Japan's Democratic Party Already Feels Like the U.S. Democratic Party

under President Obama.

The Democratic Party of Japan, or DPJ, won 308 seats out of 480 in the powerful Lower House in the August 30 election. A landslide bigger than anticipated, it is indeed a historic event. The Liberal Democratic Party, or LDP, who held the grip on the Japanese politics since the end of World War II, has only itself to blame for the crushing defeat. DPJ, whose leadership is mostly made up of ex-LDP members, is understandably ecstatic.

However, what is rapidly emerging in post-election political scene in Japan should be disturbing to the proponents of free market economy and of smaller government.

DPJ won in a landslide, and in their euphoria they may think they have the mandate. However, I suspect many of the DPJ votes were the votes against LDP, similar to the 2008 U.S. election where many voters voted against George Bush.

About the very first thing that the DPJ leadership announced after the election was the creation of the National Strategy Bureau (Kokka Senryaku Kyoku 国家戦略局）, which will be placed in the Cabinet and under the direct control of the Prime Minister. The head of the Bureau will have the same power as a Cabinet Minister. The Bureau will be in charge of deciding on "important national strategies and policies" including budget, which has long been the domain of the bureaucrats in the government ministries. 30 people will be appointed to this Bureau, and they will include politicians, experts from private sector and bureaucrats (a token gesture). The Bureau will be created initially by a Cabinet Order, which only requires the approval by the Cabinet, two signatures (of the Minister in charge and of the Prime Minister) to become a law.

Can you feel, see, smell the Obama administration here? DPJ seems intent on creating the equivalent of Obama's "czar" system, except the Japanese version will be created with the equivalent of the U.S.'s executive order.

The very name of the "National Strategy Bureau" sounds oddly dictatorial, coming from a party that is supposed to be left of center.

With the creation of the National Stretegy Bureau, DPJ makes it clear that the important policies, even down to the details, will be led by politicians, not bureaucrats. As if these career politicians, often 2nd or 3rd generation, more often than not from well-connected, wealthy families, actually know what to do. For good or bad, Japan has functioned because of the career bureaucrats who know how the system really works, without the meddling from the bumbling politicians. Now DPJ proposes to create an organization that sits on top of the sprawling bureaucracy to impose the DPJ leaders' vision.

Yukio Hatoyama, ex-LDP leader of DPJ who is himself a 4th-generation politician from a prominent family that has produced a Speaker of the Lower House, a Prime Minister, and a Foreign Minister in the past 120 years, is positioning himself as a champion (for the mass, I suppose) to battle the entrenched bureaucracy. Good luck with that.

Another DPJ leader, Naoto Kan, declared that DPJ may nullify the budget proposals that were coming up from the ministries (deadline for submission was 8/31) and that the new administration under DPJ may create the budget from scratch through this Bureau of National Strategy.

Their party's stated policies read like those of the Obama administration. A few examples:

Global warming:

• Create "cap and trade" carbon exchange market
• Create new tax to combat global warming

Finance:

• Comprehensive, structural reform to protect investors

Crisis management:

• Create a new agency to manage crisis, natural and man-made (terrorism, cyber-attack), under the control of the Cabinet

Community renewal:

• Modify tax law to benefit non-profit organizations

So it even has policies for "community". (I have a feeling that they don't know what "community" means these days in the U.S.)

Stanford-educated Yukio Hatoyama, who is slated to become the Prime Minister in the new administration, is also a proponent of giving a voting right to foreigners who live in Japan; he also wants to make Japan more "liveable" for foreigners.

These all suggest to me that the fear in the U.S. that Japan will distance herself from the U.S. in policies is overblown. After all, the leadership of DPJ is made up of ex-LDP members. Even on the defence and foreign policy front, I don't see much difference from the previous administration. On the contrary, the Obama administration should be comforted that at least one U.S. ally is very closely following his footsteps. He may regret, though, having appointed a virtual nobody to the position of ambassadorship to Japan.

(Links, except the last one, are in Japanese.)

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