At last a peaceful regime change in Japan is happening. The general election of last Sunday in Japan, as predicted, resulted in a historic, huge landslide victory for the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), making it as a new ruling party after more than fifty years in the post-war politics of Japan. It is a regime change, indeed.
The significance and impact of this turn-over of power is yet to be properly gauged. Granted that it is the beginning of a process for a new political configuration in government, in terms of a broader vision of Japan and concrete policy prescriptions to achieve that vision, many questions remain. The challenges facing the DPJ are enormous.
Suffice to recall the miserable fate of the Hosokawa coalition government, which came to power in August 1993 under the banner of political reform, but quickly fizzled out in April 1994. The Hata coalition government, which succeeded the Hosokawa government likewise resigned in mere two months. The LDP, in turn, formed a coalition government with the Japan Socialist Party (JSP) and another splinter party from the original LDP in June 1994.
Since then, the LDP's coalition form of government has continued to date, albeit with a different partner. The singularly major achievement of the Hosokawa government was the re-introduction, in 1994, of a single-seat constituency system, which would promote the development of a healthy and competitive two major political party system.
Although the birth of the Hosokawa government signalled the end of the 1955 political system, in which the conservative LDP ruled and the left-wing JSP remained a perennial opposition party, and coincided with the end of the Cold War, it has also precipitated the spawning of several smaller political parties, contrary to the initial expectations about the single-seat electoral system.
Given these recent developments in the political landscape, it is not certain at all whether the present regime change will also be short-lived or lead ultimately to a major reconfiguration of power and authority in a parliamentary system itself. It will all depend on whether the DPJ will be able to implement some of the major policy initiatives it has proffered.
To do that, it would require the metamorphosis of the government's policy making process itself to what is referred to as a "parliamentary cabinet system" à la British Westminster from the current "bureaucracy-led cabinet system." Under the LDP's perennial practice, the ruling party's policy-making organs have exercised more power than the cabinet, and the bureaucracy is playing a rather powerful interlocutory role in the same process.
The DPJ intends to curtail the power of the bureaucracy in policy-making in general and budget-formulation in particular, by making the bureaucracy subject to the power and authority of the cabinet. But without an efficient and competent civil service, no government can function properly. How the DPJ leadership manages to extricate the cabinet from this bureaucratic power grip, without demoralising bureaucrats, is the key to the LDP's success.
That is a major challenge to the DPJ at the helm of government. The DPJ's success in last Sunday's election is not because of the voters' overwhelming confidence placed in the DPJ. Rather, voter disappointment in, and alienation from, the LDP prompted them to turn to the DPJ as a "pinch hitter," so to speak.
Despite the LDP's relentless criticism of the lack of experience and competence of the DPJ in governance, the LDP's unprecedented level of unpopularity failed to sway the Japanese electorate, which was disillusioned by the LDP, and which in turn considers it reasonable to try the DPJ for a change.
After all, many of the DPJ's members were splintered originally from the LDP. The electorate's expectations for change and strong leadership are high in the midst of an economy still in shambles. The unemployment rate, released for July, three days before the election was 5.7%, the highest rate since the recession started.
Understandably, the DPJ's 2009 "manifesto," prepared for the election, focuses on domestic concerns with a five-point policy platform such as the government budget reform, family protection, education, medical care, pensions, decentralisation of government, and economic recovery.
Now that the DPJ won a comfortable majority of the members of the Lower House, with the Upper House already more or less in control, the DPJ will be in the firm control of the legislative process of the two Houses in the parliament. In the Upper House, the DPJ is the leading party, but short of a two-thirds majority and needs to associate with the Social Democratic Party (SDP).
The only potentially impeding factor is that the composition of the membership of the DPJ itself. After all, the DPJ is an amalgamation of politicians from across Japan's political spectrum, ranging from conservative elements of the original LDP, through moderate members of the original LDP to the left-wing elements of the original JSP, which is now the SDP. And their views on many issues are at odds with each other to varying degrees.
As for domestic policy programs, there being little room for major disagreements among various elements of parties in partnership with the DPJ, it is expected that acceptable compromises will be made in one way or another. The problem is with the foreign policy and the security agenda; there are substantially sticky issues over which policy prescriptions widely differ among DPJ politicians themselves, let alone from the SDP.
The DPJ's election manifesto is tellingly vague or even silent about them, indicating discordance within the party. Starting with the 2009 revision of the National Defence Program Outlines, scheduled for adoption before the end of this year, the DPJ decided only last week to defer that action until the LDP would complete its fundamental review. It is still unclear how the National Defence Program Outlines will be played out among DPJ politicians.
Other troublesome policy issues are the refuelling of the US naval vessels in the Indian Ocean, in support of their operations in the war in Afghanistan; and the participation by the Japan Maritime Self-Defence Force in safeguarding ships against the Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean.
These specific questions all relate to a broader question of Japan's role in the maintenance of international peace and security, pursuant to decisions of the United Nations Security Council or, in the absence of which, the exercise of the state's inherent right of self-defence and collective self-defence as recognised by the UN Charter.
The understanding of the conceptual nexus between each state's obligation to maintain international peace and security and its right of self-defence or of collective self-defence is common and normal. Japan alone stands out as "abnormal" denying the right to collective self-defence, notwithstanding it being a party to the US-Japan Security Treaty and, thus, a beneficiary of the United States extended nuclear deterrence.
Japan as a non-permanent Security Council member worked hard for the adoption of UN Security Council resolution 1874 of June 12, 2009, which authorised, among other things, the inspection of North Korean vessels suspected of being connected with North Korea's nuclear programme. Yet, due to the dissolution of parliament last month, Japan abandoned the enactment of a piece of legislation needed to enable the Japan Maritime Self-Defence Force to carry out such naval inspection operations.
It is sheer fantasy to think that such behaviour is acceptable. There are real threats developing recently not only from North Korea, but also China's naval build-up, including its desire to have aircraft carriers as "a reflection of a nation's comprehensive power." It is urgent that the DPJ review its policies more vigorously and engage in a more responsible analysis of Japan's security needs rather than merely chanting our "reliance on US nuclear deterrence."
Change in power signals different policy choices from those of the incumbent LDP, which has become accustomed to depending entirely on the United States. As a result, it has, in effect, perpetuated the same security relations originally introduced in 1951. "Relations of dependency are hardest to break," said Kenneth Waltz, "where dependent states cannot shift from reliance on one great power to reliance on another." That is exactly where Japan is today.
We need to outgrow this dependency syndrome. The DPJ has indicated it will seek to forge an "equal alliance" with the United States, suggesting a broader review of Japan's most important bilateral relationship with the United States. As the DPJ starts its review and seeks its more "equal partnership" relationship with the United States, all the security issues, buried in its ambiguous policy statements or not mentioned at all by the DPJ's manifesto, will be inevitably brought out openly.
They need to be examined in a realistic and responsible manner. The most fundamental question for the DPJ is how Japan can fashion a more "equal partnership relationship" in the context of the asymmetrical security relations between the United States and Japan.
In a nutshell, it boils down to the acceptance by the new government of the right of collective self-defence and the taking up of a greater responsibility for not only its own security, but also for the maintenance of international peace and security. When DPJ leaders grasp these two fundamental issues in the affirmative, they may find their bipartisan supporters in the LDP, the new opposition party. That will mark the birth of a new Japan.