Meet Japan's Democrats

The votes have been counted, and unsurprisingly the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) has emerged victorious, becoming the first party other than the LDP to wield a majority in Japan's House of Representatives since the LDP was created in 1955.

But despite its victory, the DPJ is poorly understood even by Japanese. So it is worth asking, who are Japan's Democrats?

In this post, I will try to address some common misunderstandings about the DPJ, many of which will undoubtedly be repeated as Japan and the world consider the implications of Japan's historic change of government.

Origins: The DPJ is the successor to a party now known as the former DPJ. The former DPJ was launched in 1996 by members of the former Japan Socialist Party (JSP; now the Social Democratic Party of Japan) and Sakigake, one of the microparties that participated in the non-LDP coalition that held power from 1993-1994. Both parties had joined in coalition with the LDP in 1994, and the founders of the DPJ feared the electoral consequences of that decision. Among those founders were Hatoyama Yukio, a member of Sakigake who had been deputy chief cabinet secretary in the Hosokawa government, Yokomichi Takahiro, a onetime JSP Diet member who had served three terms as Hokkaido's governor before returning to the Diet as a DPJ member in 1996, and Kan Naoto, who at the time became well known for his service as health minister dealing with the AIDS-tainted blood scandal, as well as Hatoyama Kunio, Yukio's brother.

One thing that becomes apparent from looking at the party's basic principles is the similarity to the platform upon which the new DPJ was elected in 2009. It is also worth noting the similarities between this document and Hatoyama Yukio's recent essay in VOICE, including the inclusion of certain phrases ("bottom-up democracy of co-existence and self-reliance," "fraternity," etc.). As I noted when Hatoyama was elected DPJ leader in May, the former DPJ was very much a Hatoyama family affair, to the point of its founding depending on the Hatoyama family fortune.

But the party was transformed from a Hatoyama New Party to the party now set to govern Japan through several waves of new arrivals to the party. In 1998, the dissolution of Ozawa Ichiro's New Frontier Party led to the creation first of a handful of tiny parties plus Ozawa's Liberal Party, and then to the union of the former DPJ and the NFP successor parties with the exception of the Liberal Party. The party's principles at its founding in 1998 can be clearly recognized in the party's 2009 election manifesto: decentralization, administrative reform, budgetary reform, political reform in the interest of a more transparent and bottom-up democracy, a certain skepticism with neo-liberalism, a stress on a social safety net suited for an age marked by an aging, shrinking population, a foreign policy that stressed the UN, cooperation with the US in other areas (i.e., non-security), and closer ties with Asian countries, and a security policy that largely retained cold war constraints and sought more regional security multilateralism.

The DPJ was further transformed when the party merged with Ozawa Ichiro's Liberal Party, a move opposed vociferously by some DPJ members, most notably Edano Yukio. The most notable consequence of the merger, of course, was that it brought Ozawa into the party, which was subsequently reshaped by Ozawa, although the party went through three leaders, faced a disastrous defeat in 2005, and went through an embarrassing scandal in 2006 that nearly broke the reeling party.

Ozawa almost single-handedly transformed the DPJ into the party capable of driving the LDP from power. He selected candidates, trained them, honed the party's message to reach voters in the provinces, and then tirelessly traveled the country to take the DPJ's message to the people and lend his support to his candidates. Hatoyama may be the face of the victory and the DPJ's first prime minister, but the DPJ's victory is Ozawa's victory.

A divided party?: Given the manner in which the DPJ developed, it is common to look at the DPJ and see a divided party. After all, it has former DPJ members and former JSP members in its ranks.

But to look at those two extremes and assume an irreconcilably divided party is mistaken, not least because it ignores the enormous mass between the two.

The DPJ that went into the 2009 campaign had, between the upper and lower houses, sixteen former JSP members (two who left the party after it had become the SDPJ) and twenty former LDP members. Of the latter, most of these members left the LDP in 1993. Most of the former Socialists have been in the DPJ since the creation of the former DPJ in 1996. Do the years spent away from their former parties count for nothing? This question applies doubly so to leaders like Ozawa and Hatoyama. Ozawa may have once been a rising star, but why do his years in the wilderness count for nothing?

Often ignored in accounts of the DPJ are the 134 members (before Sunday) who have spent their entire careers within the DPJ, a number that will of course swell thanks to the DPJ's overwhelming victory. The point is that these party members are dedicated to the party's ideas as outlined above and as translated into policy form in the party's 2009 manifesto.

There will inevitably be rifts as the party fills in the details surrounding its policies once in power, but differences in opinion along these lines are normal.

Another manner in which the DPJ is more united, at least compared to the LDP, is in its internal structure. The DPJ does not have the sprawling policymaking organization that is the LDP's policy research council. It has been a considerably more top-down organization than the LDP and customarily has had collective leadership, starting with Hatoyama and Kan at the party's birth and continuing onward through to the Ozawa-Hatoyama-Kan troika and the party's Next Cabinet, which early in the DPJ's existence replaced the general council (which in the LDP exerts a veto over the cabinet). Successful administrative reform will depend on the DPJ's bringing this tradition of top-down, collective leadership into government.

Identical to the LDP?: Another common argument about the DPJ is that it is nothing more than a pale imitation of the LDP. There are a couple ways to address this argument.

First, if this is in fact the case, so what? In most if not all developed democracies, intense ideological divides have narrowed so that center-left and center-right parties have moved ever closer and now compete more on the basis of administrative competence and corruption than on profound clashes based on policy or conforming to class cleavages. Why should Japan be any different?

But while the DPJ and the LDP differed largely on questions of how to pay for programs that neither side questioned in principle, there is one area in which the two parties differed radically: administrative reform. The LDP has long talked about administrative reform, but has only haltingly followed through on its rhetoric. The DPJ, however, has made clear that its first and most important order of business is shifting the balance of power between politicians and bureaucrats in favor of politicians in the cabinet, especially when it comes to budgeting. If the DPJ delivers on its proposals — and given its mandate, it is hard to see how it will fail to make at least some progress — it will be in a position to make more substantial policy changes.

Left wing?: Others argue that far from being identical to the LDP, the DPJ is actually a radical left wing party. There is little evidence to support this argument. Indeed, it is barely worth addressing. No party led by Ozawa Ichiro for three years, and before that Maehara Seiji, merits the label left wing.

Muddled policy: There is, of course, some truth to this argument, especially as far as the party's economic growth strategy is concerned. Others in Washington argue that the DPJ's position on foreign policy is muddled. I would be more concerned about the former than the latter. As I wrote last week, the DPJ is more united on foreign policy questions than often assumed, and on the realignment of US forces, the foreign policy issue most likely to be taken up by the Hatoyama government early on, the party is almost completely in agreement in opposition to the 2006 roadmap.

But while there are many remaining questions about how the DPJ will get Japan's economy growing again and fix the government's finances — new bond issues? dollar reserves? tax reform? — the DPJ will answer these questions soon.

What we can be sure about is that the biggest pieces of the DPJ's manifesto — child allowances, income support for farmers, free public high schools, tollfree national expressways — will be assigned high priority by the new government. And on administrative reform, the party's position is clear: it will transform the balance of power within the government. The DPJ may make some tactical compromises as it pursues a new policymaking process, but it will make it a top priority.

There are unanswered questions about a DPJ government, one of the biggest being a triumphant Ozawa Ichiro's role in the new administration. But the party will enjoy a honeymoon and it has a huge majority with which to work. The Japanese public has certainly provided the DPJ with the perfect tool with which to implement its agenda.

The DPJ prepares for its first steps towards a new style of government

The general election may be another four days away, but the DPJ's position in the polls seems secure and so the party is acting like a "responsible party" and putting plans in motion for its transition into government.

I have already written of the names mentioned for the leading positions in a Hatoyama cabinet — but naming politicians to the leading cabinet positions as early as next week is but one of the party's plans for the first days after an electoral victory.

In order to hasten the formation of a cabinet, the party has reportedly already begun vetting some 200 politicians who could be apppointed to the cabinet, the new national strategy office, and the new administrative reform and decentralization council whose task will be to identify areas where the government can cut waste from the budget. The goal is to have the cabinet lineup set before the new Diet is convened to choose a new prime minister. As for the vetting process itself, it seems that it is focused mostly on the political suitability of prospective appointees: namely, the state of their political finances and whether they have any past or present indiscretions that might embarrass the government (women, money troubles, etc.). I am a bit dubious about the process itself — as Sankei reports, the DPJ, lacking the government resources that have been available to the LDP when forming cabinets, is basically conducting open-source investigations using newspapers and weeklies, as well as talk in a candidate's hometown to gather information. But at least it's a start, and Japanese journalists are remarkably well informed. (I hope and presume that they're talking to journalists and not just reading articles.)

But beyond laying the groundwork for quickly staffing up a Hatoyama government, DPJ leaders are trying to set the tone for the party's first months in office. Kan Naoto's remarks on foreign policy — discussed here — are for better or worse part of this trend. I am more impressed with the party's initial moves regarding preparations for administrative reform.

Plans for the national strategy office are being finalized. The party plans to staff the office with ten Diet members, and gave them the power to oversee not only the budgeting process, but foreign policy and administrative personnel decisions. The Diet members will be joined by ten outside experts, and the plan is ultimately to amend the National Government Organization Law to legitimate the office.

As for the administrative reform council, its membership will include Diet members, outside experts, and representatives from the National Governors' Association and six local groups. The council will have a role in the budgeting process, mostly by looking for ways to economize so that the DPJ might be able to afford its manifesto.

The DPJ, moreover, is considering plans for reorganizing the government's tax commission, mainly by scrapping its party tax commission. The government's tax commission has long existed alongside the LDP's tax commission, with the latter being the more important of the two. The DPJ's plan is to make the finance minister the chair, the internal affairs minister the vice chair, and to fill the commission with parliamentary secretaries responsible for taxation from ministries and agencies. This reform follows the same principles of the DPJ's other administrative reform plans: put politicians in a position to oversee and instruct the work of bureaucrats.

The bureaucrats themselves continue to brace for the likely arrival of their new DPJ overlords. The first skirmish will be over the second FY2009 supplementary budget, portions of which the DPJ has made clear it wants removed. In a speech in Fukuoka Tuesday, Fujii Hirohisa, the likely next finance minister, repeated the party's call to remove spending related to Prime Minister Aso Taro's so-called "anime palace" (AKA the "state-managed manga kissa") and other public works spending from the supplementary budget and replace it with unemployment benefits and other spending directed to the immediate needs of Japanese citizens.

It is a worthwhile question whether the DPJ can actually follow through on its desire to introduce a policymaking process centered on politicians in the cabinet. Indeed, it is the central question facing a likely DPJ government. Journalist Shiraishi Hitoshi, writing in the monthly magazine Foresight, looks into the party's manifesto for clues as to whether the DPJ will be able to succeed in reforming Japanese governance. Not unlike LDP reformists like Nakagawa Hidenao, Shiraishi sees a number of points on which the DPJ appears to have compromised previously espoused principles and thus constitute warning signs of the DPJ's going soft on the bureaucracy. Most notably, he cites the absence of a proposal for radical decentralization (either the creation of a state system or the outright elimination of the prefectural level of governance) and the absence of the party's earlier call to demand resignations from top ministry officials, which he argues will undermine the impact of more political appointees and the proposed dissolution of the administrative vice ministers' conference. He is also concerned that the party will not be able to deliver on its proposed 20% cut in administrative personnel expenses and that the party will end up working hand-in-hand with the finance ministry.

I think Shiraishi makes some fair points, but on the whole I am less worried. I have no doubt about the DPJ's desire to accomplish consequential administrative reform once in power. But revolutions are not won by zealots; they are won by the realists capable of making tactical compromises with the old guard in order to outlast their enemies. The DPJ not only has to reform Japanese governance — it has to last long enough in power to do so. Nothing would undermine a DPJ government quicker than to declare open war on ministry officials, which would likely result in an endless stream of leaks, sabotage, and foot-dragging on the part of Kasumigaseki, a unified Kasumigaseki, which would in turn undermine the DPJ's ability to deliver on some of its promises in advance of the 2010 upper house election. And as for joining hands with the finance ministry, the finance ministry may prove to be the DPJ's best friend in Kasumigaseki during the early days. The DPJ has no greater enemy than ministries like the ministry of agriculture, forestry, and fisheries, whose work has been deeply integrated in the LDP machine. It is these ministries that are especially threatened by the DPJ's plans to cut waste, and it is the finance ministry that is keen to cut waste. I have previously expressed my support for the DPJ's "realistic" turn in administrative reform, because I think it signals a recognition on the part of the party's leaders that the fight for administrative reform will be a long one and that they are better off dividing and ruling the administration than facing a Kasumigaseki united against the DPJ.

Fujii characterized it thusly: "The LDP is currently beneath Kasumigaseki. We will place Kasumigaseki under the DPJ. It is imperative to have a system that uses Kasumigaseki." The DPJ cannot govern alone. It needs to be able to use the talent and diligence of the national administration in order to realize its plans, imperative to remaining in power, which is turn imperative to reforming the government over the long term. Administrative reform still will not be easy, but at least the DPJ appears to recognize that it is a goal to be pursued steadily and patiently.

What I saw in Kagawa and Okayama

With less than a week until the Japanese people select a new House of Representatives and with it a new government, the only question under discussion by the media seems to be whether or not the DPJ will break the 300-seat threshold. Mainichi, for example, cited the possibility that the DPJ will reach 320 seats, which would give the DPJ not just a majority but a supermajority. (Although in Mainichi's article on the survey, it mentions in passing that information is lacking from 40% of single-member districts.)

As I mentioned previously, over the weekend I ventured out of Tokyo to try to get a better sense of the state of the campaign in the Shikoku and Chugoku regions. In the end I visited three districts: Kagawa's first and second districts, and Okayama's second district.

One thing I can say for certain after the weekend is that while I suggested that the LDP might hold Kagawa's second district, the DPJ is sure to win it next week, raising my prediction for the DPJ's total to 280.

Simply put, in both Kagawa and Okayama I saw well-organized, disciplined DPJ organizations that will have earned their victories on 30 August. It helps, of course, that the question under discussion is how well the DPJ will do, but that size of the DPJ's victory should not conceal the fact that the DPJ's campaigning abilities — at least in the districts I visited — are impressive. If the DPJ wins big, it won't simply be because of the LDP's mistakes.

I spent the most time in Kagawa's first district, where I attended speeches by LDP candidate Hirai Takuya and DPJ candidate Ogawa Junya back to back on Saturday afternoon.

Hirai's event was held at Kokenji temple in Takamatsu — an unusual location for a campaign speech, the result of links with Komeito (as confirmed by a staffer working at the event). It was a speech intended for longstanding supporters, not outreach to draw in new supporters. It was an old crowd: outside of volunteers (dispatched from companies supporting Hirai), the youngest in attendance could not have been much younger than fifty. Among the notables introducing Hirai was a Komeito member of the Kagawa prefectural assembly. He was joined by LDP politicians — a Takamatsu city assemblywoman and the head of the prefectural assembly — and the head of Hirai's koenkai.

The energy level in the room was low. Perhaps the word used most frequently by the speakers was "kibishi," referring to the candidate's prospects on 30 August. Hirai's speech itself focused mostly on contradictions in the DPJ's manifesto. The Komeito speaker reminded the audience of what Ozawa Ichiro said about the DPJ's ability to govern when he "resigned" in November 2007, when he asked, "The LDP's hopeless, but does the DPJ truly have the ability to wield political power?" Another speaker alluded to the specter of Yubari, the infamous town in Hokkaido that declared bankruptcy, suggesting that the DPJ's plans would result in a spate of Yubari-like bankruptcies. Hirai criticized the DPJ for the content of its manifesto, and suggested that the DPJ is all talk, no action. Very little was said about the LDP as a ruling party other than that the party has reflected on its shortcomings. Revealingly, the only flyer distributed by Hirai was one touting his own accomplishments and policy positions.

The focus instead was on Hirai and his relationship with his supporters in the district. He concluded his speech by telling the audience that it is not his seat, "but yours." He stressed that he was their advocate, and by extension the district's and region's representative in the National Diet.

Hirai's campaign clearly rests on a foundation of Komeito, JA, and other organizations: in addition to his speech Saturday afternoon, Hirai's Saturday schedule included meetings at JA offices and a fishing cooperative. There appears to be little attempt on Hirai's part to reach out to floating voters or DPJ voters: his pitch was about shoring up the base. Accordingly, there was little mention of Aso Taro or the past several years of LDP government (except to refer to posts held by Hirai) — the policy discussion focused largely on what the DPJ will or will not do. Hirai did not attempt to articulate a reason to give the LDP a new mandate except to argue that the LDP will be more effective at policy implementation.

The contrast with Ogawa Junya's campaign was striking. I saw Ogawa's campaign plant itself outside the parking lot of a busy Marunaka shopping center. His volunteers fanned out to ensure that all passersby received copies of the DPJ manifesto. Volunteers lined the street outside the shopping center holding posters up to passing cars. Meanwhile the demographic Ogawa was delivering his pitch to was completely different. Probably few places in Takamatsu have as many parents with children on a Saturday afternoon as this shopping center had. Ogawa's pitch very much intended for floating voters, for younger voters, for voters, who might, for example appreciate the DPJ's plan for child allowances. His talk focused largely on the contents of the DPJ's manifesto — no mention of Aso, Hirai, or the LDP whatsoever. At the conclusion of his speech, Ogawa and several volunteers mounted bikes in order to canvas the area — something that all the DPJ candidates I saw over the weekend are doing.

Because of the location, it was difficult to say precisely how many people were listening, as they were spread throughout the parking lot. Certainly not less than the number of attendees (fifty or so) at Hirai's event that afternoon. The Ogawa campaign was all noise and energy: younger (hard to do bicycle campaigning with an older staff), with a degree of esprit de corps that I did not see among Hirai's staff (not all of Ogawa's volunteers are dispatched from companies, it seems). It is also worth mentioning that Ogawa's emphasis was consistently on the party's message, not on his accomplishments or what he will personally do for the area.

I saw very much the same energy later that evening when I went to a music hall in Kagawa's second district where candidate Tamaki Yuichiro, a former finance ministry official who quit the ministry in 2005 to run for office, spurning the LDP to run as the DPJ candidate, was giving an address. In my predictions for Kagawa, I said Tamaki was in a tight race and would probably lose — but I may have underestimated him. Tamaki was introduced by Uematsu Emiko, the DPJ upper house member from Kagawa who won her seat in 2007 by defeating the LDP incumbent who had held the seat for thirty years; an SDPJ official; the granddaughter of Ohira Masayoshi, who came from Kagawa and is a distant relative of Tamaki; and finally, Fujii Hirohisa.

The connection with Ohira is important: it stresses that the DPJ is not simply about blind change. The DPJ represents a degree of continuity with the past, as Ozawa Ichiro has often said, "change so that things can remain the same." Fujii, for example, drew a distinction between the Showa LDP and the Heisei LDP, Ohira clearly being a leading figure of the former. The point is that while the DPJ's campaign is centered on its manifesto and "change," it is finding ways to tailor that message to the audience in a place like Kagawa. (See Tamaki's remarks here, for example.)

The policy content of Fujii's and Tamaki's speeches focused mostly on administrative reform, and contained nothing particularly different from the manifesto. But Tamaki clearly engaged the audience. And an eager group of young volunteers were waiting outside with Tamaki to greet attendees as they left. Tamaki's staff is packed with his thirty-something friends and younger volunteers.

On Sunday, I traveled to Okayama city, where in the second district the DPJ's Tsumura Keisuke faces field divided among the LDP, the PNP, and an independent postal rebel. Tsumura told me that he is confident that the three will divide the LDP vote amongst themselves, leaving Tsumura to win the district. I also learned that Tsumura has benefited from the support of trucking groups attracted by the DPJ's promise to make expressways toll free, unseating labor and the support groups of upper house member Eda Satsuki as his most important backers.

As for the Tsumura campaign operation, it was very similar to the Ogawa and Tamaki campaigns. The same emphasis on the manifesto. The same emphasis on youthful vitality; his staff wear t-shirts that state, in large letters, "WAKAI CHIKARA" (Young power) and they too campaign on bicycle. Meanwhile I found a sign on the wall of the office of particularly interest. It contained guidelines for the campaign, one of which was "no badmouthing of the LDP and other candidates." I did not have a chance to ask whether these guidelines are DPJ policy or self-imposed rules, but all three DPJ candidates I saw largely conformed with this rule. The DPJ, in stark contrast with the LDP, believes that it will win by being relentlessly upbeat and youthful.

I think that the most important lesson learned on this trip in the value of the DPJ's manifesto. Discussion in the national media and among us bloggers often focuses on whether or not the DPJ can deliver on the contents of its manifesto. But such discussion misses the importance of the role played by the manifesto in unifying DPJ candidates across the country. The DPJ has built a brand, in contrast to the LDP, in which the party's message differs from district to district depending on the candidate's circumstances. While to a certain extent Aso has tried to impose a conservative brand on the LDP in his pronouncements, the message delivered by LDP candidates to voters is relentlessly local. There was little difference between the three DPJ campaigns I saw over the weekend. I suspect much of the credit for this discipline across district lines goes to Ozawa.

The stress placed upon the manifesto by DPJ candidates could have several consequences for the DPJ after the general election. First, it suggests that the party's candidates may be increasingly loyal to a policy message, not, as some pundits fear, to Ozawa. Having been elected by relentlessly touting the manifesto, DPJ politicians will likely be reluctant to cast elements of the manifesto overboard should the DPJ take power. The same will go for the party leadership: despite the public's having low expectations for the DPJ actually being able to deliver on its proposals, the DPJ leadership will be able to abandon proposals only with considerable effort. Similarly, as in the case of Tsumura and the shipping companies, the DPJ may find it hard to abandon portions of the manifesto, because having attracted new supporters the DPJ may be pressured by its own members to stick to the manifesto lest the party be punished by new backers in the next election. Accordingly, when Nagatsuma Akira says that the manifesto should be posted in every bureau if the DPJ wins, he is not just speaking symbolically: until the next election the manifesto is not only how it wants voters to see the party, but how the DPJ's members see the party itself.

This Hatoyama's for turning?

As the campaign has progressed, the DPJ has shown that it is willing to be flexible as far as its manifesto is concerned. While it has taken the work of building a manifesto that is the result of a consensus within the party — and which a DPJ government will give due consideration when formulating policy — the DPJ has adjusted its program in response to criticism.

Perhaps it has been a bit too willing to adjust.

On Tuesday, the party issued several amendments to its manifesto, which DPJ policy chief Naoshima Masayuki said were not policy changes, but "clarifications." The amendments — available here — largely conform with Naoshima's explanation. The party did not fill the vacuum in the manifesto as far as future of the Japanese economy is concerned, but now stresses that its various spending programs (child allowances, free high school, free highways, lifting the "temporary" gasoline surcharge) are intended to stimulate domestic consumption and so begin the long-term transformation of the Japanese economy. (Okada Katsuya stressed the importance of domestic consumption for growth in a meeting with Keidanren last week.) While I don't think these measures go far enough, they're at least a start, and the party has the right idea in mind.

What bothers me is the party's decision to soften its stance on an FTA with the US. Okada tried to spin the change as cosmetic; it changed the language from "conclude" to "begin" negotiations in recognition of the fact that negotiations depend on one's partner. The DPJ isn't in a position to promise the conclusion of an FTA. But if the edit didn't "change anything fundamental," why bother with editing the proposal? The reality is that by revising the proposal the DPJ gutted it, because it added a clause suggesting that an FTA won't happen unless domestic agricultural production can be safeguarded, with an eye towards increasing Japan's rate of self-sufficiency and the security and safety of the food supply. As Ozawa Ichiro argued in opposition to the revision, the change is solely about the power of Japan Agriculture (JA), the association of agricultural cooperatives. In other words, JA raised a fuss, and the DPJ altered its position accordingly. If there is one benefit to the DPJ's taking power, it should be a degree of independence from the interest groups that have traditionally sustained LDP rule. Ozawa further stressed that there is nothing contradictory between the party's proposal for income support for farmers and its proposal for an FTA with the US. He resisted the idea that free trade with the US will destroy Japanese agriculture, arguing that consumers care about more than price — meaning that an FTA with the US would mean more options for Japanese consumers, but not necessarily doom for Japanese farmers, who in any case would be supported by the DPJ's system that would kick in should the market price fall below production costs.

I can understand why the DPJ, afraid of the LDP's exploiting the FTA proposal to sow doubts among rural voters, would soften this position, but as Ozawa has shown, the original position is not indefensible. And public opinion polls suggest — see MTC's analysis here — that there is something more at work in rural Japan than approval or disapproval of party policies. Voters may be interested in "policy," but that can mean a lot of things, and by panicking the DPJ made its manifesto that much worse. The bottom seems to have fallen out of the LDP's traditional support, of which JA was a critical part. It may be the case that the DPJ is attributing power to the JA that it no longer has. By adding the line about not concluding a deal prejudicial to Japanese agriculture (or is that Japanese Agriculture), the DPJ will make it that much harder to begin negotiations in the first place. It should have limited its edits to "beginning negotiations" with the US, or changed nothing at all.

(As an aside, Ozawa's criticism of the change is another reminder of the Ozawa problem. The problem isn't that he disagrees with the changes — it is unreasonable to expect unanimity in any party — but that should Ozawa not join a DPJ-led cabinet and instead remain as a party leader, his comments about the cabinet's policy decisions will have the effect of widening the gap between cabinet and ruling party, undermining the DPJ's aim of creating transparent and accountable government. There will inevitably be points of disagreement: Ozawa simply has too many ideas about how things should be for there not to be. The point is that his disagreements should be aired as part of the policy process within the cabinet, not in the course of negotiations between cabinet and ruling party that play out in part in back rooms in Nagata-cho, in part on the pages of the nation's newspapers.)

But the agriculture dispute is a comparatively minor problem. I am more bothered by Hatoyama's changing position on the three non-nuclear principles. In a comparatively short period of time, Hatoyama has gone from publicly considering a revision of the non-nuclear principles to proposing that they be written into law. Speaking in Nagasaki to a group of atomic bomb survivors, Hatoyama suggested that in consideration of Japan's status as the only country attacked with nuclear weapons the non-nuclear principles should be written into law. Of course, five days earlier Hatoyama said precisely the opposite: that if the principles were written into law, there is a danger the law could be changed. Hatoyama muddied his position further Tuesday at a press conference for foreign journalists: "To the extent that a DPJ government continues, Japan will forever not possess nuclear weapons. We will stick to the three non-nuclear principles. I think that the three non-nuclear principles are national policy stronger than law." But will the party make the principles into law? "We want to investigate..."

In other words, Hatoyama has completely side-stepped the issue of what to do about the non-nuclear principles now that the "secret" treaty between the US and Japan allowing the introduction of US nukes into Japan is no longer secret.

This may be less a DPJ problem that a Hatoyama problem. Hatoyama is clearly prone to "foot in mouth" disease, and, being a weak leader, is susceptible from pressure from others, in this case the Social Democrats.

So what will the DPJ actually do about the non-nuclear principles? Well, before next year's upper house election, nothing. Like the incumbent government, it will continue to pretend that the three non-nuclear principles are completely sacrosanct, that the Japanese government has no knowledge of the introduction of US nuclear weapons into Japan. It can hardly do otherwise. It will not waste political capital on an issue that is important for the Social Democrats but risks dividing the DPJ. It will not request that the US remove nuclear weapons from its ships before entering Japanese harbors.

This episode highlights my two greatest concerns about a DPJ government: Hatoyama as prime minister and the Social Democrats as a coalition partner. Hopefully the DPJ can find ways to manage both.

I suppose it's too late to bring back Ozawa. Perhaps a Hatoyama-Ozawa cabinet wouldn't be so bad after all.

The DPJ needs to hone its message

By any measure, the DPJ enjoys a considerable advantage over the LDP with less than two weeks until the campaign officially begins on 18 August. It is ahead in polls, Hatoyama Yukio, its leader, is uniformly preferred to Prime Minister Aso Taro, and there is a widespread feeling that the public is disgusted enough by LDP rule that it is already to throw the bums out (finally!) and put the DPJ in power in its place.

But despite all that, the DPJ has not sewn up the general election. While I think Nakagawa Hidenao's argument that the DPJ has already peaked in public opinion polls is a bit of wishful thinking on his part, there are an awful lot of undecided voters whose decisions over the next few weeks will determine which way the wind blows on 30 August.

But beyond the existence of undecided voters, the DPJ could lose the general election simply because it has been generally poor at political communications. This is not a new problem. (Remember this?) The DPJ has had so much help from the LDP over the past several years that it has had to do relatively little communicating of its own in order to put itself in a position to win this month. The party has done a decent enough job at devising a realistic manifesto that, whatever its shortcomings, does show that the DPJ is serious about governing. But the manifesto won't sell itself. And it won't counter the LDP's charge that the DPJ cannot be trusted with power because it won't defend Japan.

Watch this video of Aso speaking outside Sakuragicho station in Yokohama Tuesday:



From about the eight-minute mark, the prime minister goes into a long discourse on the importance of defending that which must be defended, on the importance of a forthright national security policy in the face of a nuclear North Korea and the contrast between the DPJ and LDP on this front. While I think Aso's claim that the general election should be a choice based on policy is a bit silly (elections are always about more than just policy), Aso is working hard to redefine this election campaign along terms more friendly to the DPJ. "Defend what should be protected." Repeated enough, this message could sink in among the public and make the public think twice about turning over power to an untested DPJ.

Contrast Aso's remarks in Yokohama with Hatoyama Yukio's remarks Tuesday next door in Kamakura.



While Hatoyama does address Aso's leadership deficiencies, at times it seems as if he's campaigning against the bureaucracy instead of the LDP. His stump speech is a bit all over the place. He begins getting to the kind of message the DPJ needs to deliver about eight minutes in when he asks why Japan has become a world leader in suicides among its young people. But then he starts talking about Aso's anime "palace," which, while a bit humorous, is a bit off message. Hatoyama and his party need to be angry. They need to meet the LDP's talk of the DPJ as an irresponsible party with anger at what Japan has become under LDP rule. They need to tap that sense of anger which is clearly abroad among the public. The message needs to be focused on the LDP. It shouldn't veer off into attacks on the bureaucracy or this or that instance of wasteful spending. It must answer the LDP's description of the DPJ as dangerous with a message that stresses the danger of returning the LDP to power again.

For the moment, I think the LDP is controlling the campaign narrative. Messages like Yosano Kaoru's claim that for the DPJ to deliver on its manifesto it will have to raise the consumption tax to 25% may, regardless of their truth, prove effective at hammering home the dangers of electing the DPJ. Repeated enough, that figure could prove devastating for the DPJ, which is why it must answer it now, before it sticks.

Meanwhile, the DPJ has clearly mishandled the flap over a US-Japan FTA. At the first sign of criticism, it folded: it has announced that it will revise the manifesto to clarify that agriculture will be excluded from negotiations, and it will soften the language to "conclude an FTA" to "promote negotiations for an FTA." In revising its position that DPJ will stress that the income support system will take priority over FTA negotiations. Of course, by doing so, the DPJ's position is now incoherent. As Sasayama Tatsuo suggests, if agriculture were excluded from negotiations, why would the US bother with FTA negotiations?

It's possible that the DPJ could have sold rural voters on the idea of an FTA packed with comprehensive support, if it had explained itself properly. But by sneaking the proposal into the manifesto with little fanfare, the DPJ gave its critics an opportunity to define the party's position. Now it has given a gift to LDP candidates across the country, especially in rural areas in Chugoku, Shikoku, and Kyushu, where the DPJ needs to do better than it ever has done before: the LDP can wave the original manifesto before voters as evidence of the DPJ's desires to destroy Japanese agriculture. It may not be true, but as with Yosano's line about the consumption tax rate, repeat it enough times and enough people may eventually believe it. By vacillating and not defending its own positions, the party looks squishy and weak, and so ends up making mistakes for fear of making mistakes.

The time to answer the LDP's and its allies' criticism is immediately: if the DPJ believes in its manifesto, then it should defend it when attacked. As of now, the LDP, desperate to retain power, appears to have more fight in it than the DPJ. There is plenty of time for the polls to turn.

The DPJ unveils its manifesto (part two)

This post continues the analysis of the DPJ's 2009 general election manifesto, which I began in this post.

Child care and education: The centerpiece of the DPJ's child care program is obviously its child allowance plan, amounting to 26,000 yen per month per child until the end of middle school. The party plans to provide half this amount during the 2010 fiscal year, and the total amount in subsequent fiscal years. It will further make public high schools free, subsidize attendance at private high schools, and make more scholarships available for students wanting to attend university.

It is hard to object to this portion of the DPJ's spending program, in that it could provide a welcome boost for younger parents and, who knows, might even have some salutary effect on the national birth rate. The question, of course, is, as with much of the DPJ agenda, whether the party will be able to cut enough elsewhere to pay for this program.

Pensions and health care: this portion of the party's manifesto is relatively unchanged from 2007. As before, the party wants to digitize pensions records, drastically shorten the period for pensions payments to be fully restored, and issue "pensions passbooks" that will enable pensioners to keep track of their own records. As for the structure of the pensions system, it wants to prevent the diversion of pensions funds (in other words, a "lock-box" for social security funds), and, more significantly, proposes to write a unified pensions system into law by 2013, based on an "earnings-related" pensions payment combined with a minimum pension drawn from consumption tax revenue that adjusts depending on the income-based pension.

On health care, the other major concern of many Japanese voters, the DPJ's central plank is aimed at the eldercare system introduced by the Fukuda government in 2008. As before, the DPJ wants to revert to the old system; as MTC summarized during last year's debate, the DPJ position is "all Japanese are equal, ergo, all Japanese should all have the same health insurance system." In this instance, the DPJ offers some promise of reform, but it is vague and lacks a specific shape and schedule: the party promises to move "gradually" towards a system that unifies employee health insurance and national insurance, which it hopes will eventually be concentrated in some sort of regional insurance system. The reality is that having been implemented, it may be impossible to undo the eldercare system without considerable disruption. The party also laments the state of medical care in parts of rural Japan, especially the shortage of doctors, and pledges to review the provision of "emergency care, obstetrics, infant care, surgery, and the like" in Japan's regions. In short, on health care the party doesn't offer much more than stopgap measures and a promise that one day that health care system will be overhauled.

Regionalization: Regionalization has been strongly emphasized by Hatoyama since he became party leader earlier this year and plans for decentralization are threaded throughout the party's manifesto. It is, after all, closely intertwined with the party's administrative reform plans. As the party notes in proposal no. 27, "Dismantling and reorganizing Kasumigaseki [metonym for the Japanese bureaucracy], and establishing regional sovereignty." The goal, the party writes, is to reverse the centralization that has prevailed since the Meiji Restoration, effectively undoing the work of Okubo Toshimichi, Aso Taro's great-great-grandfather and one of Ozawa Ichiro's heroes. Services should be provided by local governments and the relationship between the central government and local governments should be "equal and cooperative."

Central to the party's plan to decentralize the government is to change the system whereby money is dispensed from Tokyo to the prefectures. The DPJ will convene an "administrative renovation council" that will transfer power and funding for administrative works and projects to localities. More significantly, it proposes to end the conditional ("himotsuki") subsidy system that leads localities to request funds for public works projects that serve little purpose. (This system is the "H" in DPJ reformist Nagatsuma Akira's HAT-KZ acronym of the problems with the LDP system.) Instead the DPJ proposes to distribute funds to localities to use as they see fit, a plan which conceivably benefits the DPJ politically seeing as how it is vastly outnumbered by the LDP in local governments nationwide. Why not leave it to local governments to decide how to spend the money, instead of handing the money over to some local LDP baron to spend on project that benefits one of his backers and no one else? At the same time, however, the DPJ also promises to review the petitions from local governments to determine whether the locality requires the desired funds — although funds for education and social security will be preserved.

The DPJ also promises to abolish the central government's local offices around the country in the name of what the European Union calls subsidiarity — the principle that the "central authority should have a subsidiary function, performing only those tasks which cannot be performed effectively at a more immediate or local level" — but it appears that the DPJ's rhetoric about regional sovereignty is not matched by the substance of its proposals. There is considerable wisdom in those proposals, but not by any stretch of the imagination will a DPJ-led government transfer substantial power from the center to the periphery. The central government will still be providing considerable financial support to localities, even if the localities will have a bit more discretion over how funds are spent. But there is no talk of aggregating prefectures into states or other radical proposals floating around the political system for radical decentralization, this despite a request from Kanagawa Governor Matsuzawa Shigefumi, a former DPJ Diet member, to include a plan for a state system in the manifesto.

Accordingly, the remainder of the section on regionalization is rounded out with proposals to revitalize regional economies that hinge on decisions made at the national level. This section includes the DPJ's plan to scrap the gasoline tax surcharge (and eventually turn automotive taxes into a climate change tax), its plan to make national expressways free of charge, and the party's plan for 1.4 trillion yen in direct income supports for farmers to encourage, the manifesto notes, "scale, quality, environmental protection, and switching crops from the staple crop rice." As Jun Okumura has previously argued, this plan has perhaps been unfairly criticized — and it might be the most politically palatable plan to manage the transition from small-scale farming to corporate farming as small farmers retire and pass on. Finally, this section includes a proposal on the postal system, the "opaque management" of which the party argues has had a deleterious effect on regional economies. Accordingly, the DPJ proposes to "review" — that word again — the privatization process to ensure equality of service across Japan. It also promises to pass a bill freezing the sale of shares in the postal successor companies as soon as possible.

It is not quite clear how far the DPJ intends to go in reversing the Koizumi government's postal privatization plan. It seems to me that postal reform is another area in which a full-out retreat would be worse for the country and more time consuming for a DPJ government than a cursory review that examines how to ensure more service in rural areas without reverting to the pre-reform status quo. On the other hand, if the People's New Party is a member of a coalition government, the DPJ would undoubtedly be pressured to give more than a cursory review.

Employment and the economy: This section lacks the unifying theme that the DPJ attempted to introduce in other sections. Instead there is a grab bag of proposals, some of which are clearly intended to poach traditional LDP supporters (i.e., small- and medium-sized enterprises). There is a corporate tax for SMEs, from 18% to 11% and "SME charter" that will include provisions related to "the development of the next generation's human resources," the "maintenance of a fair market environment," and "the harmonization of SME financing." The DPJ promises support to SMEs to enable the smooth implementation of the DPJ's mooted minimum wage hike. It will pass a law to prevent the "bullying" of SMEs by large companies. It will revive the special credit guarantee program for SMEs. And so on and so forth. This portion on SMEs may be one of the most dismaying in the manifesto if only because it is so nakedly populist and opportunistic, little more than pandering to SMEs for their votes without suggesting how a DPJ government might create an environment in which SMEs can survive without a raft of measures from the government.

After dealing with the SMEs, the manifesto then proposes raising the minimum wage to a national minimum of 800 yen/hour, with an eye to raising the national average to 1000 yen/hour.

The last portion of this section concerns the environment and energy. As reported elsewhere, the DPJ has pledged to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 25% by 2025 — and to do so will introduce a cap and trade system, and possibly a "climate change tax" on top of it. Beyond these proposals, there are the usual plans to promote the development and use of green energy for the sake of both energy independence and emissions reductions.

Without question this section is the most disappointing in the manifesto. Nothing about structural reform whatsoever. Nothing about opening the Japanese economy to more foreign investment, more foreign visitors, and yes, perhaps more foreign workers. And no indication that the DPJ will be taking power in the midst of a recession if it wins next month. Based on the manifesto, it appears that the DPJ is unaware that one of the major tasks facing the Japanese government is to manage the transition from life as a manufacturing-centered economy exporting goods to American consumers to an economy that will have to take more from the world and become increasingly centered on providing services of one form or another. In other words, at least on this front, the DPJ seems to be hoping that the economy will simply sort itself out one way or another. This won't do. (I know from conversations with DPJ Diet members that they are aware that this is the party's blindspot — but they have done little to fix it.)

Consumer rights and human rights: This section is, along with the foreign policy section (see below) the shortest in the manifesto and it offers exactly what the section header suggests. The DPJ will strengthen consumer protection services and provide greater transparency regarding products, strengthen the disaster relief system (the theme of this section seems to be safety rather than rights per se), and create an external bureau of the cabinet office to deal with human rights violations (no, no more specification than that).

Foreign policy: Despite being the focus of considerable discussion in the weeks leading up to the release of the manifesto, the foreign policy section is remarkable mostly for its innocuousness. In part this is simply because the agenda has changed. In the DPJ's 2007 upper house election manifesto, for example, foreign policy proposal number one called for the withdrawal of the JSDF from Iraq, which has since been effected. The result is a vague proposal for "building a close, equal US-Japan alliance relationship," in which Japan plays a positive role. Interestingly, it includes a call for an FTA with the US that includes both trade and investment liberalization, although it may simply be the case that, given the obstacles in both countries facing a US-Japan FTA, including this promise costs the DPJ nothing and wins the party some esteem in the US. As noted in the press, the DPJ has also softened the language regarding the Status of Forces Agreement and the realignment of US Forces in Japan. In other words, these are boxes that can be checked simply be holding meetings with the US without necessarily delivering radical change. Given that the 2007 manifesto basically lambasted the LDP for ignoring the public in its bilateral realignment plans, this minimal pledge is a major change.

The manifesto's position on Asia policy, while not a departure from previous DPJ documents, suggests that the recent trend in Japan's Asia policy will continue: more EPAs and FTAs in the region, more cooperation with South Korea and China, and more regional multilateralism across the board, with very little in terms of specifics (APEC versus EAS, security multilateralism?, US in or on the sidelines, etc.). The rhetoric that has characterized earlier DPJ discussions of East Asia has been pared back; cooperation in East Asia is treated matter-of-factly than before. Its position on North Korea is indistinguishable from the mainstream LDP position: the DPJ condemns recent North Korean actions and will refuse to recognize North Korea as a nuclear power, will cooperate with the five parties to check North Korea's missile and WMD programs, will support maritime cargo inspections, and believes that it's imperative to bring the abductees home. (No word on how it intends to achieve the latter.) Regarding international roles for the JSDF, the DPJ says it will contribute to peacekeeping operations in a manner consistent with democratic rule, and it will "execute appropriate measures" for dealing with piracy, appropriate presumably meaning whatever compromise the DPJ can wrest from its likely coalition partners. Finally, it wants to take a lead in the process of reviewing the NPT and aspires to de-nuclearize Northeast Asia, proposals that should presumably be looked upon somewhat favorably by the Obama administration.

Constitution revision: Constitution revision does not get a section of its own, but is appended after the list of fifty-five policy proposals. Perhaps this is appropriate, because not surprisingly the DPJ does not actually have a proposal for constitution revision. Instead, it calls for a public discussion of what form the constitution should take and suggests that the DPJ's major principles are "popular sovereignty," "respect for fundamental human rights," and "pacifism" — whatever those mean. The DPJ is sending a clear statement by barring off constitution revision in its manifesto: the DPJ will have nothing to do with it so long as it is busy with more important matters.

And so concludes my review of the DPJ's 2009 general election manifesto. I think I've made clear that I certainly don't agree with all of it, that there are portions of it that are overly vague, crassly populist, inappropriately backwards looking, and so on. However, I do think that the DPJ plan is a step in the right direction, especially given the attention the party pays to administrative reform. That, not the various spending programs, is the heart and soul of this manifesto. Perhaps it is best to think of the spending programs as sweeteners to keep the public supportive while the party sets about the hard task of changing how Japan is governed. That's not to say that the DPJ isn't sincere in its support for its various programs, but rather that programs like its farm subsidies or child allowances have little to do with transforming Japanese governance and much to do with ensuring that the DPJ gets enough time to building a more Westminster-like system.

And I certainly think that Curzon at Coming Anarchy has it exactly wrong — or, if not wrong, then he misses the point. Yes, the DPJ will not be delivering drastic change on foreign policy, but then again, neither will the LDP if it wins. Regardless of who governs Japan, Japan's domestic circumstances and the shifting balance of power in the region mean that Japan is becoming a regional middle power whether by design or by default. The DPJ's humble proposals are not too great a departure from the position of Fukuda Yasuo, which I rather admired. But if we step back from the proposals in the section entitled "foreign policy" and look at the manifesto holistically, one could argue that this manifesto is entirely about Japan's position in the world, in that a confident, active Japanese foreign policy is simply unsustainable until the government makes significant progress at tackling the problems at home that plague the Japanese people, problems that grew ever worse while the LDP was busy "redefining" the alliance and building a beautiful country. If the DPJ lacks a clearly articulated foreign policy, blame the LDP for leaving it with such a burdensome domestic agenda that it has little choice but to preserve the status quo.

Perhaps I'm a DPJ apologist. But I would prefer to think of it as hoping for the best, without ignoring the party's shortcomings. Simply put, Japan needs change. Just look at how the LDP is campaigning. It still has no manifesto of its own. Its leaders' attacks revolve entirely around questioning whether the DPJ can deliver on its supposedly pie-in-the-sky promises. Its case for reelection is entirely negative — "Those guys will make Japan worse" — because it seems that even the LDP's leaders know that they don't have a positive case to make for their party. One party is offering a mostly articulated agenda and shows that it clearly appreciates how Japan has been misgoverned up until this point. The other party is offering...? It's entirely possible that the DPJ will fail. The obstacles are surely great enough. But I would rather identify how the DPJ might be able to succeed instead of throwing my hands in the air and declaring that Japan is doomed to bad government forever.

If that makes me an apologist, so be it.

The emerging realism of the DPJ

As the general election approaches, there are signs that a new realism is afoot in the DPJ.

Mainichi reports today that the DPJ is prepared to remove the party's opposition to the MSDF's participation in the Indian Ocean refueling mission in support of coalition activities in Afghanistan, at least until the expiration of the current law. The manifesto, due to be released at month's end, will also include a call for cooperation with the US on reconstruction assistance in Afghanistan. This change accompanies a broader shift on the alliance, as the DPJ plans to soften the language in the manifesto concerning the realignment of US forces in Japan. The DPJ has not completely abandoned its concerns about the current plan for the realignment of US forces, especially Japan's financial contributions to the move to Guam — it is concerned with how Japan's money will be spent, if not with the Japanese contribution in general — but the party is clearly shifting its position on foreign policy.

There are other signs. Earlier this week Party President Hatoyama Yukio suggested that, in response to the confirmation of the existence of a secret treaty between the US and Japan permitting the "introduction" of US nuclear weapons, a DPJ government would be open to negotiating with the US to revise the three non-nuclear principles.

I have previously written of the party's shift on administrative reform, with Kan Naoto's stressing that the DPJ recognizes the talents and usefulness of the bureaucracy and will do more than just attack the administrative service. The party is beginning to make pieces of its 300-day plan public, including a plan to create a national strategy office to bolster the power of the cabinet. A similar realism has been at work in the more visible part of the DPJ program, the various spending programs included in the party's manifesto. After considerable debate about how the party will pay for the promises in the manifesto — including a 26,000 yen/month child allowance, ending fees for public high schools, its 1 trillion yen for direct subsidies to farmers — the party trimmed 4 trillion yen in new spending, from a total of 20 trillion yen, and clarified how the party proposes to pay for its new programs. In the course of clarifying how it will pay for its new programs, it has clarified the timing for their implementation. The debate over the manifesto included a debate between Hatoyama and Okada Katsuya, the secretary-general, over whether to include a promise to eliminate the gasoline tax surcharge from 2010, which Okada opposed due to what he sees as the illogic of eliminating the tax during a recession. But it is encouraging that the DPJ had this debate in the first place: these are appropriate debates for a presumptive government party to be having, and to have them without tearing the party to pieces.

The party is not without its problems on the policy front. For example, Sato Atushi, the president of the Tokyo Stock Exchange, aired concerns Thursday about DPJ plans for stricter financial regulation. Yamasaki Hajime, writing in Shukan Diamond, is concerned about DPJ-SDPJ plans for raising the minimum wage to 1000 yen and restricting the use of non-regular employees. On foreign policy it is not entirely clear the extent to which Hatoyama and Okada are bringing the rest of the party along on the shift on the alliance and the three non-nuclear principles. I suspect that the former is less controversial than the latter. The problem may be less the DPJ, however, than the Social Democrats, the presumptive DPJ coalition partner, which quickly criticized Hatoyama for daring to undermine the three non-nuclear principles. Indeed, this episode reveals the problem with the DPJ's new realism: the more the DPJ softens its more controversial positions, the greater the distance between the DPJ and the SDPJ. The SDPJ has released its memo, and the differences are obvious. While the DPJ has softened its stance on the US-Japan status of forces agreement and the realignment roadmap, the SDPJ wants complete revision of both and is absolutely opposed to a permanent dispatch law or any changes to the "brakes" on Japanese security policy.

A coalition with the SDPJ will be a problem for a more realistic DPJ, but just how much of a problem will depend on whether the DPJ wins an outright majority in the general election or whether it will require Socialist votes in both houses. Regardless of the outcome, however, the 2010 upper house election will be important as the means for the DPJ to free itself of the Socialists. As a result, a DPJ government would most likely focus little attention on foreign policy issues during the year leading up to the upper house election. Foreign policy "triumphs" would do little to help the DPJ win in 2010 and could undermine coalition cooperation when it is needed to pass other legislation more useful for winning elections. The SDPJ may have a price at which it would drop its opposition to some measure or another, but that price may be more than the DPJ would be willing to pay on a foreign policy issue. Incidentally, it also bears noting that — nuclear policy aside — the DPJ's shifts on the alliance are shifts that free the DPJ from having to act instead of committing the DPJ to certain policy approaches. It will be in a better position to do nothing (or nothing more than rhetorical actions, requesting negotiations with the US on Guam, for example) and claim that it is living up to its manifesto. Hardly sounds like a tsunami to me.

One area, however, in which the DPJ may be making a disastrous mistake is in having Ozawa Ichiro and Tanaka Yasuo, former Nagano governor, upper house member and leader of DPJ partner New Party Japan, run against Ota Akihiro, Komeitō president, and Fuyushiba Tetsuzo, a prominent Komeitō official and former cabinet minister. Hatoyama indicated that the DPJ is close to concluding a plan that would have Ozawa run in Tokyo's 12th district against Ota and Tanaka run in Hyogo's 8th district against Fuyushiba. That the DPJ is approving this plan is presumably a sign of the party's confidence regarding the election, because clearly the party feels that Ozawa can safely run for a new district while simultaneously campaigning around the country on behalf of DPJ candidates. But whether or not Ozawa and Tanaka win their seats, this decision will likely make it more difficult for the DPJ and Komeitō to conclude a post-election rapprochement. Given the widening gap with the SDPJ, the DPJ may find Komeitō a useful partner, if not as a formal coalition partner than at least as a silent coalition partner. The gap between the consensus DPJ position on foreign policy and the Komeitō position isn't all that great. But sending Ozawa — whose star-crossed history with Komeitō has poisoned the DPJ's relationship with the party — into battle against Komeitō's president could be disastrous for post-election efforts to build a working relationship. I don't expect a rapprochement to happen quickly in any event, but this decision is one more obstacle that could stand in the way of a relationship that could be an important one for a governing Japan.

Nevertheless, the point is that as the general election approaches and as the DPJ looks increasingly certain to take power, the party is moderating a number of policies that have been sources for criticism in the past. The DPJ is not a radical party — it is interesting in governing well, not in implementing a radical ideological program. Hence its emphasis on creating a Westminster system: its administrative reforms would be a radical departure from LDP rule, but in the name of creating orderly and functioning government.