|
TOKYO -- For all the attention given to the rise of China, it is
still not the most important nation in Asia. Japan, with the globe’s
No. 2 economy and a growing list of problems, is. What’s more,
for Americans, this society is a virtual next-door neighbor -- not
some far-off Asian inscrutability. Its government buys U.S. bonds
and financials in voracious quantities that help underwrite the
U.S. budget; its multinationals, from Toyota to Sony, are household
names; its undulating economic performance casts frightening shadows
over other economies or helps light growth fires.
From this perspective, it’s not a stretch to say that, after
the Republican and Democratic, the political party with the greatest
impact on Americans (not to mention on Asians) is Japan’s
infamous LDP, the country’s largest.
To be sure, the longstanding joke in Japan is that the LDP is not
really Liberal or Democratic or even a true Party. But few Japanese
are laughing, for the joke’s increasingly on Japan. This ossified
conglomerate of mainly narrow-bore politicians in the back pocket
of vested interests is generally fingered as the lead weight dragging
down Japan.
Even the LDP’s powerful secretary-general, Taku Yamasaki,
labels the ’90s Japan’s ‘‘lost decade’’
and agrees the LDP has been part of the problem. He credits Prime
Minister Junichiro Koizumi, a colleague for years, with helping
Japan rediscover itself. In an hour-long interview in his LDP headquarters
office, the S-G claimed the PM is truly committed to putting the
Diet, the nation’s parliament, on a reduced-government-expenditure
diet. Koizumi, after reelection this weekend as LDP president, will
go to the country in a November national election seeking a mandate.
Retro LDP factions that stand in the way of economic reform, suggested
Yamasaki, will be either marginalized or purged, even if the process
fractures the LDP itself. ‘‘I won’t mind if I
destroy the LDP,’’ Koizumi has famously said. Its pork-barrel
constituencies are at the party’s rotten core and bloat the
national debt: They are the targets of his fat-finding reform campaign.
No more highways that connect nothing of consequence, financed out
of the national budget to pay off LDP campaign contributors. No
more wasteful bridges that 11 trucks a week cross. And no new taxes
under Koizumi, said Yamasaki, so the LDP can throw more money at
projects that do little but sate the appetite of greedy constituencies
already porked-to-the-gills on yen-cholesterol.
The Koizumi structural-reform campaign, explained Yamasaki, is like
the much-applauded fat-trimming at Nissan Motors. Once in serious
trouble, Nissan is back. But the company remained lifeless until
the arrival of that ‘‘Carlos -- an import,’’
in the S-G’s phrase. Brazilian-born, European-raised Carlos
Ghosn -- out of Renault and Michelin -- took over Nissan in 1999
when the board decided only an outsider could rock the corporate
culture.
Koizumi, a career politician, is no Latin import, of course. But
until recently he has been a black sheep in the LDP (it was only
a few years ago that he was given a ministerial position). Many
in the party loathe his arrogant flair, extravagant hair, maverick
image and lack of party homage. But many voters (especially women)
like Super-K for exactly those reasons. His reelection would certainly
be a vindication of his political style; it might even be a mandate
for change.
Japan is more than capable when its people come together in a unified
force. But gutsy leadership is required soon or the nation risks
‘‘catastrophe’’ (Yamasaki’s bold word,
not mine) if government debt continues to soar and the old ways
prevail. About one in five Japanese is 65 or older -- the highest
level among industrialized nations. Their needs will have to be
met even as their productivity declines. Yamasaki and Koizumi admire
their country’s tough, well-performing multinationals precisely
because they are, well, rather un-Japanese. They trim, they revive,
they grow. Why not Japan as country?
President George Bush, in next month’s expected visit, will
offer warm praise for Koizumi, one of the few Asian leaders to have
endorsed the Iraq adventure. The PM should luxuriate in the glow
while he can. The Japanese people and their leader face tough decisions
ahead. They’ve promised to send forces to help stabilize Iraq,
but noticeably not one soldier has yet packed. The six-party talks
on Korea remain on track, but presumably North Korea’s nuclear-weapons
and missile programs proceed apace -- especially unnerving to the
Japanese. And despite the strong rhetoric about ‘‘structural
reform,’’ agricultural subsidies and bloated road budgets
remain.
Over the weekend, Super-K reiterated the nation’s need to
revise its claustrophobic Japanese constitution to enable troops
to participate in peacekeeping operations abroad, as Bush wishes.
Should the Japanese as a people decide to move as fast as Koizumi
and Yamasaki believe they should, few people in Asia would bet against
Japan. But nothing so major has happened. The Koizumi Diet is a
big seller in Japan -- but no one’s lost much weight yet.
|
|
The above weekly column has just appeared in the Honolulu Advertiser,
The South China Morning Post and The Straits Times of Singapore.
The author, Tom Plate, is a regular columnist at these three papers.
The column also appears in other world newspapers, including The
San Francisco Chronicle, The Seattle Times, The Japan Times and
The Korea Times. Email him at: tplate@ucla.edu.
For publication
and reprint rights, contact the author directly or John Simpson
(john.simpson@latsi.com) of the Los Angeles Times Syndicate International. |
