The onslaught begins

Last week, when Amari Akira announced his support for Aso Taro's taking over for Fukuda Yasuo when the latter's public approval dips below twenty percent, I wondered, "Will Mr. Amari's remarks be followed by a series of leaks to the press from anonymous LDP sources about disarray in the government and Mr. Fukuda's inadequacies as leaders, in the hope that a whisper campaign can drive the approval rating down to Mr. Amari's target?"

Nakagawa Shoichi, the "N" in the NASA and HANA clubs, creator of the "True Conservative Policy Study Group," and like Mr. Amari a confidante of Mr. Aso, lambasted Mr. Fukuda in remarks in Hokkaido Saturday, criticizing "do-nothing politics" and the "do-nothing prime minister."

The context of his remarks was a call for greater economic stimulus that includes tax cuts on investments and financial flows (echoing METI's plan for tax reform that encourages Japanese companies to repatriate profits earned abroad).

Nevertheless, the message is unmistakable: Mr. Nakagawa and other conservatives are clearly interested in damaging Mr. Fukuda's image in the hope of pushing his numbers down to the threshhold identified by Mr. Amari.

But apparently I was wrong to think that pressure on Mr. Fukuda would take the form of an "anonymous" whisper campaign, because far from being something as subtle as a whisper campaign, Mr. Nakagawa opted for a frontal assault against the prime minister.

I doubt that this will be the last we hear from the conservatives. They clearly smell the blood in the water. And Mr. Aso appears to be helping his own cause by refusing to let the furor over MAFF Minister Ota Seiichi's remarks die.

So who's next? Suga Yoshihide, the "S" in the NASA club (who still holds a party leadership post as vice chairman of the LDP's election strategy committee)? Or Abe Shinzo himself? I expect, however, that being a member of the Machimura faction Mr. Abe will receive a stern reprimand from Mr. Mori should he join the chorus. Not that that would stop him.

The point is that this appears to be only the beginning of a conservative campaign to undermine Mr. Fukuda's image in the hope of driving him out. The question remains whether the prime minister will exercise his nuclear option — calling a general election — instead of yielding to pressure to step down.

Web developments

The Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan's largest daily by circulation, is finally entering the twenty-first century.

Earlier this month it revamped its website, introducing an RSS feed and other web tools. It also created a clipping service, for which users must register.

Meanwhile Japan's other political parties have followed the LDP and created YouTube channels of their own (DPJ; JCP; NKP; PNP; SDPJ; NPJ — links also available at YouTube's Japanese politics portal). Koike Yuriko has her own channel too.

Like the LDP channel — which at the moment features an odd video of Abe Shinzo promoting a Diet tour led by Mr. Abe himself — none of these channels is particularly interesting: lots of videos of people sitting in front of microphones. Nevertheless they should provide the occasional laugh.

Speaking of laughs, allow me to close with this video, featuring silly pictures of everyone's favorites, the "dangerous" ANA (Abe-Nakagawa-Aso) politicians.

On the national interest

In the 20 June edition of his column in Yukan Fuji, an evening newspaper, Nakagawa Shoichi tackled recent developments in Japan's relations with its neighbors.

Not surprisingly, he wrote that the government should be taking a harder line in negotiations with North Korea over the abductee problem, China over East China Sea gas rights, and Taiwan over possession of the Senkakus.

What is of interest is how he advanced these positions. In discussing the negotiations with China over the East China Sea gas fields, Mr. Nakagawa emphasized the importance of defending the national interest. "When I was METI minister, I gave prospecting rights in the East China Sea to Japan's private oil companies," he said. "The government, in order to defend the national interest, should support this prospecting work." (国益, こくえき, national interest.)

The "national interest" is a popular term not just among Japan's conservatives, but among Japanese intellectuals at large. As Japan struggles to find its place in a changing world, this phrase is used to justify any number of foreign policies. But it is rare that the people using the phrase define exactly what it means. It is often used as a bludgeon; when the speaker or writer uses the phrase to describe a policy he or she is advocating, the implication is usually that anyone who disagrees with said policy is acting against the national interest and thus betraying Japan. After all, who could be against the national interest?

The national interest, however, is not a given. As Ishizuka Masahiko argued in Nikkei Weekly in April, it is not exactly clear what the "national interest" means. Mr. Ishizuka was addressing comments by Komori Shigetaka, chairman of NHK's board of governors, in which Mr. Komori suggested that NHK programs "targeted at audiences outside the country should be more assertive about 'Japan's national interest' on issues where the Japanese point of view differs from that of other nations." In response, Mr. Ishizuka wrote, "The source of the controversy arising from Komori's remark seems to be that what exactly dictates "national interest" as he calls it is not clear at all, and it tends to be identified with the establishment to which he obviously is considered to belong. Making the issue more complicated is that national interest and its perception can change from issue to issue." He goes on to argue that Japan will be best served by emphasizing the multiplicity of voices within Japan — in short, that there is no single national interest for NHK to beam abroad.

The phrase "national interest" is (or should be) the beginning of a discussion, not the end of one. An example of the former usage is US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice's essay in the July/August issue of Foreign Affairs, entitled "Rethinking the National Interest." The first sentence of Ms. Rice's essay poses the question, "What is the national interest?" She spends the rest of the essay trying to answer it. Not only does she try to posit a definition of the national interest, she also considers whether the US has the means to defend its national interests. I have yet to see a Japanese policymaker or commentator make a similar argument for Japan, clearly articulating not only what Japan's national interests are, but, more importantly, listing them in descending order of priority and explaining what means Japan needs to secure them (or what it needs to do domestically to ensure it has to wherewithal to secure designated national interests).

I am in full agreement that Japan needs to give more thought to its national interests, but simply repeating the phrase does not equal giving the matter more thought. The way it is used now stifles rather than encourages a debate to define Japan's national interests.

Komori on US China policy

Komori Yoshihisa, veteran correspondent and Washington-based editor of the Sankei Shimbun, was invited to speak to Nakagawa Shoichi's "True Conservative Policy Study Group" last Friday, where he explained the reality of US China policy and contemporary attitudes in Washington towards the US-Japan alliance.

He provides a summary of his remarks at his blog.

For the most part, they're innocuous. He notes that Congress and Washington in general are alarmed about China on a number of fronts: China's military modernization, trade practices, intellectual property violations, and human rights violations are causes for concern among US elites. (Indeed, according to Pew's November 2005 survey of public and elite foreign policy attitudes, US elites are far more concerned about China than the public at large. This may have changed after several years of media reports about shoddy Chinese imports, but I still expect that the US public as a whole remains more sanguine about China than Washington.) He reports that while the US-Japan alliance is rarely discussed in the media, it enjoys a solid bedrock of support from both the Republican and Democratic parties.

Broadly speaking, Mr. Komori's picture is accurate.

But there are a few problems. First, whatever the fears of US elites about a multi-dimensional Chinese "threat," I think US policymakers, especially in the executive branch, are willing to silence their fears and work with China when necessary. This is consistent with the enduring pattern of Sino-US relations since 1972. Congress has been obsessed with threats from China and aggressive in its criticism of human rights violations, threats against Taiwan, etc.; the White House, whatever its unease with China and regardless of the party affiliation of the president, has sought closer coordination with China. There is an enduring realism in US China policy that is entirely absent from Mr. Komori's remarks.

This realistic tendency will likely become even more pronounced in coming years, because — and this is my second qualm with Mr. Komori's remarks — the US obsession with Iraq and the Middle East more broadly will not abate anytime soon. Mr. Komori seemingly provides no context for US thinking about China, which for most of Washington remains of secondary importance to more urgent Middle Eastern questions, meaning the US will be ever more inclined to work with China on a range of regional and global problems.

While naturally there are China hawks in Washington who share the views of Mr. Komori's audience, it would be a mistake to suggest that their viewpoint is dominant and commonly accepted. Their viewpoint certainly hasn't been dominant under the Bush administration, despite early indications to the contrary, and the next administration will be forced to embrace a sort of "resigned realism." Even if a McCain administration were to talk about the importance of cooperation among democracies in Asia, such rhetoric would most likely not be backed by a decisive shift in how the US-Japan and US-Australia alliances interact with China.

I would add that Mr. Komori and other Japanese China hawks, much like their American compatriots, have nothing constructive to say about how the US and Japan should deal with China. Mr. Komori says that it is "appropriate to identify and criticize, frequently and clearly" China's military activities and human rights violations. Maybe so, but that cannot be the sum of a China policy, especially for Japan. As Fareed Zakaria argues, criticism and outrage can backfire if they promote a popular backlash among the Chinese people. A China policy that amounts to little more than jabbing China repeatedly with a pointy stick is no China policy at all.

Meanwhile, Mr. Komori has not been paying enough attention in Washington. He notes that he concluded his remarks saying that in other countries principles like "building a country in which the people have pride in their country" and "steadily defending the national interest" are not conservative at all: they are accepted by all as a matter of course. I wonder what country Mr. Komori has in mind. China maybe? Both examples cited by Mr. Komori are fiercely contested in US public discourse. Both the definition of the "national interest" and how to defend it are in constant flux. As for a country of which people can be proud, once again, "pride" means different things to different Americans. To some, including Senator Obama, being proud of the US means being proud of its ability to correct its own flaws; as Senator Obama said in Montana earlier this month, "I love this country not because it’s perfect, but because we’ve always been able to move it closer to perfection."

If anything, Japan needs more of this: more discussion about what its national interests and more discussion about how to secure those interests, but above all, more discussion about what it really means to be proud of one's country — and what it means for a Japanese to be proud of Japan.

What, me worry?

In an editorial Friday, the Hokkaido Shimbun wondered why Prime Minister Fukuda exhibits no sense of crisis despite mounting problems and falling popularity.

"It's strange," the newspaper writes, "that the prime minister's sense of crisis appears to be diluted," considering that the BOJ vacancy and the uncertain prospects for a compromise with the DPJ over taxes and road construction could spell the end of his premiership.

Yamamoto Ichita, LDP HC member, suggests that concerns about the durability of the Fukuda cabinet may be overblown because all Diet members are motivated by what he calls "election avoidance syndrome." His HR colleagues, he suggests, are terrified for their election prospects and will therefore be willing to bend considerably to delay a general election. He suggests that some younger LDP members will vote against renewing the gasoline tax if the tax is canceled and then comes up for a vote in the HR again. In a postscript, Mr. Yamamoto addresses the idea that the LDP might dump Mr. Fukuda prematurely: "With the Fukuda cabinet's approval rating dropping, 'Dump Fukuda' voices are strengthening within the party?!?...this case is inconsistent with 'election avoidance syndrome.'" The LDP will stick with Mr. Fukuda, he argues, because dumping him will raise the chances of an early election. (Then again, his logic that another leadership change will mean pressure to go to the people for a mandate is shaky, if only because the baton was passed from Mr. Abe to Mr. Fukuda without the people being consulted.)

Perhaps Mr. Fukuda's Thursday meeting with Nakagawa Shoichi and Yosano Kaoru, who represent two blocs that could potentially challenge Mr. Fukuda's leadership, suggests that his hold on the party, however tenuous, remains secure. (In other words, both men and their comrades are slight content to let Mr. Fukuda suffer the slings and arrows of the divided Diet.)

Mr. Yamamoto may be right: Mr. Fukuda could have nothing to worry about by virtue of being in possession of the leadership. But to echo a concern raised by the Hokkaido Shimbun, how long can he go without articulating a reform agenda? And for how much longer can he count on both the conservatives and the reformists to support his government?

Foreign policy could prove Mr. Fukuda's undoing. Sankei reported that the subject of the True Conservative Policy Study Group's meeting this week was China policy, which turned into criticism of Mr. Fukuda's reconciliatory approach. A muddled approach to Tibet could give the conservatives an opening, if they choose to exploit it.

The daunting political situation is probably enough to secure Mr. Fukuda's position through the July G8 summit — I still think that prospective successors would prefer that Mr. Fukuda take a thorny issue or two off the agenda first — but if his public support doesn't recover in the meantime, his opponents may be tempted to force him out before the start of the autumn extraordinary session, election avoidance syndrome or no election avoidance syndrome.

The pride of the conservatives

If Nakagawa Shoichi, leading conservative, has a virtue, it is his refreshing candor. Back when he was serving as head of the LDP's Policy Affairs Research Council under Mr. Abe, I suggested that Mr. Nakagawa was Mr. Abe's id, saying things that would be improper for the prime minister to say himself.

Appearing on Fuji Television's Hodo 2001 program on Sunday, Mr. Nakagawa said in reference to the hounding of Japanese whaling ships by a ship operated by the non-profit group Sea Shepherd in the Antarctic Ocean, "They have wounded Japanese. If the Coast Guard were to arrive, they should not just fire warning shots, they should 'use force.'" Asked whether he was suggesting that the Sea Shepherd should be sunk, he replied, "Of course."

I think this provides a glimpse into the mindset of the conservative ideologues. Mr. Nakagawa suggests that a violent response is merited because "Japanese were hurt." I wonder, however, if what was hurt was not Japanese citizens but Japanese pride. I get the sense that Mr. Nakagawa is brimming with anger that these foreign activists were able to get away with these actions, which have been condemned by the IWC. And so Japan needs a new defense posture and more assertive foreign policy: Japan must never allow itself to be powerless in the face of foreign aggression, whether in the form of North Korea's abductions of Japanese citizens or Sea Shepherd's harrying of Japanese whalers. The harm to Japanese citizens is, I think, secondary; what matters is the harm to Japan's pride. The result is a burning anger directed both at foreign transgressors and at the institutions and individuals within Japan responsible (MOFA, etc.) for failing to uphold the nation's pride.

As MTC noted recently, pride — hokori (誇り) — is a favorite word of the Japanese right. It is impossible to understand the foreign and defense policies advocated by the right without appreciating this concept. Beyond the superstructural justifications for a more assertive Japan (the arc of freedom and democracy, etc.), the conservatives are desperate to be proud again, to meet every perceived offense with resolution. Postwar Japan to them has been one abdication after the other, and hence the postwar "regime" must be left behind.

And hence the Coast Guard should open fire on anti-whaling activists.

Abe's — and the LDP's — dilemma

Former Prime Minister Abe Shinzo has been back in the headlines this week, first for his return to the Machimura faction, which he left when he became prime minister, second for the announcement that he will chair an LDP study group related to the implementation of his "Cool Earth 50" initiative. The latter prompted Asahi to ask whether this is the beginning of Mr. Abe's "re-challenge," referring to another of Mr. Abe's initiatives.

Mr. Abe's return to the Machimura faction makes him its sixtieth member from the House of Representatives.

I find the former of greater interest than the latter, because the Machimura faction increasingly appears to be a microcosm of the party at large.

Consider that the faction contains a moderate dove like Prime Minister Fukuda, risk-averse senior politicians like Mori Yoshiro, Nakagawa Hidenao, and Machimura Nobutaka, "true" conservative Abe Shinzo, and a healthy cohort (27) of first- and second-term members of the House of Representatives, many of them Koizumi Kids. With the Machimura faction having made the Kantei its private property over the course of this decade, its complexion matters considerably in the future of LDP governance.

The selection of Mr. Fukuda as prime minister, thanks in large part due to his own faction's support, illustrates this point — and illustrates that the party is, for the moment, in the hands of the cautious, reactionary Mr. Mori.

Will Mr. Abe's return make a difference? I suspect not. The very idea of an Abe comeback strikes me as laughable, and I expect that few of his conservative allies long for his return. (At least one of them doesn't.)

The next LDP presidential election, meanwhile, will likely test the Machimura faction's power. If it comes after the next general election — as I expect it will — it may find its numerical clout diminished somewhat as some of its one- and two-term members in vulnerable urban and suburban districts go down to defeat. The test will likely come from Nakagawa Shoichi's "True Conservative Policy Research Group" [The HANA group], or at least the movement symbolized by the HANA group. Unless the Machimura faction decides to take a chance on Mr. Aso this time around, which would defuse the situation, the next LDP election will ask certain LDP members to choose between their values and their faction, and perhaps ultimately, their values and their party. This dynamic was present in the September election, as evidenced by the subterranean support for Mr. Aso — and the formalization of a conservative anti-mainstream in the form of the HANA group only exacerbates the tension.

Mr. Abe will be no less immune to this dilemma than his less prominent colleagues. Indeed, his return, according to Mainichi, is the result of Mr. Mori's anger at Mr. Nakagawa's group. As noted previously, one of the first steps in Mr. Abe's political rehabilitation was his joining the HANA group last month. Writes Mainichi: "Mr. Mori, who frowned at this, urged Mr. Abe to return to the faction."

Mr. Abe will be serving as a counselor to the faction, a position offered perhaps in part to cement his loyalty.

Playing politics

For the second time in as many days, I have read of LDP members complaining of the DPJ's "playing politics" with matters of national import.

Yesterday I mentioned that Ibuki Bunmei complained about the DPJ's introducing politics into the debate over BOJ succession.

Today I read a column by Nakagawa Shoichi in which he chides the DPJ for playing politics in calling for Mr. Ishiba's resignation. "They should not be troublesome solely for reasons of parliamentary tactics," he writes.

This tendency for ruling parties to claim that opposition parties are playing politics with some important policy matters is probably universal. US Republicans have been doing it to Democrats on national security for decades — see this recent example. So I guess we shouldn't be surprised that LDP Diet members are complaining about the DPJ's supposedly placing politics before the national interest.

The LDP is, of course, struggling to define the narrative in advance of the next general election. Will the general election be about the ongoing series of policy failures and poor governance by the LDP, as the DPJ would prefer, or will it be about the DPJ's supposed inability to run a government? It seems hard to believe that the LDP will have a strong showing running from that position. If an election were held today or soon, what achievements could the LDP use to illustrate its fitness to govern? For all the talk by Mr. Fukuda about shaping policy to take into account the concerns of the Japanese people, it has remained talk. The Japanese people are insecure because of the LDP's failings, not because of the DPJ's "playing politics."

"My fear," Mr. Nakagawa writes, "is that confidence in the Defense Ministry, responsible for security, is being lost. Without the confidence of the people, the ministry cannot ensure the security of the nation."

Who, Mr. Nakagawa, is responsible, whether through sins of commission or omission, for the deplorable state of affairs in the defense establishment?

Playing politics? The LDP has spent decades playing politics by making it possible for private interests to pervert public policy to their ends, not least in the Defense Ministry, where trading companies have stuffed their pockets with public funds with the LDP's consent.

Into the pig box with them

With the debate within the LDP over the human rights protection bill intensifying, Abe Shinzo, former prime minister, has followed Mr. Aso out of exile and is now openly reunited with his ideological comrades within the LDP. He announced Friday that he is joining Nakagawa Shoichi's "True Conservative Policy Research Group," making him the group's eightieth member.

Meanwhile on Saturday, Mr. Nakagawa continued his campaign against the mooted human rights bill in Osaka. According to Hokkaido Shimbun, at the Osaka LDP chapter's convention he said, "If the bill is passed, me, former Secretary-General Aso Taro, and former Prime Minister Abe Shinzo could quite possibly go to the 'pig box' [detention cell]." Politicians are, of course, prone to over-reliance on hyperbole, but Mr. Nakagawa could win an award for this whopper. With advisers like this around him, it's no wonder that Mr. Abe's government was so short-lived.

Even if it were true that the human rights bill could somehow lead to politicians being rounded up and imprisoned — based on the history of the prosecution of crimes by politicians, this is extremely unlikely — is this really the proper way to oppose a piece of legislation? How about an appeal to how it might affect the lives of Japanese citizens?

I still stand by the arguments made in this post. However, a few more comments by Mr. Nakagawa and his comrades might lead me to change my mind — but only if the government strengthens the provisions that supposedly targeting political activity, raising the chances of the nightmare scenario envisioned by Mr. Nakagawa will come to pass. In fact, talk of throwing politicians in jail in a country in which the political class has been loathed for decades is a good way of ensuring that the bill passes.

Aso returns from the wilderness

Aso Taro, faction leader, former foreign minister, former LDP secretary-general (briefly), and losing contender for the LDP presidency in 2001, 2006, and 2007, essentially went into self-exile after the LDP's faction chiefs united to deny him the premiership and make Fukuda Yasuo prime minister. He indicated that he would not accept a post in Mr. Fukuda's cabinet or party executive. While associated in the media with Nakagawa Shoichi's study group, he has been absent from the headlines. Since the fall of Abe Shinzo, Mr. Nakagawa has become the face of the LDP's ideologues.

After losing in September, Mr. Aso embarked on a national tour, bringing his optimistic "Awesome Japan" message to than eighty locations around the country.

Sankei, however, has published an article that suggests that Mr. Aso may once again become an active participant in the LDP's power struggles, positioning himself for another run for the party presidency.

To do so, however, Mr. Aso has to ingratiate himself with party elders who have long been cool to the idea of his running the party (and the country). Sankei notes that Mr. Aso met with Nakagawa Hidenao, his predecessor as secretary-general, in late January, Machimura Nobutaka, chief cabinet secretary and head of the largest faction, on 1 February, and he will travel to South Korea later this month with Mr. Nakagawa (H) and Mori Yoshiro. (He has also reached across the aisle to talk with Hatoyama Yukio and other DPJ members about his nonpartisan "Diet Members' League for the Promotion of IT in Regional Governments.")

After watching the party's leaders unite against him in September, Mr. Aso has little choice but to grovel before the LDP's powers that be. But he is also hedging. His followers still seem loyal; when a party election comes, it seems like he will once again represent the conservatives. They still think that he is the one man — echoes of his grandfather, "One Man" Yoshida — who can lead the LDP through troubled waters, thanks to his charisma. As Kyuma Fumio, described by Sankei as Aso's "brain," said, "If one looks around the party, only Mr. Aso can be found to have the 'showiness' indispensable for the party president. He has one more essential quality for a party president, 'flexibility.'" Although Nakagawa Shoichi has been the most visible of the HANA group (excluding Hiranuma Takeo, who as an independent seems free to say whatever he wants wherever he wants), he appears to be more of a lieutenant than a leader, first to Mr. Abe, now to Mr. Aso.

With the conservatives suddenly active in opposing the Fukuda government's agenda, over the human rights bill (discussed here), Mr. Aso's return comes at an auspicious time. I still do not anticipate an overt challenge to the government by the conservatives before a general election, but Mr. Aso's return to the limelight could signal a decisive rejection by the conservatives of the Hiranuma line — the call for the creation of an ideologically pure conservative party — and a clear move to focus their efforts on retaking the LDP from Mr. Fukuda and his "liberal" allies.

This is hinted at in an acronym suggested to Mr. Nakagawa (S) by Mr. Aso: NASA, for Nakagawa, Aso, Suga (Yoshihide, minister of internal affairs and communications under Mr. Abe), and Amari (Akira, METI minister under Mr. Abe, staying on with Mr. Fukuda). This formula, an alteration of the HANA acronym, drops Mr. Abe, who seems consigned to the ash heap of history, and Mr. Hiranuma, who is not a member of the LDP and whose activities with Mr. Nakagawa have led some party leaders, most notably Mr. Mori, to criticize Mr. Nakagawa for being disloyal.

For Mr. Aso, keen to be at the helm of party and nation, distancing himself from both Mr. Abe and Mr. Hiranuma is a wise move that can only strengthen his efforts to repair his relationship with party elders.

Whether Mr. Nakagawa is prepared to do the same, however, is unclear. He responded to Mr. Aso's suggestion by joking, "Are we also doing space flight?"

Violating liberties to protect human rights

Aside from the party's defense of the privileges of the road tribe and their allies in rural Japan, unity within the LDP has been elusive.

The latest issue to divide the party's ranks is the Protection of Human Rights bill. The bill, originally submitted to the Diet in 2002 before being rejected in 2003, was equally divisive then — and the current debate seems to be occurring along the same lines.

The earlier bill called for a system for investigating cases of human rights violations, especially cases of discrimination, and punishing perpetrators, embodied in a Human Rights Commission, which would be an external bureau under the jurisdiction of the Justice Ministry. The Human Rights Commission would oversee a network of Human Rights Protection Commissions at the city, town, and village level. The commission, upon receiving complaints, would investigate and recommend appropriate measures, legal or otherwise. Controversially, Articles 42 and 43 of the bill contained "special relief procedures" that included provisions restricting what the press could publish about an individual's private life, leading the media to oppose the bill, seeing it as a potential threat to the freedom of the press and the freedom of expression.

The bill now under consideration is a resurrected version of the earlier rejected bill, although Hatoyama Kunio, the justice minister, claims that the government "wants to begin again from a blank paper."

Many of the critics of the bill — the so-called "cautious" faction — are conservative ideologues. According to the Hokkaido Shimbun, Nakagawa Shoichi, with the backing of Hiranuma Takeo (who was one of the leading "cautionaries" in the original battle), is at the vanguard of the opposition in the LDP's investigatory committee on human rights problems. Their objections are (mostly) reasonable: (1) The definition of "human rights violation" is vague; (2) the commission itself could lead to the misuse of government power, as it can issues summons and conduct investigations without court-issued warrants; (3) there is no provision banning foreigners from participating in the local Human Rights Protection Commissions.

The Mainichi Shimbun has also voiced its opposition in an editorial, pointing once again to potential restrictions on the exercise of the freedom of the press. The editorial concludes:

Why is it important for this bill to be passed? From now on we wish for the debate to return to this starting point. Above all else, it is essential that maximum priority be given to the question of how to relieve human rights violations by public authorities.

According to the Justice Ministry, in a 2006 investigation by regional legal affairs bureaus of human rights violations, among 21,000 cases, only nine were related to the press, while 2,289 cases were related to civil servants, indicating just how many human rights violations were committed by public authorities. However, excluding the pursuit of a quite small number of criminal cases, concerned people should recognize that in the status quo, no relief whatsoever is provided.

The concerns voiced by both LDP backbenchers and Mainichi are valid. This bill strikes me as a blatant attempt to curry favor with the public, to show the people that the government is doing something, even if that something is done shoddily. Citizens do need protection from human rights abuses by ostensibly "public" servants. They do need recourse to the law. But is it worth it to trample on civil liberties to protect "human rights"? The vagueness of the bill and the wide-reaching powers the commission would wield are worth questioning.

The dispute within the LDP appears to be between pragmatists — the party elders, concerned with holding power — and the idealists. I don't know how sincere Mr. Nakagawa and his comrades in their opposition to this bill. Frankly, their concerns about "foreigners" (i.e., North Koreans) serving on local commissions strike me as overblown. There is also apparently an abductions angle to this dispute, as Sakurai Yoshiko, Nishio Kanji, and other conservatives have opposed this measure because it will somehow obstruct resolution of the abductions issue.

Whatever their reasons, they're not alone in opposing this measure, which is also opposed by the media and the Japanese left (or what's left of it). The DPJ also submitted its own version of a human rights bill that sought to emphasize the independence of the commissions from the Justice Ministry and correct the perceived threat to the freedom of the press.

This is one instance in which I cannot agree with the LDP's pragmatists. The unintended consequences of this bill are fairly clear. No matter how good the intentions of this bill's proponents, they must reconsider their approach to this issue.

Nakagawa's economic policy

As noted in this post, Tahara Soichiro thinks that Nakagawa Shoichi, instigator of the "True Conservative Policy Research Group," would make a fine leader in place of the current crop of party leaders and would be adept at addressing the many pressing issues facing the government.

What, you wonder, does Mr. Nakagawa think about economic policy?

Mr. Nakagawa tells us himself in a column published on 1 February.

Correct me if I'm wrong, there's nothing in it this strikes me as particularly novel or innovative.

He offers the standard rationalizations for using the temporary gasoline tax for road construction (the revenue is needed, and not just for road construction, but for maintenance, snow removal, and safety). The special measures tax bill has to pass because the government conveniently bundled the gasoline tax portion with tax breaks for small- and medium-sized businesses and tariff reductions. The US has passed a temporary fiscal stimulus program, so Japan should too, handing money to salarymen so that they can spread it around the economy — and passing more emergency tax breaks for individuals and small- and medium-sized businesses. He also thinks that Japan should investigate the creation of a sovereign wealth fund. (Does anyone actually trust the government to administer a fund without corruption or mismanagement?)

In short, I think Mr. Nakagawa, along with the other members of his study group, still have a blind spot for economics and matters related to the structural reform of the Japanese economy.

The right laying low?

Since former prime minister Mori and Prime Minister Fukuda called attention to the crisis facing the LDP on consecutive days in mid-January — with Mr. Mori explicitly criticizing Nakagawa Shoichi's flirtations with Hiranuma Takeo — it seems that the ideological conservatives have backed out of the spotlight.

Part of the reason, I think, is because of the changing environment in the Six-Party talks. With North Korea recalcitrant since the start of the year, and the Bush administration seemingly in no hurry (or powerless) to restart the talks, the bilateral tension over North Korea has dissipated somewhat. With a lower risk of Washington's removing North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism and pressuring Tokyo to follow along, the conservatives don't need to lean as hard on Mr. Fukuda to keep toeing the line on the abductions issue.

There is no doubt that Mr. Nakagawa is feeling confident regarding developments in North Korea policy. In a three-way discussion with Tahara Soichiro and Tanaka Hitoshi in the February issue of Chuo Koron (part one, part two), Mr. Nakagawa said, "Concerning the result, even Assistant Secretary Hill said last year while visiting North Korea, 'North Korea's level of verification is not good,' and as a result the agreement is delayed. I think that factors in President Bush's decision include statements of opposition to lifting the designation in both the House and the Senate in Congress, as well as the function of trends in Japanese public opinion. Lifting the designation in the face of this opposition would be too risky."

The Japanese right is probably thrilled at the fight over US North Korea policy growing after State Department criticism of a speech by congressionally mandated North Korea Human Rights envoy Jay Lefkowitz at the American Enterprise Institute — discussed in this Christopher Hitchens essay, in which he sides with Mr. Lefkowitz and dismisses the separation of human rights from denuclearization. After all, the greater the dissent in Washington, the less likely the administration will assume the risks of pushing harder for progress in talks with North Korea. The less the US pushes, the less the Fukuda government has to fret about gaps between the Japanese and US bargaining positions.

The other factor contributing to less conservative activism against Mr. Fukuda is, I think, good tactical sense on the part of Mr. Nakagawa and his comrades. After being criticized by party leaders last month and with diminishing chances of a general election being called before the autumn, I suspect that the "true" conservatives reasoned that unless they are prepared to take the ultimate step in undermining the government, joining with the opposition to pass an HR non-confidence motion, they are better off being loyal to the party and preparing for the fight for control of the party that will follow a general election. (For the record, I don't think that Mr. Nakagawa and his fellow conservatives are prepared to do anything so forthright as working with the opposition to bring down Mr. Fukuda.) The current environment on North Korea policy makes it easier to swallow their pride and support the prime minister.

Barring any radical changes in the policy environment, the stalemate will hold, with the conservatives plotting their restoration sub rosa.

Let there be strife

The LDP held its party convention in Tokyo on Thursday, and the mood was anything but cheery.

Prime Minister Fukuda spoke bluntly about the existential crisis facing the party today. "We are facing the greatest crisis since the foundation of the party," he said to a crowd of some 3400 party members and supporters.

Reiterating the party's mantra since losing last July's HC election, Prime Minister Fukuda emphasized the need to act on behalf of the Japanese people, joining the DPJ in putting lifestyle issues first. (Does anyone else find it odd that the prime minister of a long-standing ruling party needs to remind his own party of the need to govern on behalf of the people?)

Will the party's clans stop warring long enough to hear Mr. Fukuda's message?

In advance of the party convention, the discord within the party became ever more open. On Wednesday, former prime minister Mori Yoshiro bluntly addressed Nakagawa Shoichi's flirtations with former LDP member Hiranuma Takeo via their "true conservative" study group (discussed here), reminding Mr. Nakagawa that his faction, the Ibuki faction (whose head, Ibuki Bunmei, is the party secretary-general), should come before his dalliance with Mr. Hiranuma. Something tells me that Mr. Nakagawa is not about to halt his extracurricular activities in pursuit of "true conservatism" — and besides, when Mr. Mori speaks, does anyone actually listen? (Just to show to make clear exactly what his vision of the party is, he also lashed out at the Koizumi Kids, suggesting that Mr. Mori would love to go back to the old days when everyone in the party got along to distribute money to supporters and were returned to office over and over again.)

I think it's safe to say that Mr. Fukuda's remarks Thursday are aimed at his conservative rivals, whose allies in the media have castigated him relentlessly since not long after he took office. As I discussed here, the priorities of these conservatives are not those of Mr. Fukuda (or the Japanese people). Mr. Fukuda recognizes that the LDP cannot afford a repeat of July 2007; it cannot afford to ignore the concerns of the people and expect to escape unscathed, not with the DPJ — for all its troubles — doing its best to capitalize on the LDP's failure to address the many insecurities of the Japanese people.

The conservative ideologues will have to choose between their ideals and party unity (and power). I'm not entirely certain that they will choose the latter over the former, especially if they come to reason that an electoral disaster under Mr. Fukuda will enable them to discredit his leadership and reclaim the LDP for themselves.

Meanwhile, the new Kochikai lurched ever closer to its rebirth, with Messrs. Koga and Tanigaki formally agreeing to merge their factions on Wednesday. Announcing the merger, Mr. Tanigaki said, "Since we share DNA, we want to once more make a nucleus that will be a stream in support of the LDP's conservative politics." (Apparently conservatism is as contested in the LDP as it is in the US Republican Party.) But as I noted previously, although the new faction will have sixty-one members, making it the third-largest faction, it is possible that some of those members may be more interested in supporting Mr. Aso than Mr. Tanigaki or any other candidate that the new faction would back in a leadership race.

This might be premature of me to suggest, but I wonder whether we are witnessing the twilight of the LDP factions, at least the factions as we know them. The LDP will, of course, remain fractured, just as the DPJ is fractured, but part of a political realignment might mean the transformation of factions from being social clubs good for collecting cash and distributing patronage to being ideological clubs along the lines of Mr. Nakagawa's study group. Might not the September 2007 presidential election, in which faction members clearly ignored the instructions of faction leaders to vote for Mr. Aso be a sign of what's to come?

The shape of the realignment to come?

Nakagawa Shoichi, former LDP Policy Affairs Research Council chairman, was recently interviewed in the Kyodo Weekly on the subject of his new study group.

Not surprisingly, the "True Conservative Policy Research Group" is, according to Mr. Nakagawa, dedicated to keeping the flame of the Abe revolution alive.

In explaining what true conservatism is, he said, "Japan stands at a crossroads — will it continue down the road to ruin, or will it go down the road of revival? The LDP has defended Japan's good tradition and culture, and improved and reformed that which should be reformed. If this type of conservatism does not press forward, the support for the true conservative class will become unreliable."

He continued: "Restoring vitality to the regions, and at the national level, reconstructing national security, public order, education and the social security systems. We must continue to struggle with constitution revision, reform of the public service system, and collective self-defense, the problems with which the former Abe administration grappled."

None of this is that surprising or revealing. What is revealing, however, is what Mr. Nakagawa says about the group's political aims. For the moment, Mr. Nakagawa supports Prime Minister Fukuda. He even claims that he voted for him in September. But he also hinted that he and his coterie are more concerned about policy than personality. And when asked whether he would join independent conservative Hiranuma Takeo's new party, he declined to answer — and quoted Hiranuma as talking about how the DPJ "is not monolithic, it is essential to build bridges, and this is our self-imposed mission."

I remain skeptical of the idea that Mr. Nakagawa and his comrades will leave the LDP, now that the revisionists are finally in the party's mainstream. It is their party now. What might happen in the aftermath of the next general election — except in the unlikely event that the government retains its supermajority — is a bid by the ideologues to expel those who aren't in sync with their principles. Their biggest rival is now the Kochikai, which is set to reemerge this year from a merger between the Koga and Tanigaki factions, in the process unseating the Tsushima faction as the party's second largest. The next LDP presidential election, which will presumably follow a general election disappointment or defeat, will be a brutal fight for dominance over the party. If the LDP still holds a majority (judged by Koga Makoto, LDP election strategist, to be "difficult") the conservatives will presumably focus on enticing the DPJ's conservatives into the party to bolster both the conservative position within the party and the LDP's position in the Diet.

And if the LDP goes into opposition for the second time in its history? Harder to say, because victory would presumably serve as an excellent adhesive for the DPJ, keeping the conservatives from joining with their counterparts in the LDP. Would the LDP survive opposition in one piece?

No wonder former Prime Minister Mori and other party elders want to postpone a general election for as long as possible.

The right is alive, if not kicking (yet)

As planned, onetime Abe wingman Nakagawa Shoichi has formed a conservative study group within the LDP that will keep the flame of the Abe revolution burning.

At the opening meeting, Mr. Nakagawa said, "The things which everyone said 'we must do' until a few months ago must not be forgotten." By which he means those things that were completely at odds with the desires of the Japanese people, leading them to categorically reject "leaving behind the postwar regime" at the first opportunity.

Sakurai Yoshiko, leading lady of the right, spoke to the gathering on the subject of "What is genuinely conservative?" — and the attendees can be found in this Mainichi article.

It's by no means surprising that Mr. Abe's followers would regroup after their champion left office prematurely, and his natural successor defeated in the LDP presidential contest. The question that remains is whether Mr. Nakagawa's group will sit quiet until the next LDP presidential election or whether it will be a thorn in the side of Mr. Fukuda.

Does anyone really expect the former?

I suspect that it's just a matter of time before Mr. Nakagawa's (Mr. Aso's) army finds some issue on which Mr. Fukuda has let them down.

Hard road ahead

Prime Minister Fukuda, upon returning to Japan, was greeted with criticism by the association of abductee families, whose representatives were also in Washington last week (meeting John Bolton, among others).

Interviewed at a press conference upon arrival at Narita Airport on Sunday, Iizuka Shigeo, the deputy head of the family association said, "May not Japan, as an ally, voice its opinion a little more?"

Undoubtedly the complaints of the families will be echoed by abductee advocates within the ranks of the LDP, the self-appointed enforcers of an uncompromising negotiating position in the six-party talks.

Whatever glimmers of the hope there are for Japan's reengaging in the talks, Mr. Fukuda still has formidable obstacles in his way. I think that if he pushes too hard for a shift in Japan's negotiating position, Mr. Aso's retainers will cause trouble for him.

Mr. Fukuda has thus far smoothed over the divisions within the party that were in full view under Mr. Abe, but he has been helped by the DPJ's opposition to the anti-terror law, on which the LDP is by and large united. But once he starts trying to move an agenda forward — both within the Diet and in Japan's foreign policy — the need to keep the party united and challenges to that unity will rise in tandem.

After a period of calm following the LDP presidential election, the LDP right is organizing again. Nakagawa Shoichi, PARC chief under Mr. Abe and Mr. Abe's id, has announced the creation of a new conservative study group (with independent Hiranuma Takeo). That alone isn't troubling for Mr. Fukuda, but it is a reminder that he walks a fine line as the head of a party that doesn't exactly share his cautious pragmatism.

Beautiful no more

Since election night, there has been a conspicuous absence from the pronouncements of the Abe government: we no longer hear Mr. Abe speaking of building a "beautiful country."

Mainichi suggests that the Abe camp has been reflecting on the meaning of the slogan, despite Abe's assertion that he doesn't think the election results repudiated his "course of reform." Seko Hiroshige, Abe's media advisor, is responsible for the "Building a beautiful country project," and he has suggested that the government think about how to build a beautiful country that pays mind to the concerns of Japanese citizens — a nod, as Mainichi notes, in the direction of the DPJ's "lifestyle is number one" campaign slogan.

At the time of the Abe Cabinet's inauguration, the "beautiful country" slogan was merely baffling and something of a joke; as the cabinet's popularity has tanked, the joke has become less and less funny and more a symbol of the extent to which the government was totally out of touch with the Japanese people and even members of the LDP. In short, with the electoral defeat and the coming cabinet reshuffle, the slogan should be heading to ignominious retirement. And yet it's not: the project is, according to Mainichi, considering some 3500 reform proposals that will be announced around the same time as the reshuffle.

Perhaps the new cabinet will be less tolerant of governing by vague slogans and will force the prime minister to reconfigure how he presents his agenda to the public. There are, however, few signs as of yet that Mr. Abe is going to defer to the judgment of the LDP elders. Yomiuri today speculates on some possibilities for the new cabinet, but there seems to be nothing definite. Some names mentioned by Yomiuri are former Foreign Minister Machimura Nobutaka, LDP policy chief (and Abe ally) Nakagawa Shoichi, Niwa/Koga faction chief Niwa Yuuya, and former Kokutai chairman Ooshima Tadamori (possibly to return to the same post), as well as Nikai Toshihiro.

There are fewer hints as to who will take which portfolio. There is a suggestion that Machimura will be the chief cabinet secretary — Shiozaki seems to have little chance of survival — because "the only true support for the prime minister is from people in the Machimura faction." Nakagawa, meanwhile, will likely take an economic portfolio (or the MAFF portfolio, which his late father held) in the hope of not weakening the impression that it is Mr. Abe's cabinet.

With a week remaining, no one should anticipate — in case anyone did — that the impending reshuffle will be the key to giving the Abe cabinet some traction, because it seems that Mr. Abe will continue to rely on those who support him unquestioningly and reject those LDP members who have criticized his government, especially since the election.

And as for those 3500 proposals under consideration? There is no reason to expect that Mr. Abe is prepared to abandon the "no reform without growth" formula that has characterized his government since day one.

Abe's id speaks

Well, it was only a matter of time. First, Defense Minister Kyuma signalled in Washington that Japan was approaching a reconsideration of its restrictions on arms exports, prompting Chief Cabinet Secretary Shiozaki to deny that any change was impending and reaffirm the principles. Then, Abe voiced a slightly more ambiguous position, resting somewhere between Kyuma and Shiozaki.

And now, as seems to have been the case throughout the short life of the Abe Cabinet, LDP PARC Chairman Nakagawa Shoichi has put in his two cents on the lifting of the three arms export principles, speaking with less ambiguity than the others on the need to adjust Japan's security norms and institutions for the new era.

Am I wrong to think that Nakagawa, as a party official and not a minister, has acted as Abe's id, saying what Abe wishes he could say, if only he didn't have to be sensitive to public opinion? The best example of this