[Futurework] Breaking with tradition in Japan

[Karen Watters Cole]

Here’s some additional commentary on the news that PM Koizumi has dissolved the Japanese parliament and called for new elections Nov. 9th.  Wouldn’t it be great to oust the kingmakers (ie. corporate bigwigs) that run Bush2?  - KWC   Worldview: Japan is Back (No, really!) While everyone is wondering how China will reshape Asia and the world, perhaps the country to be watching is Asia’s other giant   Fareed Zakaria, Newsweek, Oct. 13 issue   Have you wondered whether anything’s been happening in the world beyond Iraq? With America—and many others—fixated on the ups and downs of the security situation, the search for weapons, the machinations in the U.N. Security Council, there’s been little attention paid to anything else.  Well, in the last month something big has been happening thousands of miles away from the Middle East. Japan is back. No, really. The country is finally stirring from a decadelong slumber. And it is waking up politically as well. In the long run, this period might well be seen as the rise of a new Japan. Many economists look at Japan and remain cautious. The economy is growing and the stock market is up, but in the last decade there have been many such false starts. More important, Japan’s reformist prime minister has not tackled the big economic problems the country faces—writing off bad loans, reforming the tax code and finding the right economic stimulus. In short, there has been no economic revolution. But in the last month Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has launched something more important—a political revolution. Japan’s basic problem is not economic. Some have wondered why a country filled with talented people has been so stubbornly unwilling or unable to reverse its economic decline—the longest any industrialized country has had in history. The reason is politics. The ruling Liberal Democratic Party has been dominated by leaders who draw their support from key constituents—construction workers, rice farmers, government employees.  For these groups, the past 10 years have looked pretty good. The government has shoveled money at them, bankrupting the Treasury, retarding growth, but keeping them happy. To give some sense of the scale of the problem, the writer Alex Kerr points out that between 1995 and 2005, Japan will spend about $6.2 trillion on public works. “That’s three to four times more than what the United States, with 20 times the land area and more than double the population, will spend on public construction in the same period,” he notes. Other favored groups get similar treatment. The ruling party’s powerful factions, allied with a corrupt bureaucracy, have created a system to maintain their power. You have to break it before any reform is possible. In the past few weeks Koizumi has declared war on the LDP’s old guard. He won his election within the party, then reshuffled his cabinet and, for the first time in Japan’s modern history, did not fill it with representatives of the various factions. He has begun tackling construction spending and the postal services because they are at the heart of the LDP’s vote-producing and money-getting machine. As a symbolic victory, none is greater than Koizumi’s sidelining of Hiromu Nonaka, the last of the great LDP kingmakers, who exercised power mafia-style, using blackmail, money and threats. On announcing that he was retiring from politics, Nonaka launched a bitter (and for Japan highly unusual) attack on the prime minister, saying, “I’ll devote the rest of my political life to fight the biggest battle yet against the Koizumi administration.” Other old-line LDP members have made similar statements. It suggests that Koizumi is finally hitting them where it hurts. All this may not translate into an economic boom. Japan faces huge problems. It has racked up catastrophic debt, has an aging population, and handles immigration badly. But the economy will get better. Corporations in Japan have been restructuring and profitability is improving. And now, the government might actually begin real economic reforms. Beyond economics, one is beginning to see a more active Japan. The rise of China, 9/11 and the North Korean crisis have all forced Japanese politicians to recognize that their country cannot remain a sleeping giant. They are beginning to speak about playing a larger international role, about revising Japan’s Constitution to provide for a normal defense force. Some are even broaching the topic of a nuclear deterrent. Words are being matched by deeds. Japan sent a naval flotilla to the Indian Ocean during the Iraq war. It will likely send noncombatant forces to Iraq. Washington has welcomed this new stance. A White House official told me, “From Iraq to North Korea, one sees a much more assertive Japanese foreign policy. We’re comfortable with this. Japan is a democratic country and a responsible ally.” This is big news. Remember, Japan is still the second richest country in the world, bigger than all the rest of Asia combined. Its military spending ranks fourth in the world. While everyone is wondering how China’s rise will reshape Asia and the world, perhaps the country to be watching is Asia’s other giant. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>