Yes and No

Is there any hope for Japan’s politics to change despite the continuing rule of the ironically hated Liberal Democratic Party? Well there is hope and several reasons that would support an affirmative answer but then again, realistically speaking, the wanted change in Japan’s politics would not surface in the near future. I would divide my blog into two parts, the first part why it could be said that the political change could happen and the second part why there is still pessimism for this change to happen.

Yes
Internationally Speaking
It could be said that the policies of the former Prime Ministers Junichiro Koizumi and Yasuo Fukuda aim to build strong ties with the United Sates of America through aiding the Bush administration in their attack against terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan. Koizumi deployed Japan Self-Defense Forces to Iraq and in October 2001 they were given greater scope to operate outside of the country. In relation to that, Fukuda pressed on with his promise to continue the mission of allowing Japanese oil tankers to provide fuel for American ships involved in military operations by using the LDP's 2/3 majority in the lower house to win successful passage for the bill despite the opposition and rejection of the upper house. The course of politics in Japan was changing in those instances because it showed the rest of the world that Japan was not only focusing on its domestic problems anymore but also engaging in international crisis specifically terrorism. Adding on, the main factor that could have made Japan address international problems through the use of their strong military capabilities was the expansion of Korea’s and China’s military funding. Japan was placed in a position wherein being a pacifist country had to be amended because it could actually endanger the state since her neighbors were growing militarily stronger.

Show Off
It is good to note that two candidates who won as Prime Minister were showing their personalities in public which was something not usual for the Japanese society. The former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi did not hide his huge interest on Elvis Presley and even visited his museum in Graceland together with Elvis’ ex-wife and daughter. The current Prime Minister Taro Aso showed his great liking for manga and even implemented a policy to give awards to manga artists. This showed that the Japanese politics was starting to be liberal and open minded to the outside world and politicians were starting to be open about themselves. This was good because this allowed the citizens to feel a connection with the people running their country rather than a distant feeling.

Self Destroyer
The long rule of the LDP could be broken through its own self because whenever their candidate wins as prime minister and does some drastic change, they leave him alone and the party breaks into two; those who support the prime minister and those who do not. The former Prime Minister Shinzō Abe was left alone after he appointed some people who destroyed the credibility of his rule. Despite the fact that Abe was a safe choice of the LDP compared to Koizumi, the party once again left him and found someone better to replace him with. The LDP could be said to be an ambitious party because it seems that all they care is to prolong its name to be untainted. They are good in choosing quality leaders however they are also good in dropping them when the leaders are placed in state crisis.

The Younger Generation
Whenever the younger generation is asked about their opinion about their country’s politics, they would say that they are getting sick of the long rule of the LDP because nothing seems to change in their country. These younger generation wants a better change especially since their lifestyles are becoming more materialistic and liberal so the problem of unemployment in the country definitely hits their nerve. Since the younger generation is starting to rage on the long rule of the LDP then it is possible that they are the hope for a new party’s candidate to sit as prime minister.

No
Blind Spot
For some reason Japan does not want to identify the problem in their society thus they could not fix it. The reason for Japan’s society not wanting to see the problem could be attributed to their strong pride and high belief about their nationality. They believe that they are the descendants of the Sun goddess thus they are perfect individuals living in a perfect Japan. The politics in Japan could not change if people do not want to accept that the party ruling the society for a long time is a big problem. Adding on, whenever the prime ministers had successfully identified problems in the society and would want to pass on bills that would resolve the problems, their popularity in the society decreases. It is totally absurd but true. When it also comes to voting candidates, the people highly prefer those candidates who do not address deep issues of the society such as corruption and international concern but prefer those candidates whose concern are only to make Japan look perfect. So how can there be a change in Japan politics when the people turn blind to accept that there is a big problem in it?

Playing It Safe
Voters want to play it safe when choosing their leaders so despite the imposition of the Two Party System wherein they are given the right to vote their own choice of candidate as prime minister, there is a great number of people voting the party to choose the candidate. This works to the LDP’s advantage because the people believe that the party has a better candidate compared to other’s. Japanese voters do not want to think for themselves because they believe that those in higher positions have better choices despite it not being true all the time.

Long Developing Party

It seems like a great conspiracy that the Liberal Democratic Party more commonly knows as the LDP is winning even though a majority of voters do not like or better yet hate t. Believe it or not, it is surprising to know that the LDP only has a one digit numbered supporters since 1963. So the great question is how come the LDP continues to garner a great number of seats despite of the voter’s hatred toward the LDP? The first thought that came to my mind was the possibility of an election cheat however Japan was not like the Philippines therefore all votes actually came from the voters and not what we call in the Philippines as the “ghost voters”. This is what we call as an “uncommon democracy” wherein a party continues to win despite low support from the people. There are two main important reasons why this happens to the LDP wherein this reasons really do justify the “great conspiracy.

Quality Please
The LDP wins not because people vote for the party but because of the candidate they are voting. The new election institution introduced in 1994 wherein there would be a mix member system meaning that the voter would be given two ballots each, one ballot for candidate one ballot for the party is an advantage to the LDP because they have strong candidates compared to the opposing party who has weak candidates. LDP has “quality candidates” meaning that people are more likely to vote candidates who already had an experience in government or what Jacobson labels as the “quality candidate”. This candidate could have acquired their experiences from local offices, being a former member of upper house of parliament, being a former bureaucrat, or being a mayor or governor. Quality also extends to the name recognition of the candidate wherein he/she could have been a newscaster or inherited a seat from the family member. I could understand why the voters would want a quality candidate because like the Japanese voters, I want to vote for someone who already knows how things are done inside the government. A candidate who already had an experience serving the people would have been already honed as a good government official. He or she is passed the stage of trial and error so that candidate could be assured when given the chance to serve the people once more, the candidate would have lesser failures compared to the new candidate. However, this is not always true because there are candidates who never had a chance to work inside the government but would definitely serve the people better than those “quality candidates.” Well, even though this is sometimes the case, a known candidate despite his or weakness would still win simply because we all feel more assured to trust someone known.

Pipe It Up
Since the LDP had acquired the majority of seats from the central government, it assures them seats from the local to the national level of government, thus the opposing party finds it impossible to acquire their “quality candidates. So how does this thing works? First, it starts with clientelism wherein the voters are greatly influenced by their Japanese culture of being idealistic. Japanese voters prefer a representative who addresses safe issues such as water line improvement, construction of dam, and so on. They do not want candidates who address heavy controversies because the Japanese see their state as a perfect one so any tinge of negativity from the part of the candidate regarding Japan would definitely lose him a great number of votes. As a result the government officials spend a large amount of money building projects to create a perfect looking society. In fact, the local government spends more than the allotted allowance for projects. The next question is where do the candidates get the money to build their projects? In Japan, there is what they call a financially centralized systems wherein the local government because of their over expenditure could acquire the needed money from the central government. However, not every local government official could get the money, not unless they have powerful a connection which is their political party. This is what they call as the “piping effect” or “pipu effect” for the Japanese. A great number of seats already belong to the LDP which means that LDP local government officials get a great deal of projects done but those who are not LDP don’t. This in effect makes LDP more and more appealing to the voters because fiscal dependence is important to local elections. Of course, voters would vote a candidate who has the ability to actually make the projects he or she preached which is why a well connected candidate, wins. This is a vicious cycle because this doesn’t give the non-LDP candidates a chance to have an advantage over the LDP candidates.

Future Mayhem
In conclusion, does the opposing party have any chance to win over LDP? Well maybe in some parts of Japan such as the rural area but when it comes to the urban areas, then it’s a different case. Rural areas tend to be more conservative to the Japanese culture and they greatly need more projects. So the LDP is more appealing because from the voter’s point of view, LDP could change the society for the better. However for the voters from the urban areas, they could see the real world and that change could occur even though LDP wouldn’t lead the country. Maybe in the future, the opposing party could top of LDP but that would take more years to come because idealism and conservatism is still paramount in Japan which makes LDP very attractive even though despiteful.

The Consequence

Whenever there is a loser, for sure there is a consequence to be paid. For Japan, losing in the Word War II means losing the absolute sovereignty of the emperor, the type of government stated in the Meiji Constitution, and the controversial renouncing its right to wage war. The last one is a major blow for the Japanese because how can we really call Japan number 1 when it can not protect its own state from terrorism? Even though Japan has aided numerous countries through its immense donations and continues to build the latest technologies, it does not have the greatest right every state has which is using military force for offense and defense. Like what Niccolò Machiavelli said in his book “The Prince,” “It is better to be feared than to be loved.” And that is exactly what I think Japan wants to be in this time of countless terrorism. However, no matter how much Japan wants a revision on their constitution, doing so is still a failure.

Time’s Up
When the new constitution was already implemented in May 3, 1947, Australia and New Zealand proposed that Japan could review the said constitution but only before a year it goes into effect until two years after it goes into effect thus the FEC adopted this policy. It would have been a good proposal despite the time constraints because this would allow Japan to observe the effect of the new constitution on the citizens and maybe the Article 9 of the constitution would have been redrafted. However, the said policy was only announced a year after thus the government was already deducted a year minus the review policy. This year could have allowed them to start observing the effects in the society and the people. Who was to blame for this? Mac Arthur informed Prime Minister Yoshida only that year and not the year the constitution was implemented. In 1948, the constitution was already two years old and some in the government and the Diet wanted to review the constitution already however the public showed little interest. So how can they review the effects when the prime subjects were not interested in supporting the review? By 1949, the constitution had already reached its third year thus the constitution could not be reviewed anymore so the FEC abandoned the government’s request for a review in that same year’s May. So going back to the present, Japan wants to redraft its constitution, but how can it do it now when in the past only three years after the implementation of the constitution, the government and the diet were not allowed to review it? Well you could say that now it is a different situation because the public is showing interest in doing so but not everyone in Japan is agreeing with its revision especially those who experienced World War II


Everybody Counts
You could say that revising the Japanese constitution is like making a horse fit in the hole of the needle. It is impossible to do so because a society which greatly embraces groupism means that everyone’s consent matters so and how can Japan make a decision when some are opposing? Conservatives and nationalists attempted to revise the constitution after 1952 however they too were disappointed because according to Article 96 of the Japanese Constitution, amending it required the two-thirds approval of the members of both houses of the National Diet before they can be presented to the people in a referendum. But how can you get that much approval when the people occupying more than one-third of the Diet seats were not in favor of a revision? Members of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) would also not want a revision because it was giving them an advantage. Adding on, even the prime minister Yasuhiro Nakasone in 1982 until 1987 who was a strong advocate of constitutional revision could not impose his belief so how can the government and the people do so? You must be wondering why in the world was the process for amending the constitution made to be so difficult? Well the culprits are the American authors of the constitution who greatly prohibited the Japanese to make a change in the regime fundamentals they had imposed.

No Reason
Even though the Japanese youth was able to grasp the importance of their state’s military force, it is still not enough to win the approval of the international community in allowing Japan to revise the article 9 of their constitution. And even though this we are all in a new century, the terrible wounds which Japan had inflicted deep in our, China’s, and Korea’s history would always be there and would always be a strong reason for disapproving Japan to hold the right of use of force. We knew their capabilities before and now that they are a stronger state, their military force is really something to be greatly feared. Watching the interview of Mr. Akazaki, the advisor to Prime Minister Abe, the interviewer was right when he said that Japan’s reason of revising the Article 9 of the constitution was weak and insufficient. Just because China’s $41 million budget for military spending is increasing and that of Japan’s $40 million is turning the opposite direction is a pathetic reason because China has over a billion population to protect and Japan only has a million. Adding on, Japan also reasoned that Korea is kidnapping their people so they need to use military force however Japan is already backed up by the United States in terms of self defense so having the world’s greatest power to protect them should already be sufficient for Japan.

Unfortunate Event
For Japan to revise their constitution especially Article 9 would take a very long time and courting not only internally but externally as well. Article 9 was a price Japan paid because they lost in the World War II and brought a great number of damages to Asian countries. This particular article continues to fuel their Western insecurity even though they have achieved what no other Asian country had achieved in terms of economic growth and technological advancement. Well yes it is embarrassing that a country so great only could stand through the side lines while American and British soldiers use military force against Iraqi enemies. To think about it, other Western countries had also contributed to the damages of World War II but their international right to use force was not taken away from them but unfortunately everyone’s eyes and pointing finger were on the Japanese. Let’s just all hope that Japan would not one day wake up and remove its chains from the limit of using military force and wage massive war against states because from the way I am seeing it, Japan is absolutely capable of doing so. From the new generation being drilled to understand the importance of their military force to the government’s budget for military spending, a new Japan is not far from rising.

Questions

I found it ironic that the year when Rashomon was showed was just five years after the World War II wherein we all know that Japan had played a terrible role. The story revolves around three main characters: the samurai, his wife, and the bandit. They all state different stories about the reason why the samurai died and leaves the watchers and readers not knowing the real truth. At first glance, it seems that there is no relation with Japanese politics but once we look at it deeper, we would see the depiction of Japan’s politics before and during the World War II. There are two ways of interpreting the similarity of Rashomon with Japan’s politics. First Rashomon have depicted the flow of Japan’s politics before World War II which was very individualistic. Second, Rashomon have depicted the main characters showing Japan’s politics and the force which triggered it to become the enemy in that war wherein Japan politics during the war was nationalistic.

First Interpretation
Blame Game
Rashomon depicted the characters all blaming another person because of the crime which happened thus it left the whole story open-ended. It is similar to Japan’s politics because the bureaucrats are like the characters in the story, they just blamed each other rather than fixing the problem. It would be hard to believe that Japan’s bureaucrat would not admit their wrong doings because we see Japan now as having honesty run through its citizens because of groupism. However before the war, bureaucrats did accept their own fault but blamed others for the problem which happened in the society.

The Survivor
Rashomon depicted the characters as selfish individuals. They all seemed to want different things like the bandit wanted the samurai’s wife, the samurai wanted his honor, the wife wanted her freedom, and the woodcutter wanted material things. The similarity in all of this is that they all wanted something for themselves only. It is similar to Japan politics because bureaucrats acted for themselves. It was like Charles’ Darwin’s survival of the fittest wherein people competed for their survival. During the Meiji Period the Western values which entered the country influenced the bureaucrats to compete for their own political survival. They also disregarded the weak and only maintained the strong inside the political sphere which promoted an absolute cruel competition.

Broad Horizon
Despite the two negative things which Rashomon depicted about the politics, there is one good thing which it showed throughout the story. Rashomon depicted an unbiased perception in the story. The bandit was not depicted as the character that really killed the samurai just because of his position in the society and the woman was not depicted as the victim just because of gender. This is similar to Japan’s politics because there is no nepotism in it. People acquire their places in the political seats through their achievements or evident actions rather than family connections. Hearsay does not also work for the politics in Japan because there needs to be evidence for what one has done. Adding on, Rashomon is similar to Japan’s politics because it is open for new ideas and does not close one’s self to new possibilities.




Second interpretation
International Power as the Samurai’s Wife
In the story Rashomon, the wife was depicted as a character who started the problem and confusion. She was so attractive that a glimpse of her led one thing to another which ended up in death and lies. It is similar to international power because it blinds states to do illogical actions just to acquire it. However once a particular state had done everything to attain the power, it would suddenly leave its owner open and vulnerable. International power is deceiving just like the wife in the story because after the whole mess that happened, she would just leave the scene like nothing happened. International power does not also hold guilt for the harmful actions which it had led to do.

First Face of Japan Politics as Tajomaru (bandit)
Tajomaru was a weak character who succumbed to the lair of the wife’s beauty which led him to destroy his character. He is similar to the Japan’s politics when it decided to invade Asian countries as to attain lands, riches, and the most important thing of all, international power. Japan at that time was very much inferior to the West which became a pushing factor for Japan to use its advanced weaponry and strong military to invade countries and develop power in them. Like Tajoromaru, Japan became obsessed with one thing that would satisfy its want which led them to do unjustifiable acts and harm people.

Second Face of Japan Politics as Masayuki Mori (Samurai)
The samurai was a character who greatly loved his wife but weighed his honor more than her. So when he saw that the love of his wife belonged to another man as well, he decided to kill himself rather than having his name tarnished. Masuki is similar to the second face of Japan because the politics led its citizens die for the honor of Japan to acquire its international power. The politics in Japan holds a great amount of loyalty and respect for its country which leads it to do drastic actions such as destroying its own self just for the sake of achieving its goal.

Duel between the Bandit and the Samurai
There is a battle between the inferiority of Japan and the great honor it has for its glory because even though it had destroyed a great number of lives, one side of Japan sees it as a heroic act. There is no doubt from the international community that the act done by Japan during the World War II was to be condemned but for the Japanese, what they did was save the Asian countries from the bad influence of the West. Until now there is a battle because visiting the Yasukuni shrine is still a controversy between the international community and Japan and Japan’s inferiority and honor.

My first and second interpretation’s similarity is this: what wrong did they do? Was it wrong for Japan politics to have bureaucrats that were very competitive? Was it really wrong for Japan to invade the Asian countries? Rashomon is like Japan politics because it leaves us thinking, who really did wrong? It is really up to us to know what is right from wrong...

Top View

When I went to Japan for the first time, the moment I looked out of the airplane’s window the first thing that came into my mind was that Japan was way different compared to my home country. Of course there were the billboards and signs written in Japanese characters and people talking in Nihongo which all count as noticeable big differences. However, the difference I was pertaining to was the order and the advancement of Japan. I note this simply because I did not see any tires on the rusty iron roof of small houses built very close to each other and the road did not have any long line of parallel red lights. If one would look at the Philippines from the airplane’s window, poverty would come first into mind. Everything in Japan was so orderly starting from the line in the airport wherein an officer would check one’s visa until I went out of the airport and saw the order of the traffic.

The orderliness of Japan that makes foreigners, especially those coming from developing countries, awe in delight roots from the government and politics in Japan. As a Filipino, I could not help myself from comparing the developed Japan from the developing Philippines simply because it is in every human nature to compare as what Landman and Todd had said in their article entitled Why Compare Countries?, "To compare is to be human". Comparing states would help states to build their countries better for the welfare of their citizens and to develop an active role in the international arena.

The question is how do I compare? Should I compare by just pointing the noticeable facts of the country I just visited or is there an academic and proper way of doing so? It all depends with the situation I am in, if I was just to chat with my friends about my trip then I could just point the shallow factors to them however if I was to write a scholarly article then I should use the comparative method which compares either the politics or government of two or more countries. According to the articles which I have read, the comparative method is done by comparing not the dependent variables of countries but their independent variables in their similarities and differences. Simply put, if I was to compare Japan and the Philippines then I should take note why the society is more in order, the government more helpful to the people, and so on; the important factor is that the variables to be compared are the reasons and not the results. The comparative method is a better way of comparing states because it provides a concrete fact about the welfare and society wherein the one who will do the comparing would look at the states’ history, culture, traditions, politics, government, and present situation to understand why the states are behaving in particular ways. Comparing the present situation of states would not lead to a better understanding of states’ actions because some factors would be left out such as the citizens’ history which is essential because it greatly influences the shape of the society.

There are numerous factors which I could use to compare states but politics would be the best to use because it is what makes the state work and achieve what it can. Politics came from the Greek word “polis” which means city or state thus based from the history of the word, politics is synonymous to that of the state which shoes the formers great importance. The question is how does politics move the state? First, politics affect the economic stand of a state because industries and investments working inside a state are affected by politics. I often read in news that investments made here in the Philippines are affected whenever there is coup de ta in the country or rallies because investors would like their businesses to perform operate in a smooth and stable environment thus preferring other states. This shows that weak politics in a state result to weak economic gains. Second politics affect the interests of the citizens because their welfare highly depends on the leadership of their state. I often hear from the news, whenever underprivileged people would be asked why they think they are placed in a hard situation, they would always blame the government for their state. Politics affect the citizens way of living because in the Philippines, the government establishes short-term projects which do not help the poor to improve their present situation. Lastly, politics affect the relations of the state with other states. There was an article in the newspaper which I read during the reign of former President Ejercito Estrada that stated that the president did not attend international conventions and gatherings because he had not enough knowledge on making international deals with other states. The result of our president’s absence in those international conventions was the downfall of our economy.

From my point of view, the best state to be compared with the Philippines is Japan. I have said at the first part of my paper that Japan and Philippines are different in more ways than one. The politics of the Japanese are different compared to the Philippines which is why the gap between Japan and the Philippines is great. The Japanese government system is a constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary government wherein the emperor is considered the symbol of the state however he could not practice his power over the country based from the Japanese constitution's war-renouncing Article 9 so it is the prime minister who leads the politics of the country and is elected by the public. On the other hand, the Philippine government system is a democracy wherein freedom is given to the citizens; the freedom to vote, rally, and so on. Both countries have political problems such as corruption and fraud in the system however they are different in handling the situation. For Japan, whenever the prime minister was apprehended for doing an unlawful act, he would immediately leave his seat but for the Philippines if the president was apprehended for the same reason, he or she would be determined to cover the act. I believe that the reason for the difference in both states’ action is the culture of the people. The Japanese value integrity more than the Filipinos because for the latter an unlawful act could always be forgiven and forgotten. Both countries also have two opposing parties battling for positions in the government wherein for Japan there is the LDP and the NFP and for the Philippines there is the Administration and the Opposition. The difference would come when I would talk about loyalty to the party’s principles. Japanese politicians do not change their parties while Filipino politicians more often than not do. The reason for this difference is the Japanese concept of groupism wherein the Japanese live for the group because they seek their image through them thus building loyalty but the Filipinos leave the group because they do not practice groupism but individual survival. Despite the big difference between the two countries, Japan would serve as a good model for the Philippine politics to follow especially now in this time of global financial crisis. Japan is under a long term recession but despite this, it still manages to maintain its high position in the international arena because the Japanese government instead of crumbling, it shows the world not its true situation by lending money to other states thus attracting other states to invest in it. The Philippines could learn a great number of tricks from Japan. Philippines is also in deep debt but instead of doing something, it is showing the world that it is really a poor country thus alarming investors.

So should Philippines become Japan? No, but Japan could be a model for the Philippine's culture and politics to follow.