment conferences that we have held thus far… Your presence in Baghdad, at this particular time, is a very important message to terrorists who are still trying to disrupt the process of rebuilding and reconstruction through criminal bombings aimed at intimidating and preventing foreign companies from entering the Iraqi market.”

The forum included meetings between Iraqi and Japanese businesspeople and a seminar on doing business in Iraq. Thirty-one Japanese companies sent representatives.

Before heading to Jordan, Takemasa spent one evening at the Japanese Embassy compound in central Baghdad. He held separate talks with Iraqi Parliament Speaker Ayad al-Samarrai as well as the two Iraqi vice-presidents, Adel Abdul Mahdi and Tariq al-Hashimi.

After leaving Iraq on the 21st, Koichi Takemasa traveled by plane to Jordan. One of the main tasks of the visit was to meet Samir Rifai, the new Prime Minister and Defence Minister of Jordan. He also held meetings with Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh and Minister of Planning and International Cooperation Jafar Hassan, and visited the Baqaa Palestinian Refugee Camp.

The meeting with Jordan's Prime Minister Samir Rifai lasted about an hour. The Jordanian leader praised Japan's role in the peace process—especially the Corridor of Peace and Prosperity initiative, and celebrated the close relations that Jordan has traditionally enjoyed with Japan. Rifai added that Jordan was intent on implementing a number of mega-projects such as the Red-Dead Canal, a proposed railway project to link the Gulf region with Europe through Jordan and the kingdom’s nuclear power program. Takemasa responded that he prayed for the success of Jordanian economic reform plans and would strive to resolve the Palestinian issue.

It was the meeting with Minister of Planning and International Cooperation Jafar Hassan which attracted the most attention from the media. Hassan told reporters that Jordan and Japan were studying the possibility of cooperating on a number of development projects worth $104 million while noting that Japanese financial and technical assistance to the kingdom stood at $24.8 million last year. Another major topic was the issue of nuclear cooperation, with Hassan urging Japan to sign a more concrete nuclear agreement with Jordan.

At the Baqaa Refugee Camp, Takemasa visited one of the camp’s eight schools and met the four JICA volunteers working there. He also inspected the facilities of a medical clinic that had received some Japanese financial aid.

Michael Penn

APP, Nonresident Senior Fellow

Executive Director, Shingetsu Institute

First meeting of the Japan-Arab Economic Forum

The first meeting of the Japan-Arab Economic Forum was held in Tokyo from the evening of December 6th to the 8th. The event was attended by Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada, METI Minister Masayuki Naoshima, Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa, and scores of diplomats and businessmen.

The main objective of the Forum is “to strengthen mutual economic relations between Japan and Arab countries through cooperation in a wide range of fields such as trade, investment, energy, technology, and human resources development.” Media reports highlighted possible Japanese investment in the water development industry. METI Minister Naoshima told reporters, “Arab nations face a chronic problem of water shortages. We will hold intergovernmental dialogues to accelerate and smooth efforts to solve the problem.” The METI minister also pledged further cooperation in the fields of solar-electricity panels and water-desalination systems.

For his part, Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa added, “We are looking to develop this Japan-Arab Economic Forum to include all aspects of international cooperation at a time when we are facing the new challenges imposed by globalization and the global financial crisis as well as climate change.”

According to Kyodo News, Japan is the Arab countries’ third-biggest trading partner after the European Union and the United States. The trade volume between the two sides expanded to US$184 billion in 2008 from US$48 billion in 2003, while Japanese investment in Arab states stood at about US$3.1 billion in compared with around US$1 billion in 2004. A Japanese official stated, “The Arab countries have shifted their focus to how to attract investment from advanced and major developing economies like Japan and China after being damaged by the global economic crisis.”

One participant in the Forum told the Shingetsu Institute that Arab states may be beginning to “look east” in their economic policies because economic relations between Arab states and the United States have more or less reached their limit. The rise of China is concentrating Arab minds in the direction of East Asia, and this has certain benefits for Japan as well, should it decide to seize the opportunity.

Michael Penn
APP, Nonresident Senior Fellow
Executive Director, Shingetsu Institute

Japan examines Sudan and Mindanao policy

The main developments in Japanese-Islamic relations in the first week of December took place in regard to the Horn of Africa and the Mindanao peace process. Major preparations were also underway for the Japan-Arab Economic Forum of December 7th and 8th.

As for the Horn of Africa, the new DPJ government appeared to be formulating their policies toward this unstable region. There were comments by Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada and Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirofumi Hirano indicating that Japan might send a several-hundred-strong GSDF peacekeeping force to southern Sudan next spring, although Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa downplayed the suggestion.

Meanwhile, Defense Vice-Minister Kazuya Shimba departed Japan on the 7th for an extended tour of Djibouti—where Japan now possesses its first overseas military base—and Bahrain as part of an inspection of MSDF missions in the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden. Overall, Foreign Minister Okada, in particular, seems eager to have Japan participate more actively in southern Sudan, but Somalia policies have yet to depart from the lines laid down by the previous LDP administration.

The establishment of the International Contact Group (ICG) on the Mindanao peace process was formally declared on the 2nd with Japan as a key member. Peace talks between Manila and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) are scheduled to take place on the 8th and 9th in Kuala Lumpur. The ICG is intended to guarantee all agreements in the peace process of the two negotiating parties.

The MILF was particularly eager to see Japan as a member of the ICG due to the perception that they have played a fair-minded role in this dispute and have been a major contributor of crucial aid to the Bangsamoro people. It remains unclear how the massacre in the province of Maguindanao on November 23rd and the declaration of martial law on December 5th will affect the larger peace process.

Michael Penn
APP, Nonresident Senior Fellow
Executive Director, Shingetsu Institute