The
following is the memo that I typed out on Wednesday for a Thursday
talk-and-Q&A lunch for a group of people from the embassies in Tokyo. I did
wind up doing a lot of talking regardless, and we never got to item 4. I am
conceited enough to think top believe the courteous post-session comments to
the effect that I came across as both entertaining (YES!) as well as
thought-provoking.
In the interests of brevity and in
view of the fact that I am a poor impromptu public speaker but a reasonably
competent conversationalist, I have whacked out the following mini-essays based
on the talking points that Ms. Yuka Tatsuno at the British Embassy for you to
read beforehand to a) decide whether or not I am actually worth listening to
and b) save the session for further elaboration (if someone of you arrive
without prior reading, it will have the added benefit for me of having my lunch
while it is still warm), on those or any other matters that are of interest to
you.
March 11, 2015 Jun Okumura
Command Performance
1.
The Legal Framework for National Security (The post-budget authorization
legislative process; Japan’s post-legislation role)
Only
legislation that secures the consent of Komeito will be submitted. This means
that a) enactment is only a matter of time and b) little will change in Japan’s
national security policy as the result. But turn your eyes away from the
legislative process, and you will see more substantial changes going on that
have more geopolitical significance.
Much of the discussions
revolving around a) the legislative and administrative consequences of efforts
to expand the scope of Japan’s military efforts through, among other things, the
reinterpretation of the Japanese constitution to allow collective self-defense
and b) the longer-term efforts to amend the constitution to provide a sounder footing
for the Japanese military and its activities are politically important but are
of very limited practical significance. Vastly more significant from the
national security and geopolitical perspectives are the Abe administration’s
efforts to a) enhance Japan’s security relationships with countries sharing “common
values including a belief in peace, freedom, democracy and the rule of law,
respect for human rights and the promotion of sustainable development”
through regular two-plus-two (foreign and defense ministers) arrangements and
b) embed Japan more deeply into the military-industrial complex based in those
countries. Let me explain.
First, let’s take a look
at the practical consequences of the ongoing legislative and administrative
initiative. Even before the parameters of the eventual compromise between Prime
Minister Abe and the LDP and Komeito emerge, any Japanese involvement in the
fight against Islam State (ISIL) beyond the humanitarian assistance currently
being provided has been ruled out by Mr. Abe. In fact, the only area of agreement
on the “international contribution” front is logistics in areas where fighting
has ceased. The rules for engagement by force is being somewhat eased, but the
JSDF will almost remain unable to come to the rescue of their non-Japanese
cohorts under fire. Beyond the fact that new individualized legislation will
not be required in case situations like the After-war in Iraq and the pirates
of Somalia present themselves, the only meaningful change on the ground appears
to be that the JSDF will no longer have to limit logistic support to whatever
they have till now have had to provide under the guise of transporting
non-military personnel and materiel.
There is somewhat more on
collective self-defense, with expansion beyond the Japan-U.S. Mutual Security
Treaty to include other allies. Still, any military assistance in the course of
self-defense will continue to be limited to the service of defending Japan. So
sorry, Australia, but if “The Coalition Nations” come a-calling, you
will be on your own as far as Japan is concerned. The
exchange for extraterritorial acts of self-defense per se of the “situations in
areas surrounding Japan” for phrasing without geographical constraints when “dealing
with imminent unlawful situations where the people’s right to life, liberty and
the pursuit of happiness is fundamentally overturned due to an armed attack by
a foreign country,” combined with an expansion of interdiction authority, will
bring real change. But here again, actual war zones beyond the “areas
surrounding Japan”—read the Hormuz Straits—are likely to be assiduously
avoided.
All this is surely much
less than half of the full loaf that Prime Minister Abe or the majority of LDP
legislators want. The reason for this remarkable restraint is twofold: a)
Komeito, the electorally indispensable junior coalition partner, will not stand
for more; and b) the Japanese public taken collectively is very reluctant to
support overseas military ventures even within a UN collective context. These
two constraints are insurmountable in the foreseeable future. The LDP could
conceivably pass more ambitious legislation with the cooperation of Toru
Hashimoto’s Japan Innovation Party. But it will not be able to do so without
rupturing the coalition with Komeito and encouraging the emergence of a viable
and more pacifist-minded opposition. If this were all that there was, the
geopolitical impact would be largely cosmetic, a rhetorical tool for Mr. Abe’s
opponents at home and abroad to bludgeon him with. But Japanese accumulation of
bilateral 2-plus-2s and engagement in the world of the international industrial
and military complex tell a different story.
Japan has been adding 2-plus-2s, regular
bilateral meetings of cabinet members holding the foreign and defense
portfolios to coordinate security policy, to the original arrangement with the
United States. The process began with Australia (2007), and has added India
(2010), Russia (2013), before the events that led to President Putin’s invasion
of Ukraine), France (2014), and the U.K. (2015). (Indonesia seemed to be in the
works, but the current president’s plans are unknown to me.) I run the risk of
seriously overstating the importance of these alliances. After all, Russia
never was an ally of Japan in the balmiest of times, never will be in the
foreseeable future, and India like is unlikely to throw in its lot
unconditionally with Japan. That said, other than Japan and China, these two
countries are the ones that matter most in Asia-ex Middle East, and both see
China as a source of direct long-term geopolitical risk. The United States
aside, Australia, France and the U.K. have historically been the countries that
are most likely to engage in extraterritorial military interventions in areas
that are of undeniable interest to Japan in terms of national security. Given
the significant backup support Japan has been providing, at least in financial
terms, to joint military undertakings in geographical locations of varying
national interest, the modest uptick in the involvement of the JSDF in those
undertakings, and, as I will now hold forth on, the engagement in the world of
the international industrial and military complex mean that these 2-plus-2s
will gain increasing significance over the long run.
In 2013, the Abe
administration replaced the long-standing “the Three Principles on Arms Exports
and Their Related Policy Guidelines,” a virtual ban on arms exports that had
been relaxed for specific items, almost exclusively for the United States, over
the years with a new set of principles on overseas transfer of defense
equipment and technology entitled “the
Three Principles of Transfer of Defense Equipment and Technology.”
This change has been accompanied by active efforts to compete for Australia’s
submarine replacements and new maritime rescue seaplanes. Future Japanese work
on the F-35 stealth fighter has a real chance of being reflected in its
development for sales in the global market. More modest joint efforts are
reportedly afoot with the U.K. and France. Much of such efforts require
involvement in international weapons consortiums, bringing Japan more fully
into the sphere of the international industry-military complex. This is a turn
of events that take Japan beyond rhetoric and rare events and more deeply into
the world of security in the narrow sense, a world where actions have real,
day-by-day consequences. This in turn is likely to give more substance to the
2-plus-2s, as, for example, sticky issues such as theater of use and sales to
third parties will have to be worked out. It is notable that China and, to a
lesser extent, Russia are largely quarantined here beyond the purchase of
turn-key systems. How good is this technology? Good enough to build some of the
most high-spec conventional-fuel submarines in the world, good enough to
develop its own version of a stealth fighter aircraft, and backed by a
cutting-edge industrial and technological base for potential. Japan is a huge
prize for the international weapons consortiums, from which China and Russia
are almost completely excluded beyond what they can buy or, um, borrow.
Finally, the bilateral
security ties and the weapons consortiums are mutually reinforcing. The
multiyear commitments inherent to the relationships ensure that they will
endure all but the most extreme of regime changes on either side. Growth and
permanence: What more can Mr. Abe wish for?
Have I overemphasized the
importance of the latter, non-legislative efforts in order to make my point?
That is for you to decide. But there is no denying that they must be of
significant concern to countries whose geopolitical interests come into
conflict with Japan and, more broadly, the countries with which Mr. Abe is
reinforcing mutual ties.
2.
The Japan-China-South Korea Relationship(s) (Japan-South Korea dialogue; the
substance of Mr. Abe’s 70th anniversary statement)
There
will be no bilateral summitry with South Korea until the 70th
anniversary speech is over and done with. Who knows what he’ll say, though I am
confident that Mr. Abe’s minders will stage manage a formula for his statement
that will be acceptable by a South Korea president. But can Mrs. Park be that
president? (My thoughts have changed somewhat since I wrote that last sentence
weeks ago.)
Of the three national
leaders, President Park Geun-hye has the weakest hand. Note also that South
Korea is the smallest country of the three, and is under the most serious
security of all in the form of North Korea, 80 kilometers from national capital
Seoul. More immediately, the South Korean economy is in poor shape, her
political team has been beset with a series of scandals, and her support is
down to the conservative core, hovering around the low 40% to mid-30% in
national polls. Yet given the harshness of national opinion toward Japan and
the Abe administration on history issues, Mrs. Park has minimal wiggle room for
compromise to begin with.
President Xi Jinping has by
far the best job security of all three. He is halfway through presumably the
first of two five year terms, putting his political enemies on the run or
eliminating them altogether through reassignments and corruption charges, and
is plowing ahead with far-reaching economic reforms while continuing the
decades-long expansion of China’s military power and projection. (The long-term
outlook for Mr. Xi and China come across as being far more uncertain than is
generally appreciated. We can go into this in more detail if you so desire.) He
appears to be a popular figure, at least with the masses, and also has much better
control over the conventional and social media, which he could use to minimize
the political fallout from any compromise with Mr. Abe on history issues in the
interests of rapprochement. That said, Japan and China have competing
geopolitical interests. China is the potential regional hegemon; Japan is big
enough to offer meaningful resistance with help from the global and New World
hegemon United States. Moreover, public sentiment in China toward Japan on
history issues is genuine, if stoked and exaggerated by CCP propaganda and
education. (The Chinese people suffered most, followed by the Japanese, with
residents of the Korean Peninsula (with no U.S. carpet bombing and no Imperial
Army draft) coming in a distant third.) China is taking a loss on tourism due
to the animosities; likewise some of the shrinkage in Japanese investment is
attributed to the negativities. But history issues are but one of the problems
in the way of more Japanese involvement in the Chinese economy If the others
are taken care of—a big if—the economic consequences of history issues will seem trivial, at least
from the Chinese side. Xi has the least incentive to back off.
Mr. Abe actually has the
easiest hand of all. All he needs to do is to refer explicitly and positively
to the Murayama and Kono Statements, as all his predecessors have done as
required and repeat a few key phrases there, then move on. But on a subjective
level, that is very difficult for him to do, because he does not seem to
believe in the spirit, much less the words, of the statements. Perfunctory
acknowledgement, accompanied by gaffes when pushed, seems to be the best that
he can offer. And that only because he is intelligent enough to be aware that
rejection of the statements are inimical to Japanese national interests as
defined by political realism. He is most capable of compromise, yet personally,
surely least inclined. As the impact on the economic relationships,
particularly with China, has stabilized, with the history issues increasingly
quarantined, he might as well settle in for the long run and try to wait it
out.
Luckily
for the rest of us, who would prefer an easing of tension, Washington largely
feels the same way, and has been willing to weigh in, if gingerly, to protect
its own national interests. When Washington speaks, whether from the White
House and its agents or from Capitol Hill, Tokyo listens. And it so happens
that Mr. Abe is looking to visit Washington in May, during the Golden Week Diet
break. That means that he will deliver his 70th anniversary speech there, most
preferably in Congress, as his grandfather Nobusuke Kishi and political mentor
Junichiro Koizumi did. That, more than anything else, will dictate what he will
say.
If
all goes well, Mr. Abe will deliver a speech that will pass muster with
Congress—where a single member could put a hold on a House/Senate
appearance—which in turn will be deemed acceptable in China and perforce in
South Korea. And a subsequent trilateral—and eventually bilateral with Mrs.
Park—will come off. And the investment climate will see a modest improvement;
the geopolitical relationships somewhat less, particularly with regard to
Japan-China.
3.
The Unified Local Elections (The impact on the national political process)
There
will be little impact on the national political process since the high-profile
elections by and large feature strong incumbents and/or candidates who enjoy
bipartisan support. But is that all that matters in the Unified Local
Elections? And isn’t there a May vote that can have a greater impact on
national politics?
Only 10 out of the 47
prefectural governor’s offices are scheduled for the upcoming Unified Local
Elections in April. (The others dropped out one by one over the years as death
and resignations (bribery charges being an uncomfortably common cause) took
their toll. In only two of those—Hokkaido and Oita—is the DPJ supporting
candidates to oppose the LDP-supported incumbents. It is improbable that the
Hokkaido challenger. The Oita challenger does have a fighting chance, since he
is the incumbent mayor of Oita City, the capital of the prefecture and by far
its largest city. Remember that one big reason for the LDP loss in the recent
Saga gubernatorial was the fact that its candidate had been a small-town, if
successful, mayor in a prefecture where local connections still matter very
much.
But that’s it. The
best-case scenario for the DPJ is one out of 10. The DPJ is reportedly also having
difficulty fielding large numbers of candidates for the prefectural and
municipal assemblies, much as it had to refrain from contesting many House of
Representative seats in the December election even where the Japan Innovation
Party (JIP), its temporary ally of convenience was not putting up its own. And
speaking of the JIP, its prospects do not look much better either, as party
head and Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto’s act is wearing thin on the national
stage. The recent cabinet and subcabinet member scandals have taken more luster
off the Abe administration, but the situation is such that the DPJ and JIP
could take a modest loss in the assemblies, bundle it with a victory in the
Oita gubernatorial and credibly claim more than a moral victory.
But none of the plausible
outcomes will sway national policymaking in a significant way. Much is made of
the connection between the power of the agricultural voting machine and its
effect on agricultural reform and TPP. But the Abe administration never did
come to grips with the core issues of agricultural reform—essentially a legal
framework that encourages land hoarding and discourages corporate farming; I will
be happy to hold forth in more detail—settled for cosmetic devolution to
prefectural cooperative associations from the national federation Zenchu and tinkering with the membership
of the prefectural agricultural commissions, where the local decision-making
powers are concentrated. As for TPP, the
deal is largely in place. All that is needed are TPA and the approach of the
U.S. election season to remind the parties to cut the final deals against a looming
deadline. U.S. pushing back the TPA timeline makes it that much easier for the
LDP to skirt the issue during the April elections in Japan.
Let’s talk about a more
interesting vote, a vote that will have a material impact on the realignment
prospects of the opposition. Here, I am referring to the May 17 Osaka City
referendum on the Metropolitan Osaka initiative that Mayor Hashimoto is
pushing. The initiative will essentially divide up the city of Osaka into
special wards, much like in Metropolitan Tokyo, and spilt the current municipal
powers between the prefecture and the newly-created special wards. Hashimoto’s
star will be further diminished if the initiative is voted down. That in turn
will strengthen the hands of the more opposition-minded Diet members, who are
more inclined to seek accommodation with the DPJ. (Hashimoto is more kindly
disposed toward the national ruling coalition for tactical, strategic and
ideological reasons.) The effect will not become evident immediately, but it
will offer a glimmer of hope to the DPJ and most other forces seeking to
construct a viable alternative to the LDP-Komeito coalition. And my
understanding is that the initiative does not have the support of a majority of
Osaka residents.
4.
Quo Vadis, O Abe? (How much longer will
Mr. Abe ride high in the polls? The September LDP President election? Who will
be the next prime minister?)
a) The Abe administration will rumble
along around 50% in the polls unless something happens that attaches the
hard-to-eradicate stench of incompetence and/or unlikability on it. But can
anyone foresee discontinuities on a more than random basis?
b) Maybe someone like Taro Kono will
stand, just to avoid reelection by acclamation. But will it matter?
c) If the LDP rules of the game are
followed in 2018 and the political landscape has not been swept by some tidal
wave, it will be Shigeru Ishiba’s to lose. But will Mr. Abe have a say in this?
a) The
Abe administration has seen some recent erosion of public support due to
ongoing series of political financing scandals that have already claimed three
cabinet members, two right before the December election, another more recently,
as casualties, and some real-world consequences in the form of delays in the
legislative schedule. (It may seem silly, but in the highly ritualized world of
Japanese parliamentarian process, tie lost is hard to regain, even if it may
still seem like an administration’s heaven to the Obama administration.) If
this continues, it will become a little harder to move forward with Mr. Abe’s
legislative agenda. But only a little. Beyond the time lost, the LDP will not
waver (to the extent that it does not already put a brake on his most ambitious
initiatives), and Komeito will continue to accept what it can swallow, and only
what it can swallow.
The
numbers will begin to edge up slowly once the scandals have played out
sufficiently for the media to let go, and the economy finally gives the
appearance of returning to a firm upward trajectory on all fronts, not just for
the major corporates and their stakeholders. But always make room for
discontinuities. For example, if the prospective May speech is well-received in
the United States—fingers crossed—look for a meaningful bump on the scale of
the political scandals, but on the upside.
b) Either
way, barring some political catastrophe that robs Mr. Abe of legitimacy, it is
difficult to foresee a serious candidate challenging him in the September LDO
leadership election. The main possibilities—Shigeru Ishiba, Fumio Kishida, and,
though a stretch, Sadakazu Tanigaki are coopted with attractive sinecures and
will see no upside to staging a challenge. (Now the incumbent, do not think
that Mr. Abe will placate opponents with attractive consolation prizes, as he
did the last time around.) No, Yoshimasa Hayashi is not a serious candidate, since
he has failed to secure a Lower House seat, and he now has the MAFF portfolio
back again. I can see someone like Taro Kono offering token resistance, but
only because there will be no consequences for him.
c) The
four heads of the LDP that followed after Junichiro Koizumi stepped down
essentially went down the roster of candidates considered viable for the job in
the order of their political strength. All but the last became prime minister
except for the last, Mr. Tanigaki, who was too weak to resist once the DPJ
blood in the water excited other, more powerful candidates including Mr. Abe,
who wound up winning. Mr. Ishiba by contrast has much greater political capital
than Mr. Tanigaki and thus unlikely to be denied his place in the chronological
order of political things.
Is
there no way that Mr. Ishiba can be denied? For that, we must look to Mr. Abe’s
own ascent to the prime minister’s office in 2006. His only previous cabinet
appointment was less than a year as Chief Cabinet Secretary right up to his
election as prime minister. Before that, he had spent a year as
secretary-general of the LDP but resigned when the LDP suffered a setback in
the 2004 House of Councilors election. There was no way that he could have
become prime minister at the time without the unconditional support of Prime
Minister Koizumi, who was going out on a high note and more over was the
virtual head of the most powerful faction in the LDP. That faction, not
coincidentally, was Mr. Abe’s faction, and it is even more powerful now. Could
Mr. Abe be in a position to engineer such a transition himself? Will he be
inclined to do so? Hints, one way or the other, will be available after the
September LDP leadership election, when he should be tweaking his cabinet and
party appointments. Stay tuned.
