IT’S NEVER EASY to understand the reasons politicians behave the way they do. Sometimes even other politicians have trouble figuring it out. For example, Prime Minister Hatoyama Yukio has been flapping like a flag in a stiff wind for more than six months trying to keep his campaign pledge to move Futenma, the U.S. Marine airbase in Okinawa, either outside the prefecture or outside the country.
This weekend, Mr. Hatoyama visited Okinawa to tell the prefectural governor that his new plan for the base is a dead ringer for the existing agreement painstakingly worked out over more than a decade by the preceding Liberal-Democratic Party administrations and the American government.
Fukushima Mizuho, the head of junior coalition partner the Social Democrats, the State Minister in Charge of Consumer Affairs and the Declining Birthrate, and a leftist lawyer specializing in gesture politics, said at a news conference on the 22nd that she’s mystified:
I do not understand at all why priority was given to the agreement between Japan and the United States and not to the agreement of the Okinawan people or to the agreement between the members of the coalition government.
We can let American commentator Charles Krauthammer, speaking in a different context, clear things up for her:
The genius of democracy is the rotation of power, which forces the opposition to be serious.
When it was in the opposition, Mr. Hatoyama’s Democratic Party of Japan was criticized for behaving like a grade school boy with a loaded gun. Once they took office, their gun turned out to have been loaded mostly with blanks, though it’s still an open question whether their budget bullet has struck a vital organ. They’ve now gone back to Square One-A with Futenma, a de facto admission that they realize major policy changes involving treaty partners require prior thought and planning rather than magic beans and a magic wand. Could it be they also realize formulating a national defense policy requires transcending local interests and partisan politics?
Mr. Krauthammer was referring to a similar set of circumstances in regard to another grade schooler with a loaded gun in a different country. Despite vowing to reset George W. Bush’s foreign policy, Barack Obama’s foreign policy is starting to look remarkably similar. Guantanamo is still open, he’s approved a military surge in Afghanistan, expanded the war into Pakistan, increased drone attacks, and largely preserved the Patriot Act, wiretaps, e-mail intercepts, and military tribunals. That has puzzled his supporters on the left.
Just as Mr. Obama seems to have realized that his predecessor had good reasons for doing what he did, now Mr. Hatoyama seems to have figured out—or been told—that there are good reasons for the American military presence in Okinawa, starting with geography.
Another is that Japan’s security guarantors think they need to be prepared for any contingencies that might arise in the region, such as a crisis resulting from, say, a North Korean submarine torpedoing a South Korean naval vessel and killing more than 40 sailors. In fact, the prime minister found that incident convenient to use as one of the justifications for his Futenma decision.
Of course there are also valid arguments for removing the base from Okinawa, or even for the removal of all American military forces from Japan. Yamada Hiroshi, the head of a recently formed political party, published a book this month with a chapter asserting that people should take it upon themselves to defend their own countries–an assertion I agree with. So does former defense minister and current LDP policy chief Ishiba Shigeru, who this weekend said that Japan should have marines of its own to take back any islands that might be seized by a foreign power.
Indeed, the security treaty between the two countries gives Japan the option to tell the Americans to leave at any time as long as they provide one year’s notice. But Ms. Fukushima understands more than she is willing to let on. She’s aware that a Japanese invitation to leave is not going to be extended any time soon, so reliance on the Americans is the only realistic policy for the foreseeable future. She also knows that the Peace Clause of Japan’s Constitution allows her to rail against the American alliance (while talking out of the other side of her mouth to American journalists) without having to take responsibility for her positions. Responsibility is the Hatoyama headache.
There’s a reason I said she was a gesture politician.
The SDPJ was the Socialist Party in a previous incarnation, and their departure from an eight-party ruling coalition in the early 90s was the beginning of the end for the only other non-LDP government since 1955. But as of today, Ms. Fukushima says she plans to stay in the government and argue against the decision from within. Her only gesture will be to refuse to sign the Cabinet decision.
Why not withdraw as a matter of principle—which some in her party favor? Perhaps she’s calculated that absent any changes in party leadership, the DPJ is likely to lose seats in July’s upper house election. Depending on the results, that will either render her party’s presence in a post-election government irrelevant, or, if the numbers are really skintight, give her added leverage. Why should she take a stand on principle when she can enjoy another two months of perks and an elevated platform from a Cabinet portfolio she might never see again?
That’s not so difficult to understand, is it?
These nuts are a little tougher to crack, however.
The LDP takes off
The upper house of the Diet currently has 242 members. On the 21st, fewer than 200 were present for a vote for the first time this year. Nearly 50 MPs didn’t show up, most of whom were from the opposition LDP.

Fukushima Mizuho and friend in the echo chamber
A total of 195 voted up or down on an amendment to the law providing for rules for Independent Administrative Corporations. The LDP was opposed to the measure, but 31 of their Diet contingent weren’t present. The bill passed by 45 votes. It likely would have gone through anyway, but perhaps they could have rustled up a few more opposition strays, or tried to use a closer vote to score some political points.
Instead, they were back home stumping for reelection. If the reason for serving in the Diet is to represent one’s constituents by voting on matters that will become law, why were they absent from the Diet to ask their constituents to send them to the Diet as their representatives, thereby failing to cast an actual Diet vote on a matter that became law?
Consider they also rightly roasted then-DPJ head Ozawa Ichiro over the coals for missing a Diet vote when he led the opposition in January 2008. Mr. Ozawa had put Japan’s international reputation at risk by having his party defeat a measure in the upper house to continue providing fuel to the NATO forces in Afghanistan. He knew full well the LDP could again pass the measure in the lower house with the supermajority it held at the time, so when the second vote came up in the Diet, he had already bugged off for a campaign appearance.
What is it with these guys? You’d think the money and the prestige were more important to them than their job duties.
Solving a non-existent problem
Here’s a Sunday report from Kyodo:
Environment ministers from Japan, China and South Korea adopted Sunday their countries’ first joint action plan to deal with global warming, the problem of yellow dust and other priority environmental issues for the five years through 2014.
I don’t get it. Why do they need an action plan when global warming doesn’t exist? Particularly when the credibility of climate change activists has been shredded?
Kyodo also reported:
(T)he three ministers referred to the initiative to create an East Asian community, promoted by Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, and said cooperation in the environmental area would be a key element to that end.
I don’t get this one, either. Just as it’s finally dawned on some Europeans after watching the PIGS eating at the Euro trough that the EU isn’t really a viable entity, why are the three Northeast Asian countries talking about organizing a pigsty of their own? A free trade agreement is one thing, but an East Asian entity isn’t going to happen unless everyone agrees to let the Chinese play suzerain again.
Here’s another one I don’t get. Environmental cooperation is indeed a critical issue. Chinese air pollution is a health menace throughout the region, as this post describes. In 2007, children in four of Kyushu’s seven prefectures were told to stay indoors rather than inhale the pollution that floated over from China. There’s no disputing that the Chinese need to stop fouling Asia’s nest.
Yet Japan continues to send the country ODA, 30% of which was for environmental measures as of 2007. Meanwhile, China posted GDP growth northward of 12% for the first quarter this year. If the books in Beijing aren’t being cooked—a big if—why is Japan funding environmental measures the Chinese could afford themselves, thereby providing the Chinese the wherewithal to spend the freed-up funds for a military buildup that a national defense argument can’t justify?
Mr. Hatoyama still with us
Japanese pundits began speculating about the date of Prime Minister Hatoyama’s departure from office last December, just three months into his term. Many thought he would step down at the end of this month, particularly with the upper house election coming in July (probably the 11th). Of course he’s been shown the dismal poll numbers, and of course he knows that his party stands a better chance if either he or Secretary-General Ozawa Ichiro—and preferably both—fall on their stage prop swords beforehand. But if Mr. Hatoyama intends to resign, he’s cutting it awfully close. In fact, it’s starting to look as if both he and Mr. Ozawa intend to stick around through the election.
That’s got me flummoxed, but I’m not the only one. Plenty of Japanese are stumped, too. They’re particularly concerned about the Hatoyama state of mind, having given up on Mr. Ozawa behaving with integrity long ago.
During the past few weeks, the prime minister has boggled the minds of more than a few people by:
* Claiming that since the pledge to move Futenma was only a personal campaign promise and not in the party’s platform, it doesn’t count.
* Insisting that he has spent more time dealing with the base issue than any other Japanese politician in history, and that the record will back him up.
* Meeting at the Kantei with the three municipal officers of Tokunoshima, where some in the government wanted to move the Futenma operations, and starting talks by telling them he yearned to visit since his youth because he idolized the famous sumo rikishi Asashio Taro, a native of the island. He also said that he wanted to go to Tokunoshima later this month. They told him not to bother because they didn’t want to meet with him again.
* Responding to a request at a news conference for his views on the possibility that the SDPJ might withdraw from the coalition by saying:
I’ve held many discussions with the SDPJ and Ms. Fukushima, and I intend to make every effort to seek her cooperation in working hereafter as part of the coalition.
When another reporter told him that the SDPJ head said his decision contravened the three-party coalition agreement, Mr. Hatoyama replied:
I’m sorry to have to say this about Ms. Fukushima, but it does not contravene the three-party coalition agreement. The agreement of course states that we would lessen the burden on Okinawa. That’s why, for the past eight months, I have considered the hardships of all Okinawans and worked to lessen their burden as much as possible.
It beats the heck out of me why he forgot to mention that he went around the prefecture during the campaign hollering, “Out of the country, and at a minimum, out of the prefecture.”
It’s gotten so bad so quickly that people are now speculating about the reasons for the disconnect between his statements and reality. Is it due to an overly sheltered childhood owing to his family’s wealth, some wonder, or is he suffering from narcissistic personality disorder? (The Japanese are much less likely to say that sort of thing about political leaders than Americans.) Still others wonder if he’s hanging on just so he can stay in office longer than his predecessor, Aso Taro. (Their respective grandparents were both prime ministers and political rivals.) He’ll have to stick around into August to reach that milestone, however.
It’s beyond understanding. Maybe we can get Ms. Fukushima to return the favor and explain it to us.
UPDATE: J.E. Dyer writing for the Commentary blog Contentions gets one right and one wrong about the Futenma issue. The wrong one first:
The move remains deeply unpopular in Okinawa, but Hatoyama is quite explicit about his reason: his concern for Japanese security in light of the tensions on the Korean peninsula.
That’s the Johnny-come-lately analysis: Those who’ve followed the twists and turns from the beginning know that events in Korea provided a convenient excuse for Mr. Hatoyama to do what he was forced into doing anyway, and which was apparent he was going to do well before this incident.
Here’s the good one:
The alliance with Japan is worth tending better; it might have been possible to achieve this or a similarly advantageous outcome without leaving Japan’s government and the Okinawans feeling cornered and resentful. But our “smart power” administration didn’t even try.
Bingo.
There’s also one that deserved more comment than it received:
Hillary Clinton summoned the Japanese ambassador to lecture him on his government’s obligations under the previous agreement.
One of those obligations being the Japanese requirement to pay for the construction of facilities in Guam to facilitate the transfer of American personnel. Some Americans complain that the rest of the world is getting a free ride on security, but overlook the fact that in this case, a foreign government is footing the bill for a facility for Americans on American territory.
One also wonders when Hillary Clinton is going to start lecturing the ambassadors of NATO countries about their obligations–or is it that some allies are more equal than others?









