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: 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 »

Guest Author: Kazuhito Yamashita, RIETI

Japanese agriculture is in a free-falling decline. In the years between 1960 and 2005, the share of agricultural output in GDP dropped from 9 per cent to 1 per cent, the food self-sufficiency ratio from 79 per cent to 41 per cent, and agricultural land, indispensable for food security, from 6.09 million hectares to 4.63 million hectares.

Meanwhile, the ratio of part-time farm households, which derive more than half their income from non-farm employment, increased from 32.1 per cent to 61.7 per cent. The percentage of farmers over 65 years old also jumped from 10 per cent to 60 per cent. 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: Takashi Terada, Waseda University

The visits of Japanese Foreign Minister’s overseas visits don’t usually elicit much attention from the media and public unless they are off to the United States, Japan’s only ally. This is partly because travel abroad is routine duty for the foreign minister and critical decisions on foreign policy are made by prime ministers. Foreign Minister, Katsuya Okada’s recent visit to Australia appears an exception since the Japanese media gave extensive coverage to the trip. This was for two main reasons.

First, Okada himself is known for his commitment to nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation as his lifework, and he put this issue on the top the agenda for his visit to Australia. Read the rest of this entry »

Guest Author: Nabeel Mancheri, Jawaharlal Nehru University

The Annual Bilateral Summit in New Delhi on 29 December 2009 marked a stepping stone in the relationship between India and Japan. During the summit, Dr. Yukio Hatoyama and Dr. Manmohan Singh, Prime Ministers of Japan and India respectively, held discussions on bilateral, regional and global issues and reaffirmed that Japan and India share common values and strategic interests. They pledged to further develop their Strategic and Global Partnership in an effort to strengthen their bilateral relations and ensure peace and prosperity throughout the region and the world.

Until the 1990s, the relationship between India and Japan had been highly asymmetrical. 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: 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: Christopher Pokarier, Waseda University

Whales do not usually surface by the exclusive north shore of Sydney harbour. Yet when Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada sat down for a meeting with Kevin Rudd at the Australian Prime Minister’s official Sydney residence, Kirribilli House, on Saturday afternoon, the topic was very much on the menu of their conversation. Prime Minister Rudd declared just the previous day that, as pledged while in Opposition, if a diplomatic agreement to end Japan’s Antarctic whaling program by November was not achieved then ‘…let me tell you, we’ll be going to the International Court of Justice.’

That the whaling issue could assume such public prominence might bemuse pioneers of the bilateral relationship who overcame the legacy of war and cultural distance to forge a prosperous and profoundly important partnership between the two nations. Read the rest of this entry »

Author: Richard Katz

Like the Hindu god Shiva, Ichiro Ozawa is both creator and destroyer. Currently the Secretary-General of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), he has a history of building up parties or coalitions and then tearing them down, either by switching sides or inadvertently over-reaching. Some in the DPJ fear that he could do this again due to the corruption scandal for which three of his aides were indicted on February 4.

No one doubts that Ozawa’s recruitment of attractive candidates and campaign tactics were indispensable to the landslide proportions of the DPJ’s Lower House victory in August. And yet, the corruption scandal threatens to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in this July’s crucial Upper House elections. Read the rest of this entry »

Authors: Takashi Oka and Llewelyn Hughes

There are two narratives about Ichiro Ozawa, the Secretary-General of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ). One is that he is a wizard at elections. This reputation was enhanced by his masterminding of the DPJ’s 2009 electoral strategy that helped bring about the first real change of government through the ballot box in sixty years.

The second is that, rather than being a politician of firm convictions, Ozawa is a machine politician animated by the desire to secure and retain power for its own sake. Investigations into alleged corruption fuel this narrative. Read the rest of this entry »

Author: Joel Rathus, Meiji and Adelaide Universities

Much has been made of late about the possibility of Japan drawing closer to China. But on the major issues of historical record, trade, and security, Japan’s China policy is unchanged under the DPJ, and is unlikely to change in the near future.

Firstly, on the question of history, Hatoyama is unlikely to make major changes. According to the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Hatoyama has no plans to visit Nanjing this year, and as far as MOFA is aware there is no plan for an apology of any form. Indeed, after rumors broke that there might be a ‘Hatoyama to Nanjing, Hu to Hiroshima’ swap this year, the only country not to check-in with MOFA’s China desk about the truth of these rumours was China itself. Read the rest of this entry »

Author: Hitoshi Tanaka, JCIE

Over the past several years, and especially since September’s historic change of government in Japan, it has become clear that there is a need to reassess the US-Japan alliance to ensure that it is equipped to face the challenges of the 21st century. There have been changes in Japan that are now reflected in domestic politics, but we cannot ignore the fact that there have been important changes in the regional context as well. China’s rise is apparent to everyone, and there is now a consensus view that East Asia is becoming an engine of growth whose dynamism is benefiting the world.

Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has spoken frequently of two lofty concepts that arise out of a recognition that the regional context has changed: the desirability of forging an ‘East Asian community’ and the need to have a more equal US-Japan relationship. What is missing in this talk, however, is a clear articulation of how to link the goals of a strong and more balanced US-Japan relationship with a vision of regional community that is equipped to deal with the changes unfolding before us. Although some observers may see these aims as inconsistent or even mutually exclusive, they can be complementary. In fact, effectively coordinating them should be the focus of intense and forward-looking discussions between Japan and the United States. 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 »