Author: Aurelia George Mulgan, UNSW@ADFA

The Hatoyama administration has approved a fiscal 2010 budget containing ¥561.8 billion in expenditure on a new ‘individual household income compensation system’ (kobetsu shotoku hoshō seido) for farmers, to be launched in April. This income subsidy will compensate farming households for losses incurred as a result of higher production costs and lower market prices. The scheme will begin with a ‘model project’ targeting rice farms nationally.

The process undertaken in determining the budget for the policy illustrates how little has changed in agricultural policymaking under the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) compared to the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). Read the rest of this entry »

Author: Aurelia George Mulgan, UNSW@ADFA

One of the signature policies of the DPJ government has been to reallocate budget funding from public works to people’s livelihoods under its key slogans: ‘from concrete to people’ and ‘putting people’s lives first’. There was much fanfare attached to the suspension of a number of key public works projects as part of the budget review process last year, with the Yamba Dam being the biggest prize. Although halting construction of the dam was a DPJ election pledge in its 2009 manifesto, Minister Maehara, of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT), was able to claim much of the political credit for the way the suspension was handled.

But the DPJ’s commitment to spending reform has not prevented it from politicising the current process of public works (PW) allocation in the best tradition of the LDP. Read the rest of this entry »

Author: Aurelia George Mulgan, UNSW@ADFA

The Hatoyama government has reversed or partially reversed some of the key spending commitments in the DPJ’s 2009 election manifesto:

• - abolishing or reducing surtaxes on gasoline and car purchases etc. from fiscal 2010
• - eliminating tolls on major highways across Japan from fiscal 2010
• - paying families a monthly ¥26,000 child allowance from fiscal 2011

The surtax on gasoline, car purchases, et cetera was left in place when Prime Minister Hatoyama changed his position on the issue as a result of pressure from his own party, reportedly channelled through the Ozawa office. Read the rest of this entry »

Author: Aurelia George Mulgan, UNSW@ADFA

On 30^th December last year, the Hatoyama government launched its ‘New Growth Strategy’ (Basic Policies). It was produced by the National Policy Unit, or NPU (Kokka Senryaku Shitsu) as an interim strategy with the final version to be compiled by June this year.

Prime Minister Hatoyama admitted in early December that the NPU was ‘dysfunctional’ because of a shortage of staff, but it nevertheless produced the ‘New Growth Strategy’ in only two weeks. Read the rest of this entry »

Author: Aurelia George Mulgan, UNSW@ADFA

Ozawa Ichiro’s current travails over a money politics scandal may have an upside for the Hatoyama government. It may serve to undermine Ozawa’s growing influence over government policy.

As time has gone by, it is clear that Ozawa’s influence over the  Hatoyama administration has expanded. He has concentrated the policy input of the party into his own hands, acted as the main channel from the backbench to the political executive, and intervened in policymaking at crucial junctures – in areas of both domestic as well as foreign policy. Read the rest of this entry »

Author: Aurelia George Mulgan, UNSW@ADFA

On 29 December 2009, Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh finalised an Action Plan based on the October 2008 Japan-India Joint Declaration on Security Cooperation. This follows the same steps as the formalised expansion of Australia-Japan security ties, with the March 2007 Japan-Australia Joint Declaration on Security Cooperation, followed by an Action Plan endorsed by Prime Ministers Howard and Abe in Sydney in September 2007 (revised and expanded in December 2009).

The Japan-India Joint Declaration was modelled on the Japan-Australia accord. Read the rest of this entry »

Author: Aurelia George Mulgan, UNSW@ADFA

In the 2003 Lower House election, the DPJ, led by Kan Naoto, compiled an election manifesto that promised to create a system of direct payments to farmers. This matched the broad trend in government agricultural policy away from price supports to direct income subsidies to farmers.

Two years later, in the 2005 Lower House election, the DPJ, under Okada Katsuya, offered a ¥1 trillion direct payment system to all farm households marketing agricultural products. It also extended this offer to farm households in hill and mountainous areas and those whose agricultural production activities served environmental protection functions. Read the rest of this entry »

Author: Aurelia George Mulgan

The DPJ is doing what former Prime Minister Koizumi could only dream about. It is changing Japan’s policy-making system. The aim is to rid the system of potential blockages to substantial changes in policy direction.

Step 1: Unify the government and the ruling party by abolishing the DPJ’s Policy Affairs Research Council (PARC) and General Council (Somukai). This was done while in opposition, and the ‘government versus party’ phenomenon so entrenched under LDP rule has been eradicated. Read the rest of this entry »

Author: Aurelia George Mulgan

The Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) is putting on a show in its efforts to curb waste in Japan’s bureaucracy. No ministry was spared the scrutiny of the Government Revitalisation Unit (GRU) working groups which has publically reviewed government support of a large number of projects. Is it all a show or will the DPJ effect real change?

The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW) had 40 projects screened [see Table 1 below], which was the most, followed by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MEST) with 35, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) with 32 and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MLIT) with 31 not far behind. Budget allocations to the MEST’s ‘independent administrative corporations’ (dokuritsu gyōsei hōjin) were particularly well scrutinised as was expenditure by MAFF ‘funds’ (kikin) and the MHWL’s ‘public interest corporations’ (kōeki hojin).

These figures are partly a reflection of the prevalence of different organisational types amongst the semi-administrative bodies connected to particular ministries. Read the rest of this entry »

Author: Aurelia George Mulgan

At the heart of the US-Japan alliance has always been a grand bargain. The United States has provided defence protection for Japan under Article 5 of the Mutual Security Treaty, while Japan has provided bases for the US military under Article 6. Although not strictly under any treaty obligations, Japan has made greater military commitments to the alliance both regionally and internationally in order to compensate for the imbalance in security burdens.

The new Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) government led by Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama is tampering with this grand bargain. Read the rest of this entry »

Author: Aurelia George Mulgan

There is no single Japanese government vision of how regional community building should proceed.

First there is the ‘Hatoyama vision’ of an East Asia Community (EAC). This has long been one of the prime minister’s pet projects. In his 2005 book, he outlined his desire to promote a plan for a European style East Asia Community and to play the leading role in promoting it. He primarily envisions the building of an economic community with regional economic integration as a possible end point. Read the rest of this entry »

Author: Aurelia George Mulgan

As the recent Trilateral Summit reveals, progress on the East Asian community (EAC) idea will be difficult because of leadership rivalry between Japan and China.

The movement towards realising such a community is primarily a game played between the two regional powers, China and Japan, not China and the United States. Read the rest of this entry »

Author: Aurelia George Mulgan

The appointment of new Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) Minister Hirotaka Akamatsu – one of the most high-profile members of the DPJ, but a politician with almost no expertise on agricultural policy – is being interpreted as a symbol of the DPJ administration’s reform aiming to cut long-standing ties between Kasumigaseki (where Japan’s main ministries are located in Tokyo) and Nagatacho (where LDP headquarters is).

The Japanese press reports that MAFF bureaucrats, who, together with the LDP have controlled the country’s agricultural policy since 1955, have been gearing up for a war with the DPJ on the issue of transferring policymaking power from bureaucrats to politicians.

Read the rest of this entry »

Author: Aurelia George Mulgan

The recent piece by Tobias Harris on Hatoyama’s middle power diplomacy warrants some further discussion.

Tobias Harris says: ‘Okada described Clinton as ‘not obstinate’ when it came to hearing the DPJ government’s concerns’.

Read the rest of this entry »

Author: Aurelia George Mulgan

In what should be good news for Australian farmers, the recent Democratic Party of Japan’s electoral victory potentially clears the way for a radical shake-up in Japanese agricultural trade policy. Initial assessments have been pessimistic about the possibility of a breakthrough on agriculture in Australia-Japan FTA negotiations. But the chances of real change are highest at the WTO and over the medium, rather than short term.

During the election campaign, the DPJ backtracked on its proposal for a Japan-US FTA in the face of protests from farm leaders. However, in contrast to its cautious attitude towards bilateral free trade schemes, the party showed a much tougher attitude on WTO trade policy, and seeks an early conclusion to the Doha Round negotiations. While exceptional treatment for specific agricultural items can be built into bilateral trade agreements, it is much harder to secure the same sort of deals under multilateral arrangements.

Read the rest of this entry »