Out for the count? But who's doing the counting?

As anyone who takes any interest in Japan has probably realized by now, the old guard is up against the ropes and is gasping for breath. And when we say "the old guard", we're not using a metaphor. These really are old men, with the average age of the Cabinet being over 65.

Despite widespread public disdain for the Party which verges on hatred, and an approval rating of under 10% for the present Cabinet, the ruling clique still seem to believe (at least in public) that they are representing the will of the people. In fact, Mori was appointed as a puppet leader by a Gang of Four meeting in a hotel room when his predecessor, Keizo Obuchi, suffered a stroke. Mori's resignation, though not officially announced, has been decided in the same way--behind closed doors by a small gang of manipulators. Many comparisons with the closed-government system practiced in the Kremlin for so long in the Soviet Union spring to mind. Mori himself unintentionally supplied one when he came up with a Five-Year Plan to increase the IT awareness of Japan.

At the time of writing, it is a matter for debate as to whether the Nikkei share index or Prime Minister Mori's popularity rating will reach zero first. Although the incompetence of the Liberal Democratic Party, which has been the only real power in politics for over 50 years, cannot be blamed for the recent slump in share prices, the fact that the government in Japan seems powerless to act discourages even foreign investors from coming in and snapping up what would otherwise be bargain basement equities. In a rare moment of candor, the finance minister, Kiichi Miyazawa, recently admitted that Japan's economy was "near to collapse". The storm that his words created caused him to retract the statement for political reasons, but the general consensus is that for once, some truth escaped from a somewhat improbable source (a member of the Politburo).

In fact, the Party is representing the will of a small section of the public; the construction industry. A long-time friend of the Party and contributor to expensive election campaigns (why so expensive? better not to ask too closely), the construction industry has seen its friendship repaid many times over in terms of useless dams, expensive bridges, exorbitant tunnels, and public works projects which destroy the environment, alienate the local inhabitants and enrich those who build them. Unsurprisingly, the Party's way to "revitalize the economy" is to do the same as it's always done in the past, except on a larger scale. Happily, there seem to be some individual local pockets of sanity, such as Yasuo Tanaka, the governor of Nagano prefecture, who has publicly declared his opposition to this senseless squandering of taxpayers' money and forbidden the construction of any new dams (Nagano, by the way, was the home of the 1998 Winter Olympics, which further enriched some already stunningly wealthy fat cats). In addition, the city vote is becoming heartily sick of the lavish subsidies paid directly and indirectly to the farming communities, another mainstay of the Party, and there is a rising tide of urban antipathy, symbolized in the figurehead of Shintaro Ishihara, the maverick governor of Tokyo.

One middle-class happy family?

The antipathy is not purely reserved for the policies of the Party. After years of being told that 90% of the Japanese people were "middle class" and there was an equality in Japanese society which was to be envied by the rest of the world, the truth is beginning to emerge. In fact, the members of the ruling elite live in large houses which would be the envy of any of the wealthy classes in any country of the world, and are whisked to and from these houses to hideously expensive country clubs in splendid isolation by chauffeur driven limousine. The amount of tax that they dodge frequently comes to many times an average worker's income. And if they're caught? No real worries. A friend of mine who once joined the Party (his membership was paid for by his construction company employers) was told that if he got into trouble with the police, his Party membership would ensure easy treatment.

These privileged few do not have to endure the trains packed at 200% capacity with sweating commuters shoulder to shoulder, sleeping on each other's shoulders, and sneezing and coughing (or occasionally vomiting on the way home) over each other on their journey, which may take anything up to two hours from an under-sized and over-furnished apartment to a small metal desk, one of many in a cramped smoke-filled office. The wealthy live very well, filling their lives with every luxury you can imagine (and many you don't want to imagine), including Rolls-Royce cars with the steering wheel on the wrong side to prove that it's an imported car.

And they're full of their own self-importance. One current Cabinet minister for whom I had to write a letter in English insisted (through his aide) that his name should be centered on the page below the letter and in larger type than anything else on the page. At that time, he wasn't even a minister, but simply an elected representative of the lower house.

The other 99% of the population (who don't care about where their name goes on a letter, or how large it is relative to the rest of the letter) are compensated for an existence which is, at its worst, squalid, with access to some of the latest consumer technology (regardless of its appropriateness to the occasion at hand). For example, digital satellite TV broadcasting has now started in Japan, and the quality of the TV hardware for sale is outstanding. It's a shame that according to most commentators (including the majority of Japanese) the level of the programs broadcast in Japaan would insult the intelligence of the average nine year old viewer. Or that cars for sale in Japan are fitted with the latest and greatest gadgets, despite the fact that most roads are chronically overcrowded and too small (the main "expressway" between Tokyo and Osaka is only two lanes wide for most of its length).

Occasionally one of the fat cats gets caught with their hands in the till, or engaged in some other dubious practice. In fact, the Mori administration has seen a number of such scandals, and the enforced resignation of some high ranking members of the party. This, sadly, is regarded as a way of life, rather than an exception. The older Japanese who complain about the morality of the younger generation seem to conveniently overlook the fact that the ruling classes of Japan have, for the last 50 years, been engaged in a systematic routine of lying, cheating and stealing as a way of life, advancing their own ends at the expense of the rest of the world. With these as role models, is it really any wonder that the current generation can be said to lack morality?

Time for an outside management consultant?

Other countries in Asia, such as the Philippines, Indonesia and Taiwan, have shown their ability to dismiss old-fashioned corrupt regimes. Unfortunately, in Japan there appears to be no viable alternative to this present government. One of the few politicians willing to stick his neck out within the Party and volunteer his services as a possible future leader, Hiromu Nonaka, is regarded by most of the public as little better than a gangster boss, and the only other real alternative, Junichiro Koizumi, is not supported by the older members of the Party, as they fear he will take away their long-standing cozy links to the money machine that has supported their comfortable lifestyle for so long (this is characterized as "unpredictability" by the group surrounding Party bullyboy Shizuka Kamei). And the opposition has been the downtrodden opposition for so long that they have few positive policies, other than opposition to the ruling clique. There are some fine individuals in there, but no coherence, and a lot of inter- and intra-party squabbling which would make it impossible for a viable government to be formed, even if they could persuade the civil servants to abandon their bad habits of 50 years' standing.

 Hiromu Nonaka
(75)

Ryutaro Hashimoto
(64)

Maybe Japan should take a leaf out of the books of Nissan and Mazda, and admit that it is incapable of producing an in-house leader, and offer the job to an outsider. Does anyone know if Al Gore would fancy Japan as a consolation prize? It might make up for the disappointments of Florida.

Hugh Ashton, 2001 hugh@j-views.com

After writing this, the race narrowed itself to Hashimoto, Koizumi, bullyboy Kamei and Taro Aso. Hashimoto is widely tipped as winner. Whether this will or will not be a good thing for Japan is left as an exercise for the reader.