Egypt to begin second phase of universal health insurance in Minya    Madrid trade talks focus on TikTok as US and China seek agreement    Egypt hosts 4th African Trade Ministers' Retreat to accelerate AfCFTA implementation    Egypt's Investment Minister, World Bank discuss strengthening partnership    El Hamra Port emerges as regional energy hub attracting foreign investment: Petroleum Minister    Power of Proximity: How Egyptian University Students Fall in Love with Their Schools Via Social Media Influencers    Egypt wins Aga Khan Award for Architecture for Esna revival project    Egypt's Sisi, Qatar's Emir condemn Israeli strikes, call for Gaza ceasefire    Egypt's gold prices hold steady on Sep. 15th    EHA launches national telemedicine platform with support from Egyptian doctors abroad    Egypt's Foreign Minister, Pakistani counterpart meet in Doha    Egypt condemns terrorist attack in northwest Pakistan    Emergency summit in Doha as Gaza toll rises, Israel targets Qatar    Egypt advances plans to upgrade historic Cairo with Azbakeya, Ataba projects    Egyptian pound ends week lower against US dollar – CBE    Egypt hosts G20 meeting for 1st time outside member states    Lebanese Prime Minister visits Egypt's Grand Egyptian Museum    Egypt to tighten waste rules, cut rice straw fees to curb pollution    Egypt seeks Indian expertise to boost pharmaceutical industry    Egypt prepares unified stance ahead of COP30 in Brazil    Egypt harvests 315,000 cubic metres of rainwater in Sinai as part of flash flood protection measures    Egyptian, Ugandan Presidents open business forum to boost trade    Al-Sisi says any party thinking Egypt will neglect water rights is 'completely mistaken'    Egypt's Sisi warns against unilateral Nile measures, reaffirms Egypt's water security stance    Egypt's Sisi, Uganda's Museveni discuss boosting ties    Egypt, Huawei explore healthcare digital transformation cooperation    Greco-Roman rock-cut tombs unearthed in Egypt's Aswan    Egypt reveals heritage e-training portal    Sisi launches new support initiative for families of war, terrorism victims    Egypt expands e-ticketing to 110 heritage sites, adds self-service kiosks at Saqqara    Palm Hills Squash Open debuts with 48 international stars, $250,000 prize pool    On Sport to broadcast Pan Arab Golf Championship for Juniors and Ladies in Egypt    Golf Festival in Cairo to mark Arab Golf Federation's 50th anniversary    Germany among EU's priciest labour markets – official data    Paris Olympic gold '24 medals hit record value    A minute of silence for Egyptian sports    Russia says it's in sync with US, China, Pakistan on Taliban    It's a bit frustrating to draw at home: Real Madrid keeper after Villarreal game    Shoukry reviews with Guterres Egypt's efforts to achieve SDGs, promote human rights    Sudan says countries must cooperate on vaccines    Johnson & Johnson: Second shot boosts antibodies and protection against COVID-19    Egypt to tax bloggers, YouTubers    Egypt's FM asserts importance of stability in Libya, holding elections as scheduled    We mustn't lose touch: Muller after Bayern win in Bundesliga    Egypt records 36 new deaths from Covid-19, highest since mid June    Egypt sells $3 bln US-dollar dominated eurobonds    Gamal Hanafy's ceramic exhibition at Gezira Arts Centre is a must go    Italian Institute Director Davide Scalmani presents activities of the Cairo Institute for ITALIANA.IT platform    







Thank you for reporting!
This image will be automatically disabled when it gets reported by several people.



Japan's revenge of the mandarins
Published in Daily News Egypt on 06 - 03 - 2012

OSAKA: Ever since the huge earthquake that hit Japan's Pacific coast at Tohoku on March 11, 2011, the country's mass media has obsessively focused on the magnitude of the physical damage and the loss of life. Repeated broadcasts of traumatic video images of the great tsunami and the damaged nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant have been seared into Japan's collective memory.
One year later, the media will be sure to intensify its reports and broadcasts along the same lines, encouraging the Japanese public to become all the more determined to overcome the disaster. But the Japanese may already have fallen victim to an unforeseen pitfall.
What the Japanese public has endured over the past year is somewhat analogous to what Americans experienced following the terrorist attacks of Sept.11, 2001. Both events severely distorted public discourse. In the United States, the government employed massive propaganda to promote public support for the “global war on terror” that it was about to wage. Video images, particularly of the World Trade Center's collapsing twin towers, fanned the flames of conflict.
In Japan, images of the earthquake/tsunami/nuclear-plant disaster have been used to unite the Japanese public behind rehabilitation of damaged regions by bureaucrats, as well as behind continuation of the country's decades-long junior-partner status vis-à-vis the US, which the public rejected in the 2008 general election.
But, almost one year after the earthquake, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda's government has made scant progress in post-disaster reconstruction and rehabilitation. Many evacuees continue to live in temporary shelters, and mountainous piles of refuse remain in the devastated areas. By contrast, private-sector actors quickly rebuilt major production facilities across the region, restoring crucial links in global supply chains.
Japan's malfunctioning government, made worse by the inexperienced and ineffectual ruling Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), is at the root of this incompetence. To be sure, the DPJ lacks a majority in the upper house, which has the power to veto major legislation, and the last two DPJ governments have suffered from four upper-house censure resolutions against cabinet ministers. But, even with its absolute majority in the lower house, the DPJ has been continually preoccupied with party infighting and political-crisis management.
Not surprisingly, the Japanese public has become utterly disenchanted with the DPJ, which came to power promising a clean sweep of the five-decade-long rule of the Liberal Democratic Party. Voters ousted the LDP from power in 2008 in the naïve belief that a change of government would somehow bring an end to the prolonged political and economic malaise in which the country had been mired since its real-estate bubble burst in the early 1990s.
The DPJ's rosy manifesto, stressing reform and economic recovery, convinced voters that Japan could return painlessly to its previous path of strong growth. Indeed, the DPJ identified the symbiotic relationship between the LDP and the bureaucracy — ties once regarded as enabling the country's rapid post-war growth and reconstruction — as the root cause of Japan's stagnation. Thus, the first DPJ prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, made a specialty of verbally abusing Japan's bureaucratic mandarins, even abolishing the council of administrative deputy ministers essential for government-wide policy coordination. That helps to explain why policy coordination was woefully lacking in the rescue, recovery, and reconstruction effort after the earthquake and the Fukushima disaster.
Hatoyama's attacks did not spare the defense and foreign-policy mandarins who managed the US-Japan alliance, because they, too, were regarded as part and parcel of the LDP/bureaucratic power structure that was strangling Japan's economy. For the mandarins, preserving their role in alliance management was a major source of power. As a result, Hatoyama also emphasized Japan's need to become more independent of the US within the framework of the alliance, while proposing a vague East Asian Community.
Nine months after the DPJ's electoral victory, Hatoyama resigned, owing primarily to his bungling of alliance management, particularly the issue of relocating the US Marine Corps base on Okinawa. He promised to remove the base from Okinawa, and, at the same time, was obliged by the countries' bilateral agreement to build a replacement facility there.
After Hatoyama's resignation, the succeeding prime ministers — Naoto Kan and Noda — backpedaled on reform efforts, both in alliance management and domestic policy. Nowhere is the return to bureaucratic/governmental symbiosis more conspicuous than in Noda's emphasis on business-as-usual alliance management, or in his single-minded pursuit of doubling the 5 percent consumption tax (necessary for protecting their mandarins' fiefdoms), despite deepening deflation.
The sense of helplessness that now grips the Japanese public makes voters increasingly susceptible to political manipulation that emphasizes the need to rely anew on the bureaucracy for swift rehabilitation of quake-devastated areas, and that underscores the importance of the US military's post-disaster rescue and relief operation. Revealingly, the DPJ government has reestablished the council of administrative deputy ministers that Hatoyama abolished.
Like Americans, Japanese will need some time, perhaps several years, until they become aware that they have been deluded. Until then, the mandarins have nothing to fear.
Masahiro Matsumura is Professor of International Politics at St. Andrew's University (Momoyama Gakuin Daigaku) in Osaka. This commentary is published by Daily News Egypt in collaboration with Project Syndicate, www.project-syndicate.org.


Clic here to read the story from its source.