The lessons of 2008

I have already written one retrospective essay on 2008 in Japanese politics, but I wanted to look back in more detail at this year's events and crystallize the year into a handful of lessons.

As 2008 enters its final days, what have we learned about the state of the Japanese political system?

First, and most importantly, the LDP cannot govern itself, let alone Japan. The dominant theme in Japanese politics since the 2007 upper house election was been Japan's "twisted" Diet, with the LDP-Komeito coalition's controlling the lower house (and therefore the government) and the opposition DPJ's controlling the upper house. The DPJ has not hesitated in using its control of the upper chamber to stymie, delay, or complicate the coalition government's agenda — the signature battle being the fight over Fukui Toshihiko's successor as president of the Bank of Japan during the 2008 ordinary session of the Diet — but Prime Ministers Fukuda Yasuo and Aso Taro may have been more hampered by divisions within the LDP and between the LDP and Komeito. Thanks to the government's supermajority in the lower house, the government has the ability to get its way on any issue but for matters like appointments requiring the approval of both houses (hence the BOJ fight). While the coalition government has been reluctant to use the supermajority for fear of public disapproval, would the government have to fear public backlash if the DPJ stood in the way of a government proposal that had broad public approval?

The problem has been that the governing parties have been unable to draft proposals that have broad public approval.

Not for want of good intentions: at least under Mr. Fukuda, Japan had a prime minister who was acutely aware of the colossal challenge facing his country — and that was before the global financial crisis consumed Japan. (See this post on Mr. Fukuda's speech opening the ordinary session.) Mr. Fukuda, however, sat at the head of a party at war with itself, bitterly divided over its identity. Selected as LDP leader on the basis of a "grand coalition" of factions, throughout his tenure Mr. Fukuda resorted to a balancing act among the party's factions and ideological tendencies, which resulted in Mr. Fukuda's gaining a reputation for having no policy agenda to speak of — and in plummeting public approval figures throughout 2008 until Mr. Fukuda resigned the premiership in September.

And when Mr. Fukuda did decide to take a stand on an issue, he suffered for it. Central to the 2008 ordinary session of the Diet were the related questions of the extension of the "temporary" gasoline tax and the dedicated use of gasoline tax revenue for road construction. The DPJ refused to approve the extension in the first half of the Diet session, meaning that in April 2008, the start of the new fiscal year, the Japanese public received a gasoline tax cut (I didn't hear too many complaints about that). Certain members of the LDP did not want to see the special account for road construction take a hit, so they fought hard for the reinstatement of the tax via the lower house supermajority. With petrol prices high, the Fukuda government courted a public backlash if it were to reinstate the tax. Therefore, to make the case for an extension, the government decided to argue that the tax revenue was needed, but not necessarily for road construction; Mr. Fukuda instead decided that he would push a plan to shift gasoline tax revenue earmarked for road construction into the general budget. This plan, floated as the prime minister was trying to win the DPJ's support for extending the temporary gasoline tax, immediately threw the LDP into chaos, pitting young reformers, who backed Mr. Fukuda, against the LDP's "road tribe," which fought against a clear and present danger to their privileges and had broad sympathy within the LDP. Mr. Fukuda had to struggle against the party establishment, and arguably lost the battle — the road construction budget was passed as presented, and the question of the special fund postponed to the extraordinary session, at which time Mr. Fukuda was no longer even premier.

Mr. Fukuda's preferred issues fared little better. Remember that Mr. Fukuda began the year talking about the importance of consumer affairs and "listening to the voices of the people?" 2008 in consumer affairs will be remembered mostly for further instances of tainted products. And as for listening to the public? As 2008 ends, the 2007 pensions scandal remains unresolved and the LDP has created a new mess after rolling out a controversial health care system for citizens over 75 that involves automatic deductions from pensions.

The situation has, if anything, worsened under Mr. Aso's stewardship. In part Mr. Aso has been hindered by what he and his advisers have repeatedly called a once in a century financial crisis, as if that somehow relieves the LDP of culpability for the disastrous turn for the worse in Japan's economic fortunes. The government is no closer to solving Japan's fiscal crisis; the LDP is still mired in a debate over whether and when to raise the consumption tax. And as Nakagawa Shoichi, Mr. Aso's finance minister, recently told the Financial Times, fiscal consolidation is on hold as long as Japan's economy falters.

As the year comes to a close, it is difficult to recall what the LDP was actually able to agree on and implement. Even a new fiscal stimulus package has proven controversial within the LDP and the coalition government, and as a result has been postponed until the new year.

As 2008 ends, divisions within the LDP are more pronounced, the party's ability to govern more questionable, and, as a result, Japan's future grows ever darker.

Accordingly, the Koizumi revolution is a distant memory. It is hard to believe that little over two years ago the foreign press could write of a confident new Japan under the leadership of its youngest postwar prime minister, booming thanks to the efforts of outgoing Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro.

What changed?

What became clear over the course of 2008 is that Mr. Koizumi achieved less than it seemed at the time. Corporate Japan boomed, but all too little progress was made in strengthening stagnant regions (despite the "Trinity" reforms), wages failed to rise along with economic growth, and the government made little headway in figuring out how to pay for the social safety net desired by the bulk of the aging Japanese public. Mr. Koizumi was much more effective in destroying the old LDP — see above — than in remaking the Japanese economy. As has become clear in midst of the global financial crisis, Japan remained all too dependent on trade with the US and China. Far from revolutionizing the Japanese economy, under Mr. Koizumi Japan's economy may have become even more of a "dual" economy, divided between efficient, global exporters and stagnant domestic sectors still dependent on government protection. At the same time, microeconomic reforms led to more use of temporary and part-time workers who do not receive the same benefits as regular workers — saving money in good times and, as we're seeing today, provided a stock of laborers who can be laid off in bad times.

Whether or not this makes for good economics is one question; whether it makes for good politics (for the LDP) is another. The LDP has been tarred with neglecting the wellbeing of the Japanese people: of the elderly, who fear for their economic security in retirement; of the young, many of whom are now relegated to the pool of irregular laborers, perhaps for life; and of rural citizens, who wonder how they will make their livings. At the same time, the LDP has also been criticized for abandoning Koizumi-ism. Its young reformists, concentrated largely in urban districts, fear that they will pay the price for the party's having shuffled off the legacy of Mr. Koizumi.

The former prime minister's followers are now a marginalized group within the LDP, and their continued future within the party is increasingly in doubt. In 2008 it became clear just how powerless the Koizumians are. They failed in their battle against the "road tribe," succeeded in passing some form of administrative reform over the objections of LDP reactionaries thanks only to a compromise with the DPJ and the work of crusading adminstrative reform minister Watanabe Yoshimi. Little wonder that by the end of 2008 Mr. Watanabe was speaking openly about overthrowing the Aso government, going so far as to vote with the DPJ when it proposed a resolution calling for an immediate dissolution of the lower house and general election.

Mr. Koizumi's legacy, it seems, was reducing the LDP to warring camps, bringing the party to the verge of collapse.

At the same time, the DPJ, while still a relatively unknown quantity, is far from being the rabble the LDP insists it is.

2008 showed that a DPJ-led government is increasingly conceivable, a finding confirmed in recent public opinion polls. For example, a Yomiuri poll taken in early December found that sixty-five percent of respondents are willing to give the DPJ a chance to govern. Despite the LDP's efforts to paint the DPJ as dangerously irresponsible, too divided, and led by the too dictatorial Ozawa Ichiro, the public is increasingly receptive to the leading opposition party and its mercurial leader.

The DPJ has been remarkably disciplined over the course of 2008. In part the DPJ's task has been simple. The party has had to stay reasonably united while the LDP struggled to find a consensus on issue after issue. On policy questions, it has been opportunistic, but what opposition party in a democracy isn't opportunistic? It largely succeeded in being trapped by the government on any given policy issue, adjusting its tactics as the political situation changed.

In the meantime, the party bolstered its policy credentials — see Mr. Ozawa's rebuttal to Mr. Aso's maiden policy address — and continued its work at the grassroots level, the pet project of Mr. Ozawa.

In fact, the unreported political story of 2008 may be how remarkably competent the DPJ was. It could have gone differently: the party came under fire from the LDP and big media for the uncontested reelection of Mr. Ozawa as party leader in September, and in the months leading up to the election, Mr. Ozawa's leadership was criticized by various DPJ young turks, but Mr. Ozawa emerged unscathed from the leadership fight and is now amazingly polling higher than Mr. Aso. If the LDP hoped to run the next general election campaign as a personal campaign against Mr. Ozawa as opposed to a campaign against the DPJ's ideas, that option may now be futile (if it ever stood a chance of success in the first place). Meanwhile, the DPJ set the policy agenda for 2008. From the beginning of the year, the LDP has been forced to battle the DPJ on the opposition party's terms, the issues that won the DPJ the 2007 upper house election. The discussion has focused on pensions, health care, budgetary waste, the gasoline tax and road construction, and administrative reform, issues which for the most part the public sees as DPJ strengths (see this recent Yomiuri poll). While at times DPJ members have grumbled about Mr. Ozawa's tactics, he has ably kept the DPJ's ideological divisions from undermining the party at critical moments in its battles with the LDP.

In short, while the party has certainly benefited from the LDP's disarray, Mr. Ozawa and the other DPJ leaders deserve credit for their grace under pressure and the deftness with which they have checked the DPJ's tendency towards disarray of its own.

None of this is to say that a DPJ government would be a panacea for an ailing country. If the DPJ manages to win the 2009 general election and form a government, it will be no less hampered by events than its LDP-Komeito predecessors. It will still have to balance reforms that ease the insecurities of citizens left behind by Mr. Koizumi's reforms, while forging ahead with the structural transformation of the Japanese economy and solving the fiscal crisis — all in the midst of an economic crisis that shows no signs of abating in the coming year. Nevertheless, a DPJ-led government would be a welcome change from the decrepit LDP-led governments that have ruled in recent years. Regime change would contain the possibility of a genuine break with the recent past; whether the DPJ fulfills the potential of regime change would depend on the abilities of its leaders and the response of the public to the new government.

Finally, 2008 had lessons for Japanese foreign policy, namely the US and Japan cannot live with or without each other. As Japan prepares for the Obama administration, it is clear that the US-Japan alliance is not healthy. The biggest change in 2008 was that the Bush administration provided Japanese elites with a new reason to be unhappy with Washington when it removed North Korea from the state sponsors of terrorism list. The Japanese establishment reacted with "shock" when the decision to delist was announced in June. Combined with the impact of the global financial crisis, as 2008 ends Japanese leaders are left wondering whether they can continue to rely on the US as an ally. They will be watching the Obama administration's every move for clues.

At the same time, however, Japan has little choice but to continue to work as a loyal ally of the US. Japan will grumble about Washington — and grumble louder if the DPJ takes power — but it is not prepared to break with the US in any significant way. Japan has no alternative in the near term to the alliance. Japan may have inched closer to China over the course of 2008, sending an MSDF vessel on a port visit, holding an upbeat summit when Hu Jintao visited Japan in May, and concluding a minor agreement concerning the East China Sea EEZ, Japan's leaders still face a tightrope walk in Japan's relations with China. In my first post of 2008, I insisted that the China hawks are "bankrupt," and I remain no less convinced today that this is the case. Developments in 2008 illustrated that there is little public support for a more belligerent approach to China. What we learned in 2008, however, is that the Japanese people want their government to be more assertive in negotiations with China (see this post). But a desire for greater assertiveness does not translate a support for remilitarization, constitution revision, and the rest of the conservative agenda.

The public is not ready to break with the US and is not prepared to bandwagon with China. The government is left trying to find a middle path between the region's two superpowers, not unlike other countries in East Asia.

All of which suggests that Japan's global presence is diminishing. Despite presiding over the G8 in 2008, despite launching a successful bid for one of the rotating Security Council seats, despite the ambitions of its prime ministers, Japan's voice is fading internationally. Given Japan's economic woes, this trend is unlikely to reverse itself in 2009. While Japan's leaders had plenty to say about their country's role in 2009 — for my part I was impressed with Mr. Fukuda's foreign policy vision — they had fewer ideas about how to act on their ideas. Japan still does not know how it can act as a regional and global leader in the coming decades as its power wanes relative to China (provided China weathers the economic crisis with minimal domestic disorder). Its economy faltering, its people insecure, its armed forces constrained by law, budgets, and values, it is unclear what basis Japan will have for claiming a leadership role in the region. Mr. Aso has tried to make the case for a soft power basis for Japanese leadership, but Mr. Aso and other advocates of soft power have failed to explain how the popularity of manga, anime, and J-Pop will translate into political affinity for Japan and will enable the Japanese government to achieve its goals.

In short, 2008 was a hard year for Japan, a year of uncertainty for its leaders and hardship for many of its people. Japan's ancien regime is exhausted — we clearly are witnessing a second bakumatsu — but it is unclear whether a restoration waits in the wings, or whether this will be a bakumatsu without end.

The final word on Fukuda

The word in the Japanese media is that Fukuda Yasuo's resignation came as a complete surprise, reportedly made even without consulting with his wife.

The LDP was blindsided. The public, it seems, is angry over Mr. Fukuda's "irresponsibility." The DPJ has already called for a general election.

I was not among those who wrote Mr. Fukuda off last year as a mere caretaker. I gave him credit for being a better politician than he appeared and not simply a reversion to the old LDP. I still think that. But I'm convinced that Mr. Fukuda was the right man at the wrong time.

His various public statements, including his first policy address, his speech to the LDP national convention in January, his second policy address, and his May foreign policy address all evince a clear understanding of the nature of Japan's crisis. Mr. Fukuda clearly understands how Japan has to change; indeed, he may understand better than just about everyone in the LDP, Mr. Koizumi included. (I'm inclined to agree with Masuzoe Yoichi's description of Mr. Koizumi as a better destroyer than builder — Japan at this point needs the latter just as much as it needs the former.) When he spoke of the hardships facing the Japanese people, I did not question his sincerity.

The problem is that he faced a political situation that would have stumped all but the ablest of politicians, which Mr. Fukuda is not. I think that he would have been a huge success had he followed Mr. Koizumi in 2006, being more of a builder than Mr. Koizumi and probably being better liked by the public than Mr. Koizumi. I don't mean loved or admired in the way that Mr. Koizumi was, like a rock idol, but rather someone who the public would have trusted to listen to them, to be frank with them, and to do his best to address his concerns and begin the hard work of building a new Japanese system for the twenty-first century. Even Mr. Koizumi, for all his popularity, did not enjoy a relationship like that with the public — as suggested by scornful remarks about his policy legacy.

But Mr. Fukuda took over in September 2007, after Abe Shinzo had already reduced his inheritance to rubble. The agenda facing Mr. Fukuda was more daunting than the previous year, and he faced more obstacles to governing than Mr. Abe had. Mr. Fukuda had to deal with a resurgent DPJ in control of the upper house, but he also had to command an LDP deeply divided over its future in the wake of Mr. Koizumi and the LDP's 2007 election defeat (the former being in some way a cause of the latter) and soothe an agitated Komeito. He failed to overcome all of these challenges. He may well have made them worse: the DPJ looks poised to win the next election, the LDP is no less divided than last year, and Komeito may be on the brink of breaking with the LDP. Press reports will focus on the role of the divided Diet (i.e.,, democracy) in undermining his government, but the LDP deserves at least as much blame. Throughout his tenure Mr. Fukuda had to battle with his own party about priorities, policy, and political strategy. His victories were scarce, and, as he made clear in his statement last night, his frustrations many.

Yes, Mr. Fukuda failed, but success is likely to have eluded most other politicians. The reality is that the LDP as it exists today is incapable of governing Japan.

Mr. Fukuda's resignation may not just be the trigger for a general election; it may be the catalyst for a political realignment. Sonoda Hiroyuki yesterday called for the creation of a new party with part of the DPJ (presumably that also means part of the LDP will be involved too). The manner in which the LDP elects Mr. Fukuda's successor will be crucial for determining whether and how the party survives. I have written that Mr. Aso is likely to be the successor, but that is by no means guaranteed. There is talk of a Koizumi return, although I suspect that at this point Mr. Koizumi would rather return at the head of his own party instead of resurrecting the corpse of the LDP. For the moment there is no apparent rival to Mr. Aso (the foreign press is talking of Koike Yuriko, but I don't think she'll be able to repeat Mr. Koizumi's 2001 feat). But should Mr. Aso somehow not win the prize, I don't think Mr. Aso and his conservative comrades will be long for the LDP. Similarly, Mr. Aso's election could alienate some LDP members — like Mr. Nakagawa and the other remaining Koizumians — to the point of forcing them to leave the LDP and form their own party.

This is the shipwreck that Mr. Fukuda has left behind, though little fault of his own. The LDP is deeply divided along lines of how Japan should be governed, and the differing schools of thought seem disinclined to put the good of the LDP before their individual agendas.

The result may be that we are nearing the end of Japan's long bakumatsu. After years of watching the old system decay — and be prematurely declared dead — the ancien regime may finally be dead.

Before the year is up the DPJ may get its first chance to form a government. The voters seem to be in a hanging mood, especially after a second consecutive LDP prime minister resigned surprisingly. This act will by no means transform Japan overnight — nothing will do that — but it will be the catharsis that signals the final break with LDP rule. Even if the LDP returns to power in the future, it will invariably be a different LDP, one humbled by its time in opposition and splintered.

For that, Mr. Fukuda should at least deserve a footnote when the history of the present era is written. He may not have delivered much — although it's possible that the Fukuda Doctrine in foreign policy may outlast his government — but he at least pointed the way that Japan must go if it is to succeed in the twenty-first century. That's certainly more than one could say of his predecessor.

Aso Taro's poisoned chalice

With Fukuda Yasuo's resignation, there is little question that the frontrunner to replace him (perhaps the only candidate to replace him) is Aso Taro.

Mr. Aso may regret it.

Taking the helm with the LDP in even greater shambles than it was when he ran against Mr. Fukuda in September 2007 to succeed Abe Shinzo, a Prime Minister Aso would have to rush to sort out a new cabinet lineup (or would he keep Mr. Fukuda's second?) and sort out his agenda. Provided that he can wave off demands for a general election, the autumn extraordinary session will now be starting closer to the end of September, leaving the government even less time to push its stimulus package and an extension of the MSDF mission through the Diet. The latter looks increasingly unlikely, no matter how resolutely Mr. Aso asserts that it must be done. Moreover, it is unlikely that Mr. Aso would have any more control over Komeito than Mr. Fukuda, Mr. Aso's supposed "pipeline" to Komeito notwithstanding.

In these circumstances, the pressure for a general election immediately may prove irresistible.

But Mr. Aso has finally climbed to the top of the greasy pole.

For a look at how he went from defeated party presidential candidate to prohibitive favorite to succeed Mr. Fukuda, see this post, this post, this article at the website of the Far Eastern Economic Review, and this post on Mori Yoshiro's endorsement of Mr. Aso.

There will be lots of talk in the coming days about Mr. Aso's conservatism. While undoubtedly true, it is not the most important factor in understanding how the coming months will play out. Mr. Aso's popularity is undeniable. The voting public may be willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, and certainly won't hold his conservatism against him should he find the right way to deliver the message that under his leadership the government will be more responsive to people's hardships than under his predecessors or the DPJ. It's possible that enough voters will buy that message and return the LDP with a slim majority. While a slim majority will not "untwist" the Diet, Mr. Aso would use his popular appeal to claim it as a mandate and appeal directly to the public over the heads of "opposition forces" in the LDP and the opposition camp, a la Koizumi Junichiro.

Whether he has the deftness to pull off such a feat is one question; whether the circumstances will permit it is another. I'm dubious about the possibility of the LDP's riding out the chaos under the leadership of Mr. Aso. I think the LDP has exhausted its line of credit with the public, and will find itself cut off at election time. The public may be ready to resolve the divided Diet by delivering the lower house to the DPJ.

Expect that the first task for Mr. Aso will be buying time, trying to make the case that an election does not need to be held immediately — perhaps an argument like the government cannot afford to be distracted by an election when the economy is faltering and when urgent action is needed to address the insecurities of the people.

Fukuda resigns

The autumn extraordinary session of the Diet has been looking quite similar to the 2007 extraordinary session of the Diet.

We can discuss whether history rhymes or repeats, but one thing is clear:

Prime Minister Fukuda Yasuo has resigned, less than one year into his tenure as prime minister.

The questions on the table are obvious. Will public outcry against a third prime minister without an election lead the LDP to call an early election? Will Aso Taro be ushered into power in the hope that his popularity might buy the LDP some time before rushing into an election?

The reasons seem more apparent. Going into the new Diet session, Mr. Fukuda has had control of neither his party nor his governing coalition. He has been pressured to make decisions against his will — such as the date for the opening of the Diet — and stymied in his efforts to move an agenda.

Do we stand at the brink of a second 1993?

Out with a whimper

MTC beats me to pointing out the futility of the forthcoming seventy-day extraordinary session, which will convene from Sept. 12.

The government, he notes, will lack the time to pass the most significant pieces of legislation on the agenda (beyond a stimulus package) and override the upper house if necessary. No refueling mission extension. No tax reform. No road construction reform.

Naturally the government can squeeze some life out of the Diet session by working with the DPJ or by extending the Diet session yet again (over the objections of Komeito).

The LDP continues to hope for the former; Aso Taro recently called on the DPJ and other opposition parties to cooperate with the government to extend the Japanese mission in the Indian Ocean.

Such appeals are likely to fall on deaf ears. What, after all, does the DPJ stand to gain from extending a helping hand to the government on this or any other legislation at this point?

As for the latter, I would imagine that Komeito is not alone in its diminished enthusiasm for the refueling mission in the Indian Ocean. Surely some LDP legislators must be wondering whether it is the best use of the government's time and energy when the list of problems affecting Japanese households is so long (and when those households are watching the government's actions closely). And if the government extends the session, it is practically daring Komeito to vote against the bill when it comes before the lower house a second time and thus trigger a general election precisely at the time when it wants to have an election.

Prime Minister Fukuda has promised and will continue to promise that the mission will go on; but even if he manages to pass the bill, the refueling mission might as well be dead. What began as a promising symbol of a new Japanese security role is now a symbol of Japan's unwillingness to play a greater security role.For better or worse, we will likely see the seven-year-old (minus a couple months) refueling mission come to an end, with no mission to replace it. The refueling mission, much heralded in 2001 as a symbol characterizing Japan's emergence as a robust security actor in the region, increasingly looks like the high water mark for Japan's evolving thinking about its place in the world, with Japan once again withdrawing into itself as it struggles to achieve an economic and social revolution without a revolution.

And so it is with the LDP itself. After fifty-three years in power, the very foundations of the LDP rule are crumbling. An article in the Sept. 1 issue of AERA says it all: "Support groups abandoning the LDP." The article observes that traditional LDP backers like the Japan Medical Association and postal workers (obviously) are increasingly open to backing DPJ and other opposition candidates, and concludes: "The governing LDP has overwhelming power, but the traditional structure of a monopolistic relationship with industry appears to be at an end." After what happened to the LDP last summer, this seems to be only the tip of the iceberg. The longer the DPJ sits in control of the upper house, the more Japanese industries — long accustomed to working with the LDP because they had no other choice — are willing and even eager to look to the DPJ for help.

The LDP needs a strong performance in the forthcoming Diet session to have even a chance of returning to power with a majority (forget a supermajority). It needs to deliver concrete results on a number of policy areas, with the economic stimulus package not necessarily the most important in the eyes of voters. With a short Diet session and no concrete plan for coaxing agreement out of the opposition, the government appears to be setting itself up to fail.

I want to note in closing that it is common among some foreign observers of Japanese politics to assume that somehow the LDP will pull through, because the LDP has always managed to survive. That may have been true, but it only explains situations past. It does nothing to predict how the LDP will turn its dire circumstances today into an improbable election victory. I'm open to explanations for how the LDP can do this, but the lack of LDP defeats in the past tells me nothing about the LDP's future, which to me appears bleak and short indeed.

This is a classic example of the problem of induction: the LDP's failure to lose an election over the past fifty-three years (1993 doesn't count as a loss for technical reasons) by no means guarantees that it will not lose an election tomorrow (or next year).

This is, in Nassim Nicholas Taleb's recapitulation in The Black Swan of Bertrand Russell, the turkey problem:

Consider a turkey that is fed every day. Every single feeding will firm up the bird's belief that it is the general rule of life to be fed every day by friendly members of the human race 'looking out for its best interests,' as a politician would say. On the afternoon of the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, something unexpected will happen to the turkey. It will incur a revision of belief. (P. 40. See also Ch. 4, passim.)

Of course, the seventy days means the Diet session is scheduled to end in late November.

The onslaught begins

Last week, when Amari Akira announced his support for Aso Taro's taking over for Fukuda Yasuo when the latter's public approval dips below twenty percent, I wondered, "Will Mr. Amari's remarks be followed by a series of leaks to the press from anonymous LDP sources about disarray in the government and Mr. Fukuda's inadequacies as leaders, in the hope that a whisper campaign can drive the approval rating down to Mr. Amari's target?"

Nakagawa Shoichi, the "N" in the NASA and HANA clubs, creator of the "True Conservative Policy Study Group," and like Mr. Amari a confidante of Mr. Aso, lambasted Mr. Fukuda in remarks in Hokkaido Saturday, criticizing "do-nothing politics" and the "do-nothing prime minister."

The context of his remarks was a call for greater economic stimulus that includes tax cuts on investments and financial flows (echoing METI's plan for tax reform that encourages Japanese companies to repatriate profits earned abroad).

Nevertheless, the message is unmistakable: Mr. Nakagawa and other conservatives are clearly interested in damaging Mr. Fukuda's image in the hope of pushing his numbers down to the threshhold identified by Mr. Amari.

But apparently I was wrong to think that pressure on Mr. Fukuda would take the form of an "anonymous" whisper campaign, because far from being something as subtle as a whisper campaign, Mr. Nakagawa opted for a frontal assault against the prime minister.

I doubt that this will be the last we hear from the conservatives. They clearly smell the blood in the water. And Mr. Aso appears to be helping his own cause by refusing to let the furor over MAFF Minister Ota Seiichi's remarks die.

So who's next? Suga Yoshihide, the "S" in the NASA club (who still holds a party leadership post as vice chairman of the LDP's election strategy committee)? Or Abe Shinzo himself? I expect, however, that being a member of the Machimura faction Mr. Abe will receive a stern reprimand from Mr. Mori should he join the chorus. Not that that would stop him.

The point is that this appears to be only the beginning of a conservative campaign to undermine Mr. Fukuda's image in the hope of driving him out. The question remains whether the prime minister will exercise his nuclear option — calling a general election — instead of yielding to pressure to step down.

Amari calls for Aso

In the wake of Mori Yoshiro's "endorsement" of Aso Taro on Sunday, Amari Akira, METI minister in the first Fukuda cabinet, gave a full-throated call on Mr. Aso's behalf on the BS11 program "Inside Out."

"In the event that the Fukuda cabinet's approval rating falls beneath twenty percent," he said, "calls for a reorganization of the leadership will come forth from LDP members insecure about an election. A consensus has been achieved within the party for that time: Secretary-General Aso Taro."

Given that Mr. Amari is one of the conservatives close to Mr. Aso — he is one of the so-called NASA club, along with Nakagawa Shoichi (N), Mr. Aso (A), and Suga Yoshihide (S) — it is tempting to dismiss his remarks as fully expected and thus indicative of nothing new.

But it is telling that Mr. Amari followed immediately after Mr. Mori. Mr. Mori may have, whether he intended to or not, declared open season on Fukuda Yasuo. Note how Mr. Amari framed his remarks: he (and Mr. Aso himself?) is not content to wait until events unfold and an election is held. Considering that the cabinet approval rating is hovering in the mid-20s still — remind me why the prime minister reshuffled? — twenty percent is not particularly distant. Will Mr. Amari's remarks be followed by a series of leaks to the press from anonymous LDP sources about disarray in the government and Mr. Fukuda's inadequacies as leaders, in the hope that a whisper campaign can drive the approval rating down to Mr. Amari's target?

What would the prime minister do in the face of such an onslaught? Would he capitulate and step down, or would he exercise his nuclear option and call a general election?

Last year Mr. Aso and Yosano Kaoru were rumored to have carried out a coup against Abe Shinzo. Are we about to see an actual Aso coup? Will September see another prime minister resign?

The Fukuda standoff

After weeks of debate within the LDP and between the LDP and Komeito, the government has suggested that the autumn extraordinary session is likely to begin no earlier than mid-September. A final decision will be made on Tuesday, 19 Aug.

As MTC notes, the late start means that the future of the Maritime Self Defense Forces refueling mission in the Indian Ocean is bleak, provided that the DPJ remains uniformly opposed and Komeito fearful of partaking in the use of Article 59 to override the upper house (a procedure that would, given the late start of the session, likely entail yet another extension of a Diet session). MTC also notes that the late start ensures that the government will focus its efforts on a supplementary budget containing economic stimulus measures, instead of structural reform. The government's priorities were made clear following a meeting between Prime Minister Fukuda, LDP Secretary-General Aso Taro, and LDP Diet strategist Oshima Tadanori.

MTC suggests that the abbreviated Diet session guarantees an early election.

I'm not so sure. I'm certainly not willing to rule out the possibility, but the situation strikes me as more complex than mere election timing. The LDP and Mr. Fukuda are increasingly in a standoff, with Mr. Fukuda as prime minister holding the bomb of an early election that could spell doom for the party's majority. It is increasingly clear that the LDP would like to coax the weapon out of the hands of the cornered prime minister, especially with the resurrected Aso Taro looking increasingly like the man to lead the LDP to a less-than-disastrous finish in the next general election.

A recent Yomiuri poll found the new LDP secretary-general to be the overwhelming favorite answer to the question of who would make the most appropriate prime minister: twenty-five percent of respondents favored him, compared to thirteen percent for Koizumi Junichiro, ten percent for Ozawa Ichiro, and three percent for Mr. Fukuda, DPJ acting president Kan Naoto, and health, labor, and welfare minister Masuzoe Yoichi.

I have doubts that even the popular Mr. Aso can save the wreck of the LDP, but if enough LDP members convince themselves that he is their only hope — this may already be the case — Mr. Fukuda could face a choice between holding on to power (futilely) by calling an election before he can be removed, or quietly ceding the reins to a successor, presumably Mr. Aso, at the end of the extraordinary session.

It seems to have come down to this: by year's end there will either be an LDP presidential election or a general election.

The Fukuda government's China tightrope walk

The gyoza scandal reopened just as the Beijing Olympics opened, with the Fukuda government on the defensive in light of revelations that it acceded to the Chinese government's request that Tokyo not release information about the presence of poisoned dumplings within China.

Part of the problem is a statement by newly appointed MAFF minister Ota Seiichi, who reportedly described Japanese consumers as "noisy."

As Jun Okumura notes, reading Mr. Ota's remarks in the proper context suggests that Mr. Ota's remarks as perfectly banal and inoffensive: Japan is a democracy, and when consumers complain the government must listen; China is an autocracy, and the CCP can hide information and ignore the public. Mr. Ota's remarks would be controversial only if he was speaking longingly about the CCP's ability to ignore the "noisy" public. I don't think he was. (Although I'm sure that some LDP officials — perhaps even Abe Shinzo, despite his professed love of democracy — envy the Chinese communists for their freedom from oversight, public accountability, press scrutiny, and the other "encumberances" of democracy.)

Nevertheless, members of the LDP and Komeito will continue to fret about the consequences of the backlash, and the DPJ will continue to exploit the "gaffe" as best as it can.

But this whole affair suggests something important about the Japanese public's attitudes towards China. Obviously the biggest story in Yomiuri's recent poll surveying Japanese attitudes about China and Chinese attitudes about Japan was that Chinese respondents were more positive about Japan than Japanese respondents were about China, but there is more to it than that. While Japanese respondents are undoubtedly concerned about Chinese military power — when asked how they think of China, 57.4% of 1828 respondents said they see it as a country strengthening its military — they are also not implacably hostile to China. Respondents were almost overwhelmingly positive about Hu Jintao's visit to Japan in May and Japan's assistance to China following the Sichuan earthquake, suggesting that there are steps both governments can take to build a sound foundation for Sino-Japanese relations. And given tepid support among the Japanese people for full-fledged remilitarization, fears of the growing strength of the PLA do not necessarily translate into support for a policy line that wouild see Japan try to compete with China in an East Asian cold war. Recall that in the Cabinet Office's latest poll on defense issues — now two years old, so possibly dated, although given the margins I would imagine the change over two years isn't too great (although isn't it high time for a new one?)— only 16.5% of respondents wanted to see the JSDF's strength enhanced, while 65.7% said it was fine as is (the latter nearly four percentage points above the previous survey result).

But what the gyoza scandal tells us is that while the Japanese people do not want to militarize Japan's relationship with China, they do want their government to show more backbone in bilateral negotiations, a desire that surely applies to Japan's relations with countries other than China. That naturally puts the Japanese government in a tough position. In the gyoza scandal, what would the Fukuda government have gained by denying China's request and immediately revealing the new information to the public? Less of a public uproar, perhaps, but an even less conciliatory China. More importantly, the Japanese public is probably going to be less forgiving of their government's weakness in dealings with China when the bilateral issues impact Japanese households directly (i.e., tainted produts). Seikatsu remains dai-ichi, even in the Sino-Japanese relationship.

And so the Fukuda government is left trying to appease the Japanese public — hence the prime minister's rebuke to Mr. Ota — while trying to accentuate the positive in relations with China — hence the dispatch of Foreign Minister Komura during the Olympics. But outside observers should not mistake a public agitated over relations with China with a public eager to see Japan compete toe-to-toe with China in military affairs.

Recipe for disaster

The more I look at the new Fukuda cabinet and its first days in office, the more I'm convinced that the Fukuda cabinet is, in MTC's words, designed to "set up the LDP for a wipeout in the next House of Representatives election."

In bringing Kaoru Yosano into the cabinet while also giving Nakagawa Hidenao a post as the head of the LDP's national strategy headquarters, Fukuda Yasuo has merely guaranteed that the LDP's divisions have been transposed onto the national government.

For the moment, all the government and LDP may be "Nakagawans" now — in that the emphasis will be on growth and reform — as Mr. Nakagawa triumphantly notes at his blog. Machimura Nobutaka, speaking on TV Sunday, noted that due to slowing growth (not to mention a general election within the next year), a consumption tax hike would be "difficult." Aso Taro, the new LDP secretary-general, echoed the chief cabinet secretary in a press conference Tuesday at which he declared that achieving a balanced budget by 2011 is fine as a goal, but with economic conditions worsening, fiscal measures will take priority over budget balancing.

In case there was any doubt that Mr. Aso would abjure from playing a policy role in the new government, Mr. Aso has quickly demonstrated otherwise. As the runner up in last year's leadership election, it could hardly be otherwise. It appears that Mr. Aso will use this time in the spotlight to put the lessons learned on his travels to use, burnishing his credentials on economic matters. At his press conference, for example, he said, "In Tokyo [the arrival of a recession] hasn't really hit home, but in the rural areas that I visited I think there is absolutely a recession."

(He also demonstrated that he is still capable of outrageous remarks, in this case demonstrating that Godwin's law also applies to the nejire kokkai.)

But Mr. Aso's policy activism will only muddle the waters further. Just because Mr. Nakagawa has the upper hand does not mean that Mr. Yosano intends to stop his campaign for a consumption tax hike, even as he will be responsible for drafting the government's economic plans (although, as a minister without portfolio, he will not have to oversee their execution).

It appears that the new government's goal is to overwhelm opposition and public with the impression of action. The economic plans to be prepared by Mr. Yosano — although Mr. Nakagawa may have the greatest influence on their shape — will likely ensure that certain important LDP constituents see more money in their pocket and relief from price increases (support for small- and medium-sized business for example), in time for the next general election. Naturally Koga Makoto will revise his prediction of a general election just before September 2009 depending on just how much voters are convinced by the government's blitz.

Will the voters buy it? Will Mr. Fukuda and company be able to develop a program that works and is politically popular? Will the members of the Fukuda cabinet and the LDP leadership be able to work together enough to assemble and implement said program? Will the government try to coax the DPJ into cooperating on an economic stimulus program?

Whatever approach it adopts, it is hard to ignore the impression that the Fukuda government is preparing to act first, think later.

Flailing Fukuda

I have an op-ed on the Fukuda reshuffle in the Tuesday edition of the Wall Street Asia.

It can be found online here.

They like him, they really, really like him...but will it matter?

Jun Okumura provides a convenient breakdown of the initial polls pertaining to the Fukuda reshuffle.

The bounce to Prime Minister Fukuda appears to have been somewhere around five percentage points, excluding Yomiuri's freakish poll recording a fourteen-point increase (a poll that can't be compared with earlier Yomiuri polls due to a differing methodology).

What I found interesting, however, is that both the Yomiuri and the Asahi polls recorded widespread approval of the prime minister's decision to name Aso Taro LDP secretary-general.

In the Yomiuri poll, 66.3% of respondents approved of the decision, while only 24.3% disapproved. By comparison, only 32.9% of respondents approved of the decision to bring Yosano Kaoru, Mr. Aso's fellow post-Fukuda contender, into the cabinet, with 42.8% disapproving.

In the Asahi poll, 51% approved of Mr. Aso's appointment, while only 29% disapproved.

There is no doubting that Mr. Aso's appeal across broad swathes of the Japanese public is genuine.

But Mr. Aso's taking the position was a risky decision on his part. His political future will rest on the results of the next general election. Serving as LDP secretary-general might be the worst possible position for Mr. Aso. It will make him directly responsible for the LDP's performance, but gives him little control over policy; he is at the mercy of a prime minister considerably less popular than himself. If the LDP loses badly, badly enough to fall from power, it is unlikely that the party will turn to Mr. Aso to save the LDP; if the LDP manages to hold on to power, there is no guarantee that he will be rewarded for loyal service (although there are apparently rumors that Mr. Fukuda offered to designate Mr. Aso his successor in exchange for the latter's service). The prime minister's hoe, of course, is that he can hitch his wagon to Mr. Aso's star and pull off an unexpectedly strong showing in the next election.

But voters' affinity for Mr. Aso might not make all that much difference in how they vote when the election comes.

Given that as MTC wrote last month, "...In some districts the opposition could put up a dog as a candidate and win" (Yomiuri recently wrote about LDP candidates in urban districts trailing in polls despite the DPJ's having not yet selected a candidate for their district), Mr. Aso certainly has his work cut out for him. He will have to use his personal appeal to convince the public that the LDP can be trusted to fix the mess it created. His presence might make the difference in a handful of districts, but on the whole the election will rest on the Fukuda government delivering tangible progress in tackling the issues of greatest concern to voters, which according to Yomiuri countermeasures for high prices, the pensions problem, eldercare, and global warming.

Mr. Aso and Mr. Fukuda deserve credit for taking a chance, but ultimately it might make little difference in the outcome of the election.

Change in Ichigaya

With the Fukuda cabinet reshuffle, Hayashi Yoshimasa becomes Japan's fourth defense minister in the past twelve months.

Of all the changes in the reshuffle, the ousting of Ishiba Shigeru is perplexing.

The prime minister had given Mr. Ishiba his vote of confidence in the midst of calls for his resignation in the wake of the Atago incident, ensuring that Mr. Ishiba would stay in place and that defense ministry reform would go forward.

If Mr. Fukuda's remarks announcing the new cabinet are to be taken seriously, he still feels that defense ministry reform is a priority for his government. But if so, why replace the man whose defense policy expertise — and whose zeal for defense ministry reform — is unmatched within the LDP? Yamamoto Ichita asks the same question, and can only speculate that his departure could be the result of fears that the DPJ would target Mr. Ishiba with a censure motion in the forthcoming session.

Mr. Ishiba's departure probably guarantees that implementation of the defense ministry reform council's recommendations will be stymied, not because Mr. Hayashi opposes defense ministry reform — he shares Mr. Ishiba's zeal for accountability — but because he lacks Mr. Ishiba's long experience with the workings of the defense establishment. More of a foreign policy wonk than a boei zoku giin, Mr. Hayashi will have learn his way around the defense ministry at the same time that he has to try to foist structural reforms upon the ministry's civilians and JSDF officers. He will be harried from day one, and with the government distracted by more pressing issues (at least from the public's perspective), it is unlikely that he will get adequate support from the prime minister from his fight with his own ministry.

That said, his foreign policy perspective mirrors Mr. Fukuda's: he is without question a staunch supporter of the alliance, but he also recognizes that Japan cannot afford antagonistic relations with China. But his affinity for the US is what's most important: with the arrival of the USS George Washington delayed and the realignment process in danger of stalling, perhaps Mr. Hayashi will be able to some good in the job.

Meet the new Fukuda cabinet

I am in Los Angeles on a brief layover before heading to Chicago, so I don't have time to offer a more thorough discussion of the Fukuda reshuffle.

For something more than my cursory remarks, I strongly recommend Jun Okumura's take and MTC's two posts.

Readers will not be surprised to learn that I am underwhelmed by the Fukuda reshuffle. Aside from the deft moves of co-opting Aso Taro and Yosano Kaoru — hard to freelance and challenge the prime minister when having responsibilities to party and government — remarkably little will change as a result of this cabinet.

It is not a particularly flashy or telegenic bunch, at least no more than the previous cabinet. While Mr. Fukuda emphasized that this new cabinet will work on behalf of the people (I thought the previous cabinet was supposed to do that?), no major policy or even stylistic shifts will result from this cabinet. Mr. Machimura remains its spokesman, and Masuzoe Yoichi remains in place as the minister handling the most pressing issues facing the government. If Mr. Fukuda were prepared to have the tax debate that he previously said he wanted to have, Mr. Yosano's presence would be significant for policy reasons, but with livelihood and consumer issues at the top of the agenda, it is unlikely that Mr.Yosano will make much ground in his campaign for a consumption tax increase.

One difference might be in the conduct of foreign policy, if this government gets enough time to address foreign policy. Mainichi notes that in China policy, this cabinet might actually be Fukuda-colored, with China-friendly Nikai Toshihiro and Hayashi Yoshimasa taking over at METI and MOD respectively. Mr. Fukuda needs all the help he can get in making the case for a constructive relationship with China, but in practical terms their presence may be negligible.

Perhaps the biggest loser from the reshuffle is Nakagawa Hidenao, whose "rising tide" group was locked out; then again, as MTC suggests, Mr. Nakagawa and the Koizumians may well be the biggest winners of the night, considering that this cabinet may well end up presiding over a catastrophic general election defeat that will wreck the careers of all involved.

I will write more later, once I've digested this lineup and read some more commentary.

Reshuffle questions

It appears that the new cabinet won't be announced until Friday evening, after my departure from Narita, so it looks like readers will have to wait until tomorrow for my thoughts on the prime minister's choices.

But my thinking on the fundamental unsoundness of Fukuda Yasuo's decision to reshuffle remains unchanged. (Readers can find my thread on the reshuffle here.)

As for the morning press coverage, the big dailies appear to be in consensus about two posts: the LDP secretary-general and the chief cabinet secretary. According to Asahi, Sankei, Mainichi, and Yomiuri, Machimura Nobutaka will likely stay in place as chief cabinet secretary for the sake of continuity, meaning that yesterday's rumors about Koike Yuriko's becoming the chief cabinet secretary were fanciful. As for the LDP secretary-general, the papers seem to agree that Mr. Fukuda will ask Aso Taro to serve once again as secretary-general, just as he did in the short-lived second Abe cabinet. The reasoning, according to Asahi, is that Mr. Aso, being the man of the people that he is, is more fit to lead the LDP into a general election than Ibuki Bunmei. Even if Mr. Aso rejects the offer, Mr. Ibuki will be gone: Asahi suggests that current Finance Minister Nukaga Fukushiro will be offered the post if Mr. Aso turns it down.

But if Mr. Aso becomes Mr. Fukuda's deputy at the helm of the LDP, how would the second Fukuda cabinet/LDP leadership being any more Fukuda-colored than the first Fukuda cabinet? How does bringing in Mr. Aso — even to a political role like secretary-general — and retaining Mr. Machimura clarify the prime minister's policy approach?

That meaningless phrase "Fukuda color" will be repeated ad nauseaum in the coming days, but readers would do well to ignore it. This new cabinet will be no less uniform than the current Fukuda cabinet; the Fukuda color is compromise and political expediency.

The question is what Mr. Fukuda and his confidantes will find political expedient at this juncture. There is speculation about giving Komeito more prominence to ease its concerns. As noted yesterday, even if Ms. Koike will not be tapped as chief cabinet secretary, the prime minister may still opt to bring some glamor to his cabinet in the form of one or more of the LDP's prominent female politicians. Will he opt for youth more generally, making for a more telegenic cabinet? Or will he merely shuffle party elders?

But whatever he chooses, Mr. Fukuda still has a mountain to climb. The reshuffle may improve his chances of staying at the helm of the LDP long enough to lead it into the next general election, as Jun Okumura argues, but it will do little to improve his and his party's electoral prospects.

So let the meaningless reshuffle begin!

The reshuffle is tomorrow

The prime minister has announced that he will be reshuffling his cabinet and the LDP leadership on Friday afternoon, 1 Aug, after meeting with Komeito's Ota Akihiro in the morning.

Of course Mr. Fukuda had to pick the afternoon of my departure from Japan to reshuffle his cabinet.

If the reshuffle is done expeditiously, I will try to give my thoughts from Narita before departure; otherwise you'll have to wait until I'm on the ground in the US.

Here comes Koike and friends

With Fukuda Yasuo set to finalize a schedule for a cabinet reshuffle after consultations with Komeito — according to Machimura Nobutaka, the prime minister is waiting for reports on the latest failed Doha Round negotiations before proceeding — the cabinet reshuffle is a go, possibly as early as 4 Aug (Monday).

The media has immediately shifted from hounding the prime minister to reshuffle to speculating about who will be included in the new cabinet.

This is the sort of thing at which the Japanese political press excels. In the coming days, readers and viewers will be treated to an endless parade of bios of possible ministers, figures showing the impact of past cabinet reshuffles on public approval ratings, speculation about the post-Fukuda horse race, and other facts, figures, and hypotheses about the political game. Much if not most of it will be rubbish; it will be difficult to find anyone asking the obvious questions about the reshuffle.

Will it make any difference whatsoever?

Will the new ministers serve for long enough to impact their ministries?

What exactly is the Fukuda iro (color)?

Is the prime minister actually in control of his government and the LDP?

The early speculation about the reshuffle suggests that Mr. Fukuda will do like Mr. Abe and attempt to harness the glamour of the LDP's leading ladies to boost his popularity. Recall how Koike Yuriko was ushered into the defense ministry last July to replace the hapless (and it turns out, horribly corrupt) Kyuma Fumio just in time for the official campaign for the upper house election.

Mr. Fukuda may repeat the trick, if Yukan Fuji is to be believed. The cover of the Friday edition shows Ms. Koike and Nakagawa Hidenao, her leading backer, watching boxing together, and proclaims, "Koike as Chief Cabinet Secretary rises to the surface — figuring in the post-Fukuda outlook." The hope, according to an unnamed LDP member, is that having Ms. Koike as the government's spokeswoman will make the difference in the government's public support.

"Prime Minister Fukuda does not like her performance. But if she can use her competitive instinct and her ability to steal the limelight — as when she published her tell-all book after her resignation — as cabinet spokesman, then the approval rating will likely increase. It will also satisfy former Prime Minister Mori Yoshiro's hope of wanting someone from his Machimura faction taking either LDP secretary-general or chief cabinet secretary."

Presumably Mr. Mori would prefer someone other than the woman whose prospects he has derided as his faction's representative in these senior positions, but the sentiment remains relevant. If the sentiments expressed in this article and on the morning talk shows today are accurate, the prime minister and/or his advisers think that adding a glamorous sheen in the form of Ms. Koike as well as some combination of Noda Seiko, Obuchi Yuko, and one or two other female LDP politicians will distract the public from the Fukuda government's inability to govern and raise the chances that Mr. Fukuda will last long enough to lead the LDP into the next general election.

Judging from her time in Ichigaya, it is probably inappropriate for Mr. Fukuda to expect too much help from Ms. Koike, not necessarily through any deficiency of her own — although the Yukan Fuji article suggests that like Mr. Machimura, the incumbent chief cabinet secretary, her nemawashi skills are in question — but because she has too many enemies with the LDP, whether because of her sex or because of her reputation as a "wandering bird" (previously discussed here).

The immediate surfacing of a women-heavy cabinet suggests how transparently bogus one of the major reasons for the reshuffle — the need to define a Fukuda color that is distinct from Mr. Abe's — is. How would appointing Ms. Koike, who was first Abe Shinzo's national security adviser and then his minister of defense, distance Mr. Fukuda from Mr. Abe? How does that clarify the Fukuda color, unless by Fukuda color people mean the literal color of the cabinet, in which case Ms. Koike and the other women under consideration might add some much needed brightness to the sea of dark suits?

Not surprisingly, this reshuffle will be nothing more than an exercise in image management. Any talk of the policy implications of the reshuffle is mostly hot air, considering that it seems that Masuzoe Yoichi — who holds the most critical portfolio in light of the health and welfare-heavy agenda — will stay put as minister for health, labor, and welfare.

Will the Japanese people fall for it?

I doubt it. I don't think the public will fall for the media hype that would surround a cabinet with Ms. Koike as chief cabinet secretary. I think the Japanese people are waiting for results, and barring results, will hold the LDP accountable at election time, reshuffle or no reshuffle.

Fukuda will take the plunge

I apparently overestimated Fukuda Yasuo's strength and independence in the face of pressure from within the LDP.

Yomiuri is reporting — corroborated by Asahi and NHK — that the prime minister has settled on a cabinet reshuffle in early August. Interestingly, Yomiuri's source is Komeito chief Ota Akihiro, whose party is pushing hard for an election at the start of next year (and is more generally flexing its muscles).

I am no more convinced of the rightness of this decision than before. Much will depend on who stays, who goes, and who joins the ranks. Suffice to say, if this man stays, the exercise will have been futile.

But it is difficult to see what Mr. Fukuda will gain from this move. He has shown that if hounded enough by the media, he will cave. Like Abe Shinzo before him, he has shown that the prime minister's supposed power to control personnel is illusory in the face of concerted pressure from within the LDP. This will do nothing to stem the rising tide of speculation about Mr. Fukuda's departure and the campaign to replace him.

A reshuffle will not make the government any more popular (over anything longer than the short term), any less paralyzed or any more capable of tackling the daunting agenda facing Mr. Fukuda. It will, however, reinforce the impression of Japan's being poorly managed and beset by political chaos.

Fukuda passes, for now

It appears increasingly unlikely that Fukuda Yasuo will decide to reshuffle his cabinet before the autumn Diet session.

NHK is reporting that at the very least there will be no decision on a reshuffle before the end of the month, as two members of the cabinet are delayed in returning from WTO talks abroad.

Mr. Fukuda told reporters — rather sternly — that "not once have I said something about [a cabinet reshuffle]."

This gets to the heart of the matter. The persistence of the cabinet reshuffle story on the basis of complete silence from the prime minister shows both how the media can be the cat's paw of certain ruling party politicians and how a herd mentality among the major media organizations can transform the political discussion. For weeks political discussion has focused on the prospects of a reshuffle, thanks to persistent leaks "from within the ruling party" on the likelihood and timing of a reshuffle.

It was about time that the prime minister stood up to the media's groundless speculation. Unfortunately there may be little Mr. Fukuda can do about the manipulators of the media within his own party, who may now use the media to fuel speculation about the need to replace Mr. Fukuda with someone else quickly. As Nikkei reports today, "there is a possiblity that the 'post-Fukuda era' will appear rapidly."

Fukuda the pressured

Watching the news this morning, I saw Fukuda Yasuo's remarks yesterday on whether he intends to reshuffle his cabinet in advance of the autumn extraordinary session of the Diet.

As before, he stated that he has not made his decision yet, that he is considering the "whole situation" in regard to conditions within the LDP and the policy agenda for the forthcoming session. He repeated that he will make his decision on a reshuffle by 29 July, incidentally the first anniversary of the LDP's historic defeat in the 2007 upper house election.

Ibuki Bunmei, speaking in Osaka, confirmed that the prime minister has yet to decide on a course of action.

The look on Mr. Fukuda's face was grim, almost pained, and his speech was strained.

In short, it looked and sounded to me like he had made up his mind on a reshuffle: he doesn't want to do it.

However, it seems that he is being forced to make a show of considering it and may even be pressured into going through with a reshuffle, thanks to pressure from within the LDP (channeled through a pliant political press). That seems to be all there is to the idea of a reshuffle: leaks to the media from certain members of the party and government who desire a reshuffle in the hope of hounding the prime minister into deciding in their favor.

As noted previously, it's not even clear what a Fukuda-colored cabinet will look like. Yamamoto Ichita provided one answer to this question: "Blue."

Asked to explain what the Fukuda "color" following a luncheon meeting of the Machimura faction by a reporter, Mr. Yamamoto answered that it is difficult to say just what Mr. Fukuda stands for, what qualities a Fukuda-colored cabinet would possess.

Masuzoe Yoichi, minister for health, labor, and welfare, made the case on TV Thursday for his staying in his post (i.e., that he is appropriately Fukuda-colored), describing his leaving the ministry after less than a year as "idiotic."

Mr. Masuzoe's comment gets to the heart of the matter. If Mr. Fukuda is forced to reshuffle his cabinet, the third cabinet within the past year, it will be yet another sign of the LDP's reverting into the hands of its risk-averse elders — and yet another sign of the LDP's unsuitability as the vehicle for fixing the mess that it has created.

It's time that Mr. Fukuda followed Koizumi Junichiro's advice and made a decision, preferably a decision not to reshuffle, thereby reasserting his authority (for the time being anyway).