Abe's shaky idealsJun 01, 2007
By Kevin Rafferty
South China Morning Post (Hong Kong)A minister's suicide has thrown light on the corruption that still pervades Japanese politics, writes Kevin Rafferty
The suicide of agriculture minister Toshikatsu Matsuoka should sound alarm bells about the potential perils ahead for Japanese politics. According to historians and social scientists, the nation has traditionally been careful to avoid ideology. Chie Nakane, the prominent anthropologist, contrasted Japan and China in this way: "The Japanese way of thinking depends on the situation rather than principle - while, with the Chinese, it is the other way around ... We Japanese have no principles. Some people think we hide our intentions, but we have no intentions to hide. Except for a few leftists and rightists, we have no dogma and don't ourselves know where we are going ..."
Today, Japan is in the dangerous position of having a prime minister, in Shinzo Abe, with an ideology - yet the country still does not know where it is going.
Mr Abe's mission has two aspects that don't easily fit together and don't make a full canvas on which to create a national polity. His often-declared mantra is to recreate Japan as a "beautiful country". But his undeclared driving force - his personal ideology - is to pay homage to his grandfather politician at whose knee he first learned his politics.
In a sense his grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi, does not need rehabilitation by Mr Abe. He went from being a member of the cabinet that declared war in 1941 to being imprisoned as a Class-A war criminal before his phoenix-like political rebirth as co-founder of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and, finally, prime minister of Japan 50 years ago.
Some commentators were surprised that when Mr Abe took over from Junichiro Koizumi, last year, he chose to make his first foreign trip to China rather than the US. They said that this displayed a refreshing sense of independence and a new understanding of the world.
But, in fact, Mr Abe was taking a leaf from his grandfather's book. Kishi's first trips as prime minister were to Southeast Asia; only later did he go to the US.
Kishi's later achievement was to redress the balance of relations with Washington. But he died with his political agenda unfulfilled, which is where Mr Abe enters - dangerously.
Kishi called repeatedly for the eradication of all the after-effects of the US post-war occupation and the recovery of genuine independence, code words for getting rid of the occupiers. But the US-drafted constitution is still a sore point and stumbling block on that road to full sovereign independence in Mr Abe's mind.
The prime minister does face opposition. Some supporters of the present constitution believe it should be enshrined as a national treasure or even as one of the seven wonders of the modern world. In contrast to the performance of President George W. Bush's America in Iraq today, the US occupiers in Japan brought a peace and freedom that Japanese had not known for decades.
The controversial "no-war" clause allowed Japan to devote its energies to rebuilding its economy without worrying about its armed forces. That clause, which Mr Abe is keen to scrap, also allowed the Japanese to present themselves as unique, victims of the atomic bomb who had renounced weapons - and many Japanese would like to keep that precious claim to peace.
If Mr Abe gets his way, the new constitution will not be a document by the people, but a charter drawn up by the right-wing political elite for the people - but one in which they have onerous duties to be patriotic and recapture the lost Bushido spirit of ancient Japan. It is a dangerous path to be treading, especially under the leadership of Mr Abe and his right-wing ideologues, in a rapidly changing world.
There are a couple of sharp ironies here. One is that Mr Abe's own credentials for leading the change are thin. He became prime minister with a commanding majority, not through his own popularity, but because of deals struck in the dark, smoke-filled LDP rooms.
More important is that, although Mr Abe talks of creating a "beautiful country", his recent policies have taken him slavishly close to the US. He declared that Washington and Tokyo share "universal values" and is trying to modify the terms of engagement of Japan's military so that it can come to the assistance of US forces.
Cynics might suggest that Mr Abe is following former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger's realpolitik advice to Japan to stay close to the US until America becomes weak, and then to cut a deal with China. But it hardly adds to Japan's "beauty" to be in the shadow of Washington, or Beijing.
Worse, Matsuoka was appointed agriculture minister even though he represented agricultural interests and was suspected of receiving money from forestry road contracts in a bid-rigging scandal. He killed himself hours before he was due to face questioning in parliament.
Right up to his death, Mr Abe, who had pledged to create a clean and fresh government, supported Matsuoka to the hilt. After news of his death emerged, Mr Abe praised him for getting China to resume imports of Japanese rice.
The response of the Japanese public has been to send the government's popularity plummeting, but there is an air of resignation that all politicians are corrupt.
What is most worrying is that these men are mostly corrupt and that, armed with a new constitution, they could be a danger to themselves as well as to the rest of the world.
It would be nice to think that Japan had real friends among the Group of Eight which meets next week. Japan needs some sensible advice about the way to create a fresh and clean agenda. The problem is, it's unclear who has a clear conscience and clean hands.
Kevin Rafferty is author of Inside Japan's Powerhouses, a study of Japan Inc and internationalisation.
Former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe shakes hands with Cambodia's Deputy Prime Minister Sok An (R) after receiving an honorary medal at Kampong Tralach district, 70km (40 miles) south of Phnom Penh, March 21, 2008. Abe is in Cambodia to attend attend the opening of a school funded by the voluntary association of Japanese parliamentarians and the Japan Team of Young Human Power (JHP). REUTERS/Chor Sokunthea
Former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe plants a tree with Cambodia's Deputy Prime Minister Sok An (R) at Kampong Tralach district, 70km (40 miles) south of Phnom Penh, March 21, 2008. Abe is in Cambodia to attend attend the opening of a school funded by the voluntary association of Japanese parliamentarians and the Japan Team of Young Human Power (JHP). REUTERS/Chor Sokunthea
