Following the leader

Michael Cucek catches a comment from LDP Secretary-General Ishiba Shigeru at a public appearance in Kagawa. 

Ishiba said, "The Liberal Democratic Party is a party for doing what?...First and foremost, it a party for the revision of the Constitution." 

Cucek raises some useful questions about what this statement means, but I wonder whether Ishiba wasn't just being extremely literal.

After all, revising the constitution is right there in the party's founding documents. In the party platform of 15 November 1955, the sixth and last (but arguably not least) proposal says that the party will "plan for independent revision of the current constitution and reexamine Occupation-era laws, changing them to conform with national conditions." The same plank says "in order to protect world peace, state independence, and popular freedom," the LDP will create a self-defense force and prepare for the removal of foreign troops stationed on Japanese soil (i.e., the US military). 

But to try to answer Cucek's questions, I don't know if the Westminsterization is really all that stealthy. If a prime minister knows what he wants to do, has the public behind him, and faces no real opposition from within his own party, one should not be surprised that even a politician with an independent base of support like Ishiba would have to follow the leader, right down to his rhetoric. 

There doesn't seem to be a whole lot standing in the way of Abe Shinzō's completing the work of his grandfather and the other fathers of the LDP.

Tanigaki as the compromise candidate

For the second time in three months, an effort by younger LDP members to lead the party in a different direction has run out of steam not long after getting started.

Ishihara Nobuteru (52), the last hope of the LDP's younger members, bowed out of the upcoming LDP presidential election on Saturday, clearing the way for Tanigaki Sadakazu (64), who has entered the race as the preferred candidate of the party's elders. Tanigaki will likely face Ishiba Shigeru and possibly Kono Taro (46), who has expressed interest in running and is undoubtedly a rising star in the party but is perhaps too young to assemble a winning coalition in time for this month's election. If the LDP is going to change, it won't be as the result of generational change within the party.

The LDP's "Rebirth Council," discussed here, has already backed away from harsh criticism of the factions and their leaders. If anything, the demographics favor the LDP's elders. 40% of the party's winners are over 60, the average age of the party's Diet members rose to 56.6, and Diet members who have won seven or more elections outnumber those who have won one to three elections 38 to 30, with the remaining 51 having won between four and six elections. In other words, too many leaders, not enough followers — and the leaders are not about to bow to the followers.

What of the prospects for party reform should Tanigaki win, and given the number of votes given to party chapters his victory is far from assured? Probably modest at best. The gist of Tanigaki's remarks is that he will try to please everyone as the party prepares for next year's upper house election: the young have a role to play, the factions should not be dissolved but should play a different role, and senior leaders should spend more time traveling the country speaking with voters. As Jun Okumura suggests, having the dovish Tanigaki as opposition leader might signal less of a policy departure than meets the eye: Amari Akira, a member of Aso's cabinet and one of the outgoing prime minister's lieutenants, said Friday that Tanigaki is the right man for the job. Yamamoto Ichita, one of the party's young reformists, would prefer a generational change but had nice things to say about Tanigaki's qualities as a politician.

Tanigaki would soften the party's image, but it seems unlikely that he would demand much or receive much in the way of internal reorganization. Tanigaki strikes me as the candidate of as little change as the party elders perceive as necessary for the LDP to retake power. By comparison, Ishiba is offering something more radical — he is not, for example, holding back from labeling the factions as outdated.

Aso seals the deal, and the LDP pats itself on the back

The campaign to replace Fukuda Yasuo as LDP president and prime minister officially began on Wednesday, with the five candidates — Aso Taro, Koike Yuriko, Yosano Kaoru, Ishihara Nobuteru, and Ishiba Shigeru — holding a joint press conference before traveling the country to campaign.

The press conference makes clear just how farcical claims of the LDP's "open" election are. Yes, there are five candidates vying for the slot, compared with Ozawa Ichiro's uncontested reelection as DPJ president. But for all the talk of an open election, the candidates papered over points of disagreement, refused to commit to any concrete steps to fix the budget, and took turns criticizing Mr. Ozawa for his failures to consult, explain, and persuade — and his party's lack of experience at governing (because the LDP's track record suggests that experience correlates strongly with performance, right?).

In reality, the LDP couldn't have wished for a better way to see off the bad taste left by Mr. Fukuda. The LDP gets a chance to show up the DPJ — see! this is what intraparty democracy looks like — without there being little chance of genuine and open disagreement or the possibility that something unexpected might happen (see below). If I were more conspiratorially minded, I would think that the candidates were hand-picked to maximize the PR advantage to the LDP. (In the same vein, reading that Ms. Koike was forced to close her campaign office for an ambiguous problem with the real estate agent really makes me wonder whether there is something to this — did she not get the memo that she's in the race as window dressing, and therefore someone had to send the message that she shouldn't take the election too seriously?) But I'm not inclined to think that the LDP elders coordinated the campaign of five. Nakagawa Hidenao is certainly taking the race seriously enough. It appears that the LDP just got lucky: Mr. Fukuda resigned just in time for the election to coincide precisely with the DPJ's uncontested election and enough of the LDP's younger, more popular figures feel they stand a chance against Mr. Aso, helping the LDP look more dynamic and in touch than both Mr. Ozawa — that old dictator — and the hapless Mr. Fukuda.

But there really is little doubt that Mr. Aso will win the premiership.

Polls of both LDP Diet members and party rank-and-file suggest that Mr. Aso may be in a position to secure a majority in the first round, obviating the need for a second. Asahi surmises that it is probable that he will do so, looking at the support for Mr. Aso in the prefectural chapters and in the parliamentary party. Asahi projects that Mr. Aso will receive at least 63 of the 141 votes from prefectural chapters, with a final tally considerably more than 63. Suggesting the strength of Mr. Aso's grassroots support, Asahi expects that Mr. Aso will win three votes even in prefectural chapters distributing votes proportionally.

Asahi also expects him to receive a majority of LDP parliamentarians, but given that the preferences of faction leaders no longer determine how faction members vote, it is harder to predict exactly how the parliamentary vote will break down. It is clear, however, that we are witnessing the first officially post-factional LDP presidential election: the Tsushima (second largest), Koga (third largest), Yamasaki (fourth largest), and the Komura (eighth largest) factions have announced that their members will be free to vote for whichever candidate they prefer, and with the Machimura faction divided between supporters of Mr. Aso and Ms. Koike, the Machimura faction is effectively following the same rule. Yomiuri estimates that Mr. Aso has the support of forty percent of the 386 Diet members (approximately 155 members), meaning that he needs only 109 more votes to win the election in the first round. It's possible that he will receive those 109 votes from the prefectural chapters alone, which will in turn bolster his parliamentary votes (undoubtedly some Diet members will be swayed by the results from their home prefectures).

Public opinion polls confirm Mr. Aso's support. Yomiuri finds that Mr. Aso is the only candidate but Mr. Ishihara who beats Mr. Ozawa in face-to-face matchup, and by a large margin: 59% to 27.6%. Mr. Ishihara barely edges out Mr. Ozawa, 43.5% to 40.1%, while the other three all trail Mr. Ozawa by more than ten percentage points. Asahi's nationwide poll found Mr. Aso to be the most appropriate candidate for the premiership with 42% support, with Mr. Ishihara once again ranking second with 10%. Mr. Aso won points for his perceived "ability to get things done."

But no matter how sizeable Mr. Aso's victory, he will be under pressure to perform immediately. As already noted by Ken Worsley and elaborated further by Mary Stokes at Nouriel Roubini's Global EconoMonitor, Japan's economy shrank by 3% annualized in the second quarter, instead of the original figure of 2.4%. The outlook for the new government is bleak — get the economy growing again, only to get the economy healthy enough to take measures to fix the budget deficit (i.e., a consumption tax increase, which all the LDP candidates see as necessary at some point in time).

Even if the new government passes a stimulus package as a prelude to an election which it then proceeds to win, it will be in an unenviable position. The DPJ may prefer that it lose the next election, leaving an Aso government with the tasks of battling the recession and then the budget.

The field gets crowded

On Friday I noted that the LDP was shaping up with four candidates.

Not long after I wrote that post, however, it became clear that the field would expand before long, in large part because younger LDP members like Yamauchi Koichi are unhappy with their choices.

As a result, Ishiba Shigeru (51), the former defense minister, Yamamoto Ichita (50), the rockin' upper house member from Gunma, and possibly Tanahashi Yasufumi (45), an LDP young turk, have each declared their intention to contest the Sept. 22 election.

It is unclear which among them will be able to muster the twenty endorsements necessary to run.

The bigger the field, the greater the chance of a surprise, especially since all forty-seven prefectural chapters will be holding elections to determine how to cast their three votes. At the very least, it raises the likelihood of a runoff election should no candidate receive a majority in the first round of voting. (For a look at the implications of the LDP's shift to popular, "open" voting, read this post by Jun Okumura.)

But looking at the shape of the field, the absence of another conservative from the True Conservative Policy Research Group is telling. The conservatives behind Mr. Aso are remarkably disciplined compared to their ideological rivals. Considering the incredible amount of disunity in Japanese political organizations (a trait, I should note, that is by no means unique to Japanese organizations), the lack of public disharmony among the LDP's conservatives is nothing short of remarkable. It could well make the difference in the outcome of the presidential 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.

Gates in Asia

Robert Gates, the US secretary of defense, is in Asia for the Shangri-La Dialogue, an annual meeting of defense ministers in Singapore. Mr. Gates has also stopped in Guam, and will visit Thailand and South Korea before returning to the US.

Before addressing the substance of the secretary's swing through the region, it is worth pointing that there is something unfortunate about Gates's tenure at the Pentagon. Like Fukuda Yasuo, Mr. Gates may be the right man for his job, but at the wrong time, coming into power too late to implement the changes that he feels must be made in US defense policy. Mr. Gates has given considerable thoughts on the way forward for US defense policy more broadly and US Asia policy specifically — but he may ultimately have too little time at the Pentagon to make a lasting impact on policy.

At Shangri-La, Mr. Gates showed that he has given serious thought to the changing nature of US Asia policy, and acknowledges that US power in Asia may be best applied in concert, not just in the postwar bilateral alliances, but in multilateral vehicles that may even include China. He clearly rejects a simplistic "stop China" approach to US Asia policy.

In his speech in Singapore he spoke in detail about the changing nature of the US role in Asia. He called for a continuing commitment to an open Asia, with transparent security relations that reduce the potential for misperceptions and misunderstandings (remarks undoubtedly aimed at China) and emphasized that the US is a "resident power" in Asia and will thus remain committed to an active role in Asia. The note Mr. Gates sounded is not of an America in retreat from Asia but of an America playing a quieter but no less effective role in the region as it allows its Asian partners to take the lead in shaping the regional security environment. (Perhaps this is a Nixon Doctrine redux.)

Accordingly, the US will work to strengthen and utilize all available foreign policy tools, not just its military power: "Asia in recent years marks a shift that reflects new thinking in overall US defense strategy. We are building partner-nation capacity so friends can better defend themselves. While preserving all of our conventional military deterrence abilities as traditionally understood, we have become more attentive to both 'hard' and 'soft' elements of national power, where military, diplomatic, economic, cultural, and humanitarian elements fold into one another to ensure better long-term security based on our own capabilities and those of our partners."

Mr. Gates clearly appreciates that US power must be used in connection with the broader aim of preserving stability (and thus promoting further economic growth) in Asia. While the US and Japan repeated their call for greater transparency from China, Mr. Gates's message was on the whole positive and constructive.

To his credit, Ishiba Shigeru, Japan's defense minister, emphasized the need for Japan to contribute to stability in the region in his remarks at Shangri-La. Mr. Ishiba acknowledged that Japan's qualified acceptance of its wartime wrongdoings has complicated relations with its Asian neighbors, complications that must be addressed if Japan is to use the JSDF to contribute to peace and stability in the region.

The challenge of making the case for a responsible Japan will become more urgent as 2014 approaches, as US Marines leave Okinawa for Guam and necessarily yield greater responsibility for the defense of Japan to the JSDF.

It is no clearer, however, whether Guam will be ready by 2014.

Secretary Gates acknowledged the importance of the realignment in his Shangri-La address — "Our Asian friends, whether or not they are formally allied to us, welcome our growing presence on Guam. As the island’s new facilities take shape in coming years, they will be increasingly multilateral in orientation, with training opportunities and possible pre-positioning of assets" — and while touring Guam on his way to Singapore.

In Guam, the secretary met with local officials, including Felix Camacho, the governor, to discuss the daunting infrastructure project facing the US and Japanese governments, as well as the government of Guam, in preparing Guam to receive a massive influx of US military personnel (the bulk of which will be Marine elements relocated from Okinawa). The question remains whether the job can be done by 2014.

In a meeting with Ishiba Shigeru, his Japanese counterpart, in Singapore, Mr. Gates and Mr. Ishiba agreed that the realignment must proceed as scheduled. But there are a number of potential bottlenecks that could delay or derail the whole process: the environmental impact assessment in Okinawa related to the construction of the Futenma replacement facility (FRF); the environmental impact assessment in Guam, not due to be completed until 2010; the budget processes in both the US and Japan (neither government has appropriated funds for Guam construction yet); and Guam's civilian infrastructure, which left as is could hinder the effectiveness of relocated US forces. These obstacles are by no means fatal, but they will not be overcome without sustained attention from Washington.

That is the challenge for Asia policy as a whole. While Mr. Gates is right to note that the US is a resident Asian power (i.e., it will not be withdrawing from Asia anytime soon), the quality of US engagement in Asia can clearly vary. Sustained, high-level attention is essential if the US is to play a constructive role in Asia along the lines envisioned by Secretary Gates.

The race for defense ministry reform

Back in February, when Defense Minister Ishiba Shigeru was threatened with censure for his ministry's dilatory response to the Atago incident, Prime Minister Fukuda gave Mr. Ishiba a firm vote of confidence, calling upon the defense minister to "review the organization from its very foundation."

It appears that Mr. Fukuda's support for comprehensive defense ministry reform has lapsed.

Mr. Ishiba is still eager, of course. Earlier this week he appeared on TV to argue for a thorough reform that mixes civilians and JSDF personnel in the ministry to strengthen communication among them.

But now Mr. Ishiba faces competition from two different directions. From one side is the defense ministry reform subcommittee of the LDP - PARC's national security investigatory committee. Chaired by former JDA chief Nakatani Gen and staffed largely by boei zoku, the subcommittee issued its recommendations on Thursday.

The subcommittee report is less far-reaching than that envisioned by Mr. Ishiba. The word of choice seems to be "strengthening," especially the prime minister's office. The subcommittee revives Abe Shinzo's project of creating a Japanese National Security Council, and calls for naming a defense ministry/JSDF member as prime ministerial secretaries and military aides. (It also calls for a new adviser to the defense minister, who would could be a civilian from outside the ministry.) Instead of merging uniformed and civilian personnel, the subcommittee draws clearer lines between the two. It calls for shutting down the ministry's operations planning bureau and moving its functions to the Joint Staff Office (JSO), while strengthening the ministry's responsibilities for strategy and policy. It also calls for changing rules to allow JSDF personnel to testify to the Diet on specific military questions and for measures to improve morale in both the ministry and the JSDF.

This may be an improvement on Mr. Ishiba's plans. It seems to me that blurring the lines between civilians and uniformed personnel undermines civilian control of the military.

However, Mr. Ishiba also faces competition from the Kantei, which has announced the creation of a reform council of its own that will be more focused on tackling the air of corruption at the ministry.

The current political situation may result in the Kantei's winning the race to defense ministry reform with a more limited plan that does less to shake up the ministry (which will necessarily invite opposition from uniformed and civilian personnel).

But what outcome is the best for Japan? I do not share Michael Penn's bleak assessment of the consequences of various ministry reform proposals. (Unfortunately I have no link to Mr. Penn's latest newsletter in which he discusses the Nakatani proposal.) His argument is that the response of JSDF personnel to Judge Aoyama Kunio's statement on the ASDF Iraq mission, in addition to reported JSDF involvement in spying on antiwar groups, should raise red flags about the nature of the JSDF — and as a result the mooted reforms should be rejected. He wrote:

Come now! Criminalizing the act of handing out antiwar fliers to SDF families? Spying on peace groups? Growing links to international role models like the Pakistani military? Mocking civilian judges? A direct pipeline to the prime minister? Active units under the direct command of the Chief of Staff?

Is this really a good start for Japan's new Ministry of Defense? Where are the effective countervailing political forces here? What about the lessons of Japanese history in the 20th century? If unchecked now, where does this kind of thing lead in the future?

I think alarms about the JSDF are overwrought. Without denying the troubling involvement of the GSDF in domestic espionage against peace groups, which was revealed in June 2007 but has since vanished from the media, the Japanese defense establishment does need reform. It needs a clearer chain of command, swifter information collection and processing, and better decision-making in response to crises. (And beyond this, it needs a more transparent procurement process.)

That said, I share Mr. Penn's concern about the lack of "countervailing political forces." As far as I'm concerned, any defense ministry reform that does not include provisions for the creation of an inspector general's office and more robust Diet oversight is insufficient. The DPJ should be taking this position in the reform debate, agreeing that the ministry needs reform but insisting that reform must be matched by better oversight. The creation of a more effective defense establishment must be accompanied by the creation of stronger institutional checks to monitor its activities.

Dialogue delayed

Defense Minister Ishiba, scheduled to visit Washington as part of the annual Golden Week pilgrimage of Japanese politicians and meet with Secretary of Defense Gates to discuss the alliance in broad terms, will not be visiting after all. The most likely reason for the cancellation is the fluid situation in the Diet, not to mention Mr. Ishiba's own vulnerable position (although it is less vulnerable now than it was about a month ago).

It is unfortunate that Messrs. Ishiba and Gates will be unable to talk about the future of the alliance and the realignment of US forces, as both men are serious thinkers who would likely be willing to address the alliance's problems head on instead of resorting to the old mantras. Look back at Mr. Gates's speech at Sophia University in November, in which he asked several important questions about the future of the US-Japan relationship: given the opportunity, Mr. Gates might even be able to make an important contribution to changing the alliance.

He is unlikely to get such an opportunity.

Thanks to domestic politics on both sides of the Pacific, the discussion that the allies need to have about the relationship will continue to be postponed, at least until the inception of a new presidential administration, and even then, Iraq will continue to ensure that presidential attention is directed elsewhere.

Ishiba remains the scourge of the bureaucrats

With the fight over the nomination of Muto Toshiro taking center stage, opposition calls for Defense Minister Ishiba Shigeru to resign due to the Atago incident appear to have receded, leaving Mr. Ishiba to proceed with his efforts to clean up the Defense Ministry.

The latest piece of that effort is his project team to "promote integrated procurement reform." This group's purpose is radical change in the defense procurement process with the aim of eliminating the pernicious influence of the defense trading companies, which results in untold waste and inefficiency in Japanese defense spending. Last year's scandal implicating Moriya Takemasa provided a mere glimpse at the problem.

Asahi reports that the team's final report, due at the end of the month, will make several changes to defense procurement effective at the start of Fiscal Year 2009, including the creation of a supervisory group that will monitor the activities of trading companies in relation to arms imports and the expansion of direct links to defense contractors in the US (for example).

Any Japanese politician who claims to be serious about national security should be wholly supportive of Mr. Ishiba's efforts at the very least, and should be clamoring for more assiduous oversight from the Diet and ideally an intra-ministerial inspector general. The combination of a changing security environment and tightening budgets mean that the Japanese people and their elected representatives should not tolerate the gross misuse of public funds that is the result of the trading company-dependent procurement process. They should demand transparency, efficiency, and accountable, considering national defense is at stake.

Is that really too much to ask?

The DPJ gets its groove back (for now)

The past six months in Japanese politics have seen some surprising and unexpected events and reversals of momentum — and it looks as if we're in the midst of the latest shift in momentum. The DPJ, after a shaky start to the current Diet session following the government's deft maneuvering on the MSDF refueling mission (and a last-minute ambush by the other opposition parties), now appears to have gotten its act together and is pushing hard on the government on multiple fronts. It's beginning to look a lot like August 2007.

The Atago incident is turning into a major boon for the DPJ. As Jun Okumura notes, intensifying the push for Ishiba Shigeru to resign as defense minister may stymie the government's efforts to pass the budget by Friday, thus ensuring that it will pass even if the HC rejects it: "The less time that there is, the more inclined the LDP will be to make concessions and the less willing the DPJ will be to oblige." Of course, it looked like Mr. Ishiba would be immune to DPJ pressure, thanks to a vote of confidence from the prime minister and his status as probably the one man in the LDP willing (and possibly able) to reform the woefully deficient defense establishment. Even as recently as Tuesday, when Mr. Ishiba faced questioning in the HR Security Committee, he seemed confident dismissing calls for his resignation over this incident. On Wednesday, however, more reports emerged pointing to failures in the gathering and sharing of information between the Defense Ministry and the Coast Guard, implicating Mr. Ishiba's leadership in response to the incident.

Mainichi reports that pressure is now coming from within the LDP, especially LDP leaders in the HC. The prime minister continues to stand by Mr. Ishiba, but it seems that my initial impression was correct: Mr. Ishiba will likely be forced out. Presumably his replacement will be someone less likely to rattle cages and therefore more acceptable to both the LDP and the defense establishment. In short, despite this scandal, it will be business as usual in Ichigaya, once Mr. Ishiba is out of the picture.

Meanwhile the compromise on the leadership succession at the Bank of Japan that everyone — including myself — expected to occur remains elusive. The government decided Tuesday to delay the official presentation of Muto Toshiro, the government's nominee, until next week. With just under three weeks until Mr. Fukui's term expires, there is still time for the LDP and the DPJ to come to an agreement and avoid having a vacancy at the BOJ, but the DPJ is clearly content to make the government wait, to make the point that unlike on other issues, the Fukuda government has no choice but to work with the DPJ. This appears to please Mr. Ozawa to no end. As I suspected, the DPJ may eventually cooperate — but it has no reason to follow the government's desired timetable. Mr. Fukuda, at least according to this Asahi article, sounds a bit exasperated. When asked about Mr. Ozawa's comments on Mr. Muto ("I also know a lot from his time at the Finance Ministry, but whether he is appropriate as BOJ president is a different matter"), Mr. Fukuda said, "He's not really saying anything. We have no choice but to wait."

Finally, on the budget, the DPJ, together with the SDP and the PNP, absented themselves Wednesday from HR Budget and Finance and Monetary subcommittees to protest the government's plan to pass the FY 2008 budget on Friday. Hatoyama Yukio described the government's plan as making "scrap paper" of the LDP-DPJ agreement negotiated by Messrs. Eda and Kono, and warned of consequences in the battle over the BOJ succession. This afternoon the opposition will return to the Budget Committee to debate the special road construction fund. On Wednesday the DPJ announced the basic principles for its own legislation the fund: (1) repealing the temporary gasoline tax; (2) folding the special fund into the general fund; and (3) abolishing the "burden charge" for local communities for state-mandated projects.

Thanks to Mr. Koizumi, the DPJ now has less reason to compromise on this issue than ever. Mainichi reports, "...There is also the hope that the LDP is being rocked internally by the appearance of remarks in favor of the 'general fundization' [of road construction funds] from former Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro and others. Kan Naoto, DPJ acting president, emphasized at a press conference on the 27th: 'Mr. Koizumi's opinion is close to the DPJ's opinion. If he wants to get us to do reforms that he could not do himself, we welcome that. We also want to urge the LDP's young members who aim for true reform to rise to action."

It looks like the DPJ is finally learning to use "reform" as a wedge issue to get the upper hand in parliamentary battles.

As we have seen, the momentum could easily shift again, but for the moment, the DPJ, which has nothing to lose at this point by taking the mantle of reform from Mr. Koizumi, has painted the government into a corner. On every issue the LDP is playing not to lose.

Ishiba will fight on, with Fukuda's help

Far from abandoning Defense Minister Ishiba Shigeru to his critics, Prime Minister Fukuda made clear today that he stands with Mr. Ishiba in emphasizing the need for fundamental reform of the Defense Ministry. The Atago incident, instead of spelling the end of Mr. Ishiba's second tour of duty in Ichigaya, may end up bolstering it and clearing the way to make substantial progress on reforming the ministry.

Speaking Friday morning at an informal gathering of cabinet ministers, Mr. Fukuda said, "I think that it's also a systemic problem of the Defense Ministry. The organization must be reconsidered from the foundation."

In short, Mr. Fukuda has given Mr. Ishiba his blessing, in the process providing Mr. Ishiba with a powerful ally in the fight against his opponents within the ministry, the armed services, and the LDP.

Mr. Ishiba responded by announcing the creation of a team to promote reform of the ministry, a group comprised of six ministry bureaucrats and nine JSDF members.

I expect that Mr. Fukuda's move will halt the DPJ's talk of censuring Mr. Ishiba in a bid to force his resignation. In this case, the DPJ is going after the wrong person. There is no one within the LDP who will go about the much-needed reform of the Defense Ministry with greater gusto and sincerity than Mr. Ishiba — the LDP's "Mr. Defense." Considering that the alternative to Mr. Ishiba could be a defense minister in the Kyuma Fumio vein, this is one area in which the DPJ should reject "the worse the better" logic and embrace Mr. Ishiba as an ally in advancing necessary reforms in the face of opposition from members of his own party.

Ishiba under fire from all sides

It looks like the Ministry of Defense's civilians and the JSDF may not have to fight Defense Minister Ishiba after all.

In the aftermath of the collision between the Atago, one of the MSDF's most sophisticated Aegis-equipped destroyers, and a fishing boat on Tuesday, questions have been raised about the vulnerabilities of MSDF ships to terrorist attacks like the one that crippled the USS Cole in 2000, and, more importantly, the gross inadequacies of the Japanese government's crisis response system. (See MTC's post showing just how inadequate that system remains, despite more than a decade of efforts to strengthen Japan's ability to respond to crises.) Prime Minister Fukuda himself highlighted the deficiencies of the government's crisis management capabilities in his weekly mail magazine.

The upshot is that now the DPJ is calling for Mr. Ishiba to resign his position, with Hatoyama Yukio suggesting that if Mr. Ishiba does not resign, this may be an occasion for the House of Councillors to pass a censure motion.

It is entirely possible that Mr. Ishiba will be thrown under the bus by Mr. Fukuda. If criticism grows over the government's handling of this incident — at the same time that the government's support continues to fall — the pressure to make Mr. Ishiba the scapegoat may prove irresistible, especially since his efforts to reform the Defense Ministry have made him enemies not just within the ministry and the JSDF, but also within the LDP.

Pity that Mr. Ishiba wants to streamline the ministry and improve coordination between the JSDF and the ministry's civilians, reforms that might actually strengthen the government's ability to respond to crises in the future.

UPDATE: It appears that for the moment Prime Minister Fukuda will not make a scapegoat of Mr. Ishiba; he suggested that it is improper to talk of such things when lives are at stake.

Trouble in Ichigaya

Ishiba Shigeru, defense minister and self-described "defense otaku," is getting a lesson in bureaucratic politics.

The Minami commission, a public-private consultative body at the Kantei convened under the chairmanship of Minami Naoya, an adviser to Tokyo Electric, has been deliberating on reform of the Defense Ministry since December. The commission formed in response to the corruption scandals at the Defense Ministry that came to light last autumn, but the deliberations have widened to include information security and the organization of the ministry as a whole, in addition to corruption.

Mr. Ishiba has been particularly eager to reorganize the department, consolidating the ministry's five bureaus into three and mixing civilian and military personnel. What the latter means in practical terms is still unclear — as Mr. Ishiba suggested in this press conference and as revealed in the commission's documents — but both proposals are already drawing fire from the JSDF, the civilian members of the commission, and certain members of the LDP. Not surprisingly, there is also opposition from within the ministry. Reducing the number of bureaus, and therefore the number of administrative positions, will necessarily anger the ministry's bureaucrats.

The underlying problem is probably money. A departmental reorganization would be much easier to accept if the agency/ministry's budget had been rising instead of falling over the past decade. Each bureau — and JSDF service — is already in a defensive crouch, fighting to preserve its share of a shrinking budget. It is unlikely that they will accept reform proposals that attenuate their power within the defense establishment. At the same time, they will also fight for every platform possible, including platforms of questionable value.

If opposition is in fact coming from politicians, the uniformed services, and the defense bureaucracy, Mr. Ishiba's reform project is doomed before it even gets enshrined in an interim report. (The Minami Commission's mid-term report, originally due in February, has been postponed until June.) With no signs that the defense budget will grow anytime soon, the Defense Ministry's current organization is probably here to stay.

The alliance cools

Robert Gates, US secretary of defense, is in Japan for talks with Prime Minister Fukuda and members of Mr. Fukuda's cabinet, including the defense and foreign ministers, for talks on US-Japan security cooperation. Not surprisingly, Japan's interrupted refueling mission in the Indian Ocean topped the agenda.

It's a shame that Mr. Gates did not take office until too late in the Bush administration, with Iraq more or less the sole focus of his attention. A low-key administrator who has a pronounced tendency to say the right thing at the right time — unlike his predecessor — Mr. Gates might have done some good for the alliance. He certainly possesses an ability to listen to other governments, a quality that has been altogether rare among members of the Bush administration.

As noted by Thom Shanker in the New York Times on remarks on constitution revision in a speech by Mr. Gates at Sophia University, "...Mr. Gates made clear that such decisions were an internal matter for Japan."

As for the substance of Mr. Gates's talks with Mr. Fukuda and others, there appears to have been lots of "urging" and reminding Japan of its international responsibilities regarding the war on terrorism and operations in Afghanistan. With Foreign Minister Komura, there was talk of a resolution this month of the dispute over a proposed cut by Japan to its "sympathy budget" for US forces in Japan.

In general, though, the mood seems to be more subdued than earlier bilateral security meetings under the Bush administration. The joint press conference with Messrs. Gates and Ishiba seems remarkably businesslike and free of excessive flights of rhetoric. This may in part be a function of personnel changes: neither Mr. Gates nor Mr. Fukuda and his cabinet lineup are prone to outbursts of enthusiasm about the glories of US-Japan cooperation from which Mr. Abe and Mr. Aso suffer. But it might also be indicative of a new realism about the alliance. By now, both governments cannot deny the existence of tension in the relationship, and it does not serve the relationship well to raise expectations about the health and value of the alliance to unreasonable heights.

The allies have a lot of work to do to alter their relationship for a new era. It is probably too much to expect that the Bush administration will get this process rolling in its final year in office, or, alternatively, that Mr. Fukuda and the Japanese government will take the initiative in the absence of US leadership.

Dubious prospects for the MSDF mission

With the MSDF's refueling ships set to leave the Indian Ocean later this week, the fight in the Diet and in the court of public opinion over a new law authorizing the MSDF mission continues to run against the government, in that public support for the new law, insofar as it exists, is tepid at best and unlikely to be strongly in favor of the government's using its Lower House supermajority to override the Upper House.

I think Michael Penn of the Shingetsu Institute gets it exactly right in his latest newsletter: "[The LDP's leaders] are nowhere near where they need to be politically in order to strong-arm passage of the bill in the near term, and I have little doubt that the main reason they haven't given up already is because they don't want to offend the US embassy and Washington just before the scheduled November 16th meeting of Prime Minister Fukuda and President Bush."

Ambassador Schieffer's repeated remarks about Japan's pulling out of the war on terror (an argument taken up, not surprisingly, by Gordan Chang at Contentions) may ultimately have an impact opposite of that hoped for by the ambassador. He may have conveniently provided Mr. Fukuda with cover for ending the mission, especially if the prime minister's meeting with President Bush in November is frosty, as it could very well be. Now that the ambassador has shifted from criticizing the DPJ to criticizing Japan as a whole, the government could make like the Indian communists and criticize the US for interfering with Japanese democracy, necessitating the withdrawal of the law from public consideration. Given that the feud over the abductions issue has now gone public, it is quite plausible that Mr. Fukuda would enjoy the support of the LDP's conservatives for a move like this, and it would conveniently allow the government to end the refueling mission on its own terms while undermining efforts by the DPJ to spin withdrawal as a victory for its side.

Should the LDP decide to persist, however, it still faces an uphill battle, as LDP secretary-general Ibuki Bunmei admitted on Sunday, suggesting that although the government wants to deal with the issue within the bounds of the session, it may be unable to avoid extending the special session so to send the bill to the Upper House, daring the DPJ to reject it. I'm sure the DPJ will have no problem doing just that, and it may also pass a censure motion against Defense Minister Ishiba, as both Hatoyama Yukio, DPJ secretary-general, and Yamaoka Kenji, the DPJ's Kokutai chairman, have suggested. Beyond its impact on the debate over the refueling mission, a successful censure motion against Mr. Ishiba raises an interesting question for the rules of the game in the divided Diet. Should Mr. Ishiba resign, despite a censure motion being non-binding? Is it right that the DPJ can use its control of the Upper House to force members of the cabinet to resign at will?

Meanwhile, I'm amazed at how little energy the government appears to have put into fighting for its new law; it's no surprise that public support is lukewarm. But maybe I shouldn't be surprised. Maybe the government is just looking for a way to make the whole issue disappear and find a scapegoat to blame for Japan's "pulling out of the war on terror." (Words that will undoubtedly haunt the alliance for years to come.) In which case, with the US bullying Japan on this issue, the Fukuda government now has its scapegoat — the challenge now for Mr. Fukuda could be how to spin a legislative defeat into a moral victory and prolong his government so that he can turn his attention to matters domestic.

From Team Abe to Team LDP

The first day of the Fukuda cabinet has passed, and the new prime minister has already put himself in about as advantageous a position as possible in light of the difficult circumstances in which he has taken office.

Criticism from the opposition and the media about the return of the factions notwithstanding, Mr. Fukuda has ensured that the party's respected elders are at his side, responsible for the government — they will not be sniping at him from the sidelines. While the question of the LDP's unruly conservative ideologues remains, in the meantime Mr. Fukuda has ensured that cabinet and party leadership will serve him. The Fukuda cabinet will not be characterized by a power vacuum at the top, unlike in the Abe cabinet. Significantly, the Policy Affairs Research Council (PARC), which has historically served as the primary organ by which backbenchers and zoku giin could exert bottom-up influence on policy making, is in the hands of Mr. Tanigaki, who is undoubtedly just grateful to be back in power after a year in the wilderness and thus will (gladly?) be taking marching orders from the prime minister.

So I have to disagree with Garrett DeOrio on this: the inclusion of faction chiefs is not automatically a bad thing. Indeed, for all the talk about the return of the factions, this argument seems odd in light of Mr. Fukuda's being the fourth consecutive prime minister from the Machimura faction. The inclusion of faction leaders in the cabinet might be more a sign of just how cheaply their support can be bought, rather than a sign of the undue influence the factions are prepared to wield over policy. (And it is necessary to recall that the factions have not historically been cohesive ideological units, being more about personal and monetary ties than about policy agendas — the zoku have been as or more important for policy making purposes.)

Meanwhile, he has made a wise choice in assembling his foreign policy team, shifting Mr. Komura from defense to foreign affairs and giving the defense portfolio to Ishiba Shigeru, defense policy wonk and JDA chief under Mr. Koizumi. With Mr. Ishiba's inclusion in the cabinet, the Fukuda cabinet now includes perhaps the two most prominent critics of Mr. Abe's decision to remain in office after the July landslide, the other being Mr. Masuzoe. If Mr. Fukuda is serious about sending a message that he recognizes the LDP's problems and seeks to learn from Mr. Abe's mistakes, including internal "dissidents" is a good way to start. Mr. Ishiba's appointment will undoubtedly also placate Washington, as Mr. Ishiba is a prominent but sensible advocate of closer US-Japan defense cooperation who pushed hard for a Japanese contribution to Iraqi reconstruction. (The US will also no doubt be pleased by Mr. Fukuda's intention to visit Washington in November, hopefully with a new anti-terror law in hand — or at least a new law in the pipeline.) When it comes to expertise on defense matters, Mr. Ishiba can go toe-to-toe with any of the DPJ's defense wonks, important considering that the point of contention this term is the anti-terror special measures law, a new version of which Mr. Fukuda intends to submit this Diet session. (And his being telegenic won't hurt the government's attempt to spin reports that the MSDF, in fact, assisted Operation Iraqi Freedom illegally.)

Beyond consolidating his support within the LDP, Mr. Fukuda has acted quickly to calm the fears of Komeito, the LDP's nervous coalition partner. Komeito's leadership is undoubtedly thrilled to see Mr. Abe replaced with Mr. Fukuda, seeing as how the former exposed the extent to which Komeito had sold out its principles for the sake of holding power with the LDP. Mr. Fukuda has agreed to support two legislative proposals favored by Komeito, a freeze on plans to raise the burden of elderly health care born by patients and a political funds law revision that makes it a requirement to attach all receipts for expenses exceeding one yen to funds reports (meaning that support for this version of the political funds control revision effectively has uniform support among the government coalition and the DPJ, although Mr. Ozawa took care to emphasize that the LDP has come along reluctantly). Whatever threat Komeito posed to the durability of the coalition under Mr. Abe has been more or less neutralized.

That leaves the DPJ. Mr. Ozawa has welcomed Mr. Fukuda to power by insisting once again that the House of Representatives should be dissolved and a general election held. Asked to comment on Mr. Fukuda, Mr. Ozawa said, "I have no comment on him as an individual. For the LDP-Komeito government, it will be the same whoever takes the place of prime minister. The continuation of LDP-Komeito government has meant the distortion of Japanese society, giving birth to injustice, inequality, and disparities in all areas." Should Mr. Fukuda's cabinet score highly in the polls that will be published any day now, however, the pressure on the DPJ to change its tune could become unbearable. The DPJ cannot rely on Mr. Fukuda to give them gifts in the manner that Mr. Abe's cabinet did. They will have to work on outfoxing their new opponent, because I don't think the rejectionist line will be sufficient in the face of a new prime minister who has acted quickly to neutralize (some but not all) potential enemies within the coalition and is now prepared to deal with the DPJ.