Fukuda the pressured

Watching the news this morning, I saw Fukuda Yasuo's remarks yesterday on whether he intends to reshuffle his cabinet in advance of the autumn extraordinary session of the Diet.

As before, he stated that he has not made his decision yet, that he is considering the "whole situation" in regard to conditions within the LDP and the policy agenda for the forthcoming session. He repeated that he will make his decision on a reshuffle by 29 July, incidentally the first anniversary of the LDP's historic defeat in the 2007 upper house election.

Ibuki Bunmei, speaking in Osaka, confirmed that the prime minister has yet to decide on a course of action.

The look on Mr. Fukuda's face was grim, almost pained, and his speech was strained.

In short, it looked and sounded to me like he had made up his mind on a reshuffle: he doesn't want to do it.

However, it seems that he is being forced to make a show of considering it and may even be pressured into going through with a reshuffle, thanks to pressure from within the LDP (channeled through a pliant political press). That seems to be all there is to the idea of a reshuffle: leaks to the media from certain members of the party and government who desire a reshuffle in the hope of hounding the prime minister into deciding in their favor.

As noted previously, it's not even clear what a Fukuda-colored cabinet will look like. Yamamoto Ichita provided one answer to this question: "Blue."

Asked to explain what the Fukuda "color" following a luncheon meeting of the Machimura faction by a reporter, Mr. Yamamoto answered that it is difficult to say just what Mr. Fukuda stands for, what qualities a Fukuda-colored cabinet would possess.

Masuzoe Yoichi, minister for health, labor, and welfare, made the case on TV Thursday for his staying in his post (i.e., that he is appropriately Fukuda-colored), describing his leaving the ministry after less than a year as "idiotic."

Mr. Masuzoe's comment gets to the heart of the matter. If Mr. Fukuda is forced to reshuffle his cabinet, the third cabinet within the past year, it will be yet another sign of the LDP's reverting into the hands of its risk-averse elders — and yet another sign of the LDP's unsuitability as the vehicle for fixing the mess that it has created.

It's time that Mr. Fukuda followed Koizumi Junichiro's advice and made a decision, preferably a decision not to reshuffle, thereby reasserting his authority (for the time being anyway).

Fukuda, the LDP, and Japan: all hamstrung

Fukuda Yasuo has returned from his vacation at the Prince Park Tower hotel near Shiba Park in Tokyo.

His agenda is no less crowded than it was last week.

In the final week of the month, Mr. Fukuda, his government, and his party will be considering the new budgetary guidelines, deliberating on when to start the autumn extraordinary session of the Diet, and considering whether to reshuffle his cabinet before the autumn session.

Mr. Fukuda has provided few hints as to his thinking on the latter, and day by day the pressure from his party — using the media to pour on the pressure — grows for the prime minister to decide on a reshuffle.

On the question of timing, there is no hint as to when the Diet will convene again, but obviously if the government waits too long, the extraordinary session could turn into another marathon session stretching into next year as the government is forced to use Article 59 to pass priority legislation (like another enabling law for the MSDF's refuelling mission). Ibuki Bunmei, LDP secretary-general, said as much at a press conference Tuesday, and expressed his desire for the new session to begin by the end of August. Asked about it at his press conference later Tuesday, Machimura Nobutaka, chief cabinet secretary, said no agreement had been reached and provided no insight to the government's thinking.

The timing of the new session is intertwined with the question of a reshuffle. The argument — at least as made by Asahi — is that a reshuffle now will strengthen the prime minister's efforts to pass legislation on health care, social security, and eldercare, and countermeasures to address high energy costs. By giving the cabinet a "Fukuda color," the government will apparently have an easier time moving its agenda.

I'm unimpressed by this logic. I don't know what a Fukuda-colored cabinet would look like, but I'm not certain that it would be an improvement. And I don't see how it would strengthen the government's ability to move legislation. Instead I see it as freeing people who disagree with the prime minister to intensify their activities to undermine the prime minister. Meanwhile, is Masuzoe Yoichi, the minister for health, labor, and welfare (HLW) and the point man on the aforementioned issues (and a major critic of Abe Shinzo's despite being a holdover from the second Abe cabinet, thereby exposing the folly in the logic that the second Abe cabinet inherited by Mr. Fukuda is out of place today) somehow an obstacle to the government's plans?

The arguments being made on behalf of a reshuffle are flimsy, and yet the media is repeating them unquestioningly.

In the end, talk of a reshuffle is a distraction from the realities of policy: the Fukuda government and the LDP are unable to rescue Japan from its ongoing crisis. As Ken Worsley noted, the Cabinet Office admitted that the budget won't be balanced by 2011 as desired by Koizumi Junichiro. The economic outlook is worsening. The latest HLW white paper on the Japanese labor market recorded the inexorable growth in the use of un-regular staff, indicating the crumbling of Japanese labor system.

In the midst of this, government and ruling party are dithering over whether a new cabinet will improve the prime minister's public approval ratings.

The LDP's empire is crumbling.

It is not yet known what will rise in its place — and if it's a new DPJ regime, whether it will be more of the same — but we are without question witnessing the death throes of the ancien regime. Problems are mounting faster than the hamstrung government can tackle them. The LDP has, according to Yamasaki Taku, abandoned Koizumism, but it has adopted nothing in its place, not even the old way of conducting politics. It is merely treading water, and poorly.

How will a prime minister who can't decide whether to change his cabinet push through sweeping changes to how Japan cares for its sick and aged, provides opportunities for young workers, and enables firms to innovate and grow?

The DPJ may find itself similarly hamstrung, but the DPJ's qualities should not (and are not, I would argue) the most important matter facing the Japanese people. The question is whether the party that failed to anticipate and act responsibly in the face of a gathering crisis should be trusted with the power to attempt to fix the mess it created.

Mr. Fukuda on holiday

Fukuda Yasuo, his (un)popularity barely affected by his hosting of the G8 summit last week, celebrated his seventy-second birthday Wednesday by starting a six-day vacation.

Asahi notes that this is early for a prime minister to take his summer holiday, and speculates that since the prime minister does not have plans to travel far, there might be some truth to speculation within the LDP that Mr. Fukuda is getting ready to reshuffle his cabinet.

Maybe so, but there is little information in the body of the article to merit inclusion of the phrase "Preparation for a cabinet reshuffle?" in the headline.

Mainichi includes a similar phrase in its headline — "mixed with speculation about a cabinet reshuffle" — but at least provides some reason for why the prime minister would be taking his vacation now as opposed to later in the summer. At the end of July and beginning of August, Mr. Fukuda will be working on budgetary requests, after which he will be in Hiroshima for the anniversary of the atomic bombing and then Beijing for the opening ceremony of the Olympics.

Instead of being a scheme to plan a reshuffle, Mr. Fukuda, no spring chicken at seventy-two, could simply need a few days rest at home with family.

The point is that while it's possible that the prime minister could be planning a reshuffle, neither Asahi nor Mainichi provides any evidence of this apparently headline-worthy claim. This is unfortunately typical for Japanese political journalism.

If they have information suggesting that there's truth to this, they should report it. If they have no evidence, they should write a short article about the prime minister's vacation and leave it at that. No speculation, no wishful thinking, just the facts.

As for a reshuffle, I remain convinced that it won't happen, that the prime minister doesn't want to break in a new cabinet before the next Diet session. He will return from his holiday next week and plunge back into the work of preparing for the autumn session.

UPDATE: Sankei outdoes everyone in its coverage of Mr. Fukuda's vacation and the prospect of a reshuffle. Sankei — Sankei and no other media outlet — claims that on Tuesday, Mr. Fukuda decided (their word) to reshuffle his cabinet on July 28. There is no source for this report. I may be wrong: it may be true that a reshuffle is coming. But this article reinforces my argument about the poor quality of Japanese political reporting. If they know this to be a fact, Sankei should do us the favor of stating just how it came by this knowledge. All they tell us are "government sources," government sources who leaked only to Sankei.

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SPEAKING of holidays, I will be taking one myself from Thursday evening. This will be my first non-blogging (and non-email) holiday since I started writing this blog. I may or may not write a post Thursday, so this may be my last post until next week.

Fukuda the prevaricator

Fukuda Yasuo, done playing the (overly) generous host in Toyako, is back in Tokyo to face his ever growing pile of problems.

First on the agenda is, of course, the question of whether he should reshuffle his cabinet before going into the autumn extraordinary session.

After meeting with Ibuki Bunmei, LDP secretary-general, at the Kantei on Thursday, Mr. Fukuda's perspective on a cabinet shuffle was unchanged from before the G8 summit: "a completely blank paper." He is giving no sign that he is leaning one way or another, although the very act of delaying and remaining noncommital could be a sign of his intention to keep his cabinet unchanged. Given the intra-LDP wrangling that will necessarily accompany a reshuffle, he will have to make a decision to proceed soon if he is going to have a new lineup ready by early August.

A possible sign that there will be no reshuffle can be found in an interview Mori Yoshiro gave to Mainichi. Asked about the reshuffle, Mr. Mori said that his previous argument was a "general argument." He was making no hints about Mr. Fukuda's intentions. He explained that his thinking on a reshuffle rests largely in concerns that the cabinet is Mr. Abe's, not Mr. Fukuda's, a situation that should be corrected. And he acknowledged that there is a "linkage problem" between a reshuffle and a possible lower house dissolution.

That, ladies and gentlemen, may be the sound of the bursting of the reshuffle bubble.

The prime minister is better off spending his time figuring out how to outmaneuver or neutralize LDP opponents to his initiatives and craft an agenda for the autumn session that will put the DPJ on the defensive. He should put an end to reshuffle speculation now and stop speaking about his "blank paper."

Fixing Fukuda's "good enough" cabinet

After Koizumi Junichiro called upon Prime Minister Fukuda to decide whether to shuffle his cabinet in the coming months, Mori Yoshiro — Mr. Fukuda's so-called "guardian" and an advocate of a reshuffle — and Kato Koichi suggested that the prime minister should form a new cabinet before the start of the extraordinary Diet session in the autumn.

In a speech Friday, Mr. Mori suggested that the prime minister should announce the new cabinet in the second half of July or the first half of August, before the O-bon festival.

Mr. Kato, meanwhile, said that a reshuffle would enable the prime minister to promulgate a Fukuda agenda that would serve to distance the LDP from the Koizumi agenda. He suggested that new cabinet should exclude members of the CEFP under Prime Ministers Koizumi and Abe. [I would dispute the idea that Mr. Abe didn't mark a break from the Koizumi line; it appeared to me that Mr. Abe was keen to distance himself from his predecessor.]

For his part, Mr. Fukuda remains noncommital, insisting that he remains a "blank sheet" on the question of a cabinet shuffle.

Yamamoto Ichita, LDP upper house member from Gunma prefecture and supporter of a shuffle, argues that if Mr. Fukuda taps powerful, popular officials and times the new cabinet's appearance just right, Mr. Fukuda might reverse his decline and undercut the DPJ. He offers three reasons.

First, a new cabinet would distance Mr. Fukuda from the taint of the Abe cabinet. Mr. Yamamoto argues that Mr. Fukuda's cabinet is still the second Abe cabinet (with a few changes). A change, he suggests, would enable the prime minister to wield more control over the government and make some progress in tackling policy problems.

Second, Mr. Yamamoto cites Mr. Koizumi to argue that a shuffle is one of two tools (the other being the power to dissolve the Diet and call an election) that the prime minister has to impose his will on party and parliament.

Third, Mr. Yamamoto suggests that if Mr. Fukuda lets the new Diet session begin without forming a new cabinet (after which a shuffle is unlikely), it will signal to the LDP that Mr. Fukuda is doomed and presumably trigger more intense campaigning to succeed him.

(He also argues, in an unnumbered point, that a shuffle will enable the prime minister to bring young LDP leaders to the fore and boost the party's appeal.)

The aforementioned arguments sound logical enough, but they rest on the unfounded assumption that the Japanese public will be satisfied with a statement of good intentions, as opposed to concrete, resolute action to address their insecurities. Will a new cabinet be any more effective or dynamic than the current cabinet? Does Mr. Fukuda actually want to form a "Fukuda-colored" cabinet that will take a definitive policy position (pro-reform or anti-reform / pro-consumption tax hike or pro-growth / pro-Koizumi or anti-Koizumi, etc.), an approach that risks making enemies of the LDP members on the short end of a cabinet shuffle? Do the Japanese people actually see the current cabinet as a "Koizumi-Abe line" cabinet and reject it as a result? Or do they reject it because it has failed to deliver significant results?

A new cabinet may enjoy a small bump, but any bump is guaranteed to be short lived. The new cabinet will face the same obstacles faced by the current cabinet (hostile public, recalcitrant DPJ, divided LDP), with the possibility that opting for a policy-oriented cabinet over a "unity" cabinet will actually exacerbate the LDP's divisions. Ironically, a more ideologically cohesive cabinet could be less effective than a heterogenous cabinet that is more capable of exploiting opportunities and co-opting potential rivals. Advocates of a reshuffled cabinet must at least consider the possibility that the new cabinet could be worse than the current, adequately mediocre Fukuda cabinet.

Does Mr. Fukuda actually think that the source of his troubles are his cabinet? Why fix something that isn't broken?

Kato steps up

Kato Koichi has been chosen as the head of the Japan-China Friendship Association, an influential and venerable organization advocating closer relations between Japan and China. (A history of the organization can be read here.)

Mr. Kato has seen his influence vanish since his failed rebellion against Mori Yoshiro in 2000, which was followed soon thereafter by the arrest of his secretary and his (temporary) resignation from the Diet. He subsequently became LDP's leading liberal, criticizing both his onetime comrade Koizumi Junichiro and Abe Shinzo for their revisionism before declaring his support for Fukuda Yasuo. A retired diplomat who was in MOFA's China School, Mr. Kato has been a relentless critic of historical revisionism and a tireless advocate of cooperation in Asia. Indeed, as seen as in this 2004 speech at Johns Hopkins University, Mr. Kato, like Mr. Fukuda, has a vision for a peaceful, integrated Asia.

Not surprisingly, Mr. Kato is not particularly popular with the Japanese right — and his home was the target of arson on the auspicious date of August 15, 2006.

But now with a perch at the top of an influential organization that spans party lines, perhaps Mr. Kato may yet have an important role to play in Japanese policy making. The prime minister needs all the help he can get in making a case for a constructive relationship with China and a more cooperative approach to Asia more broadly. Few prominent, popular figures seem to be willing to make the case publicly and persistently for a more cooperative Asia-centered foreign policy, meaning that the conservatives have effectively won the propaganda war. Mr. Kato, however, still commands respect when he speaks, even as an outcast within the LDP.

Mr. Kato may now be prepared to reconnect with Yamasaki Taku, the other member of the YKK, to fight back on North Korea policy and Japan's Asia policy more broadly.

On Friday morning, Mr. Kato appeared on a TV program to join Mr. Yamasaki in his feud with Abe Shinzo, emphasizing the failure of the Koizumi-Abe line on North Korea. Arguing that Japan may be finally having a debate on North Korea, three years late, he said about Mr. Abe, "If Mr. Abe was a person who understood a little more about the international situation, the Six-Party talks on the North Korean nuclear problem would have been held in Tokyo." In other words, if Japan had remained engaged in finding a solution to the problem instead of going down the abductions rabbit hole, Japan would be enjoying greater influence in the region today, instead of wondering how Japan became so isolated, estranged even from the United States. (He also urged Mr. Fukuda to reshuffle his cabinet and distance himself from the Koizumi line, advice that runs contrary to Mr. Koizumi's, and is unlikely to be embraced by the prime minister, who, I think, is less concerned about embracing a "line" than balancing the various elements of the LDP and keeping his opponents off balance.)

Perhaps this is the beginning of pushback by the liberals against conservative-revisionist control of the LDP. It is unlikely that the pushback will get very far, resting as it does on Messrs. Kato and Yamasaki, politicians on the downhill side of their careers, unless they manage to encourage their compatriots to speak up (one of Mr. Kato's greatest strengths seems to be courage and fearlessness in the face of great opposition) and challenge the conservatives. However, it matters less what they do within the LDP than what they do in the public at large. If Mr. Kato can combat public skepticism towards China and challenge an abductions-centered North Korea policy in public, he will have accomplished something great — and something necessary for the future of a peaceful Asia.

Koizumi tells Fukuda to lead

Fukuda Yasuo, faced with growing complaints about his deficiencies as a leader, now has a new critic: Koizumi Junichiro.

In a speech in Tokyo Thursday, the former prime minister asked the prime minister to make a decision about a cabinet reshuffle, saying that he will support the prime minister once he makes a decision – even if it is contrary to his opinions.

In the process, Mr. Koizumi has probably destroyed the idea of a cabinet reshuffle, by suggesting that if Mr. Fukuda botches the reshuffle, he will have no choice but to resign. He sowed further seeds of doubt by praising the current lineup and wonder whether a new lineup would receive more support from the public.

Whatever the doubts about the former prime minister's intentions, one thing is clear: his words have the power to shape expectations. Any discussion of a reshuffle from henceforth will recall Mr. Koizumi's analysis of the consequences of a reshuffle. Mr. Fukuda will have a hard time ignoring Mr. Koizumi's unsolicited advice, given the extent of the latter's exposure and lingering public support.

But Mr. Fukuda will not be saved by the advice of Mr. Koizumi, nor anyone else. He will not be saved by a reshuffle, which would in all likelihood by not much of an improvement over the current, reasonably competent cabinet. The prime minister is at the mercy of circumstance; his fate rests in the hands of opponents within the LDP and in the DPJ, who will decide whether he is able to make progress on the daunting wish list facing the government.

The consequences of the US-Japan rift on North Korea

With North Korea expected to deliver its account of its nuclear program Thursday — excluding its existing nuclear weapons, which Chris Hill has said will be addressed in the next round — the US is prepared to move forward in removing North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism.

The long-awaited blow to the US-Japan alliance has been landed, even as the Fukuda government has agreed to go along with the US move.

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Fukuda said that he hoped this would contribute to progress on the nuclear front, even as he said that he looks forward to further cooperation with the US in resolving the abductions issue. At the same time, Machimura Nobutaka, in a press conference Tuesday morning, cautioned the US to examine the North Korean report carefully before proceeding, a lame statement of the sheer helplessness of the Fukuda government's position.

The US will go forward, and the Japanese government will follow along meekly behind — ignoring the wishes of the conservatives (and a bulk of the Japanese public) that North Korea should stay on the list until it follows through on the latest agreement on the abductees. They want North Korea's position on the terrorism list to remain linked to acts of terrorism (however long ago they occurred); the US, perhaps acknowledging that North Korea is no longer a state sponsor of terrorism (at least against other countries), is prepared to link removal to another, arguably more important issue. As argued in an article in this week's AERA, this latest move may trigger a spasm of protest from the public. It will be the latest and perhaps greatest charge in the conservative case against Mr. Fukuda: giving in to both the US and North Korea and abandoning the abductees, while getting nothing but an oral promise from the US that it will continue to pressure North Korea on the abductees. This probably destroys whatever chance Mr. Fukuda had of staying in power long enough to lead the LDP into the next general election.

That said, it is worth asking how Abe Shinzo would have handled this had it happened under his watch as prime minister.

His admirers seem to think that he would have been able to say no to the US. The bloggers at Pride of Japan ended a post on this issue with the statement, "I think that the time demands the appearance of a politician with backbone, like former Prime Minister Abe."

But would Mr. Abe have stood up to the US in this case and said no, his government will not support removing North Korea from the list? What would he do instead? What could he do instead? Would he respond by tightening Japanese sanctions even more? A US move to lift sanctions on North Korea makes Japan's sanctions, no matter how astringent, that much less effective. What would rejecting the US position at this point do but isolate Japan further and make it even less likely that North Korea would cooperate in resolving the abductions issue? Mr. Abe might have spoken in harsh terms, he might have appealed directly to President Bush for a promise that the US will continue to help on the abductions, but ultimately I suspect that Mr. Abe too would fall into line.

I am fine with the turn that the six-party talks are taking. I think that the gain of neutralizing North Korea's nuclear program is a worthy goal, and that it should take priority to issues like the abductions issue. If lifting sanctions bit by bit — effectively a series of small bribes — moderates North Korea's behavior and buys the region's powers some time to plan for the tsunami of instability that will likely follow Kim Jong-il's death by keeping the Korean Peninsula stable, then the talks will have been successful. The US has had little choice but to talk (and to talk with China's assistance) because it had no other option short of doing nothing. Mr. Hill has made the most of a poor situation. All of which is why I opposed the Abe government's pulling Japan out of this process. Japan, like the US, had no real way to compel North Korea to change its behavior. As the country that may be most threatened by a nuclear North Korea, it should have been in the lead, alongside the US and China, in finding a way to defuse the situation, if not disarm North Korea. Instead it opted out of the process, on the grounds of North Korea intransgience on the abductees.

I have little sympathy with the argument that the abductees are a primary "national interest," on the grounds that the Japanese government must secure the lives of every Japanese citizen. (Mr. Abe makes a variation of this argument at length in Utsukushi kuni e.) Does it rank somewhere on the list of Japanese national interests? Probably. Is it a top interest that should take priority over other interests like, say, stability on the Korean Peninsula, good relations with Japan's neighbors, and a diminished threat from North Korea? I would argue no. The deal may yet fall apart due to another shift by North Korea or domestic opposition in the US (Steve Clemons has the details on the situation in Washington) — but given the lack of other options, it has been a useful effort, one in which Japan should have played more than a begrudging role.

The failure of the US to explain its reasoning more fully — and the failure of Japan to be more flexible in its defense of its national interests — have resulted in a blow to the alliance, in that both Japanese elites and the Japanese public have lost confidence in the US as an ally. That blow may have been unavoidable: I suspect that part of the reason for the loss of confidence, especially among elites, is that after Japan gave its full-throated support to the US in Afghanistan and Iraq, it would receive equally full-throated support in dealing with North Korea. The US wasted opportunities to disabuse Japan of that idea and left Mr. Hill to bear the brunt of Japanese anger; the president should have made it explicitly clear why the US shifted on North Korea. But even then it is likely that there would still be a feeling of betrayal among Japanese.

Where will the US-Japan relationship go from here? The alliance will survive, but I expect that future Japanese governments will be less trusting of the US. I would not go so far as journalist Aoki Naoto (author of a book entitled A State That Could Become An Enemy: USA), who argues that this is the beginning of an antagonistic relationship between the US and Japan and the start of a US-China security relationship. In fact, the US shift on North Korea might prove to be a good thing for the alliance. As a result of having been "abandoned" in the six-party talks, Japan may finally learn to say no to the US, which could result in a stronger, more effective partnership in which Japan feels less obligated to do whatever the US asks. Much like Japan's 1990 failure in responding to the Gulf crisis led to a decade of soul-searching for Japan's foreign policy establishment, so too might this incident prompt soul-searching that leads to a Japan better able to articulate its interests to the US, even if it means disagreement between Washington and Tokyo.

As in the aftermath of the Gulf crisis, Ozawa Ichiro may show the way. Asked to comment on the developments in the six-party talks, Mr. Ozawa stated that Japan has little ability to influence US strategy, and added on the abductees, "The US has until now said good things to the abductee families, but it did not take our national strategy and our interests into account at all." I expect that should the DPJ form a government in the near future, it will be much less inclined to follow the US in the way that LDP governments have (especially LDP governments under Messrs. Koizumi and Abe).

As a result of the six-party talks, future LDP governments may share Mr. Ozawa's assessment.

Waiting for Obama

A new LDP club has formed that some have described as "capable of inciting the overthrow of the government." The group, known as the "Association for the implementation of a new presidential election [for the LDP]," was instigated by Yamamoto Ichita and is a response to the freefall in the LDP's public approval. They will compile three proposals to present in October: (1) a plan for greater transparency in the LDP; (2) a method of cultivating new leaders; and (3) a primary system for LDP presidential elections, to ensure more "dramatic" elections. (A glance at their prospectus — read below — shows not surprisingly that this is in part a response to the US Democratic Party primaries and the interest they attracted worldwide. They must realize, of course, that the candidates make the primaries interesting and not vice versa.)

The group, according to Mr. Yamamoto, has thirty-five members. Mr. Yamamoto also provides the group's prospectus, which is instructive in considering where the prime minister and the LDP stand at the end of the extraordinary Diet session:

The Liberal Democratic Party is on the verge of its greatest crisis since the formation of the party. Not only has an image been established of a "party clinging to established rights and interests," but opposition to the new eldercare system, anger at the vanishing pensions problem, and the recurrence of wasted tax revenue scandals have caused the public's "loss of confidence in the LDP" to raise to levels never seen before. In particular, in last year's House of Councillors election the governing parties lost their majority because "let's give the DPJ a chance" syndrome [I love this phrase] was not just in the cities, but spread to rural areas. Unless we find "ways to bring the party back from the dead," there is a strong possibility that in the next general election we will fall into opposition.

The prospectus then goes on to offer proposals for making "dramatic LDP presidential elections," starting with a proposal to lift the requirement that candidates must have twenty endorsements (which, they argue correctly, makes for faction-centered elections). The prospectus explicitly points to the example of South Korea's 2002 presidential election and the "Obama boom" in the 2008 Democratic primaries as ways in which parties revived their public fortunes through dramatic campaigns. The rest of the prospectus contemplates way to run a primary campaign process that will maximize public interest and revive the LDP.

Call it the Obama plan. The whole group seems organized for the purpose of finding the LDP's Barack Obama (or the LDP's Kimura Takuya in the TV drama "Change" — the prospectus cites both examples), a young, charismatic star who will somehow transform the party. (Speaking of Kimu Taku, in the July issue of Voice, Tahara Soichiro and Takenaka Heizo discuss a dream cabinet for executing reform. Their prime minister? Kimu Taku. Funny, but sad, so very sad.)

If Japan has a Barack Obama, chances are he's not already in the LDP, serving time on PARC and Diet committees. Chances are he's stayed away from politics altogether. And even if the LDP has a young, charismatic reformist waiting to take the reigns, it is unlikely that he (or she) could fix the party. The faction chiefs and zoku giin would swallow the new leader alive, either through constant warnings about the danger of taking one risk or another, or through outright opposition with the help of the bureaucracy. A pretty face and a silver tongue will not save Japan, and will not save the LDP.

Nevertheless, however unlikely the idea that reform of the system for electing LDP presidents will rescue the party, this could be the beginning of a move to push out Prime Minister Fukuda. If enough LDP members go home for the summer and hear from their constituents about the need to replace Mr. Fukuda before the next election, they might be drawn to Mr. Yamamoto's scheme — or if not his specific scheme, then the underlying idea that the party can rejuvenate itself through a leadership election.

The curtain comes down on the ordinary Diet session — and Fukuda and the LDP?

The 169th ordinary session of the Diet comes to an end Saturday, with the comprehensive economic partnership agreement with ASEAN passing naturally. The session ends with the prime minister's having been censured by the upper house and three opposition parties' boycotting proceedings (with a handful of exceptions). Mainichi reports that of eighty bills submitted by the government, only sixty-three passed for a success rate of 78.8%. Not only that, the eighty bills submitted was lower than the usual 100-120 bills per session.

It's not clear to me why this should be surprising. The government doesn't control the upper house. The opposition can and has held up legislation it opposes. If anything, it's remarkable that the government was able to achieve a 78.8% success rate — and that it was able to do so having only used its lower house supermajority on a handful of occasions.

There will be much wailing and rending of garments about the gridlock of the nejire kokkai, but I am not convinced that divided government has been an unmitigated disaster for Japan. The DPJ has managed to balance, however unsteadily, its roles as leading opposition party and master of the upper house.

The biggest problem, the leading obstacle standing in the way of the major changes Japan needs is not the divided Diet but the divided LDP. The toughest policy battles the prime minister has had to wage have not been across party lines but within the LDP (with the exception of the anti-terror law). Mr. Fukuda's battles against his own party will only intensify in the autumn as he attempts to force the party to follow him in phasing out the road construction fund and raising the consumption tax rate. The LDP remains the leading opponent of reform, regardless of what its leaders say.

As a result of tension within the LDP (and the DPJ), talk of a political realignment, most likely after the next general election, remains common. While his popularity has improved slightly in the final weeks of the session, Mr. Fukuda may still end up presiding over the destruction of his party — unless someone forces him out first.

It is possible that after playing host to his fellow G8 leaders in two weeks, Mr. Fukuda will opt to reshuffle his cabinet. Yomiuri reports that he is "groping towards" a post-summit reshuffle that will revitalize the government in advance of what will be a busy extraordinary session — and a long extraordinary session, as it will likely begin at the end of August to leave the government enough time to pass the refueling mission extension by Article 59 if necessary. A reshuffle, however, will not save his government. It might in fact hasten his demise, should the reshuffle free senior LDP politicians now serving in the cabinet to speak against the government. As Mainichi reports, a reshuffle could just as easily lead to disorder within the party. (And there's still the question of whether the prime minister would bring Mr. Aso and/or Mr. Yosano, the leading contenders to replace him, into a new cabinet.)

Some LDP members are looking for a savior — see this post — but no one person can save the LDP. Something appears to have snapped in the Japanese people. Or more accurately, something appears to have snapped in rural voters, who have continued to vote for the LDP in large numbers even as their city cousins abandoned the LDP to become DPJ voters (or floating voters). The number one task for Mr. Fukuda was and is healing the rift between the LDP and its rural supporters that opened under Mr. Abe and played an important role in the party's defeat in the upper house election last July. There is no indication that Mr. Fukuda has made any progress in repairing the LDP's prospects in rural areas. Indeed, after the over-75 eldercare system rollout, the situation is even worse.

This is the reality facing the LDP. There seems to be little Mr. Fukuda can do to change it. The question now is whether the LDP will give someone else a chance to try to save the LDP before the next general election.

Fukuda, a glutton for punishment

On Tuesday, at the same press conference where he complained about the stress of the job, Prime Minister Fukuda made a statement guaranteed to ensure that his stress will increase inexorably.

"Since [the consumption tax rate] is only 5%, we are burdened with a budget deficit. We must decide — this is an extremely important period. If we think about the aging society, the road is narrowing." He compared Japan's consumption tax rate unfavorably with European consumption tax rates, but admitted that he didn't know how the public would respond to a consumption tax hike. [This story was front page news in Asahi.] The idea is that the LDP and the Diet will debate comprehensive tax reform in the fall.

Yamamoto Ichita seems to have a better idea of how the public will respond — and finds it intolerable that some LDP members are willing to proceed with the tax hike even if it means an LDP defeat.

"In my thirteen years in politics, I have never met a politician 'resolved to discard his Diet member's badge at any time."

The prime minister has now opened the flood gates on a debate between tax-hikers (many of whom happen to be zoku giin) and budget-cutters, the latter of which want to government to trim as much waste as possible from the budget before raising taxes. (Nakagawa Hidenao is probably the leading advocate of this school of thought, as in this post in response to the prime minister's remarks.) Naturally the zoku giin don't want to see "wasteful spending" trimmed — because it's not wasteful to them.

In short, the prime minister will be attempting a tricky maneuver in the autumn, dealing a blow to the road tribesmen by getting his road construction plan written into law and then wheeling about to use a victory on the road construction (read: budget trimming) front to get a consumption tax hike. He will do all of this while dealing with a party full of backbenchers terrified that they will lose their seats in the next election. In order to execute this pirouette successfully, Mr. Fukuda has quickly assembled a project team on eliminating waste, headed by Sonoda Hiroyuki, to " review [spending] thoroughly with an eye to reducing waste to zero." According to Shukan Bunjun, the project team is staffed with abrasive reformist Diet members like Kono Taro who are bound to use the project team to antagonize bureaucrats and zoku giin alike as they review spending in four areas (public works, social security, energy and agriculture, and culture and technology) in search of savings. (An additional working group will focus on spending in another twelve ministries and agencies, including the ministries of foreign affairs and defense.) I wish Mr. Kono and company success in their endeavor, but I cannot help but wonder whether this project team is too little, too late.

It sounds like a recipe for catastrophic defeat, especially when discontent over North Korea is thrown into the mix. It is becoming less and less likely that Mr. Fukuda will survive the year. Moreover, by introducing the consumption tax question, Mr. Fukuda is poisoning the well for the post-Fukuda era, making it difficult for tax-hiker Yosano Kaoru to win election as his replacement.

Mr. Fukuda has not only triggered a fierce debate within the LDP; he has also given encouragement to the DPJ, which is desperately in need of LDP mistakes (just as the LDP is in desperate need of DPJ mistakes — I leave it to you to determine which needs the other's mistakes more). Ozawa Ichiro jumped on the prime minister's remarks, arguing along lines similar to Mr. Nakagawa's that wasteful spending must be eliminated first before having a debate about tax reform.

Progress in the East China Sea

The big story of the day is that the Japanese and Chinese governments released the details of their agreement on contested gas fields in the East China Sea, over which the two governments have feuded for more than five years.

Under the terms of the deal — which the Chinese government has publicly accepted — Japanese companies will invest in the development of two of the four contested gas fields. The agreement does not settle the question of where China's EEZ stops and where Japan's begins, which is probably for the best.

The current deal, according to Yomiuri, applies only to the Shirakaba and Asunaro fields; the two governments will continue to negotiate over the status of the two remaining fields.

It's important to note that as Okumura Jun wrote Tuesday, "it’s the legal framework for the joint development activities including jurisdiction that matters, not the economics of the deal" — the amount of energy and money involved is relatively miniscule. Okumura-san's earlier post on the negotiations is also essential reading. (And they keep coming: this post on the aftermath of the agreement is also excellent.)

Meanwhile, as MTC argued today, Japan has little choice but to develop the fields jointly with the Chinese because "it is impossible to send even one cubic meter of the natural gas under the East China Sea to Japan (there is a trough in the way) without sending the gas first to the coast of China via a seabed pipeline."

I don't have much to add to MTC's and Okumura-san's analysis of the agreement.

The agreement is undoubtedly positive, but its impact should not be overstated. There will be significant sectors of the population in both China and Japan that will be unhappy with the agreement. Japanese conservatives will undoubtedly be displeased by the decision to shelve the sovereignty question and focus on how to best to divide the energy supplies. Chinese nationalists will be displeased that the Chinese government gave in to Japan.

Ultimately Prime Minister Fukuda probably needed an agreement more than Beijing did. The Chinese government has the luxury of ignoring the public's desires — to a certain extent, anyway. Mr. Fukuda, however, has to make the case for why Japan should pursue deeper cooperation with China. To do that, he needs China's help. He needs to be able to show the Japanese people that his efforts to build a constructive relationship are yielding tangible, positive results. Judging by the tone of Chinese President Hu Jintao's visit to Japan last month, it is clear that the Chinese government recognizes that Mr. Fukuda cannot sell the new relationship without Beijing's help. And so this agreement should at least help the prime minister make a public case for his China policy.

Now if only he had more help from the Japanese media and academia...

More stress headed Fukuda's way

Prime Minister Fukuda held a press conference Tuesday with journalists from foreign wire services at which he said in response to a question about whether it is fun being prime minister, "It's not fun! It's like a painful lump." To deal with stress, he told the reporters that he sleeps and drinks wine.

Little wonder that Mr. Fukuda is feeling stressed.

In the days since Machimura Nobutaka announced the tentative agreement reached with North Korea, Mr. Fukuda has faced the predictable uproar from the right.

On Tuesday, Hiranuma Takeo, chairman of a Diet members' league on the abductions problem and member (controversially) of Nakagawa Shoichi's conservative study group, visited the Kantei to appeal to Chief Cabinet Secretary Machimura on lifting sanctions. There should be no relief to North Korea without the recognition of concrete progress, he said.

The government will likely bend to their demands. Mr. Fukuda acknowledged Monday that the success of the agreement will depend on North Korea's follow through. That said, the conservatives haven't won yet. The meaning of "concrete action" is disputed. It is unclear what North Korea can do to please the conservatives (who may in fact prefer that the issue drags on); "realists" like Yamasaki Taku, head of a Diet members' league for the promotion of normalization of Japan-North Korea relations, seem willing to lower the bar. Mr. Yamasaki wants the abductions issue to be resolved within the year. In between Mr. Hiranuma and Mr. Yamasaki is the group for the promotion of a prudent North Korea policy, which supports a carrots-and-sticks approach to North Korea. Yamamoto Ichita, a member of the group, reports that it delivered a list of demands to Mr. Fukuda on Tuesday. Like Mr. Hiranuma, they do not want Japan to lift any sanctions until North Korea has made clear progress on its reinvestigation (again, clear progress is left undefined). They want the government to make clear to Washington that the Japanese government does not want the US to remove North Korea from the state sponsors of terrorism list yet. They continue to oppose normalization until progress is made on all fronts: abductions, missiles, and nukes.

In addition to pressure from within his own party, Mr. Fukuda also faces pressure from the public, which is circumspect about the new agreement. A Mainichi poll found that 34% of respondents "value" the government's agreement, while 55% do not value it. Considering that 88% of respondents in the government's latest foreign policy survey were concerned about the abductions issue (more than any other area of contention with North Korea), that's actually not terrible. If North Korea actually follows through — at least enough to allow the government to argue that there's been progress — the agreement might eventually enjoy a plurality of support, if not an outright majority.

Time to send some more wine over to the Kantei.

Japan ends its isolation?

After effectively opting out of the six-party talks under Abe Shinzo, Japan is set to return to participation in the process to neutralize (if not dismantle) North Korea's nuclear arsenal.

Machimura Nobutaka, chief cabinet secretary, announced Friday that in talks in Beijing, North Korea agreed to "reinvestigate" the case of Japanese abductees in North Korea and promised to transfer the remaining Yodo hijackers and their families to Japanese custody.

After months of ambiguity as to what exactly constitutes "progress" on the abductions issue, it seems that the Fukuda government is finally sharing with the world — in response to talks, the Japanese government announced that it would lift some of the sanctions imposed after North Korea's nuclear test in October 2006. North Korean ships will be allowed back in Japanese ports to pick up humanitarian relief supplies. Restrictions on charter flights will be lifted, and people will be permitted to travel between Japan and North Korea again.

This means, of course, that the Fukuda government is about to face howls of protest from the right. Members of the abductee families association greeted the announcement with "anger and dissatisfaction," dismissing the idea that this agreement might constitute a (small) sign of progress. If the families are displeased, then their LDP allies will undoubtedly share their displeasure. As this agreement sinks in, expect a wave of criticism claiming that Mr. Fukuda is "betraying" Japan (as asserted in this post at Pride of Japan, a blog maintained by conservative local elected officials).

Even would-be defenders of the move are skeptical. Yamamoto Ichita, a member of the association to promote the prudent advance of North Korean diplomacy, a Diet members' league that has called for an approach to North Korea that uses both pressure and negotiation with North Korea (as opposed to just pressure), expressed fears that the US will use the new agreement to claim that Japan and North Korea are making progress, thereby enabling the US to remove North Korea from the state sponsors of terrorism list. The group expanded upon that idea in this response to the government's announcement.

I hope the US will wait to see how North Korea (and Japan) follow through on this agreement before doing anything rash.

But it is revealing that even a natural defender of the government's use of diplomacy to extract concessions from Pyongyang has greeted Friday's announcement with skepticism for reasons having less to do with North Korea than with the US. The damage of Mr. Abe's year in office, during which the US and Japan went opposite directions on North Korea without bothering to discuss it openly and frankly. Japanese have some right to be distrustful of the US — but at the same time, it was wrong for Japanese to think that there would be no consequences from the Abe cabinet's hard line on North Korea. It is time to repair the damage; Friday's announcement is a good start. After isolating itself from the other five, Japan is at the very least rejoining the process.

UPDATE: Japan's foreign ministry announced Saturday that it would commence an investigation of lifting sanctions next week. Yomiuri reports (of course, with passive voice) that "because objections are not scarce in the government and governing parties, it is anticipated that it will be a rough passage to the decision of the time for lifting [the sanctions]."

UPDATE, two: Okumura Jun argues that the US shift made Japan's shift more or less inevitable, and suggests further that since there will be no full accounting of the abductions until after the DPRK is gone, this agreement has less to do with hope for new revelations than with the Fukuda cabinet's have little choice but to follow the US.

Fukuda looks to political reform

In the July issue of Bungei Shunjyu, Akasaka Taro paints a portrait of Fukuda Yasuo at the present time as ebullient as the current Diet session draws to a close. (Part one here. Part two here.)

The prime minister is reportedly pleased with his achievements during the current Diet session, having faced down the LDP's road tribe — for now — and blunted the DPJ's attacks by borrowing liberally from their agenda. He reportedly said to Mori Yoshiro, former prime minister, and Aoki Mikio, former president of the upper house, "Don't worry. I won't imitate Prime Minister Abe."

It does seem that the prime minister is increasingly finding his voice and looking to carry his party into the next election. He is increasingly looking to take up the mantle of Koizumi Junichiro, however tentatively and with reservations. He told Columbia's Gerald Curtis in a meeting, "In reform, the problem should not be assessed quantitatively. Qualitative value is important." In short, the prime minister is looking to stake out a Fukuda agenda to distinguish himself both from his rivals in the LDP and Ozawa Ichiro, head of the DPJ. (Regarding the former, Akasaka suggests that the Mr. Fukuda's foreign policy vision is in direct contrast with Aso Taro's "arc of freedom and prosperity," an assessment that I share — he is explicitly rejecting the foreign policy approach of his two most recent predecessors, especially regarding the US-Japan alliance.)

In continuing his "silent revolution," the prime minister is now prepared to turn his attention to political reform. On Wednesday he attended a general meeting of the LDP's headquarters for realizing party reform. Takebe Tsutomu, LDP secretary-general under Mr. Koizumi, heads up the group, which shares his mission of keeping the flame of the Koizumi revolution burning in the LDP. The LDP reports that the group will consider reforming the Diet, liberalizing restrictions on political activity and political funds, and strengthening the party. It is too early to say what will emerge from this process. Diet reform, for example, may specifically refer to reform of the procedure for approving officials like the Bank of Japan's executives (according to Mainichi), which is less inspiring than these ideas for Diet reform. Lifting the restrictions on political activity, meanwhile, is badly needed. Many of those restrictions, however, have served to protect incumbents, which will undoubtedly make said reform popular in the LDP. So whether Mr. Takebe's group will produce anything of lasting value remains to be seen.

But what's important to note is that Mr. Fukuda is looking both at what made Mr. Koizumi successful and what arguments the DPJ will muster in its next general election campaign. Mr. Koizumi succeeded in part because of his promise to destroy the LDP; the DPJ, especially under Mr. Ozawa, is running on the same platform. Making political reform a priority will bolster Mr. Fukuda's reformist credentials at the same time that he weakens the DPJ's best argument for regime change.

Pushing for political reform will not spare the LDP from a devastating blow in the next general election — but it and every other effort by the prime minister to borrow from the DPJ to undermine the LDP's reactionaries could mean the difference between a total defeat of the LDP and a lesser defeat that leaves the LDP with a parliamentary majority.

An ebullient Mr. Fukuda looking to burnish his reformist credentials puts the DPJ on the defensive, despite the DPJ's censure motion. The tide may turn against Mr. Fukuda eventually — he will not be able to antagonize the reactionaries forever and escape unharmed, because he doesn't have Mr. Koizumi's theatrical (or perhaps prestidigitatorial) skills and public support. But for now he will escape the Diet session intact and play host in Hokkaido before having to rejoin the battle against enemies inside and outside the LDP.

Fukuda the unflappable

The DPJ has decided that it will submit a censure motion against the government on Wednesday, as planned. The LDP and Komeito agreed Tuesday that it will extend the Diet session by six days to 21 June to ensure the automatic passage of the economic partnership agreement (EPA) with ASEAN (the one-month period during which the HC has to act on a treaty expires on 21 June).

In other words, the government will carry on its business for ten days in the shadow of the upper house's non-binding censure resolution.

Ozawa Ichiro admitted Monday that the timing of the motion has little to do with the eldercare system debate. The censure is "all inclusive," an all-encompassing critique of the government's conduct. That actually makes it even less effective than if the motion were specifically targeted at some issue. Now the DPJ is just bleating in futile opposition to the government. Perhaps it should save its "all-encompassing" censure of the government for the election campaign, when it could actually make a difference. The extension of the Diet session two days after the censure motion will make it even more clear just how impotent the DPJ is. The DPJ will censure, and the government will carry on with business as usual.

It appears that Fukuda Yasuo is feeling more confident as the Diet session comes to an end, even after the government's defeat in the Okinawan prefectural assembly set off a new round of panic within the ranks of the LDP and Komeito about the electoral consequences of the new eldercare system. He is apparently looking to the future, to his moment on the world stage in Toyako next month and to plans for the government's agenda in the autumn. Despite the fears within the government, on Monday Mr. Fukuda waved off the idea of an early election, suggesting that doing so would deepen the paralysis in the political system. He is prepared to lead the LDP into the next general election, even if large swathes of his party are increasingly unhappy at the thought.

Nevertheless, Mr. Fukuda's grace under fire is impressive. Time will tell whether it's foolish.

Rudd's vision

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, arriving in Japan Sunday for a four-day visit, delivered a foreign policy address on Wednesday of last week that has sparked a major debate in Australia about the future of Asian multilateralism.

In the speech, Mr. Rudd laid out his vision for an Asia-centered Australian foreign policy that sounds