The DPJ will submit its own bill after all

In the latest twist in the saga over Japan's involvement in operations in and around Afghanistan, the DPJ has decided that it will submit its own bill today.

Asahi notes that the DPJ move is in response to recent public opinion polls that show rising opposition to the MSDF's resuming its refueling mission.

Hatoyama Yukio explained that the party's decision was rooted in a desire to explain the party's thinking directly to the people.

It's not clear to me what changed to inspire this about-face. If anything, there's less need for the DPJ to take on a position of its own now that the LDP has destroyed the plurality of support it once enjoyed on this issue.

The DPJ's position remains unchanged from the start of this Diet session. The DPJ bill will call for humanitarian contributions in Afghanistan, without armed participation in ISAF. Of course, the more substantial the Japanese contribution on the ground, the greater the need for allied forces to ensure the safety of Japanese personnel. With concerns being raised from all corners about the inadequacies of current allied forces in Afghanistan — the latest being the Rudd government — I don't expect that the allied countries will be pleased to have to divert forces away from fighting the insurgency to defend an unarmed Japanese detachment.

Additionally, taking this approach, the DPJ may give the LDP an opportunity to regroup, enabling the government to remind the Japanese people that the refueling mission provides a low-risk way for Japan to meet its supposed international obligations and argue that although the DPJ plan is "non-military," it places a burden on other countries and puts Japanese personnel in harm's way.

I remain baffled by Mr. Ozawa's thinking. I agree that the DPJ owes it to the Japanese people to explain their thinking and provide alternatives to the government's plans, but having decided not to do so on this issue — and having paid no cost as far as I can see — I don't understand why the DPJ would change at the last minute and submit its own bill.

Fukuda answers some questions

After weeks of uncertainty, Prime Minister Fukuda has moved to answer definitively the six unanswered questions of the current Diet session, answering at least two of them by announcing that he will use the government's supermajority in the House of Representatives to pass the new anti-terror law, and he will extend the Diet session into January in order that the bill will be sent back to the Lower House should the Upper House not act on it within sixty days.

At the same time, Maehara Seiji, a deputy chief of the DPJ and potential thorn in the side for Mr. Ozawa, is making noise again for the first time since August, when there were rumblings of discontent over the DPJ leadership's opposition to the MSDF refueling mission. He is once again criticizing the DPJ for its failure to think of Japan's national interests and warned, "In the event that we quit without the session being extended, the Indian Ocean activities will be suspended for a long time. If there is a dissolution from this, our party will be in trouble."

MTC suggests that the DPJ's immediate response to the above course of action by the LDP will be a censure motion in the Upper House.

The consequences of this chain of events, however, are still unclear and will remain so right up until the moment they transpire. The potency of the weapons possessed by each side still depends largely on public and media support. If the government can somehow get the public to break its way, at least enough so that Mr. Fukuda can spin it as a trend in his favor, then he may be in a position to ignore the non-binding censure resolution and carry on as if nothing happened. A trend the other way, harder to ignore. Will the public continue to remain non-committal through all of this?

As for Mr. Maehara, to date, Mr. Maehara has been long on sound and fury, short on action. I think that he will continue to toe the Ozawa line when forced to choose, but then again, it is in moments like this that the whims and caprices of a disgruntled actor like Mr. Maehara could become very important, if not in terms of numbers — if Mr. Ozawa would have found it difficult to destroy the DPJ's position in the Upper House by leaving the party, would Mr. Maehara find it any easier? — then in terms of perceptions regarding the fitness of the DPJ as a credible contender.

In any case, his remarks mean that we haven't heard the last of the 政治再編 (political realignment) in the Japanese press, that panacea for all of political Japan's problems on the lips of commentators, even though few seem able to sketch out exactly what it would look like.

Ozawa, posturing

I was apparently mistaken to think that Mr. Ozawa might use the occasion of a visit to China to find some common ground with Mr. Fukuda by staking out a shared position on Japanese China policy.

Mainichi reports that Mr. Ozawa plans to use the trip as an opportunity to criticize the Fukuda cabinet's approach to a range of issues, from the six-party talks to the Taiwan Straits dispute. It's anyone's guess the direction from which Mr. Ozawa will criticize the government. Will he attack from the right, criticizing the government for not taking a firm stand in support of Taiwan and moving away from support of the abductees? Or will he come from the "left," calling for a more positive contribution to the six-party talks and kowtowing to China on Taiwan?

Meanwhile, the Upper House Management Committee has approved the trip, despite the fact that Mr. Ozawa will be taking twenty-four members of the Upper House with him while the Upper House is still in session. (The group also includes twenty-one Lower House members.) It's not entirely clear to me why he's traveling with such a large group of Diet members, and I think the LDP and Komeito are right to criticize the DPJ for taking a trip this size while the Diet is still in session. Whatever the DPJ thinks of the anti-terror law currently under consideration by the Upper House, it is disrespectful to the legislative process to pull a considerable number of its Upper House caucus out of deliberation.

I am certain Mr. Ozawa sees this as a convenient way to run out the clock to December 15th and hasten the point at which the government has to decide whether to extend the Diet session once more — and it is this kind of posturing that is what's wrong with the political system today.