Author: Tobias Harris, MIT

In different ways, two articles published in Western media outlets this week suggest the emergence of a new narrative concerning Japan in elite circles in the United States. One might call that narrative the ‘losing Japan’ narrative, reminiscent of the idea — propagated by newsman Henry Luce — that the United States, or rather, the Democratic Party ‘lost’ China when the Communists won the Chinese Civil War. This narrative suggests that the United States is ‘losing’ Japan to China, raising a call to arms that unless the US government acts expeditiously it could let the DPJ-led government lead Japan into China’s embrace.

The first is the now infamous editorial in the Washington Post on Fujita Yukihisa, the DPJ upper house member best known for his doubts about the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Read the rest of this entry »

Author: Tobias Harris, MIT

Within a week of the formation of the first Bolshevik government, Leon Trotsky, the People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs, went to the foreign ministry and forced the staff to open safes containing secret treaties that the Tsarist government had made with the Allied powers over the course of World War I, treaties that for the most part concerned how the Allies would divide up the territorial spoils of war.

‘Abolition of secret diplomacy,’ wrote Trotsky, ‘is the first essential of an honorable, popular, and really democratic foreign policy.’ Read the rest of this entry »

Author: Tobias Harris, MIT

When the Hosokawa government — with Ozawa Ichiro, then secretary-general of one of the leading parties of the eight-party coalition backing the government — passed electoral reform in 1994, one of the arguments made then and ever since by Japanese politicians (and American political scientists) was that the new mixed single-member district/proportional representation electoral system would produce a British-style two-party system that would complement the British-style administrative and political reforms desired by Ozawa and other politicians.

In other words, the Japanese political system should favor the existence of a second large party to challenge the DPJ, if not the LDP then an LDP-like successor party. Read the rest of this entry »

Author: Tobias Harris, MIT

On Wednesday, Ubukata Yukio, the deputy secretary-general, Tanaka Makiko, Koizumi Junichiro’s controversial foreign minister who joined the DPJ last year, and other DPJ Diet members proposed to Prime Minister Hatoyama Yukio and DPJ secretary-general Ozawa Ichiro that the party establish a new policy research arm to replace the policy research council that closed shop when the DPJ took power in September.

Once again showing that whatever the DPJ-led government’s shortcomings, it is entirely serious about centralising policy-making in the cabinet and neutering the ruling party, both Hatoyama and Ozawa were quick to reject the proposal. Read the rest of this entry »

Author: Tobias Harris, MIT

The Hatoyama government’s campaign to revitalize Japan’s bilateral relationships in Asia continues, with Okada Katsuya’s visiting South Korea for the first time as foreign minister for meetings with President Lee and other senior officials.

While Americans are focused on celebrating what is being called the fiftieth anniversary of the US-Japan alliance this year, a more significant anniversary this year may be the 100th anniversary of Japan’s annexation of Korea. Read the rest of this entry »

Author: Tobias Harris, MIT

As Ozawa Ichiro waited for the Tokyo Public Prosecutors Office to decide whether it would indict him along with his former secretaries, the DPJ secretary-general was busy meeting with Kurt Campbell, U.S. assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, who stopped in Japan last week along with Wallace ‘Chip’ Gregson, assistant secretary of defense for Asia-Pacific affairs, for discussions with Foreign Minister Okada Katsuya and Defense Minister Kitazawa Toshimi.

Campbell and Ozawa spoke for an hour last Tuesday, with U.S. Ambassador John Roos also in attendance. Read the rest of this entry »

Author: Tobias Harris, MIT

Ozawa Ichiro has escaped indictment by the Tokyo Public Prosecutors Office again. Once again, his former secretaries were not quite so lucky, with three, including sitting Diet member Ishikawa Tomohiro, being indicted for political funds violations.

Michael Cucek rightly points to the gross misconduct of the PPO in its Ahab-like pursuit of Ozawa — and perhaps the more egregious campaign by the media to paint Ozawa as the conniving, monstrous puppet master of the Hatoyama government. Read the rest of this entry »

Author: Tobias Harris, MIT

Before entering politics — the family business — Hatoyama Yukio was a fledging academic, a Stanford-educated engineer. His background as an academic is often on display when he delivers set piece addresses. He has a penchant for abstraction, for drawing upon broad principles and shying away from the nitty gritty details of policy. This tendency is perhaps common to all leaders, but Hatoyama seems to take particular interest in how to frame policies intellectually (see his persistent use of his pet term yuai last year).

Remarkably, Hatoyama only used the term yuai once in his latest address, his policy speech for the new ordinary session of the Japanese Diet. Read the rest of this entry »

Author: Tobias Harris, MIT

The U.S.-Japan alliance turned fifty this week, and the allies celebrated by steering the conversation away from Futenma and releasing a 2 + 2 joint statement that reiterated why the alliance matters in the first place.

Kurt Campbell, the assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, also gave a press conference Tuesday that makes for interesting reading when it comes to thinking about the challenges the alliance faces going forward. Read the rest of this entry »

Author: Tobias Harris, MIT

As the Hatoyama government’s approval numbers have faltered and more recently plummeted, as reports about the inappropriately large role being played by Ozawa Ichiro in the government (despite not being a cabinet minister) have grown, as doubts about Hatoyama Yukio’s abilities as a leader have deepened, and as the court of public opinion internationally has handed down the verdict that the Hatoyama government is not only embarrassing to Japan but ‘risky‘, I have struggled to keep an eye on the big picture. The twenty-four-hour news cycle makes it difficult to do so: our attention spans shortened, we expect immediate results and solutions to problems that have emerged over years and decades and will take nearly as long to solve. Every drop in public opinion polls triggers panic, every note of discord becomes a crisis, and, closer to home for this Bay Stater, every by-election holds the fate of the nation in the balance.

But given that Japan is in the midst of unprecedented political change, it is essential to take a longer view, to not get so bogged down in cabinet bickering or opinion polls and to consider why the DPJ government matters in the first place. Read the rest of this entry »

Author: Tobias Harris, MIT

Say what you will about Ozawa Ichiro, but he is nothing if not resilient. In the nearly three years since the DPJ took control of the House of Councillors, he has resigned as party president twice, reversing his decision the first time in November 2008, returning as acting president in charge of elections the second time in 2009 and surviving to serve as secretary-general of the DPJ in power. Despite investigations into illicit real estate deals and connections with the construction company Nishimatsu, despite the indictment of his aide, despite being the target of attacks by the LDP and the media, Ozawa has remained, bloodied, perhaps, but undaunted.

Has his long and storied career finally come to an end? Read the rest of this entry »

Author: Tobias Harris, MIT

Foreign Minister Okada Katsuya has arrived in Hawaii for a Tuesday morning meeting with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Following weeks of bilateral acrimony, the two will discuss negotiations to strengthen bilateral cooperation on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the US-Japan mutual security treaty, signed fifty years ago this month.

For the moment it appears that the US will — not without displeasure — set Futenma aside while a defence ministry team considers possible alternatives for building a replacement facility at Henoko Bay. In advance of her meeting with Okada, Clinton said, echoing a recent New York Times op-ed by Joseph Nye (more on this in a moment), that the alliance is more important than Futenma, and that she and Okada will discuss ways to improve cooperation instead of dwelling on the contentious base issue. Read the rest of this entry »

Author: Tobias Harris, MIT

In a press conference at LDP headquarters Tuesday, Masuzoe Yoichi, the upper house member and former cabinet minister who is one of a handful of politicians respected by the public, said that while he will try to do what he can within the LDP, he said that his ultimate aim is a political realignment — and that he would not rule out any possibilities, including leaving the LDP to form his own party.

In the meantime, he is, in the best LDP tradition, forming a study group that will no doubt serve as a focal point for his reform movement. Read the rest of this entry »

Author: Tobias Harris, MIT

As expected, Fujii Hirohisa announced his resignation as finance minister on Wednesday. Hatoyama Yukio wasted no time naming his replacement: Kan Naoto will shift over to the finance ministry, and Sengoku Yoshito will take over for Kan as head of the national strategy bureau while continuing to run the government revitalization unit.

Kan’s appointment was to a certain extent obvious. Having been deeply involved in the budgetary process, he is better able than most to defend the budget in Diet debates in the months to come. While Sankei — who else? — sees this move as the latest battle in the struggle between Hatoyama and Ozawa Ichiro for power, moving Kan to the finance ministry will not hurt Hatoyama politically. Read the rest of this entry »

Author: Tobias Harris, MIT

On Tuesday, Fujii Hirohisa, the seventy-seven year old finance minister who was hospitalised late last year, indicated that he will in all likelihood resign his post sometime soon. While he is officially waiting for his doctor’s advice on his health, Fujii seems determined to resign.

In trying to dissuade Fujii from leaving, Prime Minister Hatoyama said that since Fujii ‘gave birth to a child’ (the budget), he should stay on ‘to raise it.’ Fujii, however, insists that he will not be able to handle the strain of budgetary debates, suggesting that he will likely be gone before the ordinary Diet session opens on 18 January. Read the rest of this entry »