Japan’s Current Political Situation, July 2010 Shinichi Manabe, The Eurasia Center
“Unstable,” “unbalanced,” and “worried” are words that describe how the Japanese feel right now. On July 11, 2010, Japan’s upper house election took place. People thought that the Democratic Party Japan (DPJ) was going to hold half of the seats in the upper house this time, but it did not happen. Instead, the DPJ won just 44 seats, whereas the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) won 51 seats. It caused a situation known as a “twisted Diet”; in other words, it does not have enough power to pass laws in both the lower and upper houses. Let’s backtrack to the lower house election in 2009. The DPJ, the main opposition at the time, won the lower house election, which was a historical moment in Japan because it ended more than half a century of uninterrupted rule by the LDP. The DPJ and other coalition parties won 340 seats out of 480 seats in the chamber. There are several reasons why the DPJ won the lower house election. People were disappointed at the LDP’s policy because the economic situation was worsening and unemployment was increasing. For example, before the lower election, the unemployment rate was higher than ever before at 5.6%. In addition, the DPJ’s manifesto during the election was on the peoples’ minds. The DPJ’s Yukio Hatoyma said that the DPJ would stop wasting money, which began in bureaucrat-reliant policies. The DPJ decided to spend money on what was really important. This was the DPJ’s platform. It promised to support households with policies such as providing free education public high schools, providing aid from the government for households with kids, establishing free highways, et al. After the election, Yukio Hatoyama was appointed Prime Minister in Japan, and people thought that a new day would come to Japan. Implementing new policies were not as easy, because the DPJ had to remove many obstacles and ways of doing things that the LDP created over many decades. However, Hatoyama succeeded in promoting some parts of his agenda which he promised during the campaign. As a result of this, he accomplished several of them during his term; for example, the DPJ started providing free education for public high schools. “The Kodomo Teate Law” provides 13,000 yen, which is worth 150 US dollars for all of children who are under 15 years per month to parents. Those policies started successfully, but he could not accomplish everything he proposed. This decreased the DPJ’s popularity gradually and the situation was made worse by Hatoyama’s money scandal, President Ichiro Ozawa’s funding money issue, and the military base problems between people in Okinawa and the U.S. government. Finally, Hatoyama could not handle the pressures of these problems and decided to resign on June 2, 2010. Not only did the prime minister resigned, but Ozawa was also asked to resign in order to get rid of the dirty money image that he had created for the DPJ. After Hatoyama resigned, a new prime minister was appointed. His name is Naoto Kan and he became 94th prime minister in Japan, and strangely, the DPJ’s popularity was raised slightly as compared to when Yukio Hatoyama was prime minister. Prime minister Kan is also inherited a tough and complicated situation because he has to deal with all the problems created by Hatoyama. For example, the American military base issue was one of the important things to do immediately for both people in Okinawa and the U.S. government. During the lower house campaign in 2009, prime minister Hatoyama said that he would close an American military base on the island of Okinawa, but eventually, he could not do it because of pressure from both people in Okinawa and the U.S. government. He was attempting to move the military base to some other prefectures in Japan, but no one wanted the military base in their areas. Furthermore, the former ruling party LDP criticized Hatoyama as being a liar and lacking the power of governability because of this issue. However, the interesting thing is that the LDP and the mayor of Okinawa had an agreement to settle the military base issue in Okinawa in 2006. The deal was to move the military base from Futenma to Henoko in Nago city. The mayor mentioned that if the military base was built a little further away from the city, he would accept the agreement, but the LDP did not even start constructing the base because the LDP was afraid that the LDP was going to lose popularity in Okinawa. This issue is still unresolved. Recently, the DPJ came out with a statement that there would be an election for mayor in Okinawa in November, and the DPJ will wait for this military base issue until a new mayor is elected. In conclusion, the American military base will remain in Okinawa to provide security assurances for the US allies in Asia. This is unfortunate for people in Okinawa, but there is a nationwide agreement with the U.S. government, so it has to remain in Okinawa. However, the Japanese government must help people in Okinawa as much as they can, especially by reducing noise pollution from the bases. Japan’s economy situation is critical right now, but Kan might help to revitalize the economy. Kan was a financial minister before being appointing prime minister, so he has knowledge of economics. He knows Japan’s economic situation and is aware of its $800 trillion deficit, which is held domestically by Japanese citizens at almost 95 percent.5 Furthermore, Japan has been in an aggressive deflation period since the end of last year because the consumer prices fell badly and tax revenues declined. The recent price declines occurred despite the massive government stimulus in 2009, so the Bank of Japan came out with almost zero interest policy rates. It helped to lend money to people in Japan, and provide more opportunities to use money and cause a cash flow in order to revitalize economy, but citizens do not borrow and use money because of this recession. They prefer saving money than using money now.6 Moreover, the Japanese “Yen” is relatively expensive, which shows that even though we export our products such as TV, cars, to other countries, they are becoming more expensive these days. In order to make good profits, the Yen depreciate in value. Companies include Toyota, Honda, Panasonic, Sony, and many more companies, have helped to grow the economy by selling their products in foreign countries for a long period of time. However, this economic recession has devastating affects on them, and they cannot make profits like they used to. Therefore, it is not easy to get out of deflation, and the economy is also already overloaded with a $800 trillion deficit. People in Japan are worried about the future. In addition, before the upper house election, Prime Minister Kan mentioned that in order to reduce the $800 trillion debts, the government has to increase taxes from 5% upwards to 10% for everything single product. All of the Japanese media, TV news, and newspapers mentioned the same thing: that the DPJ lost the upper house election because it said it would increase taxes. However, the LDP also came out with a same 10% tax policy just like the DPJ. The main issue was hiding under the tax issue. It was a bad image of former DPJ member’s money scandals, which caused them to lose the upper house election. The ex-Prime Minister Hatoyama participated in a money scandal along with Ozawa. This money issue has not been settled in yet, and prosecutors are still investigating where the money came from, and people always see this on the news. Therefore, people lacked confidence in the DPJ’s manifesto because Hatoyama did not live up to his promises, so people were not sure that the DPJ was still dependable. Thus, this upper house election shows a lack of capability in the DPJ’s manifesto. Japan a number of issues facing it right now - national security, governmental reform, and the economy. A lot of issues have not been solved yet, and all citizens are not sure about how Japan will move forward from this situation. It is hard to predict what is going to happen next. However, this idea will be a trigger to make a better situation. On May 18, 2010, according to the Diet, all citizens can decide whether to change the constitution of Japan or not, but both the DPJ and the LDP have not undertaken any processes to make this happen, so people still have to wait for it. The constitution of Japan was originally made by the U.S. government in 1947, and since then, it has not been amended. This is a great chance for the Japanese to take their constitution into their own hands for the first time. It will be a historical moment in Japan’s history, and it will give a chance to Japan to be more independent, which means that Japan will no longer depend on other countries too much, and it will definitely help to develop Japan in terms of security, government, and the economy for the future. Notes The Economist, "Let's twist again." July 15, 2010.http://www.economist.com/node/16591215 (accessed July 19, 2010). Masami Ito. "In landslide, DPJ wins over 300 seats LDP crushed; Hatoyama set to take power." August 31, 2009.http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20090831a1.html (accessed July 20, 2010). Trading Economics, "Japan Unemployment Rate." http://www.tradingeconomics.com/Economics/Unemployment-Rate.aspx?Symbol=JPY (accessed July 20, 2010). Minoru, Matsutani. "Ins, outs of new child allowance." April 1, 2010.http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20100401f1.html (accessed July 22, 2010). 5 Lily Nonomiya and Russell Ward. "Noda Hails China’s Buys of Japan Debt as Demand Eases." July 15, 2010.http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-07-15/noda-hails-china-s-buys-of-japan-debt-as- demand-eases.html (accessed July 22, 2010). 6 Messenger , Alex . "Japanese economy plagued by deflation and debt." March, 25 2010.http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/mar2010/japa-m25.shtml (accessed July 22, 2010). Bibliography Ito, Masami. "In Landslide, DPJ Wins over 300 Seats | The Japan Times Online." The Japan Times. The Japan Times, 31 Aug. 2009. Web. 20 July 2010.
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