Kan tries again on trade

When the DPJ was campaigning to unseat the LDP in 2009, its manifesto included a pledge to "conclude" a free-trade agreement with the United States. The agricultural lobby flexed its muscles, and shortly after releasing its manifesto the DPJ issued several "clarifications," changing its pledge to reach an FTA with US to a pledge to "begin negotiations." Kan Naoto insisted that it would not conclude any agreement that harmed Japan's farmers. While the party claimed otherwise, the issue was effectively dropped for the duration of the campaign and the DPJ's first year in power.

After his victory over Ozawa, Kan, now prime minister, brought the issue of trade openness back onto the agenda in the form of Japanese participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Simply put, Kan's initial attempt to clear the way for Japanese involvement in TPP was stymied by the agricultural sector — with help from members of the DPJ. The lobby argued that participation would devastate Japanese agriculture, and forced the government to make a weak commitment to "study" participation, a climb down considering the soaring rhetoric with which the PM announced that his government would study participation in his policy speech at the start of the autumn Diet session.

However, with the start of a new year and a new Diet session, Kan, far from being chastened by the earlier defeat at the hands of the agricultural lobby, is positioning his government to begin the campaign anew. As Corey Wallace notes, the "themes" of this reshuffle were tax and pensions reforms and TPP. Regarding TPP, the most significant change was the appointment of Kaieda Banri as minister of economy, trade, and industry. Moreover, Hachiro Yoshio, a former farmer, was replaced as Diet affairs chairman by Azumi Jun. Combined with Maehara Seiji's staying on at the foreign ministry — Maehara has repeatedly called attention to the importance of economic openness for Japanese foreign policy — Kan managed to put into place a team that will be committed to the fight for free trade. His cabinet quickly agreed to TPP participation as a basic policy of the latest Kan government.

The question is whether Kan will be able to translate this ambition into reality. At the very least, the Kan government (and the DPJ) appear to have found their purpose. After fumbling around in search of a major issue or two to devote its energies to, the DPJ-led government has decided to tackle two rather pressing issues, which, combined with the challenges in Japan's bilateral relationships, passing the budget and budget-related bills, and managing life as a de facto minority government will be more than enough to keep the Kan government occupied. 

But in pursuing an open Japan — Kan's New Year's message was devoted to his goal of a third opening, a "Heisei opening" that would mean not just a Japan open to more imports but open to cultural, intellectual, and social exchanges across borders  — the Kan government arguably faces an even steeper battle than Koizumi faced when he took on the postal system, meaning the postal workers and their allies in the LDP. Between the rural bias in parliamentary representation (which, given the size of the DPJ's parliamentary caucus, inevitably means that there will be battles within the DPJ), the opposition of local governments in rural areas throughout Japan, and the outsized power of Nokyo, the Kan government faces formidable and perhaps insurmountable obstacles to bringing Japan into TPP. 

A basic understanding of international political economy is that free trade falters because its costs are concentrated while its benefits are diffuse. Plenty of states have joined free-trade agreements, suggesting that this fundamental tenet may not be all that fundamental. But what can the Kan government do to overcome the determined resistance of the agricultural lobby and its allies? For starters, the government needs to build a coalition of its own to rival the anti-TPP coalition. Business peak organizations like Keidanren will be indispensable partners for the Kan government if it is as serious about TPP as it says it is. Given the frosty relations between the DPJ and big business, the "anti-business" planks of the DPJ's manifesto, and the party's ties with organized labor (and big business's traditional ties with LDP), building this coalition will take some work, although this meeting between Kaieda and Keidanren's Yonekura Hiromasa is an encouraging start.

But it will take more than the help of friendly interest groups for the government to succeed. Ultimately, TPP may be the first big test for the DPJ's parliamentary-cabinet system. On paper, the DPJ's new policymaking process ought to (1) enable the government to coordinate its strategy on TPP across the relevant ministries (METI, MAFF, MOFA, etc.), (2) keep all cabinet ministers on board with the policy, (3) silence opposition within the ruling party, and (4) make strong, direct appeals to the general public about the necessity of the government's program. It is not a perfect analogue, since the upper house, now controlled by the opposition parties, gives the opposition parties procedural weapons they lack in the UK. However, the Kan government still has considerable tools at its disposal. The question is whether it uses them. As Andy Sharp argues at The Diplomat, it may well take a Koizumi-style PR blitz for the Kan government to win on this issue. It needs to hammer home why TPP — and greater openness more generally — are good and necessary for Japan. The idea that trade policy is an arena where groups with "objective" interests derived from their position in the global economy is overstated. Even among urban residents, thought to be the natural constituency for free trade, support cannot be taken for granted. The policy will not sell itself; an pro-TPP interest coalition needs to be constructed. The government's plan to convene town halls across Japan in February and March to explain the benefits of the policy are a good first step. But more talk will be needed. And side payments in one form or another will be unavoidable.

There is considerable risk in taking on TPP at the same time that the government will be debating a consumption tax increase linked to pensions payments, which, if not handled properly, could produce public opposition that could overwhelm the patient work of building a consensus on TPP. Nevertheless, as the Kan government and the DPJ begin a new year in power, they seem to be finding their bearings on policy. This government may yet leave a positive legacy.

An LDP upset in the making?

The LDP continues to set the tone in the non-campaign campaign. Speaking in Hiroshima on the occasion of the sixty-fourth anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb, Prime Minister Aso Taro stressed the existence of "a country with nuclear weapons that could attack as our neighbor," and reiterated the importance of the US nuclear umbrella. That Aso stressed the US nuclear umbrella ought to deflate the impact of the first statement somewhat: if the US nuclear umbrella is adequate to meet the North Korean nuclear arsenal, then the prime minister is suggesting that North Korea can be dealt with in the same way that Japan has dealt with the Russian and Chinese nuclear arsenals. But, of course, Aso's purpose was to call attention to North Korea as a country THAT COULD ATTACK Japan rather than his suggestion that the North Korea could be managed via the same arrangement by which the much larger and sophisticated Russian and Chinese arsenals have been contained.

In other words, another day of the LDP's playing on the public's fears to make its case for a new mandate.

Aso was delivering the same message on a different front in Shimane and Okayama Wednesday, when he attacked the DPJ for its position on a US-Japan FTA. Exhibiting the LDP's full-out reversion to agricultural protectionism — discussed here by Aurelia George Mulgan — Aso stressed, "Agriculture is the foundation of the nation." It is difficult to know whether the LDP's attack on this front is having the desired effect, but I have to figure that the LDP has at least convinced the newly born rural floating voters to think a bit longer about whether to cast their votes for the DPJ. And after a few more weeks? The LDP may have found a winning formula: "The DPJ: it will leave Japan vulnerable to attack and destroy your livelihood." The message seems to be, national defense and some talk of economic growth (and the "once-in-a-century-economic-crisis-originating-from-America") for voters in urban and surburban areas, out-and-out protectionism in rural areas. To a certain extent the LDP is conceding seats to the LDP in urban areas — how much energy is Aso really exerting on behalf of first-termer Koizumi children? — in the hope that an all-out campaign in the countryside can deprive the DPJ of the seats in places where it needs to gain the most ground from past elections. It is trying to neutralize the DPJ's Ozawa-engineered shift to a national strategy complete with a message for rural areas.

And now in the face of the first assault by the LDP the DPJ has stumbled. As Ikeda Nobuo argues, the DPJ has diluted what was a coherent and "strategic" policy designed to destroy what he calls the LDP's "Matsuoka" legacy of particularistic support for inefficient part-time farmers. Okada Katsuya tried to answer the LDP's attack in a press conference in Mie prefecture Wednesday, in which he stated that this matter is simply the LDP's norin zoku stirring up trouble. Not good enough, Mr. Okada. Complaining about the source of the criticism does nothing to blunt the criticism in the eyes of voters. The DPJ has to meet the criticism directly and explain, over and over again, why it's wrong, how the DPJ intends to both support mostly older small farmers and promote the transformation of Japanese agriculture through trade liberalization.

[As an aside, it bears mentioning what the LDP is doing here. The LDP is basically saying that the DPJ will destroy the livelihood of farmers by opening the domestic market to the country responsible for defending them from attack. It bears mentioning that the DPJ's proposal is aimed precisely at the fundamental principle of the US-LDP alliance, that security comes first and that economics should be isolated from the alliance or not discussed at all. The LDP's friends in Washington have been all to happy to push this line, especially after the revisionist excesses of the early 1990s. But presumably there is some happy medium between paying scant attention to the economic dimension of the relationship and a virtual trade war.]

Time will tell whether the LDP's political strategy will bear fruit. But politically speaking, sowing doubt and exploiting fear is perhaps the only way the LDP can with this general election. It certainly cannot win on the basis of its policy achievements since 2005.

Observing Japan on Radio Australia

I recorded an interview on Japanese agricultural policy for a story that aired on Radio Australia.

Not my most articulate media appearance, but readers can listen to the story here. Ken Worsley of Japan Economy News was also interviewed.

Looking at the 2007 single-seat districts

Over at Liberal Japan, Matt points to an article in the Yomiuri Shimbun pointing to a poll that shows DPJ support rising in both major cities and smaller cities and towns in rural areas. Based on this, he concludes — emphatically, by way of music videos — that the election is bound to be a landslide for the DPJ.




I wish I could be so optimistic.

The basis for his optimism is his conclusion that these poll numbers show that the DPJ's rural strategy is working; Ozawa's focus on touring the country rather than fighting in the Diet is set to yield major results for the DPJ. Now, I've praised Ozawa's choice of strategy before, and having looked through the DPJ's forty-six-page manifesto, including its three-plus pages on agricultural policy, I can confirm that the DPJ is indeed prepared to pump pork into the countryside, so that, er, they can continue producing pork for the cities. From biomass energy promotion to rice support to support for small-scale agriculture, the DPJ is prepared to pry open the jaws of the exchequer to prop up Japan's farmers. The manifesto also shows that the DPJ has borrowed the late Mr. Matsuoka's playbook in trying to sell agricultural support to precious urban voters on the basis of food security and the environment. (Mr. Matsuoka emphasized both during the Koizumi years, seeing the environment especially as a new way to keep the money flowing.)

But I disagree that one can simply call the election on the basis of a single public opinion poll. Accordingly, I looked at the twenty-nine single-seat electoral districts to see the potential for a DPJ landslide.

My conclusion:

LDP best-case scenario: DPJ 12 / LDP 17

DPJ best-case scenario: DPJ 19 / LDP 10

Barring a total collapse of the LDP, I expect the worst the LDP can possibly do in these districts is win a mere ten out of twenty-nine. In that scenario, the LDP would without question win fewer than the 15 PR seats it won in 2004, and assuming twelve seats from the two-seat districts and six more from the three- and five-seat districts, it would finish with around forty seats, falling far short of a majority.

In the best case scenario for the single-seat districts, the LDP would win 17 seats, perhaps repeat its 2004 PR performance and take one seat in each multi-member district and finish with fifty seats, enough to pull together a majority in the Upper House.

The reality will probably fall somewhere between the two, as I argued before. In other words, not a landslide at all.

Looking at the individual races is useful, because one immediately notices the number of senior LDP politicians up for reelection. Whatever the unpopularity of the government, each of these members enjoys the advantages of incumbency, and a number of them are norin zoku from rural prefectures, meaning that they have been well placed to provide support for their constituents. The DPJ has a difficult task ahead of it in many of these races, and I am not entirely sure that the candidates that the opposition has selected are up to the challenge.

Furthermore, the question of turnout remains. Will the opposition be able to bring out enough voters angry about the government to turn the tide to the LDP's worst-case scenario? And will they be angry enough by the time it comes to vote? Will weeks of campaigning, hearing from incumbents about how they have helped the prefecture, be enough to mollify public outrage?

What follows is my assessment of each of the twenty-nine single-seat elections. As you can see, I outline the facts of each race, and then make a prediction based on my own reasoning. Admittedly, a lot of it is guesswork and hunches. I'm sure many of you will look at my notes and make drastically different predictions. I am interested to hear, one way or another. As always, your comments are appreciated.

Sources: Yahoo Seiji, Za Senkyo, the LDP homepage, the DPJ homepage, and Japanese Wikipedia.

The 2007 Upper House Election Single-Seat Districts

Aomori: two-term LDP incumbent (60), facing a young (37) DPJ challenger with little political experience and with a Socialist in the field too, siphoning off opposition votes (and incumbent Yamazaki won handily in 2001, 100,000 more than the combined DPJ/Socialist vote total). Aomori's LDP governor won big in April.

My prediction: LDP

Akita: similar to Aomori, two-term LDP incumbent (57) is facing an independent (media personality Matsuura Daigo, age 37). The DPJ holds a single seat in the prefectural assembly, with the LDP holding a plurality and independents the next largest bloc.

My prediction: LDP
Optimistic prediction: Potential for an upset, with a media-personality independent winning in similar circumstances in 2004.

Iwate: "Ozawa's Kingdom" has a DPJ incumbent, Hirano Tatsuo (53), facing a younger LDP challenger as well as a Socialist candidate (in his first election in 2001, the Socialist candidate received 60,000 votes, making the margin of victory much closer [6,000 votes] than otherwise). The "counterwind" may mean that Hirano wins more resoundingly.

My prediction: DPJ

Yamagata: In this open seat, the DPJ is running Funayama Yasue (41), a retired MAFF bureaucrat who lost by a narrow margin in 2004, due to the Socialist siphoning off more votes than the LDP's margin of victory. This time the Socialists are backing Funayama.

My prediction: DPJ

Tochigi: Tochigi, shrinking from a two-seat to a one-seat district, features a showdown between a DPJ and an LDP incumbent. The LDP incumbent is Kunii Masayuki, an archetypal norin zoku — worked in agricultural cooperatives in Tochigi, elected to the Upper House in 1995, served in a number of agricultural policy posts within the LDP, in the Diet, and in the government since then (he's currently the MAFF vice minister). In other words, the kind of politician who has access to the levers of power that enable him to bring tangible benefits home to his constituents. Facing him is Tani Hiroyuki, a one-term DPJ incumbent, with long experience in politics at the local level.

Tochigi may be the most important of the twenty-nine single-seat districts. Facing a leading norin zoku, a man uniquely capable of ensuring that his constituents have the support of the central government, will the DPJ's rural appeal succeed? I doubt it.

My prediction: LDP
Optimistic prediction: A choice of Tani over Kunii could signal a desire among voters for a cleaner politics.

Gunma: With Kokumin Shinto carrying the torch for the opposition against future LDP giant and TV personality Yamamoto Ichita, this one might be one of the few seats that the LDP wins convincingly. (And adhering to the Okumura principle, Yamamoto has a brief article on the English Wikipedia, which informs us that he was once in a rock band. This leads me to add my corollary to the Okumura principle: Japanese politicians with Wikipedia entries in English and who once played in rock bands cannot lose.)

My prediction: LDP

Yamanashi: The DPJ may be well placed in the competition for this open seat, running the young (41) Fuji Television veteran Yonenaga Harunobu against a young (42) LDP activist and consultant Irikura Kaname.

My prediction: DPJ

Toyama: Toyama could be another pickup for the DPJ, with the DPJ supporting independent Morita Takashi, a young medical professional who emphasizes quality nursing care, against LDP incumbent Nogami Kotaro, who was first elected in 2001 — a Koizumi child — and whose record in his first term seems largely undistinguished. LDP candidates like Nogami are undoubtedly vulnerable.

My prediction: DPJ

Ishikawa: The open contest in Ishikawa features two relative heavyweights, the LDP's Yata Tomiro, a long-serving prefectural assemblyman who ultimately rose to the assembly leadership and has experience with agriculture faces the DPJ's Ichikawa Yasuo, a twenty-five-year MAFF veteran and three-term Lower House member washed away in the 2005 Koizumi landslide. Ichikawa probably has the edge here, and his victory would be an important step for the DPJ in the countryside.

My prediction: DPJ

Fukui: In Fukui prefecture, the DPJ is running another Lower House member defeated in 2005 against Matsumura Ryuji, two-term Upper House member, retired bureaucrat (National Police Agency) and vice minister of the Transportation Ministry (and let's not forget his various policy "activities" in various PARC committees). Both are hardly young, the DPJ candidate Wakaizumi 61, Matsumura 69. But like elsewhere, this may be an election that comes down to the national mood: when the citizens of Fukui vote, will it be based on their attitude to the government, or will it be based on their gratitude to Mr. Matsumura for his "service" to the prefecture? It may be contrarian of me, but I suspect the latter.

My prediction: LDP
Optimistic prediction: DPJ

Shiga: The DPJ is running Tokunaga Hisashi (44), a prefectural assemblyman who lost his first bid for the prefectural assembly in 1991, worked for a bit, became a secretary to a Lower House member in 1997, and won a prefectural assembly seat in 1999. His opponent is Yamashita Hidetoshi, first elected in a by-election in 2000 and reelected in 2001; he was parliamentary secretary in the Finance Ministry under Koizumi and chair of the Upper House's health and welfare committee. With Shiga one of the few growing prefectures in Japan (although part of that growth is foreign labor) and home to major corporations, one would it expect it to incline increasingly away from the LDP. It is difficult to predict based on recent elections, however, although the 2006 gubernatorial election, in which Socialist Kada Yukiko surprisingly defeated an LDP/DPJ/Komeito candidate suggests that floating voters may rule. Expect Yamashita to be one of the losing incumbents.

My prediction: DPJ

Mie: The incumbent is the DPJ's Takashi Chiaki, who worked with JA Mie, the prefectural federation of agricultural cooperatives, before being elected in 2000 in a by-election. His LDP opponent is Harvard alum (School of Public Health) and Rotary fellow Onozaki Kohei. While Onozaki is thirteen years' Takashi's junior, I have a hard time seeing the DPJ incumbent losing, no matter how many pictures of his children Onozaki puts on his webpage.

My prediction: DPJ

Nara: The DPJ candidate is Nakamura Tetsuji, another DPJ Lower House member unseated in 2005. Only 36, Nakamura has already served two terms in the Lower House and sat in the DPJ's Next Cabinet as next vice minister of Internal Affairs and Communications responsible for information and communications. (He was also a policy secretary straight out of university and apparently pioneered the use of the "mail magazine.") He is opposed by Matsui Masatake, a dentist and long-serving prefectural assemblymen who ultimately became head of the assembly. This looks like a win for the DPJ, but the DPJ contingent in the prefectural assembly held steady in April, and the DPJ did not field a gubernatorial candidate, suggesting a weaker local organization.

My prediction: DPJ

Wakayama: The Wakayama race pits Seko Hiroshige, adviser to Prime Minister Abe on communications, against the DPJ's Sakaguchi Naoto, head of an NGO that does post-civil war peace-building and reconstruction (during the 1990s he volunteered through MOFA to assist with precisely that). Due to Seko's presence in the campaign, the Abe Cabinet's record will undoubtedly be an important factor in the outcome. Seko was reelected resoundingly in 2001, with 319,080 votes, more than twice the total of the three candidates opposing him. That total will be diminished without Koizumi, but how much will his service in the Abe Cabinet harm Seko? (Sakaguchi's background may also make the Abe Cabinet's designs for Japanese security policy an issue, oddly enough.)

My prediction: LDP
Optimistic prediction: If anger at Abe is that deep, then expect Seko to pay the price.

Tottori: The LDP incumbent, Tsuneda Takayoshi, is another member of the LDP's Upper House class of 1995 and another norin zoku member, serving on a number of MAFF-related Diet committees and LDP policy making committees in his twelve years. (This following a career in Tottori's assembly, in which he also specialized in agriculture.) Kawakami Yoshihiro, his DPJ opponent, is a former LDP member elected in 2003 as an independent member of the Lower House. Kawakami then joined the Kamei faction, voted against postal reform and was "assassinated" in 2005. He joined the DPJ in 2006. I expect Tsuneda will hold on to his seat.

My prediction: LDP

Okayama: In Okayama, there is a five-way race (LDP, DPJ, Communist, Independent, a small party), with the LDP candidate being LDP Upper House Secretary-General Katayama Toranosuke. His DPJ opponent is Himei Yumiko, a judicial scrivener who has served in the prefectural assembly. If Katayama cannot hold onto his seat, the LDP is in major trouble.

My prediction: LDP

Shimane: Facing another member of the LDP class of 1995 holding a senior position, Kageyama Shuntaro, the opposition parties are backing Kamei Akiko, daughter of Kokumin Shinto Secretary-General Kamei Hisaoki, who has worked as an aide to her father but never been elected to office before. (After studying in Canada, she worked as a translator, including at the Nagano Olympics and the Japan-Korea World Cup.) I doubt the Kamei name will be enough to defeat Kageyama.

My prediction: LDP

Yamaguchi: In Prime Minister Abe's "home" prefecture, the LDP incumbent, Hayashi Yoshimasa, is another member of the class of 1995 and currently vice minister in the Cabinet Office (and another LDP Harvardian). His DPJ opponent is Tokura Takako, a community activist running for her first public office. Hayashi, reelected in 2001 by a wide margin, should be able to hold his seat.

My prediction: LDP

Tokushima: In Tokushima, yet another LDP incumbent from the class of 1995, Kitaoka Shuji is facing the DPJ's Nakatani Tomoji, a thirty-eight-year-old retired salaryman. Based on the previous two elections, Kitaoka might be in trouble. First, in 2001 he was reelected by what may be the slimmest margin for an LDP candidate in a year in which the LDP could not lose: 198,387 to 116,278, with 50,000 more votes split between three other candidates. This time, it is just LDP, DPJ, and JCP. Second, in 2004, in a campaign for an open seat, the LDP candidate won by the narrow margin of 166,032 to 153,057. An upset is not guaranteed, however, with only four DPJ members, including two incumbents, elected to the prefectural assembly in April (although a good number of independents were elected too, nine for the first time).

My prediction: DPJ

Kagawa: In Kagawa, LDP four-term incumbent and former Environment Agency Director-General Manabe Genji faces thirty-nine-year-old DPJ candidate Uematsu Emiko, who previously ran in 2004, losing narrowly to LDP incumbent Yamauchi Toshio, 204,392 votes to 197,370. Based on her own electoral record and her youth, together with the general mood, Uematsu may knock off the septuagenarian Manabe.

My prediction: DPJ

Ehime: The DPJ is facing senior LDP incumbent Sekiya Katsutsugu, an eight-term Lower House member-cum-two-term Upper House member, chairman of the Upper House's committee on constitution revision, and construction minister in the Obuchi Cabinet (I can only imagine the largess Ehime received then, with him as the construction minister and the government in a fit of Keynesian pump priming). The opposition parties have opted for an independent celebrity candidate to face Sekiya, recently retired Ehime FC footballer Tomochika Toshiro (32). In the 2004 Upper House election, Ehime was open, and the LDP candidate won by 50,000 votes. Sekiya will probably win comfortably.

My prediction: LDP.

Kochi: Two-term LDP incumbent Tamura Kohei, who has held a number of senior parliamentary, party, and government posts since being elected in 1995, is facing DPJ Kochi City Council Member Takeuchi Norio. Tamura could find himself in trouble; in 2001 he had a relatively narrow win over independent candidate Hirota Hajime, who went on to beat the LDP incumbent in 2004.

My prediction: LDP
Optimistic prediction: My gut tells me that the DPJ can pull off an upset against Tamura. If Chertoff can go by his gut, so can I.

Saga: Contending for the open seat in Saga are the LDP's Kawakami Yoshiyuki, a construction (later transportation) ministry bureaucrat turned vice-governor of Saga prefecture, and Kawasaki Minoru, a retired Bank of Japan economist. Kawasaki ran in 2004, and lost by a mere 20,000 votes. Yomiuri reported on 14 July that Saga looks to be a major battleground, with the government sending most of the campaign and a number of other senior LDP leaders to campaign for Kawakami. That could turn the tide for the LDP, meaning another close loss for Kawasaki. Of course, that the LDP has to fight hard for a prefecture it has long dominated is significant in itself.

My prediction: LDP
Optimistic prediction: Visits by Prime Minister Abe and others refuse to staunch public outrage, and Kawasaki ekes out a close win.

Nagasaki: In what may well be the "Kyuma election," DPJ candidate Okubo Yukishige, a prefectural assemblyman who lost to Kyuma in 2005, is facing LDP candidate Komine Tadatoshi, a school principal. With the DPJ having won handily in 2004 and the LDP tainted by Kyuma, I expect Okubo will prevail.

My prediction: DPJ

Kumamoto: In another test for the DPJ's agricultural strategy, the DPJ is contending with another LDP norinzoku giin incumbent first elected in 1995, Miura Issui. MAFF vice minister, member of various LDP agriculture policy committees, and a native of the late Mr. Matsuoka's Kumamoto prefecture to boot, Miura is another member capable of bringing public funds home to this rural Kyushu prefecture. Facing him is Matsuo Nobuo, a lawyer and onetime DPJ member of the Lower House — like others, he was first elected in 2003 but defeated in the 2005 landslide. Consistent with the results for other norinzoku members facing reelection, I expect that the voters of Kumamoto will send Mr. Miura back to Tokyo, even if Yomiuri finds that some are more concerned with pensions than with agricultural support. Miura may have to work a little harder, and the margin of victory may be narrower, but the interests will win out.

My prediction: LDP

Oita: The situation is somewhat turbulent in Oita, as the DPJ declined to support the SDP candidate, who is now running as an independent. The incumbent, meanwhile, is Kokumin Shinto member Goto Hiroko; she was first elected in 2001 as an LDP member, but left the party after the postal rebellion and joined Kokumin Shinto. I think it is an open question whether the voters of Oita will opt for her again, now that she's joined a marginal party. With the opposition split among two independents, Goto, and the JCP candidate, the LDP candidate, Isozaki Yosuke, a retired bureaucrat, could win more or less by default.

My prediction: LDP

Miyazaki: The race in Miyazaki is similar messy. The LDP incumbent, Kosehira Toshifumi, was first elected in 2001 with 199,171 votes. Two independents took 172,023 and 155,269 votes each. Kosehira, a norin zoku giin in training, holds positions on a number of PARC agriculture committees and sub-committees, and he may once again benefit from a divided race. The Socialists, DPJ, and Kokumin Shinto have endorsed Toyama Itsuki, a DPJ activist — who is running as an independent, to the chagrin of some DPJ members. Toyama may have an advantage going into the election, but three other independents and a JCP candidate could divert votes away, giving Kosehira a narrow victory.

My prediction: LDP
Optimistic prediction: The DPJ and its partners overcome divisions in the final two weeks of campaigning and present a clear challenge to the LDP, diminishing the appeal of votes for other independents.

Kagoshima: Kagoshima is a straight-up LDP incumbent vs. DPJ challenger vs. JCP challenger election. The LDP incumbent is Kajiya Yoshito, another incipient member of the norin zoku as the chairman of the Upper House agriculture committee and participant in the LDP's agriculture policy committees. Like Kosehira, Kajiya was first elected in 2001 with more than double the votes of his closest rival. The LDP candidate in 2004 received a similar number of votes, although with only DPJ and JCP candidates with whom to contend the margin of victory was smaller. Given that the LDP candidate in 2001 and 2004 received 435,300 and 455,591 votes respectively, and LDP candidates had a strong showing in April's prefectural assembly elections, Kajiya is probably safe from DPJ challenger Minayoshi Inao, a Rengo activist who was the DPJ candidate in 2004 (he received 315,560 votes).

My prediction: LDP

Okinawa: Ozawa has been repeatedly frustrated in Okinawa, losing a gubernatorial election and Upper House by-election since becoming head of the DPJ. The opposition is supporting indepdent Itokazu Keiko, who won the Upper House election in 2004 but left to contend for the governorship in 2006, which she lost. In that election, Itokazu received 309,985 votes, losing by fewer than 40,000 votes. But Itokazu actually received fewer votes in 2006 than she received in 2004 as an Upper House candidate (316,148 votes). However, Nishime Junshiro, the LDP incumbent, was first elected in 2001 with 265,821 votes, meaning that he has a lot of work to do to compete with Itokazu.

My prediction: DPJ

Meet the new daijin, same as the old daijin

On Friday morning, Prime Minister Abe summoned forty-eight-year-old Akagi Norihiko to Kantei and requested that Akagi serve as Matsuoka Toshikatsu's successor at the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries (MAFF). Akagi, a Tokyo University graduate, MAFF old boy (OB), and grandson of an agriculture minister in the cabinet of Abe's grandfather Kishi, was first elected the same year as Matsuoka (1990) and served in a similar succession of posts in LDP policy organs as Matsuoka.

In other words, he's a younger, more elite version of the late Mr. Matsuoka. (I say more elite because, as I wrote in this post, Matsuoka was not a Todai grad, not a ministry generalist OB, and not a hereditary politician.)

There are no indications that the policies Akagi will pursue will be any different from Matsuoka, and there are already signs of inappropriate monetary dealings between Akagi's koenkai and groups seeking contracts from MAFF. As Abe made clear when appointing him, Akagi will, like Matsuoka, seek to promote further reform of Japanese agriculture, work to the target of one trillion yen in agricultural exports, and act as a tough negotiator in WTO negotiations. In other words, agricultural mercantilism and favoritism on behalf of companies and farmers supporting the LDP.

Akagi's accession to the cabinet is a clear illustration that the problem is much bigger than Matsuoka: the problem is systemic. No cabinet-eligible LDP politician has clean hands.

Whitewashing Matsuoka

Others bloggers have provided thorough reviews of the press response to Matsuoka Toshikatsu's suicide — see Adamu's post at Mutantfrog and Matt Dioguardi's at Liberal Japan — so I will not do so here.

Instead, I want to take issue with the Yomiuri Shimbun's editorial on Matsuoka's death (and by extension Abe's high praise for Matsuoka's skills as an agriculture policy specialist), specifically what it says about Matsuoka's role in agriculture policy.

Yomiuri comments:

High priority has been given to the promotion of the WTO and free trade agreements, and agriculture policies to reform domestic agriculture.

Prime Minister Abe appointed Mr. Matsuoka, a former MAFF bureaucrat, as minister of agriculture because of his command of the details of agricultural issues. He judged that if Matsuoka was the minister, he could stifle domestic opposition so to maintain progress on liberalization.

Moreover, in the agreement to commence negotiations on economic partnership agreement (EPA) with Australia, he valued the agriculture minister's abilities.

In the age of globalization, what should Japanese agriculture do? His death comes at a critical moment.

The implication in this passage is that Matsuoka's presence at the head of MAFF made a critical difference for the adaptation of Japanese agriculture to globalization, that he was a great free trader struggling against the forces of protection in Japanese agriculture.

Anyone with a passing familiarity with Matsuoka's activities as a norin zoku member would know that he has, if anything, been the leader of the forces arrayed against liberalization of agriculture. Aurelia George Mulgan describes incident after incident of Matsuoka — prior to his service as minister of agriculture — traveling abroad to harry WTO officials and trade representatives from other WTO members, trying to impress upon them the uniqueness of Japanese agriculture as grounds for protecting it. Defenders of Matsuoka might point to his efforts to promote Japanese agricultural exports, efforts that drew the support of former Prime Minister Koizumi — but promoting exports did not make Matsuoka a free trader, they made him a mercantilist of the basest sort, because he was hardly enthusiastic about the prospect of more liberal food imports. If he supported trade agreements, it was because they presented an opportunity for the government to redistribute funds to farmers — his supporters — who would purportedly be harmed by trade agreements. It is telling that one of Matsuoka's major activities during the 1990s was participation in the LDP's committee concerned with Uruguay Round countermeasures.

Matsuoka was similarly opportunistic as an environmentalist, which he came to realize was another way to direct funds to rural Japan; he could argue that support for farmers was critical to keeping Japan "green."

If Matsuoka was an expert on the details of agriculture policy, it was because he spent so much time trying to figure out ways to direct more money to rural constituencies, resulting in more money for his campaign chest.

None of this is secret. It was all laid bare in Aurelia George Mulgan's Power and Pork, which in some way reads like a record of the charges against Matsuoka from the span of his career.

Grief over a tragic death is no excuse for whitewashing Matsuoka's past as protectionist Japanese agriculture's best friend in Nagatacho.

The failure of Ozawaism?

Apologies for not having posted sooner, but once again I'm out of Japan, this time back in my hometown of Chicago for business.

Having stepped out of the news cycle for a day, it might be a bit before I am completely up to speed, but meanwhile I highly recommend this recent post at Shisaku on the DPJ's approach to rural Japan in advance of this summer's Upper House elections.

He concludes:

Now there is a word for citizens of a prefecture dependant on government subsidies and handouts who vote against the ruling party.

That word is "stupid".

Combine this basic "knowing where your rice and fish come from" impetus--based a promise the government knows it does not have to honor--with the Abe Clique's special message of loving the Emperor, patriotism, traditional gender roles and respect for the nation's honored dead (remember the demographics of the rural areas are strongly titled toward the elderly) and you have a potent, almost omnipotent electoral strategy in the single-seat districts that the DPJ can only bang its poor little pointed head upon.

I concur wholly with Shisaku. Despite efforts by Ozawa to reach out to rural Japan (see the strong emphasis on agriculture in his recent book, Ozawaism), I strongly doubt that rural Japan can be "turned" from the LDP prior to the dramatic transformation of the Japanese political system. The LDP was, is, and will, after Koizumi's failure, continue to be the party of rural Japan. As I argued here, that will likely be unsustainable in the long term, but in the short term, the LDP will undoubtedly have no problem securing the support of rural voters, thanks to the combination of a more buoyant economy and a prime minister who seems wholly indifferent to the idea of making the LDP a modern, urban party.

In the process, however, by drawing the DPJ to the countryside in an effort to try to outspend the LDP, the LDP may well destroy the DPJ, or at least its soul, making it look ever more like the LDP's shadow (and thus unelectable, because why vote for an LDP copy when you have the real thing).

George Bush helping Matsuoka?

George Bush, speaking to the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, issued a challenge to Japan (and others):

Today, more than 100 countries have fully or partially opened their markets to U.S. beef. The objective of this administration, however, is to make sure that they're better than partially opened, they're fully opened, including the countries like Japan and Korea. We're also working to open up markets that have still got a ban on our imports. In other words, this is an important part of our foreign policy. When I'm talking to leaders and they've got an issue with American beef, it's on the agenda. I say, if you want to get the attention of the American people in a positive way, you open up your markets to U.S. beef. People understand that when it comes to being treated fairly in the world marketplace.

This might be just the thing to revive Japanese Minister of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries (MAFF) Matsuoka Toshikatsu's sagging political fortunes, giving him the opportunity to pose as the defender of Japanese consumers from disease-ridden American beef (a role he has relished playing since the beginning of his political career).

Of course, it may well be too late for Matsuoka to save himself. Mainichi reports that Kamiwaki Hiroshi, a graduate professor of law at Kobe Gakuin University and head of a citizen's group called Political Funds Ombudsman, is preparing charges against Matsuoka for five years' worth of false reporting by his support group, The Matsuoka Toshikatsu New Century Politics and Economics Association. Kamiwaki said: "As is expected, the agriculture minister has not satisfied his obligation to provide an explanation; this illegal issue must not be neglected. Efforts to solve this case in the Diet have stalled, so I think that he must be indicted and the facts made clear in a courtroom." It is encouraging to see an NGO act independently to hold the government accountable. Stories like this suggest that there may be hope for Japan yet.

The question is whether Abe's stalwart defense (not to mention appointment to the cabinet) of a senior LDP politician with a long history of political activities of dubious legality will have consequences for the LDP in next month's local elections or July's Upper House elections. I would like to think it will, but then the Japanese public seems to have high tolerance for corrupt dealings by the LDP.