Can Hatoyama Be Japan's Change Agent — At Home and Abroad?

Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama wants a more equal relationship with Washington, but nobody's quite sure what that means

By Michael Schuman/Tokyo Monday, Apr. 19, 2010
    • Illustration by Edel Rodriguez

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    Struggling for Approval
    During last year's election campaign, this mystery man sold himself as a change agent. Hatoyama has pledged a complete overhaul of decades of policy held dear by the old regime. He has vowed to break the grip of the all-powerful bureaucracy and place greater policymaking authority in the hands of elected politicians to make the government more transparent and accountable. As a guiding principle in economic affairs, he has revived another concept from his grandfather — fraternity — which has translated into a menu of new initiatives aimed at building a more extensive welfare system. That, Hatoyama believes, will bolster consumer confidence and get Japanese, usually big-time savers, to spend more and revive economic growth. In the most recent budget, he has moved spending priorities away from the usual pork-barrel stimulus and toward social services like education. As he puts it, "We will be spending not on concrete but on people." In March, the Diet, Japan's parliament, passed legislation promised by Hatoyama to provide a $140 monthly subsidy to parents for each child of junior high school age or younger. With such measures, "the new administration will be able to lead the economy to a new growth path," he says.

    So far, however, Hatoyama has struggled to satisfy Japan's high hopes. The Prime Minister has often appeared a weak, ineffectual leader, unable to provide a clear direction on policy or control a three-party ruling coalition that is a grab bag of politicians with contradictory ideologies, from relative conservatives to outright socialists. Open disagreements have broken out between Cabinet members, especially over the controversial privatization of Japan's postal system — a free-market initiative begun, not incidentally, during Koizumi's term as Prime Minister. "Whenever you try to get down to reforms you're bound to face difficulties," Hatoyama says, but he insists he has the support of the DPJ and is working cooperatively with his coalition partners.

    Matters won't get any easier. Economists worry that Hatoyama's social-welfare programs will only increase the government debt ratio, which is already more than twice that of the U.S. His reforms are also likely to face stiff resistance from the still powerful elements of the establishment, especially the government bureaucracy, which won't readily surrender its influence. Just like so many other Japanese politicians, Hatoyama has already been tarred by an alleged scandal, this one concerning campaign finance. (Hatoyama has publicly apologized for the scandal, though he has said he had no knowledge of any wrongdoing.) His Cabinet's approval rating has plummeted in the six months since he took office to a dismal 33%, and there is chatter in Tokyo that he may not last long in office.

    The confusion within Hatoyama's government has complicated his relations with Washington. His administration "has yet to craft a clear vision of their strategy" on security issues, says Sheila Smith, senior fellow for Japan studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington. "They're working it out as they go." Nowhere has that been more apparent than in Hatoyama's handling of the status of American bases on Okinawa. That southern Japanese island, a famous World War II battleground, still hosts roughly 25,000 troops, almost all of them Marines, and the local Okinawans have long resented the heavy military presence. In 2006, the U.S. and Japan reached an agreement to move a Marine air base on Okinawa to a less populated part of the island and relocate 8,000 troops to Guam.

    That wasn't enough to satisfy Hatoyama. During the election campaign, he promised the Okinawans that the air base would be shifted off the island entirely, and since taking office he has effectively shelved the 2006 accord and reopened negotiations with the U.S. After months of waffling and breaking self-imposed deadlines, it's not clear exactly what Hatoyama will propose to Washington, but he told reporters in late March, "I personally should like to consider a path to relocate the air station outside Okinawa."

    Washington's Worries
    That's a very unpopular view in Washington. During an October trip to Tokyo, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates bluntly told Japanese officials that the original 2006 arrangement is "the best alternative for everyone," adding that "it is time to move on." Though the frustrated Obama Administration has since softened its approach — stating that it's willing to listen to Japanese proposals — it still sees the 2006 pact as its preferred option.

    Concern in the U.S. about Hatoyama has been further heightened by his overtures to China. The two Asian giants have had icy, even confrontational, relations in recent years, due to lingering anger among Chinese over Japan's brutal invasion of their country in the 1930s and 1940s. But Hatoyama has defused tensions by promising not to visit Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine, which is dedicated to Japanese war dead, including some convicted World War II war criminals. Regular visits by Hatoyama's predecessors had been a regular irritant in Japan-China relations. In contrast to Gates' testy visit, Japanese officials rolled out the red carpet in December in Tokyo for Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping, who was granted an audience with Japan's Emperor, at Hatoyama's request. His overtures to China are part of a larger foreign policy agenda to integrate Japan more closely into a growing Asia. He advocates the formation of an East Asian community along the lines of Europe's, with a common regional currency like the euro. Such plans have led some in Washington to worry that Hatoyama believes Japan's future rests with a rising Asia and not the long-standing U.S. alliance.

    Hatoyama denies that. He told TIME, "The Japan-U.S. relationship is the most important relationship for Japan's diplomacy," and that his government "is working to create an environment in which Japan will firmly support the U.S. presence in Asia." He also makes clear that by forging warmer ties with China, he's not downgrading the alliance with the U.S. "We are always watchful of the rapidly rising military capability [of China]," he says, but "closer economic ties between China and Japan will be beneficial for the prosperity of the world and for stability in Asia." Better relations between the U.S., Japan and China "would be a win-win sort of relationship," he says.

    In that way, Hatoyama's new foreign policy may be simply acknowledging the changing global balance of power. "Everyone understands that Japan's foreign policy is going to have to accommodate China," says Smith, of the Council on Foreign Relations. "Japan lives right next door." But that fact will also make it difficult for Japan to drift too far from its close alliance with the U.S. Hatoyama "is trying to move Japan closer to Asia to get more autonomy from the U.S.," explains Ellis Krauss, a professor of Japanese politics at the University of California at San Diego. But Japan is "not going anyplace. The U.S. and Japan together can maybe manage a rising China. Japan can't do it on its own."

    Hatoyama would not necessarily disagree with any of that. He insists, after all, that he does not see "any contradiction" between close ties with the U.S. and with Asian powers. There is no reason to doubt he means what he says. But this isn't the mid-1950s. Anyone who thinks the balance of power in Asia is not changing — and with it the strength of the U.S., even among its old allies — hasn't been there lately.

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