Japan is number five

In the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute's (SIPRI) 2008 yearbook, released earlier this month, Japan ranked fifth in military expenditures (valued at $43.6 billion in market exchange rate terms and amounting to 4% of total world military expenditures), behind the USA, the UK, China, and France.

But it turns out that Japan also ranked fifth in Vision of Humanity's Global Peace Index, behind Iceland, Denmark, Norway, and New Zealand. Looking at the top five, it seems obvious that homogeneity helps. (Wikipedia has more on the index here.)

A look at the index's methodology shows that Vision of Humanity is measuring not just international peacefulness, but "societal safety and security."

Japan's gross military expenditures didn't hurt its rank because the index considered military expenditures as a percentage of GDP, not total spending. Incidentally, according to Vision of Humanity, Japan's defense spending is 1.295% of GDP, not less than 1%, reflecting the fact that Japan hides some military expenditures in other ministries and agencies. (VoH uses the following definition for military expenditures as a percentage of GDP: "Cash outlays of central or federal government to meet the costs of national armed forces - including strategic, land, naval, air, command, administration and support forces as well as paramilitary forces, customs forces and border guards if these are trained and equipped as a military force.")

Meanwhile, the Economist, which played a role in organizing the index, has acknowledged that the index is distorted somewhat because many countries may score well on the index because they are protected by the US, enabling them to lower their military expenditures. This certainly must be kept in mind — were the US-Japan alliance to loosen or dissolve, Japan's rank would probably rise over time. Nevertheless, given the range of variables used to determine the ranking, the alliance with the US doesn't explain all or most of the result. As I argued in this post, Japan has built an extraordinary society in the sixty years since the war ended, an island of peace, stability, and prosperity in a region and world that is often anything but.

It seems that the Japanese people should be proud of this achievement, and their leaders should not be so quick to discard it.

(Hat tip to The Strategist for the survey.)

The world's top public intellectual

Voting is open in Foreign Policy magazine and Prospect magazine's contest to choose the world's top public intellectual.

The magazines chose a list of the top 100, available here, on the basis of the following criteria: "Although the men and women on this list are some of the world’s most sophisticated thinkers, the criteria to make the list could not be more simple. Candidates must be living and still active in public life. They must have shown distinction in their particular field as well as an ability to influence wider debate, often far beyond the borders of their own country."

Sixty-six are from North America or Europe. Not one is from Japan. The last time FP/Prospect conducted this survey, Ohmae Kenichi and Ishihara Shintaro were included in the top 100, at 97 and 100 respectively. Is Japan really so far removed from global intellectual currents that not one Japanese merits inclusion on this list? I suppose that English ability might have something to do with it: how else does a public intellectual "influence wider debate...beyond the borders of their own country" today than by being a proficient or fluent English speaker?

Beyond that, another point that many on the list have in common is an interest in regional, transnational, and global problems. Japanese public discourse, however, tends to be inward focused, meaning that Japanese public intellectuals make their names discussing Japan's problems, often looking at international problems solely in terms of how they affect Japan.

Part of it too may be selection bias on the part of FP and Prospect. India and China combined for ten of the 100, reflecting the focus of global media on the two Asian giants. But does that translate into influence for its public intellectuals?

I urge you all to choose a Japanese public intellectual (Oe Kenzaburo, Murakami Haruki, Funabashi Yoichi, whoever) as your write-in vote.

Matsuoka Toshikatsu, RIP

Beleaguered Agriculture Minister Matsuoka Toshikatsu was found dead by his own hand this afternoon.

I am somewhat hesitant to comment on the political ramifications, seeing as how this is a grim end to a sordid affair (and career); but it demands some response. Obviously I mean no disrespect to those grieving. This is a terrible end, and it should not be celebrated.

Nevertheless, as the campaign for the 2007 Upper House elections ramp up, Matsuoka's suicide may have dramatic ratifications for the outcome of the election. Consider that just before his death, newspapers reported that the Abe Cabinet's popularity had suffered a drastic decline (Mainichi reported 32% support versus 44% opposed; Nikkei reported 41% support versus 49% opposed, with a 12% drop in support). It is difficult to see how Matsuoka's suicide will stanch the government's hemorrhaging of support. If anything, Matsuoka, by his death, may have raised the "money and politics" issue to greater prominence in debates leading up to the election. It is certainly hard to see the election being contested on constitution revision after this, no matter how much Abe insists that it should be.

The unknown factor is whether there will be a sympathy vote, and if so, will it be big enough to turn the tide in the LDP's favor. Obviously it is much too early to tell. But this election will be closely contested, and every little twist in the coming days could have an impact come July.

In any case, Matsuoka ought not to pass on without leaving his mark on Japan. With luck, the full extent of his gross misuse of his office since his first election in 1990 will see the light in the coming days and weeks — spurring the Japanese people to demand an end to, once and for all, the LDP-controlled policy making system that has enabled Diet members to direct public funds to private ends and to place private interests before the public interest. Now that would be a fitting tribute to a man who lived on a steady diet of pork-barrel spending and borderline bribery.

Does anyone really think that a political system headed by a cabinet in which one minister commits suicide to avoid facing questioning over his alleged corruption, two others resign due to corruption charges, and a third stonewalls when criticized for calling women "machines for making babies (with the prime minister defending each in turn) is healthy? (But as Shisaku rightly points out, it is not the suicide that makes Japan's political system problematic, seeing as how it's the first suicide of a cabinet minister in the postwar era.)

UPDATE: I should add that I actually had a grudging respect for Matsuoka. Unlike many of his peers in the Diet — who either inherited their seats from their fathers or glided effortlessly from Tokyo University to elite, generalist positions in the bureaucracy to the Diet — Matsuoka was a self-made politician. After failing to earn admission to the National Defense Academy, he went to Tottori University, where he studied forestry, after which he began work as a specialist at the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. Being a specialist and not a generalist, there was a limit to how high he could rise in the ministry.

When he quit the ministry to enter politics, he had to struggle to acquire the three "bans" necessary for a Japanese politician: the jiban (local support base), kanban (name recognition), and kaban (money). Elected in 1990 under the old medium-sized electoral district system, he ran without LDP endorsement against four LDP incumbents in a five-seat district.

In short, whatever limits he encountered, Matsuoka strived to overcome them. The shame is that once he acquired power, power became an end in itself. (All of this is discussed in Aurelia George Mulgan's excellent — and timely — Power and Pork, discussed in this post.)

Japan's revenge

Over at Project Syndicate, Thomas Palley outlines the argument about how the yen carry trade is fuelling global asset bubbles — although Finance Minister Omi denies that Japan's low interest rates are the cause of the carry trade.

Aside from rehearsing the standard arguments about how Japan's barely-over-zero interest rates contributes to global instability and the appreciation of the dollar, Palley also suggests that Japan's lagging growth in consumption could be corrected with an interest rate hike because a hike could signal to Japan's elderly that their income is safe over the long term: "Current ultra-low interest rates may be scaring people about the adequacy of future income. Raising rates could alleviate those fears, increasing consumer confidence and spending."

In Chicago on business this week, I had a conversation with my father — whom I should probably have write here from time to time — about the global risk environment, and he noted wryly that the carry trade is Japan's revenge for the 1987 Louvre Accord, which mandated that Japan permit the yen to rise as the dollar fell, correcting for the overshooting of the 1985 Plaza Accord. The outcome of the Louvre Accord was Japan's asset bubble, bringing us — after the interlude of a "lost decade" — to where we are today, with Japan in no hurry to be the first to alter its monetary policy to correct global imbalances.

Will the Bank of Japan raise interest rates again? Knowing Fukui's eagerness to "normalize" Japanese monetary policy, it seems like a matter of time — although probably not until after July's Upper House elections.

The one certainty though is that it will be at a time of Japan's choosing, not the product of pressure (in the G7 for example) to alter its policies to carry a greater share of the burden of global readjustment.

And all that is a long way of saying that I'm back in Japan, after an unplanned overnight stay in San Francisco, so my posting will be back to normal

UN tells Japan to tend its own garden

That's the message one could conclude from criticism of Japan by the UN Committee Against Torture, calling attention to Japan's justice and prison system, and even criticized Japan for dismissing comfort women cases on the grounds that the statute of limitations had expired.

As the FT's David Turner writes:

The report comes at an embarrassing time for Japan. The government has been trying to restore the country’s status as a nation with the moral and political authority of a world power, in addition to an economic powerhouse. Shinzo Abe has tried to accelerate this process since he became prime minister since last year, but with mixed results.

One element of Abe's — and Foreign Minister Aso's — "proactive diplomacy" has been an emphasis on "Value Oriented Diplomacy," which of course serves to contrast Japan with China.

But somehow I find it hard not to laugh when senior Japanese officials speak about Japan's creating an "Arc of Freedom and Prosperity" and similarly flowery language about democratization. I am not one to deny that Japanese is a democracy — but as readers of this blog will note, I do not think it's an especially healthy one. And while that should not stop Japan (or the US, for that matter), from using their wealth and influence to support developing democracies, it should stop them from being too loose in their rhetoric, because loose lips lead observers to question just how much the speaker's own country matches up, undermining the purpose of the rhetoric in the first place. Quiet, determined, and respectful of limits presented by conditions within the countries receiving aid: those should be the principles that guide support for democratization by mature democracies.

And as for the substance of the UN committee's criticism? Certainly not unmerited. I mean, really, a country with a 99.8 conviction rate? As the FT reports, in 2006 there were 77,297 convictions to 63 acquittals. Yet another indication of the governance problem present in every sector of Japanese society.

The revisionists ascendant

Western commentators who only intermittently pay attention to Japan seem to be befuddled by the Japanese constitution. They seem to have a hard time grasping the difficulties associated with changing it, the totemic significance it has been made to bear by both pacifists and revisionists — and thus tend to assume that revision is easy, right, and only a matter of time. One example is Thomas Barnett's glib comment about the inevitability of revision, discussed here. Another is this post at Commentary Magazine's Contentions blog by Gordon Chang, who tells readers that "article nine has not been enforced for decades." True, perhaps, but missing the point entirely. Citing one of Japan's "most prominent journalists," [I have a hunch; do readers have any guesses?] Chang argues, "The constitution stigmatizes the past and...prevents Japan from becoming 'a normal country.'"

Think about that: people don't stigmatize the past, the constitution does. In other words, if the constitution were revised, Japan would be able to have an honest debate and there would be no more obfuscation or outright denial regarding atrocities committed by Imperial Japan during World War II.

Rather than continue to pick apart Chang's argument, however, I would rather call your attention to an excellent monograph that spells out the history of Japan's constitution revision debate and tries to answer the question of why, despite persistent pressure from revisionists, the constitution has gone unrevised to this day.

Written by J. Patrick Boyd and Richard Samuels in 2005, Nine Lives?: The Politics of Constitutional Reform in Japan outlines, in a mere sixty pages, the contours of Japan's contested constitution (a book by that name, collecting primary sources related to revision, is this week's book of the week [see link at right]). The Boyd and Samuels monograph is available from the East-West Center here.

What I especially liked about their argument is that it cuts through the flighty rhetoric that all sides have employed when talking about revision. Their rather elegant, parsimonious argument is that while pacifist norms and the global and regional balance of power have played a part in the revision debate, the constitution — and Article 9 in particular — has survived unchanged due to a balance of power among political forces within Japan during the postwar era.

Boyd and Samuels show that a triangular balance between revisionists, pragmatists, and pacifists has prevented the revisionists from succeeding, with the pragmatists — the school of Prime Minister Yoshida and his successors — holding the balance against revision in tacit alliance with the pacifists throughout the cold war. In other words, while for some Japanese the importance of the constitution has been its deeming Japan a "peace state," the pragmatists defended it — sometimes by rejecting revision entirely, other times by pushing re-interpretations or compromises that preserved the essence of the amendment — as a means of avoiding the costs of alliance with the US that other "normal" allies had to bear. Accordingly, throughout the cold war, the pragmatists and revisionists battled for primacy in the LDP and thus in the Japanese political system, with the pragmatists holding the upper hand for much of the postwar period. Even during the Gulf War, when revisionist LDP Secretary-General Ozawa Ichiro wanted to commit Japanese soldiers to the coalition, the pragmatist wing managed to defeat him and commit only funds to the campaign (with the perverse consequence that international backlash against Japan's checkbook diplomacy fed into the revisionist argument that a newly wealthy Japan had to contribute more internationally).

Moving into the 1990s, Boyd and Samuels note that the pragmatist-pacifist dam holding the revisionist flood waters in place collapsed, with the Japanese left breaking down and the pragmatists in the LDP outmaneuvered and isolated by revisionists, who were encouraged by the more uncertain post-cold war international environment. Symbolic of this was the end of the "YKK" trio of Yamasaki Taku, Kato Koichi, and Koizumi Junichiro, an alliance between the pragmatic Yamasaki and Kato and the revisionist Koizumi. The pragmatists are not gone, of course — Yamasaki criticized the collective self-defense study group the other day — and with the Komeito an essential coalition partner for the LDP, pacifism still has a voice within the government. But the balance is undeniably shifted.

And so we see the revisionists ascendant, first under Koizumi, and now under Abe. Disagreeing with Graham Webster, slightly, I think the difference between Koizumi and Abe is not so much a matter of "sentimental" versus "practical": it's more a matter of political style. As in Isaiah Berlin's useful (but perhaps over-used) dichotomy, "The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing." Koizumi was a classic fox, jumping from subject to subject, sometimes seeming to care more about style and image than substance. Abe, meanwhile, is obsessed with the constitution (and the "post-war regime) — his "one big thing." Accordingly, although both Koizumi and Abe have seen disorder grow among opponents of constitution revision grow even as revisionists consolidated their control of the LDP, Koizumi abjured from striking directly at Article 9. Obviously, Abe has not, thanks in part to the LDP majority assembled in the September 2005 "postal reform" election.

Interestingly, as Boyd and Samuels note — and as I've argued before — that with the collapse of organized opposition to revision within the political system, the only potential source of opposition is from the Japanese people themselves. Whether they can or will is another question entirely, but the push for revision is an opportunity for the Japanese people to raise their voices and claim the process for themselves.

Another point they raise relevant to the situation today is that even as the revisionists gained power during the 1990s, they opted to hold off from re-interpreting Article 9 to permit collective self-defense, arguing that it was a waste of political capital to push for re-interpretation — reversible by a future government — when revision, a more permanent change, was so close at hand. And yet we see Prime Minister Abe pushing simultaneously for both revision and collective self-defense in limited cases. Is his ambitious agenda simply a function of his obsession, or is it a natural product of fifteen years of revisionist ascendancy? With Abe, are the revisionists not merely ascendant but triumphant?

Samuels and Boyd, wisely, hesitate to predict if and when revision will occur, arguing simply that Japan's political dynamics over brought Japan to a critical turning point.

Meanwhile, they make an interesting point about a potential consequence of revision. Namely, if Abe succeeds, if Japan embraces collective self-defense and revises Article 9, Japan's long-standing fears of entrapment by the US — an important part of the pragmatist position — will be more justified than ever. It becomes that much harder to say no to a US determined to go to war with Japan by its side without having Article 9 to hide behind. Given the tremendous unease with the alliance and with the prospect of Japan contributing to America's wars that I've seen evinced by the Japanese people time and time again during my time here, changing Japan's constitution to enable Japan to be a better ally of the US may have the unintended consequence of leading Japan to balk when asked (with all the attendant consequences).

With three years of debate to come, I strongly hope that if and when revision occurs, it will take into account the doubts and questions outlined by Boyd and Samuels — and that the ultimate form of any proposed revisions reflect the input of actors other than the revisionists.

Hopefully now that the Diet has passed the referendum bill, Samuels and Boyd will do some revising of their own and release a new version of this monograph that reflects the changes under Abe.

Japan's own Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act

The Abe Cabinet, in the interest of promoting a more globalized and more competitive Japanese economy, has announced that it will seek to repeal Japan's equivalent to the US New Deal-era Glass-Steagall Act, which was repealed in the US in 1999 with the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Financial Services Modernization Act. (The FT's coverage can be read here.)

The Abe Cabinet's move -- like the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act -- is in some sense a concession to the reality that Japanese financial institutions, to become globally competitive, need to be able to realize the economies of scale and the diversification of services that characterizes major financial institutions from the US and Europe.

But removing the barrier separating banks from brokerages raises the same risks of a moral hazard -- institutions that are "too big to fail," requiring government assistance in the event of trouble -- that the US deregulation did, perhaps even more so, given that Japan's banking system is still on the road to recovery from the bad loan problem.

And what will this mean for the soon-to-be-privatized Japan postal savings bank, which upon privatization will become the world's largest private bank?

Constitution revision -- still a long way away

The big story out of Japan today, aside from Chinese Premier Wen's final day in Japan, spent visiting Kyoto, is that the Lower House's Special Investigative Committee on the Constitution passed the LDP draft of a national referendum bill that is a critical precursor to constitution revision.

A massive piece of legislation (printed in its entirety in the Yomiuri today, at left), the bill still has to go before the whole Lower House, as well as the Upper House's Special Investigative Committee on the Constitution and the whole Upper House.

The bill will in all likelihood be passed into law, but the question is whether the opposition will be able to stall debate and push the date of passage past 3 May, the sixtieth anniversary of the promulgation of the Constitution and the date by which Abe wants the bill passed.

Beyond the national referendum bill, however, constitution revision remains a distant prospect -- as I mentioned in this post, the Yomiuri's own poll recorded a drop in support for revision, and an earlier poll found that constitution revision was a low priority compared to more pressing policy concerns. The process of revising the Constitution will depend greatly on the leadership of the prime minister, whether Mr. Abe or a successor, and I have great doubts as to whether Abe would be capable of commanding debate within the Diet and selling the product to the nation.

How's this for a sign of Abe's tenuous position: The Mainichi Shimbun reports that former Prime Minister Koizumi's offers of support for LDP candidates in forthcoming Upper House by-elections in Fukushima and Okinawa prefectures have been rejected, according to an unnamed source, who is quoted as saying, "If Koizumi works [on behalf of candidates], Prime Minister Abe Shinzo will necessarily be compared with him. The number one thing Koizumi can do to offer his support is to do nothing."

Does that sound like the strategy of a prime minister and party leader secure in his office and capable of leading a landmark campaign to revise the Constitution?

Support for constitution revision falls

At least that's what the latest Yomiuri Shimbun poll on constitution revision revealed.

The results of the poll should serve as a reminder to the Abe Cabinet, Japan's neighbors, and the world at large that the politics of Japan's normalization are far from simple.

While the survey has shown a consistent plurality in favor of constitution revision since 1993, now that the public is actually faced with a prime minister committed to revision, the percentage in favor fell nine points, while the percentage opposed rose seven points.

And that's just the general question of constitution revision. When asked about revising Article 9, the text of which reads

1. Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.
2. In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized

the respondents were strongly opposed to revising the first clause of Article 9, by a margin of 80% to 14%. As for revising the second clause, 54% were opposed, 38% in favor. The poll also showed that an increasing number of respondents value the postwar constitution as it approaches its sixtieth anniversary next month.

So what exactly is Abe hoping to achieve by constitution revision? The Japanese people aren't particularly clamoring for the Abe Cabinet to rollback the restrictions enshrined in the Constitution. The slightly greater level of support for revision of the second clause of Article 9 (as opposed to the first clause) may show that the Japanese people acknowledge the awkward position of having increasingly robust Self-Defense Forces despite the restriction on armed forces in Article 9. (The existence of the JSDF depend on legal gymnastics that argue that the JSDF do not exist for the purpose of using force to settle international disputes, so their exist is permitted.) But that does not mean that the Japanese are demanding total normalization of Japanese security policy.

Will Abe, if and when he gets around to presenting a draft revision, respect that?

Seoul speaks up -- how about Washington?

The Jiji wire service carried two articles today that report on South Korean officials criticizing Japan for its focus on the abductions issue in the multilateral de-nuclearization talks.

First, Yu Myong-hwan, South Korea's newly appointed ambassador to Japan, said at a press conference with Japanese journalists in Seoul that the resolving the nuclear issue must take priority in the six-party talks.

Subsequently, Jiji reported that the Song Min-soon, Korean Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, criticized Japan for raising the abductions issue -- what he argued is a bilateral issue -- in the multilateral talks on North Korea's nuclear program, and urged Japan to contribute to energy support for North Korea.

Altogether sound advice: I cannot see how Japan will come out looking good if its insistence on putting the abductions issue before the issue of North Korea's nuclear weapons, which arguably threaten Japan more than any other country, scuttles this agreement. I certainly do not expect that the Bush administration, which has already demonstrated that it is making a good-faith effort to reach a lasting agreement, would be altogether pleased with the Abe Cabinet. If anything, the departure of Robert Joseph, under secretary of state for arms control and international security, means that the Bush administration is that much more committed to seeing the six-party talks through to fruition.

So when will Washington follow Seoul's lead and question Tokyo's abductions obsession publicly, reminding Japan that a de-nuclearized Korean Peninsula is in its interests?

Or maybe Japan has decided to base its North Korea policy on Dr. NakaMats's promise to develop a missile shield that will "make missiles turn around"?

The california rolls are safe

After announcing plans to institute a certification system for Japanese restaurants overseas back in November, Japan's Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries, headed by the beleaguered Matsuoka Toshikatsu (the subject of this superb book -- more on this soon), has decided to abandon these plans after opposition from citizens' groups and after a panel chaired by Ogura Kazuo of the Japan Foundation concluded that it is difficult to determine what exactly Japanese cuisine is.

So ends a bizarre attempt by Japan to flex its muscles in the cultural arena. Given that Japan remains a perennial favorite in this annual BBC survey, it's probably best not to give foreigners another reason to dislike Japan in light of the comfort women issue, which appears to be going from bad to worse, with the Abe Cabinet once again denying evidence of coercion, prompting US Ambassador to Japan Thomas Schieffer to criticize the government's position.

As I've said before regarding soft power: difficult to measure, difficult to wield, and highly sensitive to the slightest change in perceptions. Between the ongoing disputes over whaling and the comfort women issue, I wouldn't be surprised if the BBC finds Japan to be slightly less popular next year.

Japan's governance problem

John Plender, columnist in the FT, has a column (subscription only) in Wednesday's edition talking about the "accountability gap" in Japanese corporate governance.

He wrote:

...There is a corporate governance vacuum. Before the economic bubble burst in the early 1990s, the postwar model of capitalism known as “Japan Inc” incorporated governance disciplines based on a main bank that monitored corporate performance, removed underperforming managers and choreographed turnrounds at ailing companies. This relationship system was buttressed by cross-shareholdings, which also had the effect of protecting companies from hostile takeovers. Lifetime employment was the norm in large corporations and the state provided a guiding hand. Boards rarely had outside directors and were largely ceremonial.

Since Japan’s banking crisis, main bank cross-shareholdings have been run down and the lifetime employment system has eroded. Now that the country is no longer in catch-up mode and the economy has matured, the state’s guiding role has become less effective. In some parts of industry and commerce there has been a greater focus on profits rather than market share, though not to the point where aggregate returns have risen to anywhere near US levels. Dividend pay-out ratios remain low even in mature industries.

I think there is great wisdom in Plender's analysis, but, at the same time, I think it's important to look beyond the Japanese corporate environment to Japanese society at large.

In recent months, Japanese newspapers have reported massive governance failures in every sector of Japanese life. The Abe Cabinet has been riddled with reports of corruption from ministers -- most recently Matsuoka Toshikatsu -- and poor management of the policy agenda. The opposition, too, has had its problems, most notably the improprieties of former Upper House Vice President Tsunoda (discussed here), DPJ President Ozawa's shady real estate development scheme, and now reports that DPJ member Nakai Hiroshi misreported funds in a manner similar to Matsuoka.

Of course, the long-standing relationships between bureaucracy and industry, via amakudari and bid-rigging, persist, even as authorities try to limit these practices.

Meanwhile, in recent months there have been reports of major cover ups across Japanese society: food (Fujiya), baseball (the Seibu Lions), securities (Nikko Cordial), and nuclear power (Tohoku Electric Power).

The problem is not that cover ups and inappropriate relationships between public and private sectors exist; no country is free of corruption and the misuse of power. What's different in Japan, however, is the lack of mechanisms to ferret out wrongdoing, to deter others from doing the same, and to create the impression that laws are not, in fact, made to be broken. In Japan, it seems that only real crime is getting caught; interestingly in all of the above-mentioned scandals, it seems that the illegal practices for which the guilty party is under fire are widespread in the industry concerned.

Japan is woefully lacking in the kinds of institutions and actors dedicated to exposing these misdeeds. Inspectors general, ombudsmen, NGOs, activist shareholders, and even investigative journalists backed by large media organizations: Japan is woefully lacking all of these means of keeping large, powerful institutions honest and accountable, and exposing their failures to the light of public scrutiny. (See Transparency International's excellent report on Japan's National Integrity Systems -- available for download here.)

Accordingly, for all the reports of Japan's economic recovery and greater assertiveness abroad, the foundations of the state are weak and crumbling. In this atmosphere of massive, persistent institutional failures, the Abe Cabinet's push to restructure the postwar institutions -- especially the constitution -- looks misplaced. Under Abe, Japan, flush with cash for the first time in a while, has decided to install a new kitchen and refurbish the facade, rather than focus on the crumbling foundation, the institutions of Japanese society whose persistent cover ups, fraud, and outright criminality have gravely damaged public trust and raise serious concerns about the ability of Japan to remain prosperous and growing in light of Japan's demographic problems and the changing regional and global environment.

Free-for-all in the LDP

I want to call attention to this post by Adamu at Mutantfrog Travelogue, which thoroughly dissects the prevailing circumstances of the Abe Cabinet, including Abe's recent quashing of rumors hinting at a cabinet reshuffle.

I just want to add a couple points to his cogent analysis.

The problem, I think, with the Abe Cabinet is the Koizumi inheritance. Abe not only has had to act in the shadow of his much more charismatic predecessor, but he has inherited a party that was only half-destroyed by Koizumi. The traditional power centers appear to have been weakened by Koizumi's push to create a more programmatic, dynamic party, but new mechanisms have yet to be established. Similarly, the younger generation -- most significantly Abe and Shiozaki -- have risen to positions of prominence in the party, but their precociousness has not made them capable of forging a centralized mechanism to complete the LDP's transition to a disciplined, programmatic party.

The other point is, of course, that whereas Koizumi (or Koizumi and Takenaka) had a program that they forced upon the LDP, Abe seems to have decided that it's less risky to substitute poorly explained slogans for an actual program, which, combined with his lack of charisma, has resulted in a vacuum at the top and plummeting popularity numbers, apparently now dipping below 40%.

Of course, a dysfunctional LDP run by callow youngsters may be better than a LDP ran by the old men, devoted to divvying up the spoils.

At the same time, however, Japan may be in for another period of prolonged political instability, as during the mid-1990s, because -- as Adamu notes -- no party enjoys the public's favor at present.

Dr. Pacifist and Mr. War Crime?

The consequences of Prime Minister Abe's indiscretions on the comfort women question continue to unfold, with this editorial in Korea's Chosun Ilbo, suggesting that Abe may have completely undone all of his diplomatic efforts with his remarks.

Key paragraph:

...Abe is not listening. He is listening to the recommendations of nationalistic lawmakers and considered launching a new investigation on whether the mobilization of sex slaves was forced. He is trying to buy time by starting another long and tedious investigation, while overturning the apology made by former Cabinet secretary Yohei Kono in 1993. Not satisfied with simply lobbying to block the passage of a U.S. House of Representatives bill demanding an apology from Japan, Tokyo is seeking the right to refute the critical reports by U.S. media. These are the faces of Japan under Abe, who came to power with the support of an increasingly right-wing public.

Now, I don't doubt that the LDP's "study group" plan is intended to buy time and defuse the issue slightly. But I think the idea of an "increasingly right-wing" Japanese public more than slightly exaggerated. Undoubtedly, since the end of the cold war and the emergence of a new generation of leaders there has been a more pronounced nationalist streak in Japanese public discourse, but I don't think that explains Japan's reluctance to account fully for its historical mistakes, nor do I think it explains the supposed "hawkish" turn in Japanese foreign policy in recent years.

First, on the latter, one cannot understate the fact the contemporary Japanese society is profoundly insecure. Japan has been deprived of the security and predictability (and dullness) of the "1955 system," of competent management by politicians and bureaucrats, and of an unassuming position internationally; it now struggles to return to normalcy economically, watches its position in East Asia erode as China surges, and faces a multi-dimensional threat from North Korea just across the Sea of Japan, in addition to a government that appears to be completely unable to tackle the host of troubles at home (most notably an alarming rise in inequality). So if the government is increasingly driven to cut a more prominent figure in the region and globally -- and if public opinion appears to have taken a more belligerent turn on some issues -- observers should be less quick to attribute it to some kind of latent, militaristic tendency and try to understand the situation in which Japan finds itself at present.

Insecurity is also a factor in the comfort women issue, because undoubtedly the Japanese government and people look abroad and see riled-up nationalists in China and Korea, as well as in the Korean- and Chinese-American communities, and feel ever more alone, hemmed in by frightening circumstances. Images of anti-Japan rallies in South Korea and China, on this issue and others, serve as a constant reminder to Japan of the changing balance of power in the region.

Meanwhile, to play amateur sociologist briefly, Japan's being a "shame" society makes it difficult for Japan to account for its past mistakes to the degree that, say, Germany has, as suggested by Gregory Clark in this opinion piece from October 2005. Without defending Japan's actions, Clark tries to outline what Japan's past looks like to the Japanese. His Japan undoubtedly has a lot of work to do accounting for its past, but Clark implies the need for empathy from foreign countries: "Arguments that Japan as a shame society cannot admit past national mistakes make little impression on us foreigners brought up in guilt societies." If other countries are judging Japan out of good-faith, genuine concern for historical justice and not because interest groups (or the ruling party's interest) demands justice for self-serving ends, then they should at least try to empathize with Japan.

I don't doubt that the "shame" versus "guilt" question is relevant here. Japan does approach responsibility for one's actions differently: it's the common thread connecting the comfort women issue, the scandal surrounding the use of expired ingredients by Fujiya, and this recent story about cover ups at Japanese nuclear plants. Passing a congressional resolution demanding that Japan own up for crimes committed before the current prime minister was born will not reverse this tendency to shy away from unpleasant truths.

If the US Congress truly feels the need to interject itself into the morass of Asia's history problems, it should act less as an instrument of interest groups and more as a concerned observer, offering the good offices of the US to help resolve a thorny issue multilaterally -- coaxing rather than goading Japan to accept the monstrous crimes committed by Imperial Japan fully and unequivocally. Doing so might counter the impression of Japan's being "Dr. Pacifist and Mr. War Crime" that has formed due to the unfortunate connection between Japanese history and contemporary Japanese foreign policy.

Pilling interviews Fujiwara

The FT's David Pilling writing in Lunch with the FT -- easily my favorite regular feature in the FT -- interviews Fujiwara Masahiko, mathematician, professor at Ochanomizu University, and author of the bestselling book The Dignity of the State.

As Pilling suggests, the book revives Nihonjinron arguments for a new, more uncertain age. As with most books of this type, emphasizing the uniqueness of the Japanese requires a bit of historical revisionism.

My favorite paragraph is this:

The model of liberal democracy that Japan inherited is flawed, Fujiwara says. As well as putting faith in unreliable masses – he prefers a cool-headed elite – it overemphasises rationality. “You really need something more. You might say that Christianity is one such thing. But for us Japanese, we don’t have a religion such as Christianity or Islam, so we need to have something else: deep emotion.”

Can anyone detect the glaring contradiction in his quote?

In any case, I don't doubt the importance of "deep emotion" -- all too often manifested as a kind of maudlin sentimentality -- to the Japanese, but arguably "deep emotion" has contributed to a number of catastrophes throughout Japanese history.

In any case, read the whole thing.

And for more on Fujiwara's book, Marxy of neomarxisme blogged his reading of Fujiwara's book last summer. (I can't find permalinks to the posts, so you'll have to search; they are, however, well worth reading.)

UPDATE: Links to Marxy's posts are in the comments section.

Seen and heard at the Diet

I was in attendance at today's session of the Upper House's Budget Committee, where it was my boss's turn to question the government.

I managed to see a line of questioning derived entirely from my own research posed to Prime Minister Abe and Defense Minister Kyuma, which was satisfying -- although the acoustics of the chamber (and lousy mics) made it difficult to hear the replies.

Meanwhile, having sat in that room, I can understand why one often sees members in attendance asleep in the background; between the marathon length of the meetings and the excessive heating in the committee room, it's amazing that anyone can stay awake. (And let's not forget the prime minister's anti-charisma.)

One thing I've noted in watching Diet deliberations is how sensitive the Japanese political establishment is to (critical) commentary on Japan from abroad. In a short span of time today, both the recent NY Times editorial on the comfort women resolution, discussed in this post, and the recent Newsweek cover article on Abe's unpopularity were cited by questioners. This was not the first time that I've heard Diet members draw on Western coverage of Japan. (If anyone knows of a "political psychologist" who has studied Japan's national "neuroses" -- surely a rich topic -- please let me know.)

International criticism shows no sign of letting up. The latest publication is The Economist, which in the current issue has both a leader and an article about Abe's problems in the wake of his comments on the comfort women resolution. (Adamu beat me to writing about this article.) Abe remains in trouble, but he's also been fortunate in his enemies; despite weeks of opposition questioning in the budget committees of the Lower and Upper House, the opposition parties seem to have done little to hasten the pace of the decline in Abe's popularity . The Abe Cabinet has remained particularly defiant on the issue of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries (AFF) Minister Matsuoka Toshikatsu's unusually large budget projections for "light, heat, and water" for an office at the Diet which had no utilities costs, with Minister Matsuoka still refusing to account for the irregularity (with no apparent pressure from the prime minister or other senior officials).

Matsuoka, for his part, is the subject of a recent book by Australian scholar Aurelia George Mulgan, called Power and Pork, which I am in the process of reading -- and which I plan to review.

The muddy waters of the post-Koizumi era

For those who want a general overview of the present state of Japanese politics -- what's changed, what hasn't -- check out this article by Tokyo University professor Kabashima Ikuo and PhD candidate Okawa Chihiro. Published at Japan Echo, a monthly journal that publishes translations of scholarly articles originally written in Japanese, Kabashima and Okawa provide a competent account of the transition from Koizumi to Abe and the reasons for Abe's difficulties of late.

I particularly liked their account of urban-rural dynamics in the evolution of the Japanese political system:

The electoral reforms of 1994 rectified the rural prefectures’ overrepresentation in the Diet and increased the electoral importance of the urban districts, and the LDP was unable to win over urban voters. After the short-lived reformist administrations of Hosokawa Morihiro and Hata Tsutomu, the LDP returned to power by means of a coalition with the Social Democratic Party of Japan (formerly the Japan Socialist Party, now the Social Democratic Party) and the small New Party Sakigake (now defunct), and it formed other coalitions to weather subsequent threats. In the meantime, however, the depopulation and aging of the LDP’s rural support base and the decay of the LDP support apparatus had been accelerating. It was clear that the party could not hope to retain control of the government over the long term without building support in the urban areas.

This is the historical context in which Koizumi Jun’ichirô, an urban politician from the city of Yokosuka, was elected president of the Liberal Democratic Party in 2001. Koizumi ran for president of the LDP on the paradoxical- sounding promise that he would "smash the LDP," but what he was talking about was the old "LDP system." Persuaded by Koizumi’s call for a neoliberal program of structural reforms, Japanese voters—especially urban voters—entrusted him with the task of overhauling an obsolete socioeconomic system that had brought the nation to a dead end.

Thanks in part to his unusual personal popularity, a result of his unique style of leadership, Koizumi was able to leverage the "prime minister effect" to bring urban voters back to the LDP. It was Koizumi who cast light on the urban areas where the LDP had struggled and thus breathed life back into the LDP. The summit of his accomplishment was the 2005 general election.

Abe clearly lacks the effortless appeal to urban voters that Koizumi had, and I have serious doubts if Koizumi truly succeeded at converting the LDP into an urban party. That is the context for the upcoming local and Upper House elections. If Koizumi failed, and the DPJ, for all its incoherence and opportunism, remains the default party of urban Japan, then this summer might be especially painful for Abe's LDP.

Read the whole thing.

Step back, Mr. Prime Minister

I want to call attention to Prime Minister Abe's email magazine from last week, in which he discusses seeing a performance by Noel Paul Stookey, onetime member of Peter, Paul, and Mary, of his new song "Song for Megumi," about Yokota Megumi, poster child of the abductions issue.

Simply put, Abe's note shows just how far gone his government is on this issue; it oozes with trite, maudlin phrases such as, "As I listened to the sound of the quiet melody strummed on the acoustic guitar and the soft vocals -- a gentle voice one would use when speaking to a young girl -- an image of a happy Megumi together with her family floated before my eyes."

I can't quite tell what Abe is trying to say. If he's being totally sincere, then this message would lead me to question whether Abe has the backbone to be an international statesman. I don't, however, think Abe's concern stems from purely altruistic reasons. (If anything, this message suggests that Abe has no shame when it comes to using one family's private suffering to his political advantage.)

The abductions issue itself, which has long been Abe's bread and butter, is an ideal way to soften Abe's hard nationalist edge: lambasting North Korea for kidnapping Japanese children is hardly likely to draw criticism, but it has allowed Abe to attack an enemy of Japan and pose as the defender of the Japanese nation (and Japan's children).

I'm not saying the Abe Cabinet is wrong to press North Korea on abductions, but the abductions issue is but one obstacle of many on the road to defusing the North Korean threat and integrating the DPRK into the region. As a result of the abductions issue, the Japanese government seems to have lost all perspective on the Korean issue, and as a result finds itself relatively isolated as the six-party process moves forward.

Abe may have heard encouraging words from Cheney, but the man to listen to may be Christopher Hill, the assistant secretary of state for East Asia / Pacific affairs, who said last week at a briefing at the Brookings Institution (transcript available for download here), "...I hope that at some point [North Korea] will come around to an understanding that Japan is right there, and they need Japan. When that moment comes, by the way, and when they do understand that Japan has a need and a right to have closure on this question of abductions, I do hope the Japanese will also reciprocate in the context of what we’ve been doing, that is, de-nuclearization in the Korean Peninsula." In other words, while the US government understands Japan's need for answers on the abductions issue, the US government will not allow the issue to stand in the way of progress on de-nuclearization and normalization.

It seems also that in this message Abe is trying to humanize himself. Why else would he say, for example, "In my junior and senior high school days, I too often listened to their songs, although the name of the group or the titles of its songs may not ring a bell with young people today," referring to Peter, Paul, and Mary? This seems to say, "I may look and act like an aloof patrician, but really I'm like you; I too listen to popular music [just like a certain prime minister identified with Elvis Presley]." I'm sure that it will surprise no one that Abe still looks just as wooden as ever despite, or perhaps because of this lame attempt to appear accessible.

Accordingly, the time is nigh for Abe to step down from the abductions soapbox -- which has helped distort public opinion on Japanese-North Korean relations, as noted here -- and formulate an approach to North Korea that balances all of Japan's interests in regard to Pyongyang. Let's not forget that Japan is perhaps the country most threatened by North Korea's nuclear arsenal.

Stepping back from an issue that has defined Abe's public image for half a decade: now there's an act of political courage.

Japan's evolving democracy...aimed squarely at USFJ?

In light of this recent post on encouraging signs that the realignment of the US military presence may at last be ready to move forward to a conclusion that satisfies both countries, I found this op-ed in the Japan Times by journalist Hanai Kiroku interesting, in that it shows how the US military presence has, in some way, been an impetus to greater civic involvement by Japanese citizens, at least at the local level.

I found these paragraphs particularly interesting:

On Feb. 17, an open discussion was held in Sagamihara, Kanagawa Prefecture, on problems with the U.S. military presence. The meeting was sponsored by a local citizens' council, headed by the mayor, for promoting the reversion of U.S. military bases. Panelists included Col. David E. Hunter-Chester of the U.S. Army Japan command as well as the director of the Yokohama Defense Facilities Bureau of the Defense Ministry, a progovernment college professor, a representative of a nongovernmental organization campaigning for peace and disarmament, and the director of the local citizens' council. It was the first time in Sagamihara, a city with a U.S. military base, that officials from the U.S. armed forces and the Defense Ministry attended such a citizens' meeting.

Looking at the list of panelists, I had expected heated debate, but nothing like that happened. Also present was a Japanese activist who stages a weekly sit-in at the front gate of U.S. Camp Zama to protest the U.S. military presence. There was no heckling and no confusion, probably because the audience was satisfied that open discussions were being held between anti- and pro-U.S.-military groups. There was even a feeling that the two camps understood each other to some extent.

The audience apparently liked the fact that Hunter-Chester, who has lived in Japan more than 10 years including as a high school student, spoke mostly in Japanese. As the meeting closed, somebody in the audience shouted to him in Japanese, "Come to the next session in civilian clothes." He seemed a bit perplexed. I think it was a constructive proposal.

Many Japanese feel that U.S. forces in Japan are taking advantage of their privileges under the Japan-U.S. Status of Forces Agreement. The request that the officer attend the next meeting wearing civilian clothes symbolizes citizens' hope that the U.S. military will deal with Japanese residents around U.S. military bases from a civilian standpoint. I share the same hope.

Merely by being in Japan, the US military has encouraged Japanese citizens to take an active interest in governance. While it is unfortunate that the US military is the target of civic activism -- when there are so many more deserving targets ensconced in Nagata-cho -- I hope that the US response to opposition from local communities throughout Japan resembles the response outlined above. The US bases in Japan are, or ought to be, members and participants in the communities that host them, and US military personnel in the community should bear the same responsibilities as their Japanese neighbors.

Accordingly, rather than deferring to Tokyo -- although, of course, the central government has to play a part in coaxing or coercing local communities to agree -- the US Military should at the very least try to disarm local opposition by listening to grievances and make a concerted (and visible) effort to accommodate them.

And, with luck, the spirit of civic participation forged from resisting US Forces in Japan (USFJ) will carry over into Japanese domestic policymaking, with citizens becoming active and vocal participants in the policymaking process, rather than passive observers who occasionally voice their outrage at shenanigans in the Diet.

Changing bases

The Economist this week has an article that suggests that local officials in cities hosting US bases may finally be acquiescing to the plans formulated by Washington and Tokyo.

I think there's still a ways to go before the May 2006 agreement is fully on track, but it seems that Tokyo is finally willing to exert some effort in forcing the localities to follow Tokyo's lead; the US has agreed -- has been pushing for, in recent years -- to reductions and reorganization of American force deployments in Japan, without much reciprocation from the GOJ, at least when it comes to making sacrifices to see the deal through to its conclusion. Tokyo's cooperation is long overdue.