Abdicating responsibility

The government has submitted its bill extending the temporary gasoline tax for ten years as part of its bill related to the revision of the tax system. It is not clear, however, whether the government will give up on finding a compromise with the opposition and push for passage before the end of the month, giving it time to pass the bill again in HR over HC objections.

In the background of the bill's submission, some 500 prefectural assembly members — mostly LDP, with nineteen DPJ members (and three DPJ HC members) — met at the Kensei Kinenkan in Nagatacho to demand the retention of the special fund for road construction and to insist that the Diet pass the extension before the end of the fiscal year. The issue is the DPJ's proposal to shift funding for road construction to the general fund, meaning that the prefectures and the "road tribe" advocates in the LDP would have to compete with every other interest group to secure funding for their projects of choice.

And this is a bad thing? It seems obvious to me that in a period of tight budgets, when the nation has to make tough decisions about priorities and what deserves money, road construction should not be given special preferences, especially considering that Japan's road needs are not what they once were. Arguably, the steady flow of money into rural construction projects is an impediment to developing creative solutions to the rural problem. Are the residents of rural areas actually served by the construction of roads, or are the "interests of the people" used as window dressing for a system that enriches LDP members, bureaucrats, and construction companies? As this Asahi article makes clear, the LDP's rhetoric in this debate focuses on how the loss of the extra tax revenue will impact communities. I hope the DPJ will show, again and again, how this entitlement, like many entitlement programs, has had perverse consequences, hindering the development of rural areas rather than enhancing it.

According to a DPJ survey of the heads and deputy heads of its prefectural chapters, there is broad support for the DPJ's position on this issue, but as usual it needs to do a better job presenting its opposition to the public. As asked by the head of the Kochi prefectural chapter in response to the party survey, "Although this is an election in which a government will be chosen, is it good to focus the debate on a price reduction of 25 yen (per liter of gas)?" This issue alone will not sink the government. The task for the DPJ in advance of a possible general election is to make a coherent case condemning the failed governance of the LDP. The temporary tax should be but one plank in that case — it should not be the whole of the DPJ's case.

If the DPJ formulates its position carefully, it can change the debate from one that pits urban against rural into one that unites all Japanese against the government, pointing to how the government has substituted money for creative policy making, in the process abdicating its responsibility to lead and provide a secure future for all citizens. This debate shouldn't just be about the extra yen paid into government coffers. The DPJ should use this issue to indict the LDP for failing to adjust the nation's spending priorities in a period of both tight budgets and urgent policy needs.

The DPJ reorients itself

The DPJ, in a move that suggests that the shift I sensed in this post may be becoming a clear trend, has announced that it will submit a bill in the regular Diet session that proposes the creation of a "consumer ombudsman." The DPJ's plan envisions an independent official, appointed not by the government but by consensus of the Diet, who will take over from the Cabinet Office's Kokumin Seikatsu kyoku and the Fair Trade Commission to unify the handling of consumer complaints to the government.

This is the kind of proposal I've been waiting for from the DPJ. It goes beyond griping about the LDP's malfeasance and actually proposes a practical, constructive solution to a problem. It emphasizes the importance of independent, (hopefully) apolitical oversight of the government, and places the concerns of the people first.

I wonder the extent to which the DPJ's new approach — has anyone heard the DPJ talk about farm subsidies lately? — is a function of the growing appreciation that it has to reclaim the mantle of the party of urban Japan in order to succeed in a general election. Note that if an election is held this year, the discrepancy of the value of a vote in the least populous district (Tokushima-1) will be only 2.226 times more valuable than the value of a vote in the most populous district (Tokyo-6). That is a slight increase over last year (2.202), but it is still a considerable difference from the vast discrepancy in Upper House voting, in which a vote in rural Tottori prefecture is worth 4.883 times the value of a vote in Kanagawa prefecture.

The emphasis on responsible governance for the Japanese people is, I think, a wise approach to take for whatever reason, and I hope we'll see more of it.

When in doubt, talk about how to make Japan great again

"Now the vote likely will pivot on scandal and mismanagement of the country's enormous pension system. This is a shame. The election really should be about Mr. Abe's vision for a more activist international role for Japan."

So says Michael Auslin, AEI's newest Japan scholar, whom I previously discussed in this post, in which I discussed his unquestioning acceptance of Prime Minister Abe's "beautiful country" rhetoric.

Compared to Auslin's latest — an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal (available free here) — the earlier article was a work of inspired genius.

Let's start with the above quote. Who is Michael Auslin — or Abe Shinzo, for the matter — to tell the Japanese people what the election should be about? Why is it a shame that the Japanese people are concerned about the responsiveness of the government to their very real quality of life concerns? Why should the voters ignore the government's very real indifference to their concerns and vote on the basis of some abstract concern about Japan's position in the world? And why does Auslin think that the Japanese people are just hankering for Japan to play a more significant global role as a US ally?

Once again, Auslin buys the rhetoric emanating from Tokyo: "Despite scandal and missteps, they might find that it is Mr. Abe who offers the most compelling vision of their country's role in the world."

What is Mr. Abe's vision for Japan in the world, and how does Mr. Abe plan to achieve it without wide-scale reform of how Japan is governed? Japan, like Italy, Germany and other continental European countries, is trying to manage the difficult task of coping with an aging and shrinking population while at the same time transforming the economy to ensure survival and prosperity in a globalized economy. But Auslin believes none of the matters. All that matters are the superficial symbols of national power and Japan's rhetorical commitment to the US, not the long-term future of Japan as a great power.

Who cares if swathes of the country are in terminal decline? Who cares if people cannot be certain that care for the elderly will be sufficient to handle the aging of baby boomers? Who cares if corruption and incompetence have shaken public trust in nearly every sector of Japanese life? Why should the election be decided based on these mundane issues when the Japanese people can use the election to acclaim Abe Shinzo as the leader who will make Japan great beautiful again!

The US should not want an ally that is incapable of responsible governance and unable to cope with the challenges that its society will face in the coming decade. And it should not want an ally that comes running whenever the US calls. It should want a country that is confident, well-governed, and a model to its neighbors, one that is a good-faith partner that honors its commitments to its allies, but only makes those commitments after an open discussion as to whether doing so is in its interests.

Before Japan can begin talking about leading in the region, it needs to sort out its numerous domestic governance issues. That is the criteria by which to judge Prime Minister Abe. In his nine months in office, what has he done to transform how the country is governed? Auslin does not address that question; the national referendum bill and the government's stated intention to buy F-22s are apparently all that matter.

Buying the hype?

Michael Auslin, a history professor at Yale and soon to be scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, has a somewhat challenging survey of contemporary Japan at American.com, AEI's online magazine.

As the article's title — "A Beautiful Country" — suggests, Auslin buys into the confident rhetoric that has emanated from Tokyo in recent years, but at the same time, he does not deny that Japan is beset with a host of problems that make Japan's future prospects far from certain. As he writes, "From a shrinking population to a static military budget, from alienated youth to a declining savings rate, the country will be forced to make major choices in the coming decades. What has changed, however, is not only that real reform seems to have taken root, but perhaps more importantly that the expectations of the Japanese themselves have moved beyond both the irrational exuberance of the 1980s and the gloom of the 1990s."

Has real reform taken root? I guess that depends on what one makes of recent developments in Japanese politics. Who is the aberration, Koizumi or Abe? Did Koizumi permanently knock the Japanese political system onto a new course, and Abe's problem-laden government is just a temporary detour to better governance? Or is it the reverse? And where does Japan's dissatisfied public — as shown by Asahi's poll on attitudes towards politics — fit in the picture? Can that aimless discontent be channeled to productive ends, or will it simply serve to punish the LDP next month before returning to the LDP's side the next time a Lower House election rolls around?

As such, I cannot necessarily share Auslin's optimism. There is potential for real, lasting change to how Japan is governed — but it will not happen automatically. The Japanese people will have to forge a coherent program out of inchoate discontent, which of course leads one to wonder whether Japanese citizens are prepared to exercise their rights.

And as for Japan's changing security policy, there has been real change in the past decade, but it is an open question as to the extent of that change. How far along has Japan come, forces in the Indian Ocean and Iraq notwithstanding? What role are the Japanese people willing to countenance? Without the abductions issue — used to great effect by Abe and others to present the North Korean challenge in terms individuals can understand and provide a "softer" basis for a firmer Japanese defense posture — would the public be quite so eager to support "normalization"? And what to make of the abiding unease about being dragged into American wars abroad?

The more closely one looks at what Japanese are saying and thinking, the more questions arise, and far from being vibrant and confident, Japanese society seems rife with insecurity — about the future, about Japan's place in Asia and the world, and about the ability of the durability of the Japanese system in the age of globalization.

UN tells Japan to tend its own garden

That's the message one could conclude from criticism of Japan by the UN Committee Against Torture, calling attention to Japan's justice and prison system, and even criticized Japan for dismissing comfort women cases on the grounds that the statute of limitations had expired.

As the FT's David Turner writes:

The report comes at an embarrassing time for Japan. The government has been trying to restore the country’s status as a nation with the moral and political authority of a world power, in addition to an economic powerhouse. Shinzo Abe has tried to accelerate this process since he became prime minister since last year, but with mixed results.

One element of Abe's — and Foreign Minister Aso's — "proactive diplomacy" has been an emphasis on "Value Oriented Diplomacy," which of course serves to contrast Japan with China.

But somehow I find it hard not to laugh when senior Japanese officials speak about Japan's creating an "Arc of Freedom and Prosperity" and similarly flowery language about democratization. I am not one to deny that Japanese is a democracy — but as readers of this blog will note, I do not think it's an especially healthy one. And while that should not stop Japan (or the US, for that matter), from using their wealth and influence to support developing democracies, it should stop them from being too loose in their rhetoric, because loose lips lead observers to question just how much the speaker's own country matches up, undermining the purpose of the rhetoric in the first place. Quiet, determined, and respectful of limits presented by conditions within the countries receiving aid: those should be the principles that guide support for democratization by mature democracies.

And as for the substance of the UN committee's criticism? Certainly not unmerited. I mean, really, a country with a 99.8 conviction rate? As the FT reports, in 2006 there were 77,297 convictions to 63 acquittals. Yet another indication of the governance problem present in every sector of Japanese society.

The heart of the matter

What Japan Thinks published the results of a survey by the Cabinet Office of what the Japanese people think about their society.

In part two, posted here, the survey found that approximately 75% of respondents answered in the negative to the question "do you think the government takes into consideration its citizens' opinions and thoughts." The answers to the subsequent question -- "how do you think the government could most take into consideration its citizens' opinions and thoughts" -- show, however, that there is little consensus on how to change this state of affairs.

These questions get to the crux of Japan's political problem. As I argued in this post, genuine political change will not come about as a result of a new series of top-down grand reforms, a twenty-first century sequel of the Meiji Restoration. Japanese politics will change only if it ceases to be a spectator sport, in which the governing class talks amongst itself while the Japanese people look on, occasionally excited, occasionally agitated, but mostly bored. The tantalizing promise of Koizumi was that he might break the cycle by getting the Japanese people to take an active interest in how their country is governed; that promise was, of course, unrealized.

But the problem remains. Popular discontent with political parties and politicians of all stripes remains high, making it difficult to draw firm conclusions from Sunday's local election results. I strongly doubt whether any political party will be able to channel that discontent into a popular movement capable of taking power (in a manner similar to Hosokawa Morihiro's path to power in 1993). More than a decade later, the Japanese public seems more cynical, more worn out, and less likely to embrace a reformist alternative to the LDP uncritically.

In other words, the Japanese people will have to take power themselves, by voicing their discontent through protest votes (and protests), by running for office themselves or supporting other citizen candidates, and by demanding openness and accountability from governments local, prefectural, and national. At every turn Japan's governing elite need to be reminded that their mandate comes from the Japanese people and that they must ultimately be accountable to the Japanese people. Democratic governance requires a constant conversation between government and governed; it's time the Japanese people took their proper place in that conversation.