Still crazy after all these years?

"some things could be improved; more democracy, elections, more in the newspapers--limited, but slightly more open--the management system to be improved, centralization should be less strict, power should be redistributed somewhat, maybe the functions of the Party and the government should be divided."

I read these words to my (Japanese) wife recently, and asked her how many of the above aims she agreed with. She agreed that almost all the problems addressed by these proposed reforms were real problems in Japan. Now for the shock -- these words were spoken by Aleksandr Yakovlev, Gorbachev's right-hand ideologist in the years of perestroika in the late 80s about the political system in the Soviet Union¹.

What is terrifying is that so much of this applies to Japan, and the ruling clique seems to have a grip on the country as firm as the Communist Party did over the Soviet Union in the days of Brezhnev. Taiwan and South Korea, and to a certain extent Indonesia, have shown their desire for house cleaning, and have made considerable efforts to overthrow the old guard and come up with new initiatives. However, Japan seems to be unable to act with the same courage to throw out the politicians responsible for the bubble economy and its collapse, who have wasted the last ten years of possible growth as America and the West take the lead in the new industries, and are currently amassing the world's largest national debt through a program of public works which even the Finance Minister admits is having little or no positive effect.

In the recent elections, the LDP ("Liberal" "Democratic" "Party" - all three words of the title are questionable) gained power yet again. Admittedly by the skin of its teeth, and with a substantially reduced number of seats, but the same gang of old men has once again gained power. And these are really old men. The average age of the cabinet named by Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori is 66, and only three of the members are under 60. In most countries, these tired old pols would have been retired or promoted long ago. Japan, ignoring the opportunities that the upper house of a bicameral system provides as a retirement home for those politicians who have passed their "use-by" date, uses its "upper" house as a training ground for younger politicians or for showpiece figures who adorn the fringes of the party. As a result, it was only with great difficulty that a 92-year old ornament of the party was persuaded not to run for yet another term in the lower house.

As the Japanese economy lurches erratically towards recovery, it would seem logical that the politicians chosen for the cabinet should have the greatest possible experience in their respective portfolios, in order to assist the growth of the country through their wisdom and expertise, and the reason for the advanced age of this cabinet is therefore because of this wealth of experience. Unfortunately, this turns out not to be the case. Since the LDP is composed of a group of factions, all of which are supporting a different leader, and are held together only by a common lust for power, every faction must be appeased with a cabinet position, as must the two other minority parties which make up the coalition.

One of these parties is the New Conservative Party, a splinter group of a splinter group of a splinter group, which chose to stay with the coalition. The crumb thrown to Ms. Chikage Ogi, the leader of the party, is that of Construction Minister. However, this particular crumb may turn out to be a hot potato. At the end of June an ex-Construction Minister, Eiichi Nakao, was arrested on charges of bribery, and there is almost certain to be a fallout among the senior echelons of the LDP. Ms. Ogi was seen on television immediately after her appointment complaining that this was not the post she wanted, and that her appointment was mere window-dressing to make the LDP look clean. Even before the first Cabinet meeting, the cracks in the coalition wallpaper were starting to show. In a TV interview the next night, she seemed more reconciled to her post, but stated her intention to open the doors of the Ministry as soon as possible and as wide as possible. If she does this, it is quite likely that the resulting flood of sewage will engulf more than a few of the ruling clique. My guess is that she will not be allowed to proceed very far with her good intentions.

Just to make matters worse, the current organization of the Ministries and Departments represented in the Cabinet is due to change at the end of the year. The present collection of nonentities is currently perceived as lacking any ability to manage and steer their respective departments through the transition. And as a final crowning glory, Ministers are now not allowed to rely on their civil servants to answer questions in Parliament on heir behalf. It's difficult to imagine many of the current Cabinet members being able to answer questions much more complex than ones asking the name of their Ministry. To be fair, it's unlikely that they'll be asked anything which would present much of a challenge to anyone with an IQ in triple digits. The art of political debate is in its infancy in Japan, and has yet to reach the level of a European parliamentary session.

There are some exceptions. To preserve unity and a public face, Kiichi Miyazawa (who suffers from the dubious distinction of being the only Japanese Prime Minister to have been vomited on by a serving US President) continues as Finance Minister. He is generally reckoned to know what he's doing, speaks good English, and will be welcomed by his counterparts at the upcoming Summit in Kyushu and Okinawa. Taichi Sakaiya, the Director General of the Economic Planning Agency, also keeps his post, and he, too, is reckoned to have a good head on his shoulders. Like the new Director General of the Environment Agency, Ms. Yoriko Kawaguchi, he comes from the private sector, and is a sop to no-one's factional interests.

Happily absent from the public faces in the cabinet is the party Secretary-General, Hiromu Nonaka, who seems to enjoy the popularity of a decaying skunk, not only from the opposition parties, but from members of his own party. He was the guiding spirit in the move to replace the comatose Keizo Obuchi as Prime Minister, now deceased (his seat is now held by his 26-year old daughter, who had no previous political interest or ambition), with Mori, in a closed-door session. As the puppet-master pulling Mori's strings, he was quoted by Mori himself as having approved Mori's appointment of Hidenao Nakagawa as Chief Cabinet Secretary, a post once held by Nonaka. Not unnaturally, his statement was pounced on and criticized by those who felt that Nonaka was manipulating the government of Japan a shade too obviously and this was considered to be unsubtle, even for him.

One of the bright spots of the election night broadcasts came when Nonaka, sweating under the lights, and looking like a second-class bookie's assistant who has seen better days, promised to resign if the LDP did not gain the 229 seats that he had forecast. Although the party actually did achieve this number (ending up with 233 seats), it was a close thing, and it had my wife and me on the edge of our seats, hoping that this would be the end of our least favorite politician. Alas, it was not to be...

Another behind-the-scenes troublemaker is Shizuka Kamei, the Policy Research Chairman, whose pre-election appearance on an election roundtable discussion probably cost the LDP a considerable number of votes. Shouting down any contrary views put forward by his opponents, he projected himself as an overgrown schoolroom bully, successfully convincing himself, if no-one else, of his views and the official party line by the sheer volume of his voice. The look on his face when he saw the invited urban under-25 audience overwhelmingly reject his party and the coalition in a straw poll was sufficient compensation for having to sit through his ranting, though.

And in fact, that's the way that the voting went. The exit polls appeared to show that the under-50s rejected the LDP and its works overwhelmingly. In some places, it seemed as though the voting was 3 or 4 to 1 against the coalition. In fact, the Mori coalition had enjoyed (if that's the right word) an approval rating of only 16% at times before the elections. So why have the Japanese people let this bunch into power again? One reason has to be the old standby of the LDP - money. Two interesting maps were shown recently on a current-affairs program, one showing the amount spent on public works projects by region, and the other showing LDP support by region. Not surprisingly, there was an almost one-to-one correspondence. The cities, where virtually no attempt has been made to buy votes with scraps from the pork barrel, actually threw out serving LDP ministers in favor of younger, first-time opposition candidates (one successful candidate is only 25, and she is currently a university student). In addition, inertia by the older voters, even in the cities, who feel that the devil they know is better than an unknown devil, helped swell the numbers of votes for the coalition. And it must be admitted that the lack of a united opposition front, and the totally weird (to Western politicians) idea of proposing that a member of the governing LDP be appointed as the Prime Minister if the opposition came to power, helped persuade some voters that the opposition had no real idea what it was doing, resulting in a low level of support for any one opposition party.

Already Nonaka, as one of the chief political strategists within the party, has come up with his plans to gerrymander the electoral districts so that the LDP achieves what it considers to be a fair share (that is, an overwhelming majority) of the parliamentary seats. It is almost certain that this is not to be, and that the second Mori cabinet is doomed to failure before it even starts. Coupled with the perceived age and incompetence of the current ministers, it should be noted that Mori has a habit of shooting himself in the foot after carefully stuffing the said foot into his mouth. His recent remarks regarding the Emperor as the center of Japan drew fire from constitutionalists, who were quick to point out that sovereignty resides with the people, and other recent remarks have caused similar controversy. Interestingly enough, Nonaka and Aoki, usually ready to leap to the defense of any members of the party they feel have been unfairly treated (Nonaka once accused Yukio Hatoyama, leader of the opposition Democratic Party of Japan, of causing ex-Premier Obuchi's stroke through over-enthusiastic questioning at question time), allowed their protégé to flounder on unheeded.

The problem for Nonaka and those who stand behind him is that even if Mori is perceived as being totally unsuitable as a Prime Minister, no-one of the Mori stamp seems to be waiting in the wings. Makiko Tanaka dismisses the current leadership as a bunch of tired old men, with no originality or ability, a move not likely to gain her much support in the upper reaches of the party. Her views are becoming more widely shared by the younger (typically this means under 60) members of the LDP, who angrily criticized the LDP Gang of Four (Nonaka, Aoki, Kamei and Mori) in a recent meeting of the parliamentary LDP members. Tanaka is the daughter of ex-Premier Tanaka, who was caught with his hands in the till in the Lockheed scandal, and is a politician of a very different stamp from her father (though they share many of the same qualities: political astuteness, charm and the ability to talk directly without equivocation). She remains a loyal supporter of the LDP, with support for the party as an abstract concept, rather than the squalid mess it has now become, and she has stayed firmly aloof from any factions. In fact, to avoid any charge of nepotism or party factional interest, she ran as a nominal independent in her first election. Although it may seem a remote possibility, some are already mentioning her name as Japan's first female Prime Minister.

But with no established power base inside the party apart from a few vocal Young Turks, and no wish to resign from it and form yet another party in the endless merry-go-round of the Japanese power game, can Tanaka achieve the reform that the party and the country so desperately need? It would seem that we have to wait for the current breed of ruling politicians to drop dead of old age, or to succumb to terminal Alzheimer's disease before this can happen.

Meanwhile, Japan is launched on anything up to another five years of political self-destruction. There's a bright side, though. There is a new breed of Japanese management, who are learning that the "traditional" Japanese values (in fact, really only in place for the past 50 years) of lifetime employment, cross-holding of shares, secrecy in management and lack of public accountability just do not work in an international society. This new wave has the ability and the will to pull the economy round to a positive future, despite the efforts of the government and the bureaucracy, and certainly not because of them.

© Hugh Ashton, 2000