How to waste an opportunity: Ira Kan

Kan Naoto managed to survive the no confidence moved against him, in fact he 'won' hansomely with vote of 152 for to 293 against.

Wow, Kan appears to be slowing but surely winning against the influence of Ozawa faction. This is the third major win. Maybe Japan will turn the corner yet!

Or not.

In order to defeat the no confidence motion, Kan had to promise to step down in the near term (undefined).

His win has set himself up as (yet another) lame duck PM in Japan. Great.

Japan is therefore still on course to play the master game of strategic irrelevance - and they are not going to like the cards dealt them.

Maehara Resigns

Maehara seiji has resign as Foreign Minister.

Initially I expected he would fight off the charges, which are frankly a little ridiculous. If Ozawa can fight through decades of scandal, then Maehara certainly could whip this obviously minor case.

However, it is clear that Maehara is in for the long game (perhaps a little too obviously!). His decision to steep down reflects his belief that Kan will not be able to win the next election, which is now more likely to be called than ever.

Evidence: on the way out, Maehara very statesman-like said "an election would be for the national interest" - here.

Japan’s political vacuum, some thoughts.

The Yomiuri Shimbun has just released the results of its latest public opinion poll. Questions included “Do you support the DPJ”, and “who is the most suitable as Prime Minister.” Even though the DPJ (together with its coalition partners) holds a super-majority in Diet, and is therefore theoretically in a position to push through any and all reforms it sees fit, slipping popular support threatens to undermine the psychological basis for successful political leadership. Recall that former PM Koizumi’s ability to go over the head of his own party and directly appeal to the Japanese people was crucial to allowing his reforms to be successfully passed. Thus, the answers to the current polling questions are important in charting where the DPJ goes from here. The chart below summarizes the last six months; the blue line is “do not support Hatayama Cabinet.”

As you can see, the DPJ has fallen from a high of 75% support (red) to 33% and the blue line of “do not support” has gone from 17% to 56% - implying that most Japanese have gone from optimism to pessimism about this administration (see also here). That was certainly the feeling on the ground last month, but why?

The poll result supports Tobias Harris’s argument that the problem with the DPJ and its popularity is Hatoyama himself. In response to the question, “who is the most suitable as Prime Minister?”, Hatoyama name comes not first, but sixth. Indeed, even more bitterly for the DPJ, the opposition LDP Masazoe Yoichi comes first at 29%. This result gives Masazoe further ammunition in his struggle to become Leader of the Opposition against the incumbent Tanigaki. Hatayama even scored lower than his Foreign Minister Okada, Transport Minister Maehara, and Deputy Minister Kan but none exceeded 10% approval in any case.

There are various causes of this decline, but management of the Global Financial crisis seems not to be one of them. Rather domestic issues such as the corruption scandals plaguing the DPJ (focused mostly on Ozawa but Hatayama himself is also under scrutiny) are center stage. Problems relating to the relocation of the US military base at Futenma are also important, as is postal savings reform.

But overall the problem is a lack of “getting things done” – indeed 44% of Japanese cited this as the biggest problem of the Hatoyama administration. So rather than focusing on a project such as the East Asian Community which may or may not “succeed” (and how to even measure that), Hatayama’s next few months ought to focus on getting a clear success. Given his domestic situation, there are opportunities and risks for other countries wishing to cooperate with Japan, but overall Japan’s biggest contribution to East Asia will be to get its ship back in order.

Japan: the DPJ wins as the GRU weakens the LDP machine.

As Michael Cucek wrote last week, Japan has witnessed the subdued brutality of the DPJ’s Government Re-vitalization Unit (GRU) taking back Y1.4 trillion from various extremely unhappy NGOs and bureaucrats. This process of creative destruction is rarely seen in Japan, and while comparisons to the Meiji Restoration by some DPJ politicians are exaggerations, the fact is Japan is witnessing a real shake up in power distribution. And like any such shake up, there are winners and losers.

In this case the winners are the DPJ over the LDP and the Ministry of Finance over the other Ministries. Let me talk about the DPJ first.

Not withstanding the fact that the LDP has fallen of its bicycle since the last election, the GRU process has further benefited the DPJ in its political struggle with the LDP in three ways. Firstly, the GRU process was aimed cleaning up the mess of subsidies that years of LDP administration had built up, in the process airing a laundry list of useless and hopeless projects the LDP had let through at the public’s expense. This was always going to have a positive political windfall for the DPJ, unless very poorly stage managed.

Although the decision to freeze spending on developing “super-computer” technology caused some public concern, the general feeling was that the LDP had acted like a bull in a China shop, wrecking public finances by allowing the “Independent Administrative Organs” (dokuritsu gyousei houjin) to build duplicate building or give themselves repeated pay increases without any oversight. And indeed when pressed, to fail to defend the decisions they had made in a reasonable manner; the Educational Facilities IAO in particular is the stand-out example. The DPJ, by taking this “bull by the horns” as it were, is showing leadership and polls show continued support for GRU process and the DPJ.

Secondly, the GRU has weakened the old sinews of powers which connected the LDP to Ministries. The GRU was aimed at cutting budgetary excesses of IAO, but the effect (and quite deliberately so) is to wipe out bureaucrats’ post-career placement at a related IAO (a phenomena called Ama-kudari). The LDP had allowed bureaucrats to build themselves such golden parachutes as a quid pro quo for ministerial policy support in enacting the LDP’s preferred pork-barrel politics; a sort of you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours relationship.

However, because the DPJ thinks it can do without the back-scratching (and the associated risk of back-stabbing) the former deal is off. This might drive the ministries to support an early LDP return. But as the LDP is cut off from power, they have nothing to offer the ministries that might induce them to turn against their de jure political masters. As such, the lessening of the ministries’ discretionary funds sees them more dependent on the DPJ politicians than before, if not necessarily more loyal.

Thirdly, the GRU has weakened the LDP’s links to rural voters. The importance of rural voters in the LDP’s election strategy is well known (see Tobias), and the GRU anti-pork barrel politics will no doubt be a threat to the LDP. In the past (paywalled, p48-9), the LDP provided a generous budget for the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fishery (MAFF). The MAFF supported the IAO Japan Agriculture Association (JA), which in turn provided electoral support to the LDP and provided financial support for farming families, ie LDP voters.

However, due to the GRU process, the JA and morphologically similar IAOs have been dealt a serious blow. The GRU recently seeing through a spate of cuts to the MAFF’s budget, including to the JA‘s education programs. Thus weakened, the JA will be less able to perform its traditional role in the LDP election strategy. As argued in the second point, with the LDP out of power and unable to provide the pork, the JA has little incentive to risk attracting the opprobrium of the DPJ by making a stand just yet; although during an election the JA is expected to be right behind the LDP, even with (or especially because) its feathers have been clipped. Additionally, the DPJ (cynical) policy of cutting out the JA and going “over their heads” to provide farming families with a direct support (via the household income support facility) further erodes the old LDP-JA-Rural voter link.

In conclusion, the GRU has seen the DPJ win large versus its rival the LDP. The GRU only by demonstrated the slipshod political guidance of the LDP as contrasted with the DPJ’s ‘fresh’ approach, but also cut important bonds between LDP and the Ministries, the Independent Administrative Organs and voters. The power shake up is on.

Hatoyama is brave, maybe foolhardy

Hatoyama today stood before the Diet and declared that "if the policies contained within the manifesto are not realised, he as PM will take responsibility." When press further, Hatoyama noted that he would likely call an election as a sort of national judgement on his progress. Of course, this leaves the timing up to him but, nevertheless, this is still brave. Maybe foolhardy, as no doubt in four years (the time he allowed his administration to pass into law the manifesto's various policies), he will be called to account by the opposition. Read it here.

The problem is he has now locked himself into delivering (in principle) on all those policies. But I doubt all of his policies (specifically the toll-free highways) are entirely sensible, either politically (public polling on toll-free policy very negative) or economic. A full dicussion of which was in this week's Economist (the Japanese one, not the UK one).

If the future debate is framed about what the DPJ has achieved in terms of its manifesto, then this strategy might pay off. But it runs higher than usual risks.

The National Strategy Office: Delays, ambiguity and the real agenda.

Just three days after coming to power, Hatoyama and Kan Naoto (Vice-PM) opened the National Strategy Office. One of the DPJ’s policy pledges had been the creation of such an Office, to provide an overarching “vision for Japan” and policy coordination across departments. Although the terms of reference have since changed, and will likely change again, the NSO potentially a major innovation in how Japanese politics is conducted.

In normal usage, “national strategy” would refer to matters of foreign policy – particularly national defense. That is not what it means here however, as the NSO is currently charged mostly with matters referring to the budget, taxation, and economic management in general. Although, the Minister of Finance Fujii has stated that matters pertaining the budget will be ultimately decided by Ministry of Finance (not the NSO).

In fact, the NSO has been established to win domestic political battles, national security is not specifically mentioned as yet (although it is still early days). The NSO is first and foremost aimed to help the DPJ “defeat” the bureaucracy, which they perceive as an illegitimate shadow government still too strongly attached to the LDP.

This is apparent in having the NSO being headed by Kan Naoto, a politician whose contempt for bureaucrats is (unfortunately) well known. Kan has forced bureaucracies to reveal embarrassing internal reports (in particular, as Welfare Minister in 1996 Kan revealed the extent of Aids contaminated blood for transfusions and slammed the ministry for sitting on its hands). The NSO`s anti-bureaucracy purpose is also apparent in Kan’s desire to, in the manner of Britian’s Policy Office, stock the NSO with politically appointed private persons (i.e. non-politicans/non-bureucrats).

However, Kan’s goals have been dealt a series of setbacks. The most important of which is the “rank” of the NSO – which has not yet had the requisite laws passed to start formally inserting itself into policy. The NSO’s current status also means it has no mandate, no authority and (essentially) no staff. Worse still, the passing of these necessary laws is likely to be put back to when the Diet meets in regular session.

Indeed, Kan currently sits in limbo. This fact is compounded by the winding up of the Policy Research group within the DPJ (which Kan had headed). It is no longer apparent how Kan and the NSO will impact on policy.

Is the DPJ eating a crazy woman’s breakfast?

Oh dear. The DPJ are in a spot of entirely predictable policy trouble. We were all aware that if the DPJ got in then there would be a “period of adjustment”, in which the DPJ would go from proposing things which might win an election to things which might actually work.

These two things sometimes are at loggerheads. And just now the DPJ finds itself arguing for two contradictory policies; the policy aimed at reducing Greenhouse gas emissions by 30%, and the policy to reduce the toll on freeways to zero. I am not sure how many others have caught onto this one, but at a minimum this is (further) evidence that the DPJ does not yet have a unified vision for the country. Taxing petrol and discouraging private road use is a good way to drive down greenhouse gas emissions, and the link between these two policies is so obvious that one wonders why the DPJ did not detect it themselves.

One only hopes that Kan Naoto as the head so-called “national strategy” will be able to harmonize the DPJ’s disparate policies. If this kind of oversight does not occur then the DPJ will not be able to deliver a better Japan than LDP likely would have, something the voters will punish later on. Indeed, the honeymoon for Hatoyama and the DPJ is fast fading.

Yes We Can't!

Today’s Asahi Shinbun carries the results of its spot opinion polling in the wake of Japan’s recent elections. This might be called the morning after poll. And true to form, some voters are looking across at their newly elected leader (and his party) and are wondering, did I do the right thing?

According to the poll, most voters believe they elected the DPJ in the passion of the historical moment, with 81% saying that the DPJ won because the voters wanted (emotionally) a change. Only 38% believe that the DPJ won because of their superior policy platform. In fact, 52% reported that did not believe that the policy platform came significantly into the voters’ decision one way or another.

Perhaps for the DPJ that is for best. Polling on support for big ticket items in the DPJ’s agenda reveals an underlying negativity. Nearly 49% of respondents were opposed to the Child Support policy (compared to 31% who agreed), presumably due to fears of greater suffering in the 40s and 50s demographic. And there was next to no support for the abolishment of tolls on high speed roadways, 65% against to 20% for. One can only assume that voters were even less taken by the LDP’s offering, the trust in that relationship having been broken by the LDP’s four years of instability and the changing face of the man on top of that political machine.

But despite such voter indifference, or even negativity, towards the DPJ’s actual policies, most (74%) of those responding said they hoped that DPJ would do something good for Japan. A vague hope paired with some doubts, as 46% of respondents believed that the DPJ will not be able to make any significant changes.

This contrasts with recent American and Australian experiences. After the upset elections in both the U.S. and Australia, the voters who had supported the winning party were happy for a week, and for some the joy lasted a month or more. In Japan, it seems, the afterglow does not last even one news cycle.

Japanese university students and the election; some thoughts channeled.

Being in Japan during this election is an opportunity to write about more than just what is in the papers. Instead, I would like to write about what my Japanese university friends are thinking and feeling about this election. May it be of interest, if not use.

Upfront the results are, DPJ 7, LDP 3, Undecided 3. Survey results not to be extrapolated from as Meiji Uni is noted as left leaning, and disproportionate number surveyed are men (10) and non-scientific methods were used in collection of data (some subjects spoke in the proximity of alcohol). I will talk first about the post-grads, with whom I have more contact and more interesting observations.

Firstly, most post-grads are voting for the DPJ. But despite the fact that most are voting for the DPJ, as expected of young urbanites, none of them are really happy it. Their support for the DPJ is based more on a rejection of the ruling LDP rather than support for the DPJ itself.

This can be seen in how many of them project the outcome of the election. Although recent polling suggests that the DPJ might take as many as 300 of the 480 seats thereby establishing single party government, all post-grad students projected that the DPJ would have to form a coalition. Even those most emotionally interested in the DPJ winning an absolute majority said they could not believe that it would actually occur; this student projecting 220-230 seats for the DPJ. Those declaring an intention to vote for the LDP agreed, believing that the DPJ would win government but fall short of an absolute majority.

I asked what would happen if the DPJ failed to win single party government, one student responded ominously, “if the DPJ forms coalition with the Social Democrats they are finished. If the DPJ forms coalition with the Communists, they are finished. If the DPJ forms coalition with the Kokumin Shin Tou, they are finished. And if they are foolish enough to form coalition with either the LDP or Komeito, then they are finished for good.”

This unhappiness with either the LDP or DPJ is at least a little troubling. It suggests that this, the next generation of voters, have neither loyalty to the LDP or to any other party. I asked some of the post-grads if they are not loyal to party, what are they politically loyal to (ideas? money?) - and got mostly uncomfortable silence. One answered honestly that her vote depended mostly on her parents, and that their decision was in turn based mostly on which of the two parties would provide more for them financially (answer: LDP). Another LDP inclined voter, although extremely unhappy about it, noted that he thought that the DPJ would be even more disorderly that the LDP and in particular their ideas about national defense were idealistic (he means, dangerous). He said he valued stability. That seems to be word which came up often as well.

On the other hand, another of the post-grads told me that he will vote for the DPJ just s to see the mythic seiken kotai, he believed that otherwise the two parties were as bad as each other. Another declared DPJ voter was more firm about in his reasons, stating that while the DPJ is a little idealistic, idealism is what Japan needs now. Most others were vague in the reasons for their support of the DPJ, it is possible they may be being influenced by a zeitgeist of change coming from the US. Indeed, DPJ Hatoyama has deliberately used this English word in order I suspect foment such a mood. The point again to be underlined is that the support for the DPJ is fragile, even among this demographic which ought to be supporting them.

The undergraduates that I have talked were also undecided on the whole about which of the two parties to support (none of them mentioned any of the smaller parties). For these undergraduates, this was their first election and making a decision about which party to support was proving difficult. Although they read the newspaper and knew a few things about the parties, they were less informed (as expected) than the older (more mature?) post grad cohort. I asked why had not they decided, and the answer seems to be that they feel that they just do not “know” which is better. One of them reflected that his parents had not decided yet, so how could he. Most agreed that they would decide on the day.

Interestingly, levels of awareness of the two parties policy platforms (manifestos) is unbalanced. Most are aware (and not enthusiastic) about the DPJ’s policies, but they are not so aware of the LDP’s policy – strange given that the LDP ought be considered the default base from which one compares alternate policies. This probably can be chalked up to the media, which has focused on some of the less well thought out DPJ policies. In particular, problems over funding their child support and highway policies while not at the same time raising the consumption tax. This means that for some of the DPJ they are comparing the policies they know that DPJ is promoting with “nothing.” This stand in contrast with the post-grads who were comparing the two parties manifestoes.

In conclusion, talking to the university students has me a little concerned. A lot of newspapers are already calling the election for the DPJ. Some are suggesting a landslide victory the DPJ propelling them into single party government. But my friends and colleagues at university are less sure. This election holds the promise of change, no doubt, but it also holds the potential wreck Japanese self-confidence if the DPJ unable to do anything either due to its own failings or because they are forced into coalition.