2006年1月アーカイブ

Hisahiko OKAZAKI
Japam Times, January 17,2006

It’s always nice to talk to young people. Recently I enjoyed a debate with a group of young Chinese political scientists. Their questions and comments provided me with some insight into Beijing’s thinking. They often laughed during unexpected turns in the discussion, without necessarily indicating approval of a question or answer. In all fairness, I should point out that they all represented the official views of the Chinese government. Here are the excerpts:

Does China pose a security threat?

Yes, I think so. Japan stepped up its defense buildup in the 1980s in the face of Soviet military threats and came to possess one of the most advanced naval and air forces in the world. Japan has military superiority over China in the East China Sea. However, Japan has slowed down its defense buildup under its tight budget and has somewhat decreased the number of military aircraft and ships. China, meanwhile, continues to expand its armed forces. If the present trend continues, the military balance will shift in favor of China, and this poses a threat.

Chinese military spending is mostly to pay personnel.

That was one of the problems of the Chinese military. So, in 1997, China started a program to restructure its military forces and cut personnel by 500,000. Since then, military spending has been growing at double-digit rates annually. China has been stepping up annual growth while continuing to cut personnel costs, obviously for the sake of modernization, perhaps learning a lesson from the 1996 Taiwan Strait crisis. This renewed military expansion has continued for almost 10 years. Double-digit growth in the past decade is a grave matter.

If Japan had continued expanding its defense budget at double-digit rates in the 1980s, it would have carrier task forces by now. Chinese military power is becoming a formidable presence.

Will Japan revise its Constitution?

Japan must consider countermeasures against the threat from China if it continues to grow. Revising the Constitution is a separate matter, but is one way to deal with the problem.

The recent "2 plus 2" Japan-U.S. security conference dealt with the Taiwanese issue.

Since the end of the Pacific War, U.S. bases on Okinawa have played an important role in defending the security of the region. Gen. Douglas MacArthur, the supreme commander of the Allied Powers, used to say that Okinawa was all he needed to ensure the security of the region. The 1969 Japan-U.S. joint statement on the reversion of Okinawa to Japan declared that Taiwan’s security was an important element in Japan’s security. There has been no change in the two countries’ position since then.

What do you think of present Sino-Japanese relations?

Excellent (laughter). There are no problems in business and private exchanges between the two countries. When Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi last paid his respects at Yasukuni Shrine, there were no protest rallies in China, though there were some exchanges of words at the top level (laughter).

In April, there were anti-Japanese demonstrations in China.

There was none after the prime minister’s last Yasukuni visit.

There might be some demonstrations this spring.

I doubt it. This spring the Chinese government would be unsure whether the demonstrations were anti-Japanese or antigovernment (laughter).

Business might be affected. Japanese companies might be omitted from major contracts in China (laughter).

You should never say that. Business must be free. It is against business ethics to make threats in connection with contracts. Such an act is against the spirit of the World Trade Organization and is subject to rebuke from the international community (laughter).

Isn’t it an impediment to bilateral relations for the two countries not to have held a summit for years?

Japanese leaders are ready to meet anytime. If the lack of summits is a problem, Chinese officials are welcome anytime. China is building anti-Japan museums in wide areas of the nation, and naturally Japanese officials don’t like that. Still, China is pushing the projects for domestic reasons, and Japan will not reject summit talks with China over a domestic issue (laughter).

The U.S. is making overtures to China, as recent comments by U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick indicate.

Zoellick surely is saying that (laughter). Perhaps China could count on Zoellick for support, among other Bush administration officials, but political problems are not his specialty (laughter).

Today’s Sino-Japanese relations may be tense, but we are hoping they will improve in the next generation.

You are all about 40 years old, having enrolled in a university after the Cultural Revolution. The next generation is about 10 years old (loud laughter). You might try improving the relations in your generation (loud laughter).

They never lost their merry mood even as I saw them off to the elevator hall.

Hisahiko OKAZAKI
Daily Yomiuri, January 15,2006

The overwhelming victory for the Liberal Democratic Party in the September 2005 general election of the House of Representatives was a major moment in Japan's political history.

Conservative media abroad applauded it, while those with leftist-liberal leanings carried commentaries that stereotypically deplored the LDP triumph and said a two-party system was far off.

Noteworthy among comments from overseas was that by Margarita Estevez-Abe, an up-and-coming Japan expert at Harvard University. In an article in the Sept. 29 edition of the International Herald Tribune, she said the election results marked an end to the conventional pattern of Japan's politics, and turned it more into a British-style parliamentary democracy.

She wrote: "The days of weak leaders are over in Japan. With or without Koizumi, the change in leadership style is here to stay. Japan introduced a number of important institutional reforms in the 1990s, including a change in the electoral rules in 1994, and the strengthening of the cabinet and the prime ministerial office in the late 1990s.

"All these changes were designed to turn Japan into a British-style parliamentary democracy. Koizumi is a product of this new political structure. He was the first to understand how the new political rules of the game worked. Under them, individual politicians cannot survive by bucking party leaders. Koizumi's victory has taught ambitious politicians the need to rally behind a strong leader. There is no going back."

Estevez-Abe expressed her desire to see Japan's political system becoming more like Britain's, which is easier to understand and easier for the United States to deal with. She also noted that Japan should address revising the Constitution to take on a more international role as an ally of the United States.

Given that parliamentary democracy was born and matured in Britain, the statement by the Harvard researcher that Japan's politics are now more like Britain's can be taken as compliment.

===

Free from factional dominance
Among the biggest achievements brought to Japanese politics by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's administration has been its success in breaking down the decades-old pattern of decision-making divvied up among factions within the LDP. From the beginning of the Koizumi administration in 2001, the prime minister has handled governmental as well as party personnel decisions without regard for the desires of faction chiefs.

Some political commentaries in newspapers have labeled this as a kind of factional strife, much like the earlier conflicts between factions headed by past LDP heavyweights Kakuei Tanaka and Takeo Fukuda. Successors to the Fukuda faction notoriously harbored grudges over the long period of dominance of rivals in the Tanaka faction, according to the commentaries.

But there also have been some that view Koizumi's leadership style in a positive light, viewing it favorably as a reform-oriented movement devoted to erasing the legacies of leadership styles like Tanaka's, which were dominated by vested interests and the predominance of LDP lawmakers that were essentially mouthpieces for interest groups. This was exemplified by the fact that very few legislators acting on behalf of lobbyists, popularly known as "zokugiin" (special-interest lawmakers), had a say in state budget compilations for fiscal 2006.

Fiscal policy is a matter outside my field, but I am definitely in favor of breaking away from the political style that took root in the days of Tanaka's administration.

When Tanaka was in office as prime minister from 1972 to 1974, I was a mere section head at the Foreign Ministry. But because I felt deep misgivings about his policy toward China, I tried to stir up resistance against the premier and be a thorn in his side.

Since then, there has been no common policy between Japan and the United States regarding problems involving China and Taiwan, which is indeed an unusual situation for this country, the United States' key ally in the Far East.

Bringing this unusual situation to an end would mark a truly epoch-making development that would boost stability in Asia. In fact, there have been some signs of this becoming a reality.

When Tanaka and a long line of his successors were at the national helm, I could not help but feel repugnance toward the prevalence of their money-power politics.

It was in those days that the Foreign Ministry's disbursements of its confidential funds, though originally intended to be used for intelligence-collecting purposes, started to be squandered for currying favor with politicians. Spending taxpayers' money that way was bound to affect the morale of bureaucrats who appropriated the ministry's budget.

A spate of corruption scandals in many other ministries and agencies also were exposed. The root cause of these irregularities all sprouted from the Tanaka administration and its offshoots.

The transformation from this pattern of politics can be characterized as a departure from a political system based on power balances between factions. The situation was considered the natural result of the adoption of the single-seat electoral system for Diet elections, as Estevez-Abe pointed out.

The abolition of plural-seat constituencies has naturally resulted in the strengthening of the powers of political party heads who have the power to put candidates on the party ticket in each electoral district. In addition, the system of granting subsidies from the state coffers to political parties has caused faction heads to lose influence that in the past was wielded on the strength of their fund-raising capabilities.

===

When caliber stopped mattering
Lying behind the departure from a political system based on factional power balances was not only factors attributable to institutional arrangements, but also the trend of the times--that is, elements pertaining to political philosophy.

Undoubtedly, the creation of the Tanaka Cabinet marked a major change in the atmosphere of Japan's politics, while most political institutions were left unchanged.

Before that, it was popular to use the word "caliber" to judge the qualifications of politicians--as in which people had the right caliber to be prime minister or heads of ministries and agencies. Those who fell short of being recognized as having such makings were not kept in the dark about their mediocrity.

But since the days of the Tanaka Cabinet, whether a person was suited for a ministerial post came to rely on how many times he or she had been reelected to the Diet and whether the faction the lawmaker belonged to was strong or weak. These new rules of the game were reportedly laid down by Tanaka himself.

The term "caliber" vanished from the political world when this practice became entrenched. Although I have no intention to speak ill of the late Prime Minister Zenko Suzuki, I have heard that when he became prime minister in 1980, rank-and-file legislators in the LDP were excited because they believed they all had a chance of becoming prime minister.

===

Succession is key
What then happens when a system of power politics based on factional balances is replaced by a British-style parliamentary democracy? One major issue certainly is how the successor to the incumbent leader is selected.

The first posting of my diplomatic career was to Britain in 1953, in the twilight of the golden days of Prime Minister Winston Churchill. At the time, Anthony Eden had already been taken for granted as Churchill's successor.

As long as a leader is truly confident of the way he runs his government, he should naturally have a say regarding who should be his successor.

Liu Bang, the founder of China's Han dynasty more than 2,200 years ago, cited Xiao He as the man to be his prime minister, whose successor, Liu said, should be Cao Shen. Liu went on to say, "It will surely be Zhou Bo who eventually will put the Liu clan to rest." It was a prediction that came true.

Zhuge Kongming, known as a great military strategist and statesman in the Three Kingdoms period that followed the Han dynasty, asked Jiang Wan and Fei Yi to look after his affairs after he was gone. One of the offshoot successors to the Han dynasty, the Shu, remained secure so far as Fei Yi was in office.

The same can be said about every organization, company or government body. One of the most important things to a company president or the head of a ministry's bureaucracy is selecting a successor. Leaving the succession matter at a company up to vying subordinates shows nothing but absence of ability or sense of responsibility of the president.

Regardless of whether his wishes will be obeyed, the man at the top must come out with his own judgment concerning the right person to succeed him.

It is common for a company to have a presidential successor, and even the successor after that, already determined, even if unofficially. Otherwise, the continuity of the firm's business strategy would be in jeopardy.

===

Extend term of office
There can be no doubt that in the political world things do not often go as smoothly as hoped for.

Nevertheless, it must be noted that the idea of relegating of succession affairs entirely to competition among aspirants comes from the belief that there is no problem in having the nation's top political post assumed by anybody, irrespective of personal traits or competency. This is nothing but a reflection of the misguided notion of equality endemic in postwar Japan, in particular the antielitism that has taken root since Tanaka's administration.

To cite "Tanaka's legacy" may be incorrect. The blame should go back to Tanaka's predecessor, Eisaku Sato, who did not nominate his successor though he had the power to do so. That enabled Tanaka to seize power with the extravagant use of money, and make him and his successor believe that what is necessary is not caliber but something else.

This misconceived egalitarianism also is represented by the term of office of the LDP president. Is there any ruling party overseas that limits the tenure of office of its head to a maximum of four years?

Every country with a four-year presidency system allows the president to serve two terms, or eight years in total.

The frequent change of LDP presidents due to the pecking order is a negative legacy of factional power-based politics, which has resulted in lack of rleadership in Japanese politics, dating back to the Tanaka era.

I would like to refer to Britain again. It even took Margaret Thatcher nine years as prime minister to root out left-leaning education in her quest for educational reform--the closing chapter of her reform agenda. Therefore, there would be nothing wrong at all--from the perspective of parliamentary democracy--in revising the LDP's rules to allow a party president to be elected for a third three-year term.

≪中国政府の公式見解を代弁≫
　若い人と議論するのは本当に楽しいものである。最近中国の若手国際政治学者のグループと話す機会があった。

　本人たちの名誉のために言っておくと、全員中国政府の公式見解を代弁して一歩も引いていない。その意味で彼らの質問は中国政府の意向を知るのに大いに参考となった。ただ質疑応答ごとに、はじけるような笑いが返ってきて楽しい会話だったのである。それも論理の意外な展開を楽しむインテレクチュアル（知的）な笑いであり、賛同を意味するものでなかったことも申し添える必要があろう。 　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　

　初めは型通りの問答から始まった。

　問　中国は脅威なのか？

　岡崎　そう思う。日本はソ連の脅威に対抗して八〇年代に軍備を増強して、世界有数の近代的海空軍力を築き上げた。現在、東シナ海での軍事バランスでは中国より優位にある。しかし日本は増強をやめてしまって、むしろ財政緊縮で航空機、艦船の数を若干減らす傾向にある。代わって中国は大増強を続けている。このままではバランスは逆転する。それは脅威である

　問　中国の軍事費は主に兵隊の給料であるが

　岡崎　それが今まで中国軍の一つの問題であった。だから九七年に、中国は兵力を五十万人減らして近代化に専念している。実はインフレを除いての真の二桁成長はその年からであり、実質成長を増大した上に人件費を節約している。九六年の台湾海峡危機の教訓からだろう。

　それ以来の大増強はもうそろそろ十年になる。十年間の二桁成長はただごとではない。もし八〇年代の日本が二桁成長をしていたならば、空母機動部隊を持てたと思う。中国の軍事力は年々恐るべきものになりつつある

≪現在の日中関係は良好だ≫
　問　憲法改正をするのか

　岡崎　中国の脅威が増大すれば何とか対抗措置を考えねばならない。憲法改正は別の問題だが、そのためにも必要だ

　問　日米安保協議で台湾の問題にふれたが

　岡崎　日本の敗戦以来、沖縄の基地がこの地域の安全を守る役割をしていた。マッカーサーは沖縄さえあれば良いと言ったくらいだ。そこで六九年の沖縄返還共同声明で、台湾の安全は日本の安全にとって重要な要素だと日米が合意した。それ以来の問題認識であり、新しい問題ではない

　問　現在の日中関係をどう考えるか

　岡崎　良好である（笑）。ビジネスは何の支障もなく行われているし、民間の交流も進んでいる。小泉総理が靖国参拝してもデモも起こらない。トップで言葉のうえのやり取りがあるだけだ（笑）

　問　四月には中国国民の反日デモがあったではないか

　岡崎　総理参拝後はかえって反日デモはない

　問　春ぐらいにはまたあるかもしれない

　岡崎　ないと思う。春になっても、中国政府は、国民のデモは反政府でなく反日だという自信は持てないだろうと思う（笑）

≪日本側は窓を開けている≫
　問　ビジネスにも影響ある。日本は大きな発注案件からはずされる（笑）

　岡崎　それは絶対に言ってはいけない。経済はあくまでも自由でなければいけない。発注案件を脅迫に使うのは経済倫理に反する犯罪行為である。ＷＴＯの精神に反して、国際社会から糾弾される（笑）

　問　両国の首脳が会えないのは不便ではないか

　岡崎　日本はいつでも会う気がある。不便と思えば会いに来れば良いだけである。中国は国中に反日記念館を建てたりしている。日本側はもとより面白くはないが、それは中国の国内事情でやっていることで、そんなことを外交問題にして首脳会談を断る気などまったくない（笑）

　問　アメリカはしきりに中国と接近したがっている。ゼーリック（米国務副長官）が言っている

　岡崎　ゼーリックは確かに言っている（笑）。ブッシュ政権の中でゼーリックは中国が頼みにしても良いのだろう（笑）。もっとも政治問題は彼の所管外だが（笑）

　問　今の日中関係は悪くても、次の世代には良くなるように期待しています

　岡崎　あなた方は四十歳そこそこだ。文革後に大学に入った世代でしょう。次の世代はまだ十歳だ（大笑）。あなた方の世代で良くすればよいではないですか（大笑）

2006年1月5日　産経新聞　掲載