Julian Ryall talks to political analyst Jun Okumura
Jun Okumura is a counsellor with the Eurasia Group, a global political risk research and consulting firm, where he covers Japan as a source of political risk. He is also a prolific blogger on political affairs and previously served in the Japanese civil service for three decades, notably with the predecessor of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.
How do you assess the DPJ government so far?
We’re only six months in, this is the first regular Diet session, and most of the important legislative bills have not yet been submitted – so it’s not really fair to grade the administration. They have also received bad press because they have gone back on many campaign promises. But I think the latter is a good thing as they have bowed to the realities of the economy and the fiscal situation, as well as the underlying difficulties of making multi-trillion yen budget cuts.
They have done a reasonably good job of taking real decision-making out of the hands of bureaucrats and placing it into the hands of politicians – and, similarly, of divorcing themselves from the status-quo triangle of bureaucracy, business and politicians.
But they have also spent much of their political capital on the Futenma air base issue. And foreign policy and national security aside, I think they could have played their political hand much better. They should have told the public that the horrible mess left by the LDP was beyond what they had imagined, that banks in the United States had ruined the global economy, and that they would have to dial back some of the promises they had made going into the election.
The DPJ’s public support rating has been slipping recently…
Figures for measuring a cabinet’s popularity are notoriously volatile and a new administration almost always fails to live up to sky-high expectations. The cabinet’s support rate may be down, but the LDP is in the low 20s and most people remain undecided.
What is significant is that this precipitous drop was mainly not due to changes in policies or broken promises. The issue of the Futenma base does not affect the daily lives of the general public, but it threw up serious concerns over the competency of this cabinet and the prime minister in particular. We see similar examples on economic issues.
Is the LDP breaking up?
So far, only fringe figures and others with political difficulties have left. That said, it does look like cracks are appearing – and when institutions unravel, they tend to do so quickly. There is a small, but not negligible, chance of the LDP crumbling. It is certainly more plausible than a major split in the DPJ, even should Hatoyama defy his critics and stay on.
Has there been perceptible change to Japan’s relationships with Europe since the election?
I see no noticeable shift in the relationship because basically it is an economic arrangement. We do not share Europe’s main security concern. For us, Russia is no longer a major security risk; it’s a country trying to sell us more natural gas than we can use. The most immediate national security issue is the small but plausible risk emanating from North Korea and the longer-term risk is China, but these are Japan’s regional threats, not Europe’s.
The government seems keen to develop closer relationships with China and Asia. But would that be at the expense of the United States and Europe?
The simple answer is “no” because Hatoyama and other people who make pro-Asia and pro-China noises are all pulled back by the force that is the Yoshida Doctrine. We turn to the United States when it comes to national security, and spend our time on the more important things in life, like the economy.
Hatoyama has recently started making it clear that the United States is Japan’s number one squeeze and all other relationships are based on that firm relationship. I probably worry less about China as a threat to Japan than do the majority of experts. We are both resource-deficient states that rely on the same sea-lanes and open global market. We are competitors, not adversaries.
As a prominent blogger, do you feel blogging has had any impact on Japanese politics?
Blogs are not taken nearly as seriously in Japan as they are in the English-speaking world. There are some good blogs, even some on politics, but no real political blogosphere to influence public policy. The Japanese people get their ideas about what is going on from the media, which is not influenced by bloggers.
What is the scale of the economic problem facing the DPJ?
It’s on a scale that you wouldn’t wish on your worst political enemies: unemployment, deflation and two decades’ worth of public debt – between ¥800 trillion and ¥900 trillion depending on how you count, and almost twice the size of Japan’s GDP.
The DPJ has tried to pay for its campaign promises, but it has been obviously much harder to find government flab than they had claimed. And there was the global financial crisis, which was neither the fault of Japan nor the DPJ, so the DPJ really hasn’t been in a position to clamp down on borrowing.
It could be worse. At least we have borrowed the money from ourselves. And we still have a world-class industrial base and lots of room for productivity gains elsewhere. With leadership and a coherent game plan, we can dig ourselves out of this on our own. Once the election dust settles, the DPJ will have three more years of a huge Lower House majority to work with.
And finally, who is going to win the election in the summer?
The DPJ can’t lose badly, no matter what happens, since dissatisfied floating voters have few other places to go. The Your Party and the Japanese Communist Party will each pick up a few seats and low voter turnout will benefit New Komeito somewhat. But who’s to say the LDP won’t lose even more votes?
Jun Okumura blogs at www.son-of-gadfly-on-the-wall.blogspot.com/