The Yosano-Hiranuma alliance of convenience

Michael Cucek has already pondered Yosano Kaoru's thinking behind his strange alliance with arch-revisionist Hiranuma Takeo — which has resulted in party that will supposedly be called Stand Up Japan! (the SUJ? As if Your Party wasn't bad enough) — but there's another factor beyond the electoral factors considered by Cucek.

The alliance is a marriage of convenience in policy terms for both Yosano and Hiranuma.

As I've argued in the past, if the revisionist conservatives have a blind spot, it is a patent inability to speak intelligently about economic problems (which was one reason why the appointment of the late Nakagawa Shoichi as finance minister so puzzling). They love symbolic politics — they love making the case for why, in the grand sweep of history, their program of revising the constitution, reinvigorating Japanese arms, and defending traditional culture is imperative. When it comes to speaking convincingly about the economic insecurities faced by Japanese families, however, they fumble, as the government of Abe Shinzo (and Abe's decision to campaign in the 2007 upper house election on constitution revision) so clearly illustrates. Not only can they not emote on economic issues, they just have nothing new or interesting to say when it comes to solutions to the problems plaguing the Japanese economy.

If there's one thing Yosano can do, it's economic policy, having long fought a lonely battle within the LDP for fiscal reconstruction. Whatever other considerations are going through his mind, we should not forget his emphasis on forthrightly explaining policy proposals to the nation. Indeed, he wrote a whole book on this idea, a book in which he comes across as wholly sincere.

As such, Stand Up Japan! is an alliance of convenience for both its progenitors. I expect Yosano will have a free hand to push his economic agenda of choice without having to compromise as he did within the LDP, while Hiranuma will have a vehicle for inserting the revisionist agenda into election campaign without having to worry about having something to say about the economy.

Whether this chimera of a party will survive is another matter entirely, but it does pose a major risk to the LDP. Now that there are neo-liberal and revisionist LDP splinter parties it's possible that the collapse of the LDP could pick up speed. Partisans from both camps within the LDP now have parties to which they can comfortably escape, which would leave a rump party in the hands of the old guard, which has stood for nothing but holding power. And out of power, what purpose will the LDP serve other than serving as work relief for aging politicians? The party might linger on as a loose coalition of hereditary politicians who can keep winning on the strength of personal support, but even then, how much longer will the aging members of the koenkai of LDP politicians have the power to return their man?

As unlikely as it seems, Stand Up Japan! could be a serious, even mortal blow to the LDP.

Exit, voice, and loyalty in the LDP

On Saturday, Yosano Kaoru, onetime contender for the LDP presidency and the Aso cabinet's second finance minister, met with LDP President Tanigaki Sadakazu and filed notice that he will leave the party from next week. Sonoda Hiroyuki, Yosano's ally who was forced to resign as a deputy secretary-general last month over criticism of Tanigaki, is expected to follow Yosano out of the party soon.

Both are said to be considering joining up with Hiranuma Takeo, the postal rebel who refused to rejoin the LDP with other erstwhile rebels in 2006. Hiranuma has been talking about forming a conservative party that could serve as a "third pole" in Japanese politics since at least October 2007, in the immediate aftermath of Abe Shinzo's stunning fall from the premiership. After years of hinting at creating a new party, Hiranuma apparently feels that the time is right now, and he will launch his party sometime this month so to prepare to contest this summer's House of Councillors election.

That Hiranuma has waited until now to launch his party suggests to me Hiranuma hopes to fill an electoral niche that does not exist. Where is the demand for another conservative party? Who is clamoring for Hiranuma's third pole? As I've argued before in regard to Hiranuma's quest to build a "true" conservative party, the project is little more than fantasy.

So what of Yosano's unusual alliance with Hiranuma, given that Yosano has been anything but an adherent of the "true" conservatism? No one seems to have a good explanation for it. Sonoda suggested that if they form a new party, it would be close to the LDP in policy terms, in other words, the Hiranuma new party, unlike Watanabe Yoshimi's "neoliberal-ish" Minna no tō, would not be carving out a new niche for itself.

What does Yosano's decision to leave the party mean for the LDP? Following on the heels of Hatoyama Kunio's departure — making Yosano the second Aso cabinet member to leave in under the span of a month — Yosano's departure appears to suggest that exit is growing more attractive to would-be reformers. That's not to say that there aren't LDP members exercising voice. Tanigaki is under relentless pressure from LDP members to initiate sweeping party reforms or get out of the way. This past week a meeting of 50 LDP members met to advocate the dissolution of the factions, to which Tanigaki could only say that if they didn't like factions they didn't have to be in them. Meanwhile, Nakagawa Hidenao criticized the LDP president for failing to stand up for postal privatization in his debate with Prime Minister Hatoyama. And Masuzoe Yoichi continues to be the most vociferous critic of Tanigaki and the LDP executive, castigating the party's leaders for "lacking the will, the ability, and the strategy" necessary to lead the LDP.

But despite the exercise of both exit and voice by LDP reformists, Tanigaki continues to enjoy the support of an inner circle of faction leaders and other party chieftains, at least judging by their silence. Yosano, like Masuzoe, is a maverick, albeit a prominent maverick. Not belonging to any faction, Yosano is if anything best know for his lonely fight in favor of fiscal austerity and open calls for a consumption tax increase, positions that did not earn him a wide following within the LDP. Neither Yosano nor Masuzoe, however, has the numbers to back their actions and force the party's chieftains to act against Tanigaki, at least not before the election.

Both exit and voice in this situation appear to depend on both volume and magnitude: were a faction leader to take his faction out of the party en masse, or to dissolve his faction voluntarily and side with the reformists, those actions might be enough to push the LDP in a new direction. But for now the party is fighting the same battle it has been fighting since Koizumi Junichiro left the premiership. The old guard controls the party, as the reformists, marginalized, struggle to organize and utilize the media as a weapon against the party's leaders. The difference now seems to be that exit has become an increasingly attractive alternative due to public dissatisfaction with both the DPJ and the LDP.

The LDP may yet survive, but it will take lots more voice — or lots more exit — before the party's leaders stand aside and allow the reformists to begin remaking the party so to better compete in a more competitive political environment.

Chugoku, a conservative kingdom in decline?

This is the ninth installment in my general election guide. For an explanation of my purpose in making this guide, see here. For previous installments, see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

The Chugoku regional block, at the western end of the island of Honshu, is comprised of Tottori, Shimane, Okayama, Hiroshima, and Yamaguchi prefectures. It benefited from LDP machine politics during the high growth years — and it has suffered as the economy has stagnated and as the region's population has shrunk. It is revealing that the late prime ministers Takeshita Noboru, Miyazawa Kiichi, Hashimoto Ryutaro, Sato Eisaku, and Kishi Nobusuke all had seats in the region: the sons of all three are running this year (two as incumbents), as is Abe Shinzo, great-nephew and grandson of the last two.

Not surprisingly, the region elects a total of thirty-one representatives, twenty for single-member districts and eleven in the proportional representation voting.

In 2005, the LDP won seventeen SMDs, the DPJ two, and Komeito and the PNP one each. In PR voting, the LDP won five seats, the DPJ three, Komeito two, and the PNP one. If anything the region was even more lopsided in 2003, when the LDP won eighteen SMDs and the DPJ two, with the LDP and Komeito combining for seven and the DPJ winning the remaining four PR seats.

However, in the 2007 upper house election, the DPJ won three of the block's four single-member districts, the reverse of the 2004 upper house election.

Tottori

Tottori has only two SMDs, not surprisingly given that it is the least populous of Japan's forty-seven prefectures with only 595,000 people according to the 2008 population survey.

The LDP has incumbents in both districts. In the first, Ishiba Shigeru, agriculture minister in the Aso cabinet, defense minister in the Fukuda cabinet, and contender for the premiership in last year's LDP presidential election, faces Okuda Yasuaki, a onetime secretary of Ishiba's and former Tottori prefectural assemblyman. Given Ishiba's past margins of victory, Okuda will have a hard time unseating his former boss.

In the second district, however, the race is more uncertain. LDP incumbent Akazawa Ryosei won in 2005 by defeating independent Kawakami Yoshihiro, who won as an independent in 2003, joined the LDP, then left again in 2005 as a postal rebel. Kawakami then joined the DPJ and won a seat in the upper house. The DPJ candidate this year is Yuhara Shunji, a four-time prefectural assembly member and, as his website makes clear, a farmer. The combined vote of Kawakami and then-DPJ candidate Yamauchi Osamu vastly outnumbered Akazawa's. The question is whether Yuhara can win both candidates' votes this year.

The DPJ could win one of two seats in Tottori.

Shimane

Shimane, also with only two seats, is the second least populous prefecture in Japan, coming out just ahead of Tottori with 725,000 people.

Hosoda Hiroyuki (first district), the LDP's secretary-general, won sizable margins in 2003 and 2005, and faces a new challenger, DPJ candidate Komuro Hisaaki, a former Shimane assemblyman. Hosoda will be reelected easily, but it does bear mentioning the presence of prefectural assembly members among DPJ candidates, especially in this part of the country, which could make the DPJ more competitive in years to come.

In the second district, the LDP's Takeshita Wataru faces the PNP's Kamei Hisaoki, the PNP's secretary general. Kamei, one of 2005's postal rebels, previously represented Shimane's third district, which no longer exists. Takeshita, the brother of Takeshita Noboru, defeated Kamei by more than 55,o00 votes in 2005 — and if Kamei's and then-DPJ candidate Komuro's votes were totaled, Takeshita won by 20,000 votes, with the JCP's receving more than 10,000. Given the surprising victory of Kamei's daughter Akiko in the 2007 upper house election, however, Kamei may be able to win. The JCP is not fielding a candidate, and Kamei has the backing of the other opposition parties.

Okayama

Okayama has five districts, making it the block's second largest prefecture behind Hiroshima. Amazingly, the DPJ's position in Okayama actually improved from 2003 to 2005, as two DPJ candidates won in 2005 while none won in 2005.

Tsumura Keisuke (second district) first ran in 2003 when he finished within 10,000 votes of the LDP incumbent Kumashiro Akihiro and won a PR seat. Kumashiro voted against postal privatization in 2005, but he did not run in the district, resulting in a head-to-head battle between Tsumura and Hagiwara Seiji, which Tsumura won by 2,000 votes. This time, however, the field is divided. Tsumura faces LDP candidate Hagiwara, PNP candidate Akamatsu Kazutaka, and Kumashiro, running as an independent. This is the only district in the country where PNP and DPJ candidates will go head to head. Tsumura probably has the upper hand on the basis of his incumbency and the DPJ's national strength, but it should be a close election regardless.

Okayama's fourth district, once the district of the late Hashimoto Ryutaro, is now represented by the DPJ's Yunoki Michiyoshi, who won the seat by 6,000 votes in 2005 over this year's LDP candidate Hashimoto Gaku, second son of the late prime minister. Having won in 2005 despite the Koizumi landslide, Yunoki should be safe this year.

The LDP should be safe in the first district, where Aisawa Ichiro faces DPJ challenger Takai Takashi, a former internal affairs ministry official. Aisawa doubled up the DPJ candidate in 2005, and should emerge victorious again.

The LDP's situation in the fifth district is more uncertain: Murata Yoshitaka, the winner in 2005, defeated DPJ candidate Hanasaki Hiroki, by roughly 50,000 votes, but due to the LDP's Costa Rica system will be running as a PR candidate. In his place the LDP is running Kato Katsunobu, who won PR seats in 2003 and 2005. The substitution of Kato for Murata could swing the election to Hanasaki.

Finally, in the third district, Hiranuma Takeo, leading postal rebel who is hoping to build a conservative "third pole" in the political system, is running for reelection in a field with the LDP's Abe Toshiko, who he defeated by 40,000 votes in 2005, and the DPJ's Nishimura Keito. It is likely, however, that the field will split as it did in 2005, perhaps with Nishimura finishing in second ahead of Abe.

The DPJ could win three of five seats in Okayama.

Hiroshima

Hiroshima, with seven districts, is the largest prefecture in the block. The LDP won six of seven seats in 2005 and 2003; in 2005, the one non-LDP seat was won by the PNP.

Accordingly, Kamei Shizuka (sixth district), the head of the PNP, should win reelection easily.

The DPJ's best chances to pick up seats are in the second district, where Matsumoto Daisuke, winner in 2003, should be able to reclaim the district from the LDP's Hiraguchi Hiroshi, helped by the absence of a JCP candidate (Matsumoto lost by 17,000 votes and won a PR seat); and the fifth district, where the LDP's Terada Minoru, who first won the seat in 2003, faces the DPJ's Mitani Mitsuo for the third time. Mitani, a former finance ministry official, lost by 6,000 votes in both 2003 and 2005, winning a PR seat in 2005.

Safe LDP incumbents include Kishida Fumio (first district), facing the DPJ's Sugekawa Hiroshi for the second time, and Nakagawa Hidenao (fourth district), who faces the DPJ's Soramoto Seiki for the third time.

Miyazawa Yoichi (seventh district), son of the late Miyazawa Kiichi, may be vulnerable: for the third time he faces the DPJ's Wada Takashi, a former finance ministry official, who lost by 18,000 votes to Miyazawa in 2003 and 2005, winning a PR seat in 2003. With the JCP, which received 14,000 votes in the district in 2005, not running a candidate, Wada could defeat Miyazawa.

The LDP may also be vulnerable in the fifth district, another district where a victorious incumbent from 2005 will run as a PR candidate due to the Costa Rica system. LDP candidate Masaharu Yoshitake last won the seat in 2003, when he defeated an SDPJ candidate by more than 50,000 votes. This time, however, he faces former bureaucrat Hashimoto Hiroaki, who placed second in a field that also included an independent who received nearly 32,000 votes and an SDPJ candidate who received 26,000 votes, as well as a JCP candidate and another independent who combined for more than 10,000 votes. Hashimoto should win the seat.

In Hiroshima, the DPJ should win four, the LDP two, and the PNP one.

Yamaguchi

Finally, in Yamaguchi, the LDP won all four seats in 2005, three of four in 2003, and the prefecture's upper house seat in 2007. It did win back one seat in a by-election in 2008.

The LDP has strong incumbents in former Foreign Minister Komura Masahiko (first district); Chief Cabinet Secretary Kawamura Takeo (third district); and former Prime Minister Abe Shinzo (fourth district).

The DPJ lost the second district in 2005, but Hiraoka Hideo, who won the seat in 2000 and 2003 before losing by 1,000 votes in 2005 and settling for a PR seat, won it back in the 2008 by-election to replace 2005 winner Fukuda Yoshihiko, who was elected mayor of Iwakuni. Hiraoka should be reelected comfortably, keeping the status quo in place in Yamaguchi.

Proportional representation

Once again using the d'Hondt method simulator, Yomiuri's latest polling data, and turnout data from 2005, the best the DPJ can do is six seats to the LDP's three, with the PNP and Komeito each taking one. Given that it is unlikely that the DPJ will poll as strongly in PR voting in Chugoku as it will elsewhere, five seats is probably more likely, perhaps with Komeito gaining a seat in the process. A more likely outcome is therefore DPJ five, LDP three, Komeito two, PNP one.

Accordingly, the DPJ can win fourteen seats in Chugoku, the LDP eleven, the PNP three, Komeito two, and independent Hiranuma Takeo one.

The conservatives humbled

Perhaps one of the positive consequences of Japan's economic crisis is that it has silenced Japan's conservatives.

By silenced I do not mean literally silenced — they're still fulminating. What I mean is that they have been rendered irrelevant by events. Despite their media power, their ability to churn out a seemingly infinite amount of books, magazine articles, and op-eds, it turns out that they have remarkably little to say about Japan's economic problems. Former Prime Minister Abe Shinzo is indeed the conservative poster child in this respect: eager to flaunt a rising Japan and its newfound powers, he was almost completely indifferent to the hard work of remaking the Japanese system.

But it is not just the economic crisis that has silenced the conservatives. It is the marriage of the LDP and Aso Taro, one of their own, that has been responsible for quieting the conservatives. The conservatives, with Mr. Aso as prime minister, Nakagawa Shoichi as finance minister, Amari Akira as administrative reform minister, and Hatoyama Kunio as general affairs minister, are now responsible for what happens to Japan in the coming months and years. The fate of the modern conservative movement — which has enjoyed a meteoric rise over the past two decades — is now tied to the LDP and the Aso government. Of course, it is for this reason that Hiranuma Takeo's quixotic quest to create a new conservative party (yes, he's still at it, although now the plan is to create a party after the general election) is so foolish. Japan already has a conservative party, and it is drowning as (in Mr. Aso's words) the "tsunami" of the global financial crisis washes over Japan.

What I am not saying is that the conservatives are vanquished evermore. They still have considerable power and their ideas appeal to a sizable minority. What I'm saying is simply that events have rendered the conservative movement irrelevant to the policy debate. It is little surprise that Mr. Abe has attempted to carve out a middle ground in the LDP's tax debate — Mr. Abe and his compatriots barely have a position on the issue to advance.

All of this is a way to introduce this stemwinder by Sakurai Yoshiko.

Published in the January 15th issue of Shukan Shincho, the title says it all: "In the Sino-Japanese War, China had more fighting spirit than Japan."

The essay is the latest attempt to rewrite the history of World War II along terms that exculpate Japan and pin blame for the war on China (and communism). Actually, not only does she pin the second Sino-Japanese war on the Cominform, she finds a new, somewhat surprisingly culprit in the widening war: the Nazi Party, which she blames for providing military assistance to Chiang Kai-shek during the 1930s. In other words, Ms. Sakurai blames any outside power that enhanced the ability of Chinese forces to resist Japan for widening the Sino-Japanese war, instead of blaming the military that was invading China, as if the Chinese people were just supposed to accept the advance of the Imperial Military passively.

I don't want to get bogged down in the history, because the conservative obsession with history is precisely the problem. The conservatives are so obsessed with making the case for the Pacific/Great East Asian War as a just war that they have nothing relevant to say about the many problems facing the Japanese people today.

As such, the more the conservatives are ignored, the better. Japan and the world have too many problems to be consumed with fighting old wars and nursing old hatreds, while looking to stir up new ones. This is, to some extent, the message of President Obama's inaugural address: "...an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics." He was talking about American politics, but he might as well have been talking about the history problem in East Asia.

More stress headed Fukuda's way

Prime Minister Fukuda held a press conference Tuesday with journalists from foreign wire services at which he said in response to a question about whether it is fun being prime minister, "It's not fun! It's like a painful lump." To deal with stress, he told the reporters that he sleeps and drinks wine.

Little wonder that Mr. Fukuda is feeling stressed.

In the days since Machimura Nobutaka announced the tentative agreement reached with North Korea, Mr. Fukuda has faced the predictable uproar from the right.

On Tuesday, Hiranuma Takeo, chairman of a Diet members' league on the abductions problem and member (controversially) of Nakagawa Shoichi's conservative study group, visited the Kantei to appeal to Chief Cabinet Secretary Machimura on lifting sanctions. There should be no relief to North Korea without the recognition of concrete progress, he said.

The government will likely bend to their demands. Mr. Fukuda acknowledged Monday that the success of the agreement will depend on North Korea's follow through. That said, the conservatives haven't won yet. The meaning of "concrete action" is disputed. It is unclear what North Korea can do to please the conservatives (who may in fact prefer that the issue drags on); "realists" like Yamasaki Taku, head of a Diet members' league for the promotion of normalization of Japan-North Korea relations, seem willing to lower the bar. Mr. Yamasaki wants the abductions issue to be resolved within the year. In between Mr. Hiranuma and Mr. Yamasaki is the group for the promotion of a prudent North Korea policy, which supports a carrots-and-sticks approach to North Korea. Yamamoto Ichita, a member of the group, reports that it delivered a list of demands to Mr. Fukuda on Tuesday. Like Mr. Hiranuma, they do not want Japan to lift any sanctions until North Korea has made clear progress on its reinvestigation (again, clear progress is left undefined). They want the government to make clear to Washington that the Japanese government does not want the US to remove North Korea from the state sponsors of terrorism list yet. They continue to oppose normalization until progress is made on all fronts: abductions, missiles, and nukes.

In addition to pressure from within his own party, Mr. Fukuda also faces pressure from the public, which is circumspect about the new agreement. A Mainichi poll found that 34% of respondents "value" the government's agreement, while 55% do not value it. Considering that 88% of respondents in the government's latest foreign policy survey were concerned about the abductions issue (more than any other area of contention with North Korea), that's actually not terrible. If North Korea actually follows through — at least enough to allow the government to argue that there's been progress — the agreement might eventually enjoy a plurality of support, if not an outright majority.

Time to send some more wine over to the Kantei.

Realignment scenarios

After months of talking about forming a new party, Hiranuma Takeo, a leading LDP postal rebel who spurned LDP efforts to bring him back into the party during the Abe era, may finally be taking steps to create a new conservative party that may yet be a fly in the LDP's ointment.

Mr. Hiranuma has reportedly been in talks with other former LDP members — "independent conservatives" — to form a new study group. Partners in this endeavor include Watanuki Tamisuke, leader of the PNP; Kamei Shizuka, the PNP's secretary-general; Suzuki Muneo, the disgraced (and indicted) former LDP member, partner-in-corruption of the late Matsuoka Toshikatsu, and representative of his own Hokkaido-based New Party Big Earth; and Nakamura Kishiro, construction minister in the Miyazawa cabinet who was subsequently left the LDP, was arrested and charged with influence peddling in 1994, continued to win elections and serve as an independent HR member until 2003, when the Supreme Court rejected his final appeal and promptly stripped him of his seat and sent him to prison until 2004 when he was paroled (he won his seat back in the 2005 election).

These LDP castaways agreed to take a confrontational stance towards the "Fukuda cabinet's policy line," suggesting that this PNP+ grouping could be the beginning of Mr. Hiranuma's new party, throwing a wrinkle into a political realignment.

Or will it? While Mr. Hiranuma clearly has links to Nakagawa Shoichi and other conservative ideologues in the LDP, it is not at all clear that Mr. Hiranuma will be able to entice them to join his party, considering the ragtag group he has assembled around him. That won't stop the DPJ from looking to bolster Mr. Hiranuma's party in the hope that it will break the LDP. On Monday, Hatoyama Yukio, the DPJ's secretary-general, greeted the news of Mr. Hiranuma's group by calling for cooperation. I hope cooperation goes no further. For all Mr. Hiranuma's anti-LDP posturing, I suspect that his tune would change were Aso Taro elected as leader, suggesting that this gambit may be less an effort to create a third pole in the political system than to improve the terms for Mr. Hiranuma's eventual reunion with the LDP. Ibuki Bunmei, LDP secretary-general, has already come calling.

Mr. Hiranuma cannot possibly think that his party could become a significant third force in Japanese politics. Considering that it would be little different from the PNP, which has elected a grand total of eight representatives (four HR, four HC), why should anyone expect the Hiranuma new party to be anything but a guppy? Obviously that would change if the LDP's conservative wing were to leave the party en masse and join with Mr. Hiranuma, but at that point it would no longer be the Hiranuma new party but the Hiranuma-Abe-Nakagawa-Aso true conservative party, with the "H" increasingly pushed to the side.

The Japanese political system might have room for a third, swing party between two big parties, but I doubt that the swing party will have the ideological coloration of the Hiranuma new party.

The prospect of a Koizumi new party remains, to me, the more intriguing possibility. An article in the June issue of Bungei Shunjyu suggests (in part one) that Mr. Koizumi views the present crisis — a natural outgrowth of his ransacking of the LDP — as an opportunity to build a new political system, with Koike Yuriko acting as his stalking horse.

Another scenario discussed in the latter portion of the article is a bid by Ozawa Ichiro to pry the LDP's liberals away, similar to his failed attempt in 1994 to pry Watanabe Michio and his followers away from the LDP by promising Mr. Watanabe the premiership. The target for Mr. Ozawa's efforts supposedly is Kato Koichi, the once-promising liberal, although it is unlikely that the has-been Mr. Kato could bring significant numbers of LDP members with him.

Nevertheless, if the conservatives retake control of the LDP under Mr. Aso and reunite with Mr. Hiranuma, that alliance could prove fatal for the LDP, as the readmission of Mr. Hiranuma and the other postal rebels could lead Mr. Koizumi and his followers out of the party, perhaps prompting liberals unconnected to Mr. Koizumi to leave too and drift towards the DPJ.

But I still suspect that nothing will happen until after the next general election. Until an election is held, no group knows just how valuable its hand is. The size of the LDP's majority — if it retains a majority — will make all the difference when it comes to potential separatists considering whether to split (the same logic applies to Komeito's partnership with the LDP). The larger the majority, the stronger the LDP will be respective to potential splinter groups. Should the DPJ have a strong showing that puts it within striking distance of a majority, however, there will be a brutal war for the loyalty of possible defectors and Komeito (the latter especially in the event that the governing coalition retains a majority, but not the LDP independently).

The DPJ's way forward should not include Hiranuma

Convinced that a major electoral breakthrough is at hand following Hiraoka Hideo's impressive victory in Yamaguchi-2 Sunday, the DPJ leadership (a.ka., Ozawa Ichiro) has decided that it will continue to try to force the government to dissolve the HR and call a general election.

To that end, Mr. Ozawa indicated yesterday that the DPJ will push for an HC censure motion if and when the government passes the road construction plan in the HR a second time, expected after 12 May.

It has never been likely that a DPJ-backed HC censure motion would push the government to call an election — or else it would have passed one by now. With the government reeling from its defeat Sunday and Mr. Fukuda's future bleak, it is even less likely that an HC censure motion will trigger a general election. There may yet be a general election this year, but Sunday ensured that it won't be held under Mr. Fukuda's watch. A censure motion at this point will be a powerless stunt, one more blow to Mr. Fukuda's shambolic government, and a tiny one at that. I don't think it will hurt the DPJ, but it won't change the situation either. As Yamaguchi Jiro argues, the non-binding censure motion is a "wooden sword:" it won't topple the government, but it can damage Mr. Fukuda's reputation at home and abroad. So if the DPJ is determined to pass a censure motion, it should do it and then move on, without over-dramatizing the measure. It will mean exactly what it says it is; the DPJ is disappointed with the government's indifference to public opinion and is registering its disapproval officially. That's all.

That said, Mr. Ozawa is clearly feeling more confident and more powerful within the party following Sunday's victory. Sankei reports that he was all smiles at yesterday's press conference, for good reason, because the Yamaguchi-2 by-election probably stifled the gathering effort by DPJ reformists to find a serious candidate to run against Mr. Ozawa in the party's September leadership election. But it is at moments like this that the DPJ has to be especially cautious, given Mr. Ozawa's tendency to get carried away in his efforts to exploit what like to be prime opportunities.

It is worth noting that Mr. Ozawa dined with none other than Hiranuma Takeo on Monday evening, where they exchanged views about the political situation and prompted speculation that Mr. Hiranuma's still non-existent "Hiranuma New Party" and the DPJ could cooperate. Both agreed that the LDP is "useless." The DPJ will already cooperate with Mr. Hiranuma in one sense, in that the party will not be fielding a candidate in the Okayama-3 district he represents. I hope that Mr. Ozawa and the DPJ don't go any further in their cooperation with Mr. Hiranuma. I don't see how the DPJ can gain from closer association with the arch-conservative Hiranuma (although the DPJ would obviously benefit if Mr. Hiranuma were to form a party and pry away his LDP friends in Nakagawa Shoichi's study group).

As I argued yesterday, the DPJ needs to worry less about how to hasten a general election and more about how to hone its image as the reformist party that is more sensitive to the public's needs than the LDP. The LDP is tearing itself apart with the DPJ doing little more than using its control of the HC to stymie the government's agenda. It should keep doing that — and not look for apparent shortcuts to a general election that could tarnish the DPJ's image.

Hiranuma's kiss of death?

After nearly returning to the LDP in the waning days of the Abe cabinet, Hiranuma Takeo, holdout postal rebel and conservative stalwart, is not particularly popular among the LDP's elders.

Recall, for example, that in January Mori Yoshiro scolded Nakagawa Shoichi for working with Mr. Hiranuma in their "True Conservative Policy Research Group," AKA the HANA no Kai. Undoubtedly Mr. Hiranuma's presence outside the party is noxious to LDP leaders like Mr. Mori eager to keep their divided party together, not least when he speaks of creating a new "true" conservative party.

In a move that will likely irritate the party elders, Mr. Hiranuma has endorsed Aso Taro for LDP leader. He said Friday, "If the Fukuda cabinet resigns en masse, everybody is looking to the birth of an Aso administration. Since my principles and opinions are very similar, I will work hard to realize it."

I don't see how Mr. Hiranuma's endorsement helps Mr. Aso, particularly since the latter is trying to make a case for why he is the best man to reunite the LDP in the post-Fukuda era, which may be coming sooner than anticipated (and may therefore begin before the next general election). Indeed, despite Mr. Aso's fervent courtship of Mr. Mori and other Machimura faction power brokers, I wonder whether his association with Mr. Hiranuma — and comments made during last September's presidential election about factional politics — will once again deny him the LDP presidency, a scenario that leads me to wonder what Mr. Aso, Mr. Hiranuma, and the other conservatives will do in response.

The fantasies of "true conservatism"

For a glimpse into the twisted thinking of the Japanese right — the revisionist right — in the aftermath of the downfall of Abe Shinzo, there is no better place to look than the conversation between Sakurai Yoshiko and Hiranuma Takeo published in the January 2008 issue of Voice.

The bizarre, distorted facts and outright fictions published in this article brought me to the point of laughter on more than one occasion, although I didn't laugh nearly as much as the discussants apparently did, judging by the little parenthetical laugh marks that followed all too many of their remarks.

The discussion did, however, give me another reason to be glad that Mr. Abe was forced to resign (for whatever reason — these two think that fault for Abe's resignation lies not with Mr. Abe himself, but with his secretary, Inoue Yoshiyuki, who Ms. Sakurai describes as being "like [Koizumi secretary] Iijima," apparently a bad thing). It's not that their ideas are especially dangerous, it's that they're so irrelevant. They continue to insist that what they know what the Japanese people want, and that is the abductees brought home and the constitution revised. Ms. Sakurai at one point castigates Prime Minister Fukuda for failing to act on constitution revision, which, she reminds us, has been one of the core principles of the LDP since its founding in 1955. True, but so what? Why should a government in 2008 by following an agenda formulated before 1955 when it has to deal with the problems of 2008 and beyond?

How many elections does the LDP have to lose before they recognize that the Japanese people don't share their priorities? Did the July 2007 defeat not register?

Of course, the discussion inevitably turned to Mr. Hiranuma's planned "true" conservative party, because both the LDP and the DPJ are rotten (even if, they say, there are capable individuals within both parties). When asked about the timing of its formation, Mr. Hiranuma was reluctant to say whether it would occur before or after a general election. Undoubtedly he will have to make that decision with the cooperation of his friends within the LDP, who I suspect would prefer to wait until a general election before acting. Instead of forming a new party, it seems to me that the ideological right is starting to hope openly for an LDP defeat in a general election that will take down Fukuda and give them an opportunity to retake control of the party, purging "fake" conservatives in the process.

Towards the discussion, Mr. Hiranuma very nearly veered into relevance when he broached the question of economics, but it turned out he only wanted to castigate the Finance Ministry before directing the conversation back to more familiar ground, puzzlement over the reaction to Nakagawa Shoichi's 2006 calls for a debate about the acquisition of nuclear weapons.

I don't want to linger too much longer over this, but there was one more nugget worth mentioning. The two of course talked at length about the US about-face on North Korea and had a good laugh about Christopher Hill. Mr. Hiranuma also spoke about his recent trip to Washington along with other Diet members and the abductee families, where they spoke with members of Congress about resolutions in the House and Senate calling for a linkage between the abductions issue and the removal of North Korea from the state sponsors of terror list. For some reason, these ideologues really take congressional resolutions seriously. Mr. Hiranuma spoke with pride about how Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL-18) and Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) promised to push for these resolutions, and was impressed that the House resolution already had a whopping twenty-eight co-sponsors.

That said, they acknowledged the shortcomings of Diet members' diplomacy, thanks in part — wait for it — the influence of the Chinese in Washington, whose embassy has ten times more political specialists in their embassy than Japan's and who have significant numbers of Chinese-Americans whose support Beijing can apparently mobilize at will, as in the case of the comfort women resolution.

You would think from reading this interview that Japanese society was healthy and that there was not a long list of problems facing the government for years to come. And you would be wrong, just as the ideological right is wrong. The decisions made by the Japanese government in the coming years will determine whether Japan remains influential regionally and globally, whether it remains an economic power with a voice in shaping East Asia. Its power will not rest on a new constitution that enables Japan to send its robust military to fight abroad. It will not rest on its children being proud of being Japanese. It will depend on Japan's becoming a country that is more open to the world, more willing to take risks, better able to provide security for its aging citizens, and better able to educate Japanese children for the world in which they will live.

The vision of Mr. Hiranuma, Ms. Sakurai, and their compatriots in the mass media and the Diet is a vision from 1950. (I guess that's what they mean by "true conservatism). Too bad it's 2008.

The shape of the realignment to come?

Nakagawa Shoichi, former LDP Policy Affairs Research Council chairman, was recently interviewed in the Kyodo Weekly on the subject of his new study group.

Not surprisingly, the "True Conservative Policy Research Group" is, according to Mr. Nakagawa, dedicated to keeping the flame of the Abe revolution alive.

In explaining what true conservatism is, he said, "Japan stands at a crossroads — will it continue down the road to ruin, or will it go down the road of revival? The LDP has defended Japan's good tradition and culture, and improved and reformed that which should be reformed. If this type of conservatism does not press forward, the support for the true conservative class will become unreliable."

He continued: "Restoring vitality to the regions, and at the national level, reconstructing national security, public order, education and the social security systems. We must continue to struggle with constitution revision, reform of the public service system, and collective self-defense, the problems with which the former Abe administration grappled."

None of this is that surprising or revealing. What is revealing, however, is what Mr. Nakagawa says about the group's political aims. For the moment, Mr. Nakagawa supports Prime Minister Fukuda. He even claims that he voted for him in September. But he also hinted that he and his coterie are more concerned about policy than personality. And when asked whether he would join independent conservative Hiranuma Takeo's new party, he declined to answer — and quoted Hiranuma as talking about how the DPJ "is not monolithic, it is essential to build bridges, and this is our self-imposed mission."

I remain skeptical of the idea that Mr. Nakagawa and his comrades will leave the LDP, now that the revisionists are finally in the party's mainstream. It is their party now. What might happen in the aftermath of the next general election — except in the unlikely event that the government retains its supermajority — is a bid by the ideologues to expel those who aren't in sync with their principles. Their biggest rival is now the Kochikai, which is set to reemerge this year from a merger between the Koga and Tanigaki factions, in the process unseating the Tsushima faction as the party's second largest. The next LDP presidential election, which will presumably follow a general election disappointment or defeat, will be a brutal fight for dominance over the party. If the LDP still holds a majority (judged by Koga Makoto, LDP election strategist, to be "difficult") the conservatives will presumably focus on enticing the DPJ's conservatives into the party to bolster both the conservative position within the party and the LDP's position in the Diet.

And if the LDP goes into opposition for the second time in its history? Harder to say, because victory would presumably serve as an excellent adhesive for the DPJ, keeping the conservatives from joining with their counterparts in the LDP. Would the LDP survive opposition in one piece?

No wonder former Prime Minister Mori and other party elders want to postpone a general election for as long as possible.

Political change, left and right

Japanese politicians and commentators are increasingly coming around to the view that the next general election, whether it will be held next month or next year, will likely be historically significant, for even if the DPJ does not unseat the LDP, the election could upset the status quo and trigger a new political alignment.

One can find signs of the anticipated realignment.

On the right, Hiranuma Takeo, who before Mr. Abe's crackup looked like he was prepared to return to the LDP, recently suggested the creation of a new study group devoted to "a rebirth of conservatism based on Japan's tradition and culture" that could, according to Sankei, hint at the creation of a new conservative party. His hope, it seems, is to draw conservatives from both the LDP and the DPJ, who he expects might be dissatisfied with the leadership of their respective parties.

I can't see this succeeding, given that some of the LDP's conservatives are already planning for Mr. Fukuda's departure and working to ensure that Mr. Aso will not fail in his bid to succeed him. Meanwhile, whatever their dissatisfaction with Mr. Ozawa's leadership, I suspect that the centrifugal forces of a major political party (important jobs, respect, the prospects for unseating Ozawa and seizing control for themselves) will easily overwhelm the appeal of a speculative Hiranuma new party.

More intriguing, however, are signs of a new dynamism on the part of the Japanese Communist Party (JCP). Akahata (Red Flag), the JCP daily, has been dutifully reporting on the travels of JCP chairman Shii Kazuo throughout Japan. With the DPJ and the LDP looking like the old factions, the JCP may benefit by being the one party that has a genuinely unique critique of the government. In a speech in Chiba last week, for example, Mr. Shii criticized LDP rule for its large corporation-centered approach, its acting as America's yes-man, and its efforts to legitimize Japan's imperial past. He also called for the gradual disarmament of Japan and the dissolution of the JSDF. In a recent speech in Nagasaki, he elaborated on the party's opposition to structural reform and the need to defend vulnerable members of Japanese society, and insisted that unlike the DPJ, the JCP's confrontational stance is without contradiction.

Given social insecurities, given the DPJ's own money problems and ambiguous policy positions, given discontent with politics as usual, I think there may be room for the JCP to become an important small party — to use a German analogy, if Komeito plays the role of the Free Democrats to the LDP's Christian Democrats, then the JCP could be the Greens to the DPJ's Social Democrats. The JCP is already giving signs of bowing to political reality; while Chairman Shii insists that the party remains dedicated to achieving a majority of its own, the party's new election strategy recognizes the difficulty of winning in single-seat districts and so the JCP will concentrate on the regional PR blocs in the next Lower House election (as suggested by Ichida Tadayoshi, JCP secretary-general). Sooner or later, however, the Communists will have to compromise their principles if they are to play a significant role in the political system as a potential coalition partner for the DPJ.

Not least, the party will have to change its name. Whatever the history, the word "communist" is an albatross around the party's neck, undermining what could otherwise be a policy platform that has some appeal to Japanese voters. In his Chiba speech, Mr. Shii spoke of the "romance" of the party's name, which Mr. Ichida suggested is related to the party's history as the only party that both opposed imperialism before the war and the alliance with the US afterwards. Mr. Ichida also spoke of the party's reluctance to become a "normal" political party scrambling for cash and receiving subsidies from the state. An admirable idealism, perhaps, but a guarantee of remaining effectively useless. The Japanese "allergy" to communism remains, and the party would be wise to stop limiting its own public support.

But the changing political environment should be viewed by its leadership as yet another opportunity to modernize their party. The MSDF refueling debate has opened up questions about the US-Japan alliance, the pensions scandal has raised the fears of millions of citizens, and corruption scandal after corruption scandal have undermined whatever confidence voters have in the political system. As a party that has been consistently opposed to Japan as it is, the JCP would be foolish not to try to take advantage of new political circumstances and carve out a niche for itself.

Of course, the Communists have missed opportunities in the past, and it would not surprise me if they were to miss this opportunity too. But I am intrigued by the prospect of their potentially adding another wrinkle to the political realignment of Japan.

Anti-faction non-faction to become a faction?

Say that five times fast.

In response to the readmission of Hiranuma Takeo, prominent postal rebel, to the LDP, and to the general thrust of discourse within the LDP — Mr. Abe's speech to the Diet yesterday notwithstanding — the reform-minded "Koizumi children" are apparently at work preparing to convert their study group into a formal LDP faction.

Their rallying cry: "The people are not idiots!"

Of course, the decision that to have influence within the LDP they need to be a formal faction strikes me as an admission of defeat, a rear-guard action on behalf of ideas (and a type of leadership) out of vogue in the party. They will probably not be comforted by Mr. Hiranuma's statement that he "understands" their opposition.

Will it make any difference? Arguably what's missing are not the ideas of reform, but the standard bearer. There is no substituting for Mr. Koizumi's charisma. And given the way the Tanigaki faction has been excluded from power, there's no guarantee that having a faction will put the "children" any closer to the reins of power within the LDP. The party is treading water with considerable difficulty thanks to the leaden anchor of Mr. Abe. It is unreasonable to think that a band of reformers without a charismatic leader will be able to transform the situation in their favor.

The beginning of divided government

The DPJ, now calling the shots on the administration of the Upper House, has announced the distribution of the chairmanships of Upper House committees, and in a gesture that strikes me as magnanimous, has given the chairmanship of the Budget Committee to the LDP. The LDP has named Konoike Yoshitada to fill the post.

While the House of Representatives has ultimate responsibility for the budget, it is important to remember that the budget committee in both houses is the main forum for questioning the government on all manner of subjects. With the LDP holding the chairmanship, it will have the power to end questioning and send the budget bill to the whole house.

As Asahi emphasizes in an article today (not online), Japan is in for an experiment in divided government akin to that seen in France and the US. I'm not sure if anyone really knows what will happen from Monday on: will the DPJ wield its new powers forcefully, or will it hold back, act cooperatively and let the government destroy itself? Inter-party cooperation is by no means a new phenomenon in Japanese politics, but the process is about to be turned inside-out. Whereas cooperation previously was the result of the LDP's trying to include opposition parties in the policy making process through compromises behind closed doors, cooperation and competition will now take place publicly, along the institutional battle lines between Upper House, Lower House, and government.

Indeed, Asahi's editorial today views the start of the special Diet session as the first act of a new stage of political reform.

"If there is misgovernment, the majority should be exchanged, and administration should change hands," writes Asahi. "This tension has activated Japanese democracy. This debate has proceeded from the introduction of single-seat electoral districts and the reorganization of political parties. With the reversal of the majority in the Upper House, the power to reject the governing coalition's bills has been given to the opposition. Without the opposition's cooperation, the government cannot be administered; the opposition bears this responsibility. This means that the circumstances coming into being should also be called 'half change of government.'"

Whether the experiment in divided government will be long-lived remains to be seen. The DPJ will continue to push for an early dissolution of the House of Representatives and a general election, and with the floodgates open on reports of corrupt practices by members of the government and LDP executives, the DPJ will have a lot of help from the media. The Nelson Report, citing the analysis of Peter Ennis of The Oriental Economist, suggests that Mr. Abe could be gone by November and that the anti-terror special measures law will be allowed to expire, giving the DPJ a not-inconsiderable victory.

Meanwhile, the Yosano-Aso team may have ignited a civil war in the LDP by inviting Mr. Hiranuma back to the party. Undoubtedly the younger members of the LDP can see the writing on the wall for their political careers.

It is unclear how much longer this turmoil in the political system will last, but the pressure for change appears to be swelling relentlessly; when all is said and done, Japan may find itself with a more transparent, dynamic political system.

Can't go home again

In an essay in the forthcoming issue of the Far Eastern Economic Review that I co-authored with Doug Turner, we discuss that the challenge for the LDP going forward is reconfiguring the party's identity for the post-Koizumi era. Reform or reaction? Urban or rural? These are the questions that the party has to answer.

And yet the answer at the moment seems to be a return to the party's pre-Koizumi roots. Mr. Aso has come out and said that he has "no objections" to welcoming stalwart postal rebel Hiranuma Takeo back into the party's fold without conditions. It is unclear whether Mr. Hiranuma will accept Mr. Aso's amnesty, but the offer itself is a sign that the LDP is clueless about how to go forward.

As MTC notes, "Koizumi's expulsion of the opponents of reform demonstrated that the LDP had changed, that the party had tossed off its hidebound and self-serving ways. Now, if Hiranuma is back in, the whole bloody exercise becomes moot."

I can't help but wonder if the LDP thinks that all that is wrong is that a few bad eggs in the cabinet spoiled the party's image before the election, and that if it simply purges the perpetrators expeditiously whenever allegations of corruption (or incompetence?) become unmanageable, everything will go back to normal. While I don't think the Japanese people are exactly running into the arms of the DPJ, I do think that voters are not going to be especially forgiving of the LDP, particularly after the bait-and-switch act that followed the 2005 landslide.

So whose party will it be? Mr. Hiranuma's? Or the Koizumi children's? It certainly won't be Mr. Abe's, unless leaving the party more adrift than before his tenure counts as leaving his personal mark upon the party. At Contentions, Michael Auslin recognizes, "Abe has to start showing results," but then concludes that his efforts should be focused entirely on international initiatives. Forget structural reform. Forget education or health care. Mr. Abe should dazzle the people with the Asian community of democracies. Given the silence that greeted Mr. Abe's proposal, it's appropriate to ask if the Japanese people even noticed his remarks in New Delhi, and if they noticed, it's important to ask if they care.

Mr. Abe's — and the LDP's — problems will not be solved by prancing around on the international stage. At some point they will have to present a constructive, concrete agenda to the people that will, one way or another, settle the urban-rural question. Will the LDP be the party of Japan's urban future, or will it defend the interests of the dying rural past? (Mind you, I'm not treating the latter as a negative. Someone will have to represent the interests of rural Japan; the more interesting question is how.) The bizarre hybrid that is the LDP today, however, will not last. In fact, the current combination is pretty much guaranteed to leave everyone dissatisfied, hence the July defeat.