Japan
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Despite all the predictions of crises, no serious one materialized during the eighties. The economic and other relations between Japan and the United States became much more closely intertwined. Most major firms developed joint production companies or other forms of cooperation with corporations that were their counterparts in the other country. The two economies increasingly drifted toward becoming a single unified one. Instead of trade wars, a much more likely outgrowth of the eighties appeared to be a Japanese–American economic community, probably under the more attractive name of Pacific or Pacific Rim Community. It might include countries like Australia and Canada and would have room to add late industrializers, such as South Korea, Taiwan, and Mexico. But whether or not economic relations would ever grow that far, the eighties clearly laid a foundation for a much broader and more significant participation by Japan in the world economy than it had ever had before and for a very close economic relationship with the United States and some of the other industrialized nations facing on the Pacific.
In earlier periods in Japanese history, the primary divisions were defined by major political events, institutions, and leaders. By the 1980s, however, it was clear that this was no longer the case. Economic developments, especially in world trade, had become the central factors shaping the country’s course. Japan had entered a new age. The struggle for political leadership continued between politicians, parties, and rival institutions; controversies over political and social issues remained remarkably constant; and individual incidents in domestic or foreign affairs still stirred the public. But these had become a sort of familiar background music, little changed from earlier years and not controlling the flow of history. The leading role had passed to Japan’s economic development and its relations with foreign countries, especially its main trading partners.
Political trends remained very stable throughout the eighties. This was the result of three primary factors: The nation was prospering as never before; as a consequence, political tensions declined markedly; and voters gravitated toward the center, increasingly content with the situation as it existed. In typical Japanese fashion, this produced in the parties a greater tendency to compromise rather than to magnify their differences and to contend primarily for the support of the central floating vote.
By this time, the LDP no longer held the chairmanships of all of the committees in either house of the Diet, and its majority was so narrow that it required the cooperation of one or more of the centrist parties—the New Liberal Club, the Social Democrats, or the Komeito—to operate the Diet successfully. Actually, the LDP usually had the support of all three in passing government bills and often that of the Socialists and even Communists as well. This situation made clear that a major change in Japanese politics had taken place. There was a growing popular consensus and a marked relaxation in political tensions. The opposition parties found less and less to object to. Meanwhile, the conservatives, realizing that they must attract more urban voters to make up for their shrinking rural base, had also moved toward the center. The phenomenal economic success of the country made the LDP less insistent on growth at any price and more willing to emphasize social benefits, the control of pollution, and the improvement of the quality of life. Ideological differences on both sides declined in significance and often became meaningless to the average voter.
Japan was moving away both from the political polarization characteristic of many multiparty systems and also from the sort of one-party dictatorship found in others. The strength of the LDP had always been its conglomerate nature as a group of rival factions able to achieve consensus on a variety of differing issues and to absorb new groups into its already diverse makeup. Now that it had only a thin majority in the Diet, it was prepared to include various centrist groups in its decision-making process, and as political animosities waned, it found it increasingly possible to iron out some differences even with old enemies like the Socialists through informal, behind-the-scenes negotiations, leaving only the most divisive issues for open conflict in the committees and on the floor of the Diet. The old Japanese skill at compromise through quiet negotiations was emerging once again, though in modern, parliamentary form, taking the place of politics by confrontation, which had characterized the early postwar years. The LDP seemed destined to continue its amoebalike dominance of a ruling central coalition by absorbing or cooperating with other groups.
In a prosperous and satisfied Japan, politics became more a clash between ambitious political leaders and their factions than a contest between issues and ideologies. Right-wing demands for the revision of the constitution became further muted, and almost everyone came to accept the Self-Defense Forces and the defense relationship with the United States as these existed, though not if they were to be significantly expanded. The centrist parties sought to become the core of a new coalition but never with success, usually being co-opted instead as semimembers of the LDP coalition. Some small groups tried to increase their influence by breaking away toward the center, but all failed. Among the conservatives, the New Liberal Club survived precariously for seven and a half years before rejoining the LDP in December 1983. Among the progressives the veteran Socialist Eda Saburo established a centrist splinter party in March 1977, but it collapsed with his death two months later.
Even the Communists made it clear that they supported a multiparty parliamentary system, and in 1976 they abandoned the use of the phrase “the dictatorship of the proletariat,” since few Japanese felt that they were “proletarians” and almost all hated the word “dictatorship.” The Socialists had an extremely leftist ideological wing called the Society for the Study of Socialism, but its influence declined, and more moderate elements cautiously sought means to form an alliance with the centrist parties, without losing many of their leftist supporters to the Communists. The clearest sign of Socialist moderation, however, was the loss of doctrinaire political leaders and the choice of more moderate leaders to be the party chairpersons. Minobe Ryokichi was defeated for the governorship of Tokyo in 1977 after twelve years of incumbency, and the same year the long-term moderate and pragmatic mayor of Yokohama, Asukata Ichio, was selected as the party’s chairperson, retaining the position for six years. An even more surprising choice to this post was that of Doi Takako in September 1986. She was the first woman ever to be head of a major party, and she proved to be a popular and moderate leader.
Mention should be made of one significant general influence of Japan’s prosperity and changing trade patterns on its politics as a whole. Among the traditional triumvirate of power, the politicians gained in strength, and the bureaucrats and big business lost. As Japan grew enormously in economic power, affluence robbed the earlier policy of growth at any price of some of its appeal. As a result businessmen no longer were seen as the country’s unchallenged heroes but came to be viewed with some disfavor as creators of crowding, pollution, and a lowering of the quality of life. At the same time, the bureaucracy, in relinquishing some of its controls over business and foreign trade, lost part of its influence over big business and the parties. Meanwhile, the politicians were in the best position to respond to popular demands for an improved quality of life. The bureaucrats followed suit, and even big business became responsive, but the parties were best able to attend to people’s desires. The old model of a triumvirate with the parties in the weakest position became progressively less valid and was replaced by a new configuration in which the parties took the lead in supporting “residents’ movements” and the interests of the floating voters.
The lower house election of December 5, 1976, in which the LDP won only 41.78 percent of the popular vote, proved to be the low point in the party’s fortunes. Fukuda, who succeeded Miki as prime minister on December 24, was a stronger leader, backed as he was by a larger faction and having a solid background as a former finance ministry official. Some of the long-range political factors also were beginning to take hold at about this time, and the decline of the LDP began to bott
om out. One of the many signs of this was the election in 1978 of a conservative independent as the governor of Kyoto after twenty-eight years of progressive rule.
UPI
Ohira Masayoshi accepts election as the prime minister on December 7, 1978. At the extreme right of the top row is Fukuda Takeo, and Nakasone Yasuhiro is the fourth from the right in the next row.
Fukuda, however, did not get to enjoy for long this shift in the tide. The LDP had adopted a new system for choosing a party president, according to which, as a means of fostering more grassroots support, all dues-paying members and contributors to the party voted as prefectural blocs for the party presidency. If no one emerged from this process with a majority, the Diet members of the party held a second vote between the top two recipients of votes. To everyone’s surprise, Fukuda’s old rival, Ohira, won a clear majority in the popular primary held on November 26, 1978, and accordingly was elected prime minister by the Diet on December 7. Ohira, like Fukuda, had a sizable faction behind him—Ikeda’s old faction—and he also came from a finance ministry background. He happened to be a “No Church” Christian in the tradition of Uchimura Kanzo and a man of strong principles and broad international vision. He was also quite popular with the voters, who liked his low posture style and his apparently sleepy and phlegmatic mannerisms. His more centrist stance than that of Fukuda also put him in a good position to be a strong national leader, because the voters were definitely drifting toward the center. Ohira was an exceptionally skilled politician, and he might have become one of Japan’s strongest postwar leaders, like Yoshida or Ikeda, had he not died early of a heart attack.
While in office Ohira faced determined opposition in the Diet by Fukuda and some of the other faction leaders. In fact, he maintained his position at first only because of the firm support of Tanaka, who, though he had officially resigned from the party because of the Lockheed scandal of 1976 and his own criminal indictment, was actually still the de facto leader of the largest Diet faction and acted as a sort of kingmaker for the next several years.
Ohira made a serious blunder when he insisted that new elections be held on October 7, 1979, against the advice of several of the faction leaders. He compounded this blunder by mentioning before the election that taxes would obviously have to be raised. In the election the popular vote of the LDP actually rose from its 1976 low of 41.78 percent to 44.6 percent, but Ohira was severely criticized because the party had been expected to do even better. A poor division of the votes also reduced by one the number of LDP seats. LDP rule was in no way threatened, since the other parties came out of the election more evenly divided than ever before, with 107 seats out of 511 for the Socialists, 57 for the Komeito, 39 for the Communists, 35 for the Democratic Socialists, and a mere 4 for the New Liberal Club. Nevertheless, a vote of nonconfidence in Ohira was passed on May 16, 1980, with the members of the Fukuda and Miki faction significantly absent from the house. This was the first time since the early postwar years that this sort of crisis had occurred. Ohira was forced to dissolve the lower house and called elections for June 22, concurrently with regularly scheduled elections for half of the upper house. The strain of the crisis proved too much for him, and he died suddenly on June 12.
In the subsequent election, sympathy for Ohira and improved apportionment of the votes combined with a large turnout because of good weather and the double election to give the LDP what is considered in Japan a landslide victory. The popular vote of the LDP rose to 47.9 percent, the highest it had been since 1967, and the party won 284 of the 511 lower house seats. In the upper house its seats rose from 124 to 135 out of a total of 252. In order to avoid a devisive fight again between strong faction leaders, the LDP decided on a relatively weak and colorless compromise candidate for prime minister. This was Suzuki Zenko, Ohira’s successor as faction leader and known primarily as a fisheries expert. He was neither the graduate of a prestigious university nor a product of a powerful ministry, but he had been a lifelong politician, first elected to the Diet in 1947. Chosen prime minister on July 17, 1980, he provided two years of lackluster leadership, which well suited the Japanese system of decisions by consensus.
When Suzuki resigned as party president on October 12, 1982, a very different sort of man representing a new generation took his place. This was Nakasone Yasuhiro, the youngest of the older faction leaders and a man of great ambition and self-confidence. Big and handsome, he had always supported the direct popular election of the prime minister as favoring him with his apparent charismatic appeal. His actual winning of the post, however, was probably more the result of Tanaka’s support than his own attractiveness to the public. He also differed from his predecessors in being young enough to have served as a naval officer in World War II, and as a result he had a greater inclination than they to support a stronger military establishment. His imposing appearance and outgoing personality made him more impressive to Westerners, and a great deal was made of the supposedly close “Ron-Yasu” relationship he established with Reagan. But this was largely a matter of posing, and when it came down to actual achievements, the Japanese consensus system left him little more room to maneuver than his predecessors had enjoyed.
Following Suzuki’s resignation, Nakasone won the primary election of November 24, 1982. This entitled him to be chosen as party president, and two days later he was elected prime minister. He held the position for the next five years, more than twice the length of any incumbent since Sato. A general election was held, however, on December 18, 1983, at which the LDP under Nakasone did not do well. It dropped only slightly in popular votes from 47.9 percent to 45.8 percent, but it lost heavily in the number of seats from 286 to 250, while the Komeito jumped from 33 to 58, the Socialists from 101 to 112, and the Democratic Socialists from 30 to 38. Once again the LDP was forced to depend on the adherence of nine conservative independents to give it a majority. The lowest electoral turnout in history (67.94 percent) and a resulting maldistribution of the vote were probably the primary causes for what the LDP regarded as a disaster, but regardless of reasons, the result weakened Nakasone’s position within the party until the next election.
At about the same time another important change in the leadership of the LDP took place. On October 12, 1983, Tanaka was sentenced to four years in prison and fined for his part in the Lockheed scandal. His influence as kingmaker began to crumble. He naturally appealed the case, but a scramble for his position as the leader of the largest faction became apparent. By April 1983 Nikaido Susumu, one of Tanaka’s old stalwart lieutenants, had established himself securely enough to be made party vice president, but it was decided that Nakasone would continue another two-year term as party president and prime minister. Another of Tanaka’s chief henchmen, Takeshita Noboru, also started a breakaway group in early February 1985. Tanaka, who already was in poor health, then suffered a serious stroke on February 27, which for all practical purposes removed him from the political scene.
During these same years two potentially important changes in the political system were made. On August 18, 1982, the Diet decided to have the 100 upper house members who were elected individually by the nation at large chosen instead from party slates, thus eliminating the candidates of splinter groups and the celebrities known as tarento (“talent”), who were able to win votes because of their personal popularity. This reform got rid of persons who were more famous or notorious than politically knowledgeable and reflected more fairly the strength of the various parties. The other change was that the Supreme Court on July 17, 1985, ruled that the lower house did not fairly mirror the result of the vote because of the extreme discrepancy between the least and most populous electoral districts. The elimination of seven rural seats and addition of eight urban ones improved the situation a little, while increasing the whole house only by one from 511 to 512 seats. Before this reform the worst discrepancy was about five or six to one, and after the reform it was about three to one. Clearly a much more sweeping chang
e was necessary to create a truly “one man, one vote” situation, but there was curiously little demand for this, and it did not become a prime issue.
A veritable earthquake shook the Japanese political world when Nakasone on July 6, 1986, held an election for the lower house, again in conjunction with an election of half of the upper house. The results were a smashing triumph for the LDP. It won a popular vote of 49.4 percent, the highest since the election of 1963, and an overpowering 300 seats out of 512. Among the opposition parties the Socialists fell to 85 seats, the Komeito to 56, and both the Democratic Socialists and Communists to 26. The largest opposition vote was for the Socialists but was a mere 17.2 percent. The New Liberal Club did so poorly at 8 seats that it rejoined the LDP on August 15. The shock of the election was the reason why the Socialists decided to select a woman leader, Doi Takako, to become their secretary general on September 6, and after twenty years of strong leadership, Takeiri Yoshikazu of the Komeito resigned in November as party chairman.
Nakasone naturally gained great prestige from the election and, lacking an outstanding rival, was reelected party president. Since the party rules had been altered to limit party presidents to two two-year terms, this exception was made with the caveat that it should be only for one year, until October 30, 1987. With a clear date agreed to, the four chief contenders for the succession began serious infighting. Nikaido and Takeshita were the two candidates for the leadership of the former Tanaka faction, but Takeshita finally won out in July 1987. Abe Shintaro had become Fukuda’s successor, and Miyazawa Kiichi emerged as leader of the former Ohira and Suzuki faction. But none of these four had a chance to win the prime ministership except through a still-unformed coalition, and therefore Nakasone continued in a strong position until the end of his term.