The stunning electoral victory engineered by Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi last week ought to make leaders in Washington, Beijing, Taipei, Pyongyang, Seoul and at the UN sit up and take note because it marks a great leap forward in Japan's emergence from the passive and pacifist cocoon in which it had wrapped itself since the end of World War II 60 years ago.
Foreign policy didn't figure much in the election campaign, but the consequences of the outcome are striking. The foreign policy and security posture of every nation is rooted in domestic politics and Koizumi's big win will permit him to wield considerable influence beyond the shores of Japan.
In the more powerful of the two houses in Japan's Diet, or parliament, the prime minister's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) won 296 of the 480 seats in the House of Representatives. Added to that 55-seat margin over a majority are 31 seats won by the New Komeito, the LDP's junior partner. Parliamentary leaders around the world would salivate to have that much clout.
Many who follow Japanese politics were startled by the results.
Said Thomas Berger, a scholar at Boston University: "I can only marvel at the breadth and depth of Koizumi's victory. Koizumi even outdid the upper estimates for the possible LDP margin of victory."
Similarly, Sheila Smith, a research fellow at the East-West Center in Honolulu, said that Koizumi had earned "a place in history as one of Japan's most masterful political strategists." He had gambled by calling an election after his own party had voted down a bill to privatize the nation's postal savings system.
Although the prime minister considered that a vital piece of reform legislation, his real intent was to win undisputed command over his party and the legislature. For the most part, those who opposed him were defeated.
For several years, Japan has been moving gradually to shed the constraints under which it has operated in the international realm for nearly six decades. Some Japanese have asserted that their nation should become "normal." Concurrent with that has been the regime of Koizumi, who became prime minister in April 2001.
While several domestic issues were debated during the campaign, Koizumi's attributes as a political leader seemed to override all else. Many Japanese said the voters liked the way he stood up for reform in Japan during a resurgence of national pride.
Koizumi's victory will make more likely a controversial revision of Japan's constitution. Mainichi Shimbun, a leading newspaper in Tokyo, found that 84 percent of those elected to the new house favored removing political restrictions on Japan's armed forces. The socialists and communists can be counted on to oppose that vociferously.
In addition, Koizumi is expected to insist that Japan, whose bid to become a permanent member of the UN Security Council has been blocked so far, be given a greater say in UN deliberations. Japan is second only to the US in financial contributions to the UN, providing 18.8 percent of the UN budget last year.
That is more than the combined contributions of the UK, France, China and Russia, the other four permanent members of the Security Council.
The US will have a year to complete current negotiations with Tokyo over realigning US military forces in Japan. Those talks should go well because Koizumi values his nation's alliance with the US and is a political ally and personal friend of US President George W. Bush. He has said, however, that he plans to step down a year from now; his replacement might be an unknown quantity.
Koizumi's main foreign challenge will be to forge new relations with China. As Thomas Berger has said: "The Japanese are getting fed up with China, and Chinese policy since the mid-1990s has done a lot to provoke them. At the same time, Japan is in Asia, China is a growing presence in the region, and Japan has to adjust itself to that reality."
Already hints coming from Tokyo say Koizumi is considering a summit meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤). Another meeting may be proposed with South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun, who has been antagonistic toward Japan.
Koizumi can be expected to be firm in negotiations with North Korea intended to persuade its "Dear Leader" Kim Jong-il to give up his nuclear weapons, to reduce the threat from North Korean missiles, and to get an accounting of Japanese citizens abducted by North Korea.
Altogether, a good year's work for the high-riding prime minister.
Richard Halloran is a writer based in Hawaii.
“Si ambulat loquitur tetrissitatque sicut anas, anas est” is, in customary international law, the three-part test of anatine ambulation, articulation and tetrissitation. And it is essential to Taiwan’s existence. Apocryphally, it can be traced as far back as Suetonius (蘇埃托尼烏斯) in late first-century Rome. Alas, Suetonius was only talking about ducks (anas). But this self-evident principle was codified as a four-part test at the Montevideo Convention in 1934, to which the United States is a party. Article One: “The state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications: a) a permanent population; b) a defined territory; c) government;
The central bank and the US Department of the Treasury on Friday issued a joint statement that both sides agreed to avoid currency manipulation and the use of exchange rates to gain a competitive advantage, and would only intervene in foreign-exchange markets to combat excess volatility and disorderly movements. The central bank also agreed to disclose its foreign-exchange intervention amounts quarterly rather than every six months, starting from next month. It emphasized that the joint statement is unrelated to tariff negotiations between Taipei and Washington, and that the US never requested the appreciation of the New Taiwan dollar during the
Since leaving office last year, former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) has been journeying across continents. Her ability to connect with international audiences and foster goodwill toward her country continues to enhance understanding of Taiwan. It is possible because she can now walk through doors in Europe that are closed to President William Lai (賴清德). Tsai last week gave a speech at the Berlin Freedom Conference, where, standing in front of civil society leaders, human rights advocates and political and business figures, she highlighted Taiwan’s indispensable global role and shared its experience as a model for democratic resilience against cognitive warfare and
The diplomatic spat between China and Japan over comments Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi made on Nov. 7 continues to worsen. Beijing is angry about Takaichi’s remarks that military force used against Taiwan by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) could constitute a “survival-threatening situation” necessitating the involvement of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces. Rather than trying to reduce tensions, Beijing is looking to leverage the situation to its advantage in action and rhetoric. On Saturday last week, four armed China Coast Guard vessels sailed around the Japanese-controlled Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台), known to Japan as the Senkakus. On Friday, in what
RSS