Japan Bumbles Another Crisis

With the national trauma of former Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi’s stroke receding, Japan’s perennial ruling Liberal Democratic Party has returned to business as usual.

The trouble is that “business as usual” allowed a “bubble economy” to develop in the late 1980s and then failed to cope with its aftermath in the 1990s, creating a lost decade of stagnation.

Now, in turning to Yoshiro Mori as the new prime minister, the Liberal Democrats made the “don’t rock the boat” choice. Mori, who moved up from secretary-general of the party, is a coordinator, not a leader. He has never enunciated any policy proposals, much less a vision.

In Japan, that’s not unusual. Pupils in school, for example, are taught to accept what teachers say. Adults in daily life forgo debate with elders out of hierarchic respect. As a result, policymakers win few accolades in politics. Arranging favors with the bureaucracy and dispensing pork-barrel benefits are all-important. That’s the main reason why the party in power stays in power even with polls that report voters’ support varying from 30% to 40%. No opposition party gets even 10%.

Obuchi’s tragedy, like the heart attack and subsequent death of Prime Minister Masayoshi Ohira during the 1980 campaign, is expected to give the ruling party a boost from a non-policy “sympathy vote” in an election for the lower house that must be held by Oct. 19. There is pressure on Mori to call an early election to take advantage of the impact.

Obuchi’s stroke bore another similarity to 1980. Then, and again this time, the chief Cabinet secretary--an official who acts both as coordinator of Cabinet actions and as chief spokesman for the government--came out of a visit at the hospital and announced that the ailing leader had asked him to serve as acting prime minister. Although no witnesses saw or heard the request on either occasion, no one questioned either chief Cabinet secretary. The Japanese government has no mechanism for choosing an acting prime minister, and no action has been taken this time to create one.

The “what-me-worry?” attitude toward letting a country make do without an authorized ruler underscored continuing troubles in crisis management. It also spoke volumes about the fact that the power of Japanese prime ministers has never been overwhelming.

Even without death and illness, Japanese go through prime ministers like a game of musical chairs. Mori will be the seventh Japanese prime minister to deal with President Clinton when the G-8 summit is held in Okinawa in July.

From the beginning in 1886, the average length of service of a Japanese prime minister has been two years. Even Gen. Hideki Tojo, the prime minister whose Cabinet made the decision to attack Pearl Harbor, served only two years and nine months. He was removed from office a year before World War II ended.

Most shocking, however, was the 22-hour vacuum in announcing Obuchi’s stroke. Japanese reporters assigned to the prime minister’s office never noticed his absence on a Sunday because they accepted the briefings that were spoon-fed to them by officials who said Obuchi was busy “studying policy.” That kind of reporting is typical in Japan, where reporters cover the government through “press clubs” that restrict membership to a handful of major media organizations and monopolize the only press conferences that officials give. The lengthy cover-up also revealed the government’s proclivity for keeping citizens uninformed about government activities.

Ironically, Obuchi’s last act before his stroke wound up strengthening the ruling party. Obuchi dissolved his coalition partnership with troublemaker Ichiro Ozawa of the Liberal Party and won the de facto defection of 26 of Ozawa’s followers, who remained in the coalition. If reelected, the 26 are expected to rejoin the ruling party that they bolted under Ozawa’s leadership in 1993.

The big question, as before, is the economy. An Obuchi goal to restore 2% as a potential growth rate offered little hope for a return of vitality. A minimal upturn in the gross domestic product after declines in both 1997 and 1998 is occurring. Once the election is out of the way, Mori is likely to carry out an already established consensus for gradual and limited reforms, including moderate budgetary belt-tightening.

Light at the end of the tunnel is not yet visible. Indeed, uncertainty remains about whether Japan has found the tunnel.