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Guest Post: Support For Hatoyama Government Plummets

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Submitted by Maurizio d'Orlando of www.AsiaNews.it

"When public support of a government falls below 30%, it means that the
government is in a bad way," writes a renowned analyst in Asahi
newspaper. The euphemistic expression implies that the Japanese
government appears close to collapse: an investigation conducted by the
same newspaper on April 18, shows that the popularity index of Prime
Minister Yukio Hatoyama stands at 25%, only seven months ago, when the
Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), of which Hatoyama is president, opened
its government, the popularity index was 71%: one of the highest
enjoyed by any previous government.

Is it simply a case of precarious public opinion? Not really.
Sometimes, comments another analyst, popular opinion is "brutally
honest". Most of the media indicate the reason for the drop in public
support for Hatoyama in his inability to govern. It seems that the
prime minister’s indecision is only the cause of the crisis. The
reasons which reveal its significance and unfortunately, its severity
are political in nature: in the last 10 years, both the political class
- and opposition – as well as the people themselves did not realize
that Japan was changing rapidly both in internally and in its
international relations, responding effectively.

I will try to isolate and place them in a historical framework
outlined by three events: the election of 31 August 2009, won with an
overwhelming majority by the DPJ, the journalistic investigations of
mid-April, which revealed the weakness of the government; the end of
May , which is the time limit indicated by Hatoyama for a decision on
the relocation of the Futenma U.S. military base on the island of
Okinawa.

A democratic dream, but without programs

Yukio Hatoyama (63) was one of the few politicians who knew
how to read the "signs of the times" for Japan. Rather than ambition,
"genealogy" led him to embrace his political career. His grandfather,
Ichiro Hatoyama (1883-1959) was the first popularly elected post-war
prime minister.  He was also a cofounder of the LDP,
(1955), he' ruled for decades with an absolute majority, encouraging
the economic development of Japan.  Moreover his father
Iichiro (1918-1993) was foreign minister. Yukio, joined the LDP (1986),
leaving its ranks in 1996, having sensed that the political party no
longer met the needs of the times, He, then, with others founded the
DPJ, which presented itself as the party of "historic change of
regime." Noting the negative result, a critic wrote: "The (Hatoyama)
government in virtual free-fall, has made a hoax of the motto 'historic
regime change".

It was a beautiful dream, and in fact it found extraordinary
electoral support. But it was too beautiful and has not been
transformed into reality through a workable program. The people have
turned their backs on the government because it has not kept its
promises as set out in the so-called "Manifesto”, (party program),
where among other things, they committed themselves to restoring policy
making to the government taking it away from the bureaucrats. But
competence is not created by simply replacing protagonists along
idealistic lines.

The military base at Futenma and tension with the United States

"Japan is no longer on Obama's list of priorities”.  So read an article in The Korea Times
from their correspondent in Washington. "When president Barack Obama
took office”, the Korean newspaper comments, “he was quick to show his
commitment to Japan inviting the then Japanese prime minister as his
first guest to the White House, but ten days ago when Hatoyama went to
Washington for a summit on nuclear safety, the American president only
granted a private interview of 10 minutes during lunch. Instead he
found time for official talks with 13 other leaders including Chinese
President Hu Jintao, whom he entertained for 90 minutes. "

George Packard, president of the United States-Japan
Foundation said: "I found it absolutely shocking that the two nations
failed to schedule a meeting".

The friction between the two governments are the result of the
Japanese Prime Minister’s Diplomatic ‘naïveté' and his slowness to work
together to solve the problem of relocation of the U.S. military base
at Futenma.

Interviewed by the Times Hatoyama said: "Japan has always acted in response to what the U.S. said. For us it is time to seek a more equal relationship. "

Much more problematic is the delay in response to the problem
of Futenma base which is located in the city of Ginowan on the island
of Okinawa, where there were the most deadly battles of the Pacific
War. Twenty years after the end of that war, the U.S. returned the
island to Japan, but keeping the military base for obvious strategic
reasons: to control China and defend Taiwan and Japan. In 2006 the
governments of Washington, and Tokyo have signed an agreement with
mayors of local people to transfer the base near the city of Nago in
the north of the island. But even here the population and mayor oppose
the move.  Hatoyama has promised to do everything possible to meet the desires of the people.

Hatoyama is on the ropes

It is not just a matter of policy. A cooling of relations with
America is not well regarded by many Japanese. This year marks the 50th
anniversary of the pact of mutual security between the U.S. and Japan
(1960). This pact enshrined Japan’s threefold antinuclear principle
(not to produce, possess and not to introduce nuclear weapons) meaning
Japan  can not have nuclear weapons, rather it makes use
of anti-nuclear umbrella of the United States. And so it was able to
use its prodigious energies and money on economic development, of which
everyone is aware. In this context, in March Sadakazu Tanigaki,
chairman of the LDP, now in opposition, asked Hatoyama about his
intentions regarding the issue of Futenma. The Prime Minister committed
himself  to expressing his decision by the end of May. A
promised he confirmed during his brief meeting with President Obama in
Washington. Pursuant to this commitment Hatoyama can no longer delay
the decision beyond that date.  He
is on the ropes.

Severe government paralysis looms

With the self-imposed ultimatum, the Prime Minister has
gambled with his political life. If he fails to find a satisfactory
solution he will have to resign. But then the crisis will be even more
serious because it is not clear how early elections can create a more
stable government.  It has emerged from the Asahi
that popular support for the DPJ, Hatoyama’s party,is at '23%,but
support for the LDP, the party ousted from government in August, has
also dropped to 14%.

The Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) must urgently rewrite its
"Manifesto" to an achievable dimension and reconfigure the relationship
between politicians and bureaucrats. If political parties do not wake
up, then people will increasingly abandon them. a serious governmental
stasis is looming.

This should concern everyone, because Japan is not a developing country. A recent survey conducted jointly by the BBC World Service and the Yomiuri Shimbun
(Japanese newspaper) on world influence among 16 nations and the
European Union, Japan, ties in second place with the EU, preceded by
Germany.

 

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Mon, 04/26/2010 - 22:53 | 319099 Mr Lennon Hendrix
Mr Lennon Hendrix's picture

I'll tell you what else is plummeting, Asia....gold is heading for support.

Mon, 04/26/2010 - 23:23 | 319125 Mitchman
Mitchman's picture

Our dear President is very adept at lecturing to and insulting our Allies while kissing the butts of tim horn dictators around the world.  At least his foreign policy and economic achievements are on a par with one another.  Domestically he has Larry Summers, Turbo Tax tim and the rest of the Curious Crew as an excuse.  What's his excuse on foreign policy?  

Tue, 04/27/2010 - 08:16 | 319338 kaiserhoff
kaiserhoff's picture

+1000  Glad someone else noticed.  Some things are just too obvious.

Mon, 04/26/2010 - 23:45 | 319141 three chord sloth
three chord sloth's picture

Japan is screwed. When the real estate bubble burst two decades ago (!), they decided to try to avoid the pain, and in doing so, they turned what would have been a sharp three or four year retrenchment into a multidecade stagnation, and strip mined away their once prodigious savings as well.

Now they find themselves in debt to the tune of 200+% of GDP and the banks are still full of bad debt. Tell me... what have they accomplished? Why was all of this done?

Throw in the demographic decline and you've got a real mess on your hands. No wonder the people are pissed.

Tue, 04/27/2010 - 00:06 | 319160 Rusty_Shackleford
Rusty_Shackleford's picture

I've always found it interesting that they are in debt to the tune of 200% of GDP, but yet they're always happy to borrow more so that they can finance our (USA) debt spending by being the second largest holder/purchaser of our treasury debt.  Do you think a single citizen or member of their media has ever raised that as a legitimate question? 

Something like, "Sir, why are we going further into debt buying American Treasuries?  Why don't we just sell the ones we have and pay off our debt with the proceeds?" 

Is this policy even a subject of public debate in Japan?

Tue, 04/27/2010 - 01:11 | 319189 three chord sloth
three chord sloth's picture

The heck if I know. They're at the point where they've got to borrow more just to make the payments on the old debt, but borrow and borrow some more is all they seem to do. And no one downgrades their bond rating.

I've come to the conclusion that the powers-that-be are just so wedded to the current system, and their belief sets that got us all here, that they physically cannot see any other way. Its scary to contemplate, but I think they think they're doing a bang-up job running things.

Tue, 04/27/2010 - 00:11 | 319162 Cursive
Cursive's picture

Indecision?  Not specific to Hatoyama.  They've had over 20 years of indecision.  Unfortunately, testicular fortitude is a rare commodity today.  America's leaders are no different.  With good leaders, you may have a little pain or discomfort, but you can avoid catastrophe.  We are headed for catastrophe.

Tue, 04/27/2010 - 01:35 | 319204 suteibu
suteibu's picture

This article glosses over the problems and misinterprets others.  Hatoyama is  not faring well over Futenma, not because people are worried about tension in the US-Japanese security alliance, but because they back the Okinawans in wanting to move the base out of Japan.

Even so, the Futenma issue is something brewed up by the DLP to weaken Hatoyama ahead of the summer elections. Not to say it isn't a big story there, only that the opposition set the original deadline for the end of May.

The snub by Obama is seen as a continuation of several actions by the US including the Toyota thing, strong-arming on beef imports, the WAPO piece where Al Kamen called Hatoyama "loopy", and the disrespect of appointing a friend-of-Obama, diplomatic nobody as Ambassador to a close ally.

As for the DPJ rewriting their manifesto, they are all in on the Keynesian debt, stimulus, Obama blueprint.  The only thing they have disagreed on financially is the global bank regulations, but that is mostly because the government owns the Japan Post Bank and doesn't want to have to deal with global regulations as they try to use that money to finance more debt.

It is a mess over there but quite interesting.

Tue, 04/27/2010 - 08:19 | 319339 overmedicatedun...
overmedicatedundersexed's picture

Ben caught singing in the shower: "I think I am turning Japanese I really think so"

 

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