By Feng Zhaokui
The domestic political situation of the United States maintains
significant influence over that of Japan thanks to the unique
relationship between the two countries since the end of World War
II.
One apparent fact in this regard is that since the 1950s, the
Japanese government has tended to be steady and conservative (such
as Yoshida Shigeru, who was prime minister for the first time from
May 1946 to May 1947 and then re-elected to the post for four terms
in a row between October 1948 and December 1954; Ikeda Hayato, who
was prime minister for three terms between July 1960 and November
1964; Murayama Tomiichi, who was in office from June 1994 to
January 1996; and Hashimoto Ryutaro, who succeeded Murayama in
January 1996 and left office July 1998) when the Democrats were in
control of the US administration; and, when the conservatives were
in power, their Japanese counterparts assumed a similarly hawkish
posture more often than not (for example, Kishi Nobusuke, who was
prime minister from December 1957 to July 1960; Sato Eisaku, who
succeeded Ikeda Hayato in January 1964 and left office in July
1972; Nakasone Yasuhiro, who was in office from November 1982 to
November 1987; and Junichiro Koizumi, who was there from April 2001
to September 2006.)
Both the steady conservatives and the hawkish conservatives
emphasize Japan's ties with the US and the Japan-US alliance, but
the former (except Yoshida Shigeru) tended to attach more
importance to balancing the Japan-US ties and Japan-China
relations, while the latter (with the exception of Nakasone
Yasuhiro) were mostly more pro-US and tough on China.
Within the Bush administration today, there is a sort of rivalry
between the neo-conservative faction led by Vice-President Dick
Cheney and an international coordination-oriented approach. The
neo-conservatives led by Cheney have dominated American
policymaking process and marginalized the international
coordination-oriented approach advocated by former secretaries of
state Colin Powell and James Baker.
When the neo-conservatives were in control of the US politics,
then Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi (in office 2001-06)
pursued a "totally pro-US" policy with such fervor that even former
British prime minister Tony Blair failed to match, making Japan in
a sense "more British than Great Britain" (It is a fundamental
resolve of the US neo-conservatives to make Japan the "Great
Britain of the Far East") and pushing the Japan-US alliance into
"the best ever in history." It is safe to say the "honeymoon
diplomacy" forged by Junichiro Koizumi and US President George W.
Bush is also a "honeymoon period" for the joint forces of the US
Republican administration and the Japanese right-wing hawkish
government.
Since Prime Minister Shinzo Abe took office, however, the
Japan-US honeymoon has cooled down a bit. For instance, some
Japanese analysts observed that during his visit to Washington in
May this year, "Abe appeared to have been welcomed by President
Bush, but their meeting covered little substance as he was not
treated as a head of state and in fact given a cold shoulder". And
"there is little denying Abe's US trip is a major flop in the
history of Japan-US relations".
The US Senate Foreign Relations Committee passed a resolution
over the issue of "comfort women" before Abe's US visit, while a
New York Times editorial described him as "a dangerous
nationalist". Some US officials said in private they were not sure
Abe "was the man he appeared to be". Nevertheless, Abe decided to
extend the mission in Iraq by Japanese Self-Defense Forces to
provide an airlift service to US troops there and continued to
support America's war in Iraq, while maintaining the domestic
policy of following the US neo-liberalist economic doctrine and
rammed through the citizen voting law designed to facilitate
constitutional revision in an avid bid to rewrite Article 9 of the
post-war pacifist Constitution. That constitutional revision would
legalize combat missions by Japanese forces overseas - "alongside
US forces".
All this shows that, despite the serious setbacks the
neo-conservative Bush administration has suffered, the Republican
Party's bloody loss in last year's Congressional midterm elections
and mounting criticism of the Bush administration's war policy and
neo-liberalist economic policy, Abe's cabinet remained firm on the
course of echoing the US neo-liberalism set by his predecessor
Junichiro Koizumi.
In Japan's domestic affairs, however, Abe had to go almost all
out to address the newly exposed pension insurance management mess
as popular anxiety over the matter pushed aside his plan to set
constitutional revision the "focal point" in the upcoming Upper
House election, while the opposition parties seized the opportunity
to launch a fierce round of criticism aimed at the pro-US
neo-liberalist economic policy adopted by Abe and his predecessor
Junichiro Koizumi. At the same time, the Communist Party of Japan
and the Socialist Party also blasted Abe's attempt to revise
Article 9 of the post-war pacifist Constitution, with considerable
support from many voters to boot.
Abe did not choose foreign policy as the "match point" of his
ruling party to rely on for winning the upcoming Upper House
election. The Bush administration has been in such a disastrous
state lately that he "does not want to see any document concerning
(North Korea) on his desk". His aides understand him so well they
started talking directly to North Korean government without
bringing Tokyo along in a bid to get over with the "Korea nuclear
issue" as soon as possible. This move in fact left Japan out of the
loop, which some Japanese right-wing commentators saw as "yet
another example of over-our-head diplomacy" and another failure of
Japan's foreign policy concerning North Korea.
The quieting of the Korean issue also cost Abe an important
"trump card", as a key reason why Abe won the October 2006 Lower
House by-election is that many voters concerned about the "Korean
nuclear issue" backed his Liberal Democratic Party. Besides, he was
lucky to have gotten no flogging from opposition parties for his
ill handling of the "comfort women issue", as the US government
also "cut him some slack" by putting off the Congressional vote on
this issue till after Japan's Upper House election next week.
In the US, which practices bipartisan politics, many people
think the eight-year administration of Republican President Bush
will very likely hand over the White House to a Democrat in next
November's presidential election. And even if the Republican Party
wins again, it will have to adopt a set of policies very different
from what the Bush administration has been playing with.
This trend is already impacting on Japan's political landscape.
Some right-wing commentators have gone so far as to warn that Japan
would find itself in a "Year 2008 Crisis" if the results of the
Republic of Korea's presidential election this December, the
election in Taiwan of China next year, and the US primary in 2008
all turn out not what the Japanese hawkish conservatives would like
to see.
Naturally, the "crisis" they were talking about is in fact a
"crisis" for Japan's hawkish conservative politics, not for Japan's
national interest. Currently, though there is still more than a
year before George W. Bush bids adieu to his "war and
neo-conservatism" presidency, the likelihood of the Democrats
taking over the US administration from the Republicans means the
post-Bush world politics might take on a major change. Japan's
Upper House election is unfolding exactly in such a setting.
Needless to say, the two major conservative parties in today's
Japan aren't exactly black and white as far as their policies are
concerned, as there is a steady conservative faction within the
hawkish conservative LDP while the steady conservative Democratic
Party has a hawkish conservative faction in itself. Rivaling
political philosophies within the two major conservative parties
are jostling for attention.
Currently some of the young and rising politicians within the
Democratic Party don't necessarily agree with the party
leadership's political outlook and are committed to "aiming their
guns at the enemy" for the time being only because they hate LDP's
"majority might" and look forward to a bipartisan system for
Japan.
After the Upper House election next week, some factional split
and reshuffle may happen among Japan's political parties. With this
possible scenario in mind and think about Japan's next Lower House
election in two years' time, it seems not a good idea to simply
draw the line only around the LDP and Democratic Party when we
discuss how the changing political trend in the US affects Japan's
party politics.
The author is a researcher with the Institute of Japan
Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
(China Daily July 27, 2007)
