Japan’s politicians lose their way at a bad time
By Gerald Curtis
Published: February 16 2009 in The Financial Times
Not only is Japan’s economy contracting at least twice as fast as its peers, with data on Monday showing the worst quarterly performance for a third of a century, but Japanese politics also seem about to implode.
The standing of Taro Aso, prime minister, in the opinion polls is in free fall. His statement last week that he had opposed privatising the country’s huge postal savings system when he served in the government of Junichiro Koizumi – a comment that, like so many others he has made, he subsequently backed away from – appeared to be more than his predecessor but two could take.
Declaring that he was too flabbergasted by Mr Aso’s ineptitude even to be angered, Mr Koizumi all but said the current leader should resign or the Liberal Democratic party should get rid of him. The LDP could not fight a general election, Mr Koizumi made clear, with Mr Aso at the helm.
An election has to be held by September and the opposition Democratic party of Japan has an excellent chance of winning. The LDP knows it faces disaster unless it turns public opinion round but, like the proverbial deer staring into the headlights, it is paralysed by fear rather than energised by it. As one senior LDP politician said to me: “Being in the LDP is like being on the deck of the Titanic but with one important difference. We know that the ship is going to sink. Now all we can do is wait for it to happen and then see who can swim.”
The possibility of taking over the reins of government is, however, showing little sign of energising the DPJ. When one cuts through the clichés of a “green new deal” and other verbiage, the stark reality is that the party has no clue about what to do either in its first 100 days or thereafter.
The DPJ talks about replacing bureaucrats with politicians in key ministerial positions but says virtually nothing about what policies these newly empowered politicians would implement. Ichiro Ozawa, its leader, is a survivor from the old school of Japanese politics too busy micromanaging the election – he is his own Karl Rove – and too unwilling to share decision-making with others in the party, especially those whom he suspects are not entirely loyal to him, to be spending time preparing a transition.
The other day I asked an MP who is one of the party’s economic policy specialists what fiscal policies the DPJ would employ to deal with what is shaping up to be Japan’s worst postwar recession. His answer: “We haven’t thought much about that yet.”
He went on to give a long laundry list of the risks posed by the US stimulus package and banking bail-out, enumerating all the things the DPJ should not do with the power that seems to be within its reach and saying nothing about what it should do to deal with Japan’s economic crisis.
In the 1980s Japan accomplished its century-long goal of “catching up with the west”. It has groped unsuccessfully ever since for what to do for an encore. It sent the economy into overdrive to accomplish the other part of that Meiji-era slogan, which was not only to catch up with but to “overtake the west”. That produced an economic bubble and subsequent “lost decade”, a period that came to an end after Mr Koizumi became prime minister in 2001.
But his success in pursuing a reform agenda came in the face of intense resistance from within his own party and was more a consequence of his personal popularity than a result of any public enthusiasm for a more liberal economy. Once he left office, traditional forces that had been knocked down but not knocked out recovered a lot of ground. The result has been a succession of inept leaders and the absence of a coherent policy agenda.
It would be comforting to think that this is all part of a Schumpeterian process of creative destruction. But since Mr Koizumi’s 2006 departure, it has been a process without creativity. There will be more destruction, perhaps including the demise of both the LDP and DPJ and the formation of new parties. Whatever the political goings-on, there is no optimistic short-term scenario for Japan.
At some point the public will grasp the seriousness of the economic troubles and demand change. But that crisis mentality does not exist today. Therefore things will not only get worse before they get better. They will get worse before the political system comes up with policies that even stand a chance of making them better.
The writer is Burgess professor of political science at Columbia University and a member of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute