The Abe Experiment and the Future of Japan: Don’t Repeat History 9781898823384

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THE ABE EXPERIMENT AND THE FUTURE OF JAPAN

RENAISSANCE BOOKS ASIA PACIFIC SERIES Managing Editor Roger Buckley ISSN 2396-8877 VOLUME 1

The Abe Experiment and the Future of Japan y

Don’t Repeat History y by

JUNJI BANNO &

JIRO YAMAGUCHI TRANSLATED BY ARTHUR STOCKWIN

Renaissance Books Asia Pacific series, ISSN 2396-8877, volume 1 THE ABE EXPERIMENT AND THE FUTURE OF JAPAN DON’T REPEAT HISTORY

First published 2016 by RENAISSANCE BOOKS PO Box 219 Folkestone Kent CT20 2WP Renaissance Books is an imprint of Global Books Ltd REKISHI O KURIKAESUNA by Junji Banno and Jiro- Yamaguchi © 2014 by Junji Banno and Jiro- Yamaguchi Originally published 2014 by Iwanami Shoten, Publishers, Tokyo. This English edition published 2016 by Renaissance Books, Folkestone by arrangement with the proprietor c/o Iwanami Shoten, Publishers, Tokyo © Renaissance Books 2016 ISBN 978-1-898823-21-6 (Hardback) ISBN 978-1-898823-38-4 (e-Book) All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A CIP catalogue entry for this book is available from the British Library Set in Bembo 12 on 13.5 by Dataworks Printed in England by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham, Wilts

CONTENTS

y Foreword by Yamaguchi JiroTranslator’s Preface Conventions Chapter 1. Should the Aim be to Prevent Constitutional Revision?

s &ROMALETTERWRITTENFOURYEARSAGO s 4HEDEEPHISTORICALROOTSOF anti-Japanese feeling in China s @*APAN #HINAFRIENDSHIPASANONGOINGCONCERN s $OWEWANTTOHAVEAPRETENDWAR s #ANWElGHTFORCONSTITUTIONALISM s 4HEDIFFERENCEBETWEEN@CABINETPOLITICS AND@POLITICSBASEDONTHEPEOPLE s 3HOULDWERELYONSHIFTINGPUBLICOPINION

ix xi xiii 1

 6     

Chapter 2. Why was Post-war Pacifism Defective?

27

s 7HYTHEROOTSOF@PEACEARESHALLOW s 7HODID*APANLOSETO s *APANREMAINSOUTSIDETHEWORLDOF victorious nations

  35

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THE ABE EXPERIMENT AND THE FUTURE OF JAPAN

s @0EACEINPOST WARDEMOCRACY s 4URNINGPOINTAFTERTHE#OLD7AR

 

Chapter 3. Is there a Political Elite in Japan?

49

s )FANANTI SYSTEMELITEHOLDSPOWER s 4HEPRESENT0RIME-INISTERIS part of the anti-system elite s 7HYDOESARATIONALELITENOTEMERGE s 4HERATIONALEOFBREAKINGTHROUGH popular consciousness



Chapter 4. Is the Liberal Democratic Party Really Tough?

s /NEASPECTOFCONSERVATISMNATIVECONSERVATISM s !SECONDASPECTOFCONSERVATISM liberal conservatism s 4HERALLYINGOFPRE WARCONSERVATIVEFORCES s 4HELIGHTANDSHADEOFTHE,$0 pursuit of equality s 3CENARIOOFATWO STAGEREVOLUTION s (AVETHEYMIXEDUPPRINCIPLEANDPOLICY s 3TRENGTHANDWEAKNESSOFPARTYADHERENCE s )STHE!BE'OVERNMENTASFIRMASAROCK s 4HEPOSSIBILITYOFLIBERALISMPLUSSOCIALDEMOCRACY Chapter 5. Why Can’t We Tackle Reduction in Inequalities?

s 7HYISSOCIALDEMOCRACYWEAKIN*APAN s $IFFERENCESBROUGHTABOUTBYWAR s 4HE@AGEOFTHENEWMIDDLECLASS also existed in the pre-war

55  60 64

 67  72      88

  97

CONTENTS

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s 4 HEPROBLEMOFDIVERSITYAND poverty has suddenly appeared. s *APANSMODERNHISTORYOFSAMURAI peasants, artisans and merchants s 7HYDIDTHE$EMOCRATIC0ARTYLINEOF GIVINGHIGHESTPRIORITYTOWELFAREFAIL s 4HE*APANESELEFTWINGLIKESSMALLGOVERNMENT

103

Chapter 6. Where Should Japan Go From Here?

113

s (OWSHOULDWEREGARD!BEPOLITICS s &REEDOMISDANGEROUS s !TWO PARTYSYSTEMWITHOUTSOCIAL classes won’t work s $IRECTIONLESS*APAN s *APAN #HINAFRIENDSHIP AND international co-operation, once again s !SOCIETYINWHICHEVERYBODYCANLEAD lives befitting human beings s 0ROBLEMSOFRAISINGANELITETHATCANOPPOSE

 

Afterword by Banno Junji Index

137 139

99

 

119  126 129 

FOREWORD by Yamaguchi Jiro-

y The summer of 2014 is sixty-nine years from the conclusion of the Second World War. This year could be the ending of the post-war, or perhaps the beginning of a new pre-war. When we see the illogical decision of the Abe Government to legitimize the use of collective defence, this is the kind of thought that comes to mind. Of course, we must not consider the post-war to have ended. So our starting point is to comprehend the course of our history since the 1930s, and in particular its course in the post-war. It is, therefore, necessary to affirm our determination not to repeat history, as the title of this book indicates. In my opinion, this dialogue is a golden opportunity to pursue this aim. I first came to realize just how interesting is Japan’s political history when I read Professor Banno’s book. His book Nihon kindai shi (Japan’s Modern History), published by Chikuma Shinsho, was voted out first in a poll about books on politics conducted in 2012 by the Shu-kan to-yo- keizai (Weekly Oriental Economist). This indicates that many of its readers shared this view.

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At the same time, I came to realize that in the conduct of politics, it was not only those exercising power that shaped history, but also those who failed or were defeated. In particular, I learned that before the war when human rights were severely constrained, many politicians and campaigners for democracy and equality did fairly well, and I gained the hope that in an age of democracy political reform was not likely to be impossible. This gives me much food for thought when I review contemporary Japanese politics, Mr Odano Keimei of the publishers Iwanami Shinsho, who shared this kind of idea, acted as intermediary, so that on one occasion in November 2012, and on two occasions in April 2014, he provided the opportunity for a dialogue with Professor Banno. This book was constructed after substantial additions to, and revision of, the recordings. It is now through dialogue with Professor Banno that for the first time I have reached the conviction that man only progresses through understanding failure. Now that the legitimacy of the post-war regime is being shaken as the generation that experienced war departs from the scene, I have come to understand through these dialogues with Professor Banno, in the first place what the post-war regime was really about, and also why it is so important to take it seriously. If the readers of this book come to share this point of view, it will be a great joy for us. Written on the day that a cabinet decision to ‘revise the Constitution by reinterpretation’ was taken by the Abe Government. .

TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE

y The election in December 2012 of a right-wing government headed by Prime Minister Abe Shinzo- ushered in a new and highly controversial period in the politics of the world’s third largest economic power, Japan. The Government’s efforts have been directed towards recovery from a long period of suboptimal economic performance, THROUGHAPROGRAMMEPOPULARLYENTITLED@!BENOMICS AND also towards radical revision of the American-mediated political settlement following the Japanese defeat in 1945. This latter aim includes revision, whether by reinterpretation or formal change, of the 1947 Constitution with its well known Peace Clause, which has inhibited Japanese military force projection in various ways. The Abe Government has also taken a revisionist approach to behaviour by the Japanese Imperial Forces during the Asia-Pacific War, and is engaged in a territorial dispute with China over possession of some uninhabited islands in the East China Sea. Relations between Japan and China under the Abe Government remain tense, as indeed they are between Japan and South Korea. Both cases are made worse by actions those countries regard as provocative, especially Japanese prime ministerial visits to the Yasukuni Shrine commemorating the dead of successive wars, where the souls of

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fourteen class A war criminals, so designated by the Tokyo war crimes trials after the war, are enshrined. The Abe Government’s mandate was renewed in the general elections of December 2014, held two years after a failed period in government (2009-2012) by the main opposition party, whose reputation and current performance remains poor. Even so, public opinion polls indicate limited enthusiasm for a formal revision of the Constitution. Professor Banno is a leading historian writing on modern Japanese political history, while Professor Yamaguchi is a prominent political scientist researching the Japanese political system since the war. Both have been in various ways politically active during their careers and share a commitment to democratic politics, an economy that delivers both prosperity and fair distribution, as well as peaceful and enlightened foreign policies. Both are highly critical of many facets of Japanese politics, both before the war and in recent years, while retaining some optimism about the future. Perhaps the most innovative aspect of this book is its careful juxtaposition of political development in the 1930s, with its awful dénouement in all-out war, and the recent policy trajectory, in which relations with Japan’s immediate neighbours have seriously deteriorated. They are not arguing that history is repeating itself in any simple one-to-one fashion, but are warning of disturbing parallels between the two periods, including lack of political vision, authoritarian instincts, obsession with narrow and backward-looking prejudices, failure of political opposition to oppose, insensitivity to the views of neighbouring countries and widespread complacency among the electorate. The book consists of a dialogue between the two authors, covering a range of topics. This is an established

TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE

xiii

literary genre in Japan, which in this instance works well because Professors Banno and Yamaguchi have complementary expertise, which they bring together to create a compelling and, in part, disturbing thesis about potential dangers that face Japan and by extension East Asia. Perhaps their most insistent theme is the dangers currently inherent in relations between a geo-strategically ambitious China and a Japan whose revisionist government seeks to glorify controversial aspects of its past history, which it promotes in the interests of national traditions and historical actions that surely need critical scrutiny. Translator’s Postscript - 1 October 2015 Mr Abe has just managed to get his defence bills through the National Diet, but in the process has succeeded in resuscitating the long dormant pro-Constitution, propeace protest movements in Japan, and that at least seems a positive development. Arthur Stockwin Conventions The names of Japanese people are spelled in the Japanese order, that is with surname first and personal name second – other than on the jacket and title/copyright pages of this book when for Western bibliographic purposes the names of the authors are presented in Western style with given name first. ! MACRON OVER THE VOWELS @O OR @U INDICATES THAT THE VOWEL IS PRONOUNCEDATABOUTTWICETHELENGTHOFA@SHORTVOWEL&ORINSTANCE Ozawa Ichiro-, Nagai Ryu-taro-. Single vowels are always pronounced as PURESOUNDS NEVERASDIPHTHONGS ASOFTENIN%NGLISH&ORINSTANCE@RO- ’ ISLIKE@ROAR NOTLIKE@ROW Short sections enclosed in square brackets within the text are explanations by the translator. Footnotes are explanations by the authors. Citations are within the text.

TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE

xiii

literary genre in Japan, which in this instance works well because Professors Banno and Yamaguchi have complementary expertise, which they bring together to create a compelling and, in part, disturbing thesis about potential dangers that face Japan and by extension East Asia. Perhaps their most insistent theme is the dangers currently inherent in relations between a geo-strategically ambitious China and a Japan whose revisionist government seeks to glorify controversial aspects of its past history, which it promotes in the interests of national traditions and historical actions that surely need critical scrutiny. Translator’s Postscript - 1 October 2015 Mr Abe has just managed to get his defence bills through the National Diet, but in the process has succeeded in resuscitating the long dormant pro-Constitution, propeace protest movements in Japan, and that at least seems a positive development. Arthur Stockwin Conventions The names of Japanese people are spelled in the Japanese order, that is with surname first and personal name second – other than on the jacket and title/copyright pages of this book when for Western bibliographic purposes the names of the authors are presented in Western style with given name first. ! MACRON OVER THE VOWELS @O OR @U INDICATES THAT THE VOWEL IS PRONOUNCEDATABOUTTWICETHELENGTHOFA@SHORTVOWEL&ORINSTANCE Ozawa Ichiro-, Nagai Ryu-taro-. Single vowels are always pronounced as PURESOUNDS NEVERASDIPHTHONGS ASOFTENIN%NGLISH&ORINSTANCE@RO- ’ ISLIKE@ROAR NOTLIKE@ROW Short sections enclosed in square brackets within the text are explanations by the translator. Footnotes are explanations by the authors. Citations are within the text.

Chapter 1

SHOULD THE AIM BE TO PREVENT #/.34)454)/.!,2%6)3)/.

y FROM A LETTER WRITTEN FOUR YEARS AGO

Yamaguchi. In April 2010 you sent me a letter, which

summarized your most strongly felt views on the politics of our country, and the relevance of history to an understanding of what is happening today. The letter was written after the long reign of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) had been ended in the general election of August 2009, which ushered in a new government led by the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ). By the time your letter was written, however, the DPJ Government under its first Prime Minister, Hatoyama Yukio, was already running out of steam. I have often pondered why changes of government from one party to another take place so rarely in Japan, and why the DPJ-led Government largely failed in its mission, but in your letter you tackle the issue head on. Banno. 2EALLY)DONTREMEMBERWHAT)WROTE Yamaguchi. Let me summarize the main points in your letter.

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1.

2.

3.

1

2

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You support Mr Sengoku Yoshito (a senior minister in THE(ATOYAMA'OVERNMENT INHISADVOCACYOF@MODERATE welfare and moderate burdens’ – a view based on his deep understanding of social democracy in Europe. As you point out, the Extraordinary Commission for the 21st Century,1 without expressing its own position, only talks about procedural democracy, so for the past two years you have been keeping your distance from them. 9OURRECENTPOSITIONISREMINISCENTOFTHEOLD@TWO STAGE revolution’ position. In 1913 the first constitutional defence movement was founded, as well as the Rikken Do- shikai (later Do- shikai), which became the principal party of opposition, and in the general election of 1915 the Do- shikai2 of Kato- Takaaki defeated the dominant Rikken Seiyu-kai3 and took power. But the subsequent three-party Cabinet, which included the Do- shikai, left office in October 1916 without fulfilling its ideas or its policies. Kato- Takaaki made a speech in which he spoke

The Extraordinary Commission for the 21st Century is the short title for the National Congress to Create a New Japan. It is an advisory organization formed in 1999 from the world of business, labour, universities and heads of local authorities, with the goal of promoting political reform. Their proposals have been largely in the area of reforming administrative structures. The Rikken Seiyu-kai was the largest of the pre-war parties. It was formed under the leadership of Ito- Hirobumi in 1900, combining bureaucratic forces together with the Kenseito-, which came from the former Jiyu-to- stream. From the latter half of the 1920s it was challenged by the Kenseikai (Minseito-). The Kenseikai was formed in 1916, when the Rikken Do-shikai amalgamated with the Chu-seikai and the Ko-yu- Club, and went on to oppose the Rikken Seiyu-kai. In 1927 it merged with the SeiyuHonto- to form the Rikken Minseito-.

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4.

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OF @REGULAR PROCEDURES OF CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT (kensei no jo-do-), asserting the right of the majority party leaders TOFORMCABINETS@ASAREGULARPROCEDURE&ROM this time on the main opposition party (now called +ENSEIKAI HADTOFACE@TENYEARSOFlDELITYINADVERSITY (kusetsu ju-nen  4HIS TERM @TEN YEARS OF lDELITY IN adversity’, came from a speech made when it returned to power in 1924 with the second constitutional protection movement, and meant in effect that the opposition needed to undergo a long period of hard work to reconstruct itself. You consider that similarly, the Democratic Party will NOW HAVE TO CONFRONT ANOTHER @TEN YEARS OF lDELITY IN adversity’, even though it has already gone through a similar long process of reconstruction since it was founded INTHELATES4HE$0*SHOULDDOTWOTHINGSlRSTLY IT should follow the example of recent Western European SOCIALDEMOCRATICPARTIESANDTRYTOPUTINPLACE@MODERATE welfare and moderate burdens’. That is to say, the people should be provided for, but the State must not become bankrupt. Secondly, it should insist that current failures are no more than training for future success. I agree with you, and I make so bold as to say that I consider my duty lies in the pursuit of these aims. You maintain that the only weapons you have are the weapons of modern Japanese history. But fifty years ago you were involved in the 1960 struggles against the Security Treaty, and you have not given up the fight. You believe that politics and economics ought to be combined. At present, political scientists have become insensitive to economics, and economists have become insensitive to political science. But originally they were together, as designated by the TERM@POLITICALECONOMY

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7.

A favourite expression of yours is that of Leon Trotsky, WHOSAID@ADVANCEINDIVIDUALLY ATTACKTOGETHER)TIS HIS @UNITED FRONT APPROACH ) THINK THAT OUR SPHERES of concern may differ and we may be disunited in the THINGSWESAY BUTLETUS@ATTACKTOGETHER

I think that your letter can serve as a kind of sub-text to our dialogue, and can act as our keynote. Banno. Even though four years have elapsed, this is still what I feel. Yamaguchi. In your letter, you had already fastened onto the fact that the Democratic Party government was clearly failing, and that the real question was what direction TOTAKEAFTERFAILURE3INCEFROMHEREONTHEREWOULDBE@A decade of fidelity in adversity’ for the DPJ, and we need to consider a long time span in which many difficulties would have to be overcome before power could be regained, and political reform for Japan could be achieved. This was the gist of what you were saying. Banno. The two of us were in touch with each other over the rather long period in which the DPJ was in opposition, and since we felt it was a remarkable result when that party gained power, we were quickly and deeply disappointed. Yamaguchi. That’s right. But after the DPJ returned to opposition in 2012, the blow caused by the defeat of DPJ politicians was much greater than we had expected, and in a state of real grief, I think it seemed that there was no way forward. In a situation where it seemed that there was nothing for it but to accept a bitter fate, and they lacked even the desire to seek the next opportunity, they were in a really difficult situation. Today, since it is not difficult to contest Abe’s politics, it seems we can now put our ideas forward. Since the values of freedom, equality and peace

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are being questioned, we may say that these are the values we should promote, but there is no political actor able to promote this value system. Where does this issue of political party fragility origiNATEFROM"EFORETHEWAR PARTYPOLITICSWASCONSTRAINED by a restricted electoral system, by bureaucratic interference and many other kinds of restriction, but political parties were not so weak at that time; yet after the war, democratization progressed, politicians could act freely, and there is even state subsidy of parties. Why at such a TIMEAREPARTIESOTHERTHANTHE,$0SOFRAGILE4HISISA really major question. On this and other issues, I would like to hear the lessons from history that you as a historian can teach us. Banno. I don’t particularly study history for the lessons it teaches. The first reason why I continue to study history is because it is interesting. The second reason is that there are personages in history far more outstanding than I am, and if I study them I may become a little wiser and make some progress. Even so, though I have been studying Japanese history for fifty years, instead of the excellent politicians and intellectuals of the past, I now want to express my opinions on the politics, economics, foreign policy and constitutional issues that are before our eyes here in Japan. Using me as an intermediary, those from the past will be able to be kind enough to criticize indirectly the *APAN OF TODAY 4HISISWHAT)THINKOFAS@LESSONSFROM history’. My researches into modern Japanese history started with the first decade of politics under the Meiji Constitution, and then going backwards in time, and forwards in time, they encompass around 110 years between 1825 and 1937. Even though this is contemporary criticism making

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use of the judgements of past writers, it is wide ranging, covering many issues, and I have been unable to order it in a systematic fashion. Therefore, on each theme I would like you to put conceptual order into the current situation, and I will comment. This is how I suggest that we develop our dialogue. THE DEEP HISTORICAL ROOTS OF ANTI-JAPANESE FEELING IN CHINA

Yamaguchi. In recent years, because of territorial dis-

putes with China and South Korea, relations with Asian countries have been deteriorating. Since the advent of the Abe Government, historical questions such as the @COMFORT WOMEN ISSUE ;FORCED PROSTITUTION TO SERVICE the armed forces during the war], and the issue of pilgrimages to the Yasukuni Shrine, have been added to the mix, and tension has become much more severe than it was before. Apprehension that sooner or later a military confrontation will occur is gradually spreading, but in relation to this, the Abe Government is aiming TO LIFT THE BAN ON COLLECTIVE DEFENCE THROUGH @CONSTItutional revision by reinterpretation’, and by dragging in the United States, to confront China, just as it is on course to become a superpower. And then, citing as its excuse a crisis in Japanese security, it seems likely to finger the Constitution. I would like to discuss these questions first of all. Banno. After the Russo-Japanese War, Russia and Japan divided rights over Manchuria between them, separating the north and the south. From that day antiJapanese sentiment among Chinese became ferocious. In order to restore rights over Manchuria, all the progressive factions and revolutionaries in China worked towards

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making China a prosperous country with a strong army (fukoku kyo-hei – enrich the country, strengthen the miliTARY ;A KEY SLOGAN IN *APAN DURING THE PERIOD OF RAPID development following the Meiji restoration of 1868]. As for Japan, the genro- ;ELDER STATESMAN= 9AMAGATA !RITOMO strongly advocated an entente between Japan and Russia, and with Manchuria divided, the two imperialists together worked to frustrate the restoration of rights to China. At the same time, however, in the Imperial Defence PolICYOF THE!RMYMADE2USSIAA@POTENTIALENEMY Between China and Russia, army officers of middle rank and below, as well as ordinary people, believed that the latter, Russia, was Japan’s enemy. What, however, Yamagata consistently feared above all else was really China. This meant asking when China would act to restore its sovereign rights. Thus Yamagata, USING VARIOUS EXPRESSIONS SUCH AS @SAME WRITING SAME race’,4 believed in an Asianist type of Japan-China friendship until his death. This was designed to overcome antiJapanese movements and movements for the restoration of sovereign rights. Yamagata understood that China was the greatest problem for Japan. When revolution broke out in Russia, the Soviet Union, which was the potential enemy, withdrew from international relations for about ten years. For as long as this was the case, everybody thought they were safe. But for Yamagata, the disappearance of the Russian Empire, which he had expected to support Japan in avoiding restoration of sovereign rights to China, was a terrible situation. It meant that only one country was available to resist the restoration of rights. 4

Do-bun do-shuTHEIDEATHATINBOTHWRITINGSYSTEMSANDRACE *APAN and China were the same.

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A little earlier, during the First World War, Japan acquired the rights to Shandong,5 which further exacerbated anti-Japanese sentiment in China. And then in 1922, at the Washington Congress, the Nine-Power Agreement was signed. This prohibited the major powers from taking over Chinese rights and territory. Those who actively promoted this in Japan were Hara Kei and Takahashi Korekiyo of the Seiyu-kai party. Since, like Yamagata, they understood that anti-Japanese sentiment was fuelling policies in China aiming to create a prosperous country and strong army, and that China was becoming a threat, they went into reverse and made concessions to China. !FTER THIS THE 'UOMINDANG ;PARTY= OF #HIANG +AI 3HEK initiated the Northern Attack (hokubatsu).6 If Yamagata had still been alive, he might well have seen the light, but both the Kwantung Army and middle-ranking commissioned officers went into a panic. Failing to understand Chinese nationalism, they ended up initiating war with China in the 1930s. 2IGHTS TO 3HANDONG *APAN THE SECOND /kuma Cabinet) made China recognize its succession to the rights of what had been the German rights in Shantung Province (land leased in Jiao zhou wan – Japanese Ko-shu-wan – and the jiao ji ti dao – Ko-sai tetsudo- railway). In the Paris Peace Conference, it was accepted that these rights should be transferred to Japan, but China refused to sign the treaty, and a protest movement developed in Beijing, and spread to all other areas (May 4th Movement). Later, through the Washington Conference, in February 1922, a treaty concerning the Shandong issue was signed, and the rights to Shandong were returned to China. 6 Hokubatsu. Chiang Kai-Shek, who had been appointed Supreme Commander of the National Revolutionary Army, began moving his troops towards areas controlled by the gunbatsu (military clique), aiming at national unity. In 1927–1928 the Cabinet of Tanaka Giichi on three occasions sent troops to Shandong in order to counter the Northern Attack. 5

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If we think about it, in China for more than a century anti-Japanese sentiment has been there under the surface, and when we come to the twenty-first century, the feeling that they have overtaken Japan is strong among Chinese leaders as well as among the people. Ever since sovereignty over southern Manchuria was taken away at the time of the Russo-Japanese War they have opposed Japan, and even though they defeated Japan in the Japan-China War, the sense that Japan was beaten by China was completely absent, and now that at last they have caught up with and overtaken Japan, they have come to look down on Japan from a position of superiority. Even so, with Japan talking volubly about collective defence and constitutional revision, China increasingly fails to find reassurance. The leaders of Japan have no sense at all of the history of worsening Japan-China relations since 1905. And this is despite the fact that the issue of article 9 of the Constitution is mixed up with the Japan-China problem. If Japan revises its Constitution, it is clear that #HINAWILLTAKETHEVIEWTHAT@WHENWEHAVEJUSTMANAGED TOLOOKDOWNON*APAN WHATHAPPENSnTHEYNOWHAVEA Japan-China War in their sights’. Therefore, I think that the essential thing is to emphasize the slogan of Japan-China friendship. ‘JAPAN-CHINA FRIENDSHIP’ AS AN ONGOING CONCERN

Yamaguchi. I am pretty sure that just talking domesti-

cally about the defence of article 9 is not going to persuade Japanese people at the present time. In fact China is achieving economic growth, Chinese society has become unstable, and a pattern has emerged of trying to unify the people by acting tough towards the outside world.

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This being the situation, I agree with you that we must engage in the task of eliminating the roots of potential conflict between Japan and China. But if we look at the CONTEMPORARYMEDIAANDPOPULARSENTIMENT @*APAN #HINA friendship’ hardly resonates, and how to put it across is extremely difficult. In Japan today, we have nationalism at a time when stagnation has turned into decline, and this differs from nationalism in a time of plenty. If we take a look at hate speech, we see an extremely aggressive approach to other people. On the Japanese side, the sense of victimhood is intensifying. If we do not overcome aggressive nationalism based ONTHISKINDOFSENTIMENT THEWORDS@*APAN #HINAFRIENDship’ will never be accepted. Banno. In pre-war Japanese nationalism there were two tendencies. One of these was Asianist nationalism. Although this was based on expansionism and aggressive POLICIES ITWASBASEDON@LIBERATING!SIAFROM%UROPEAND America’, and acting in an ostensibly altruistic way, but in one’s own interests. In the background was a general concern to combat strong Chinese demands for a return of sovereignty over Manchuria. Given that problem, the chance of Japan and China becoming friends was zero, but THE@!SIANISTSWERElRMLYDETERMINEDTOPERSUADE#HINA The second and minority tendency was Japanism. Yoshida Sho-IN WAS THE TRUE PARENT OF THIS @REVERE THE %MPEROR EXPEL THE FOREIGNER MOVEMENT @)F !BOKUDO (America), together with Yo-ra (Europe), should come to our shores, so long as we are fully prepared there is nothing to fear. Preparedness does not mean warships and guns, but the Yamato (Japanese) spirit of our ancient Japan.’ In other words, so long as we are properly prepared, we can overcome pressure from Europe and America, but this will be done, not through warships and guns,

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but through the Yamato spirit. Before the war this was a spiritual approach designed to combat Europe and America, but now that China is growing as it is at present, #HINAITSELFISBECOMINGTHETARGETOF@9AMATOSPIRIT In Japanese nationalism today, Asianist aspects have disappeared. Pilgrimages to the Yasukuni Shrine and so on are typical of Japanist nationalism. I think it is entirely Japanist. Constitutionalists criticize it, but they seem only to be able to engage in aerial attack. The only way to tackle this is by Japan-China friendship. Yamaguchi. In 2011, the Prime Minister of the time, Kan Naoto, revived the memory of the Chinese Revolution of 1911 on the occasion of its centenary, and sent a message to China proposing co-operation and reconciliation, with the intention of creating a commemorative event. With the great earthquake disaster and the reverses suffered by the Kan Government, this idea in the end failed to progress. It was, however, an opportunity to recognize once again the links between Japan and China, by means of the common factors of having combated Western colonialism and established a modern State. In any case, it is specifically conservatives, who hold dear Japanese traditions, that should have respect for China, the fountainhead of our civilization. Banno. The greatest problem is that whereas those at the centre of power, such as Yamagata Aritomo, were conscious of the greatness of China, consistently from 1905 ordinary Japanese people looked down on China. It is like that today as well. But China, seen as inferior for so long, is now developing before our very eyes as a mighty force. At this time, if both politicians and ordinary people consider the China issue from the same perspective, it is impossible to cope with it. .EITHER IS THIS POSSIBLE THROUGH AN @ESCAPE FROM !SIA (datsu-A) argument. So far as escaping from Asia and

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joining the West is concerned, however much talk there MAYBEOFAN@!MERICANALLIANCE THE5NITED3TATESHASLITTLE enthusiasm for dealing with China, so that that line is not going to work. On this point, Hatoyama Yukio’s idea of an East Asian partnership was a good one, although its weakness was that it was taken as an anti-American line. After confusion on this point he said that he accepted deterrence, but if it had been put forward, not as anti-American but in the positive sense of friendship with China, that government would have been on the right lines. The idea of Japan-China friendship is not accepted at all in contemporary nationalism; nationalists see it as a crazy idea, but I think it is important to discuss it. In whatever form it is presented, people say that this is the first time they understand the reality. DO WE WANT TO HAVE A PRETEND WAR?

Yamaguchi. Economic relations between Japan and China

are so intertwined that without China the Japanese economy can hardly exist. In the business world, even though they do not express it openly, there are those who take it as given that if relations between Japan and China deteriorate further, this will hurt business. I think that it is not easy to work out how to present the slogan of Japan-China friendship, but what is at issue here is the courage, or perhaps the strength, of the elite. Banno. That’s right. Yamaguchi. I think that, just as Ishibashi Tanzan7 used to say that Korea and Manchuria ought to be relinquished, this is a situation requiring real courage. 7

Ishibashi Tanzan. (1884–1973). Journalist and politician. From the Taisho- PERIOD ;n= HE PROMOTED LIBERAL POSITIONS MAINLY

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13

Banno. 4ANZANS@SMALL*APANIDEADIDNOTMEANA3TATE that did not make war, but that, on a calculation of gains and losses, rights over Manchuria should be returned to China. With Japan governing Manchuria, goods manufactured by Japanese living there were being imported into Japan at a high price. He thought that it was preferable for Japan to penetrate Manchuria economically, so that goods made by the local people could be imported into Japan cheaply. Thus rights over Manchuria and Mongolia ought to be returned. It was a completely rational argument. Yamaguchi. Quite apart from questions of profit and loss, there are people who really want to make war. Ishihara Shintaro-;FORMER'OVERNOROF4OKYO=ISTHEMOSTEXTREME example, but among politicians there are those who really want this. Banno. 4HEYWANTTOENGAGEIN@PRETENDWAR"UTSINCE compared with the time of the Marco Polo Bridge Incident in 1937, China is becoming unbelievably strong, if Japan acts on a whim and then gets scared, the Chinese will not listen to pleas for peace. Even so far as the wartime generation is concerned, Japanese today have no experience of war apart from air raids. Except for Okinawa, people have no experience of ground warfare. Moreover, are recent wars simply conlNEDTOMISSILESPINPOINTINGTARGETS)FWELOOKATTHEWAR in Iraq, in the end it was hand-to-hand fighting in which two armies of men together fought with automatic rifles. in the To-yo- keizai shinpo- (Oriental Economist). On his ideas for @SMALL*APAN SEE@)SSAIOSUTERUKAKUGO-’ (Be prepared to sacrifice anything), To-yo- keizai shinpo-,  *ULY  @$AI .IHONSHUGI NO genso-’ (The Myth of a Great Japan), Ibid., 30 July, 6 and 13 August 1921. Reproduced in Matsuo Takayoshi, Ishibashi Tanzan hyo-ronshu(Collection of Writings by Ishibashi Tanzan), Iwanami Bunko-.

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THE ABE EXPERIMENT AND THE FUTURE OF JAPAN

In the case of Ishihara Shintaro- and of Abe, they are really talking about war games, and think that what they will be involved in are games on television. We are not talking about a struggle between a people with the experience of wearing camouflage, holding automatic rifles in their hands and crawling around through the mud, and a people without such experience. Members of the Self Defence Forces, as professional soldiers, engage in training, but people on the home front mouth empty phrases about it, and lack all sense of reality. Yamaguchi. This lack of realism is a very serious problem among conservative politicians. Banno. I think the Chinese Government entirely understands this. That is why they are so bullish. If, however, Japan were to start promoting Japan-China friendship, China might change. And thus we should even expect their one-party dictatorship to liberalize. In my own case, I was sounded out through an acquaintance to see if I would give a series of lectures at a certain Chinese university this summer, but since at my age it was not practicable to give a concentrated series of lectures overseas, I declined. But apparently, interest among Chinese intellectuals in my tri-polar structure of conservative, moderate and progressive has been increasing (Kindai Nihon no kokka ko-so- (State Structure in Modern Japan), Iwanami Gendai Bunko-, 1971, 1973). With the Chinese economy growing and the middle class increasing in number, I think that voices critical of the dictatorship that has ruled China hitherto are becoming louder. I believe that the only road for Japan is to continue talking about friendship between Japan and China, and to make connections with all sorts of people in China. In fact, I declined to give lectures in China, but I think that I should have exerted myself and worked for

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Japan-China friendship, That was a wasted chance to learn how my book Nihon kindai shi (Chikuma Shinsho), was received by Chinese students. But this book has been published in English translation by a British publisher, and I hope it will be read by Chinese lecturers and students. (Japan’s Modern History, 1857–1937: A New Political Narrative, Abingdon and New York, Routledge, 2014). CAN WE FIGHT FOR CONSTITUTIONALISM?

Yamaguchi. Since the Abe Government greatly despises

the Constitution, constitutional scholars and political scientists have come together and established a movement ENTITLED THE @#ONSTITUTIONAL $EMOCRACY 3OCIETY rikken demokurashii no kai),8 Together with Professor Okudaira 9ASUHIRO )HAVEBECOMEJOINT2EPRESENTATIVEOFIT;0ROfessor Okudaira died in January 2015]. This is a movement of scholars to oppose the Abe Government, and to arouse public opinion, and in discussion with constitutional scholARS WELINEUPBEHIND@CONSTITUTIONALISMASOURKEYWORD We intend to base ourselves on the model of a struggle for democracy against dictatorship developed by Professors Maruyama Masao and Takeuchi Yoshimi at the time of the Security Treaty struggles of 1960. 8

Constitutional Democracy Society. Formed in April 2014. In the REASONINGBEHINDITSESTABLISHMENTITWASSTATEDTHAT@7HATISNEEDED today, in advance of support for or opposition to particular policies, is the need to return to politics based on the Constitution. Occasionally the forces commanded a majority in the National Diet. This involves clarifying rules that cannot be touched, and areas that must not be entered, and restoring constitutional politics in this sense. So it is a question, not just of making the Diet a place for majority decisionmaking, but of restoring real debate and of resuscitating substantive debate and the functions of administrative scrutiny.’

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THE ABE EXPERIMENT AND THE FUTURE OF JAPAN

Banno. Constitutionalism (rikkenshugi) was a line of thought put forward by Inoue Kowashi9 in opposition to the popular rights movement. This conservative term became part of liberal vocabulary following the opposition in the House of Representatives to the National Mobilization Law in 1938. At that time, those in charge of constitutionalism changed their stances. If we ask what SaitoTakao10 of the Minseito-, and all the others who opposed the law were saying, they asserted that the National MobiLIZATION,AWWASOPPOSEDTOTHE#HARTER/ATH;OFTHE-EIJI Emperor], and that it was also inconsistent with the Meiji Constitution handed down by the Meiji Emperor. Liberals at that time sought to defend their ground, while the situation was steadily deteriorating, by clinging on to the Meiji constitutional system, which was so conservative. This was the nature of constitutionalism. The fundamental starting point for the constitutional arguments waged by post-war intellectuals was, I think, the year 1938. Their final pre-war memory was that although they defended the barricades valiantly, eventually the )NOUE+OWASHIn !S0RINCIPAL3ECRETARYOFTHE$AJO- kan he promoted the introduction of a German-style constitution, CRITICIZED THE @CABINET WITHIN PARLIAMENT SYSTEM OF /kuma Shigenobu and Fukuzawa Yukichi, and planned the Political Change of 1881. He participated in the drafting of the 1889 Great Imperial Constitution. He served as an adviser to the Privy Council (Su-mitsuin). A conservative thinker. 10 Saito- Takao (1870–1949). Politician. Before the war he belonged to the Kenseikai and the Minseito-. He criticized the military after THE)NCIDENTIN@#URTAILTHEMILITARYSPEECH )N he criticized the Japan-China War Management Law (Nitchu- sensoshori ho-) (Anti-military speech), and was expelled from the House of Representatives. After the war he served as Minister of State in the first Yoshida Cabinet, as well as taking other posts.

9

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barricades were breached, and after the war constitutional scholars and liberal intellectuals clung on to this memory. It became something they had to defend in the post-war period. In this way constitutional advocacy after the war became defensive, a movement of protection. This was what constitutionalism was about. And yet, when we see that they only talked about defending the Constitution, I think that democratic discourse RIGHT FROM THE -EIJI PERIOD ;n= WAS TOO APOLOgetic. The Popular Rights Movement was a democratic movement aiming at political participation. I have called THIS@-EIJI$EMOCRACYBUTPROPOSALSTHATWITHTHEINAUguration of the Diet political participation should be given to commoners, show that essentially it was a movement of samurai and rich farmers. And then Taisho- Democracy ;4AISHO- period 1912–1926] was a democratic movement seeking to achieve political representation for workers and tenant farmers. Later, in the 1930s, what I have CALLED@3HO- wa Democracy’ was a movement of the Social Masses Party (Shakai Taishu-to-), which was a social democratic movement pursuing social policies, which increased its representation to thirty-six parliamentary seats. In pre-war Japan, there were staunch efforts to promote democracy from below. Not only that, but new interpretations appeared within the framework of the Meiji Constitution, seeking democratization. But when the China war broke out, and universal mobilization was brought in, things reverted to defence of the Charter Oath and to the Meiji Constitution. So, after the war, constitutional defence continued at the same level. I have come to think that this did not amount to very much. Yamaguchi. I realize you are rather dissatisfied with the promotion of constitutionalism. In truth, and this is something that I have thought of in discussions with constitu-

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THE ABE EXPERIMENT AND THE FUTURE OF JAPAN

tional scholars, there are some who are favourably disposed to single-party dominance by the post-war LDP. I feel that there is in any case a sort of agreement that if democratization is to be advanced further, if changes of government could occur, and a two-party system develop, this might be a higher form of democracy unsuitable for Japan. Pursuit of power by citizens, and constitutionalism that puts on a framework of power, are somehow contradictory. Now, however, when we are in a situation in which even the basis of constitutional politics cannot be defended, the priority should be to rally to its defence. Since I have been arguing for a higher form of democracy, and have come to say that party politics needs to be reformed, what I am saying differs considerably from the views of constitutional scholars. I have been annoyed by their argument that because the DPJ took power, it paved the way for the Abe Government. Banno. They are really so backward-looking. Yamaguchi. However, the present situation is that the !BE 'OVERNMENT TALKS ABOUT @ESCAPING FROM THE POST war regime’, and is meddling in many areas. The trend is well advanced for it to politicize in a party sense appointments where there should be distance from a particular political party, including the head of the Cabinet Legislation Bureau and the head of NHK. Moreover, in a situation where public opinion supports this, we are joining with fairly conservative elements, and since I think it is necessary to restructure our battle lines, the symbol of constitutionalism has come to the fore. As you say, this is backward looking, and we may need a defensive approach. The situation is becoming so bad that we may need to mount a defence on our last battle line. The Abe Government in its current politics ignores all elements of modern constitutionalism, and either because

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it has no arguments or because it is full of contradictions, says nothing. Even though there is nothing there except misuse of power, it develops policies with no sense of shame. THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ‘CABINET POLITICS’ AND ‘POLITICS BASED ON THE PEOPLE’ (MINPONSHUGI)

Yamaguchi. Nevertheless, I feel that in constitutionalism

there is strong consistency between pre-war and post-war. 7HATDOYOUTHINK Banno. Yes, it is strong. In pre-war constitutional scholarship there was the work of Minobe Tatsukichi, 11 who developed a liberal interpretation of the Meiji Constitution, and Hozumi Yatsuka,12 who interpreted the text literally, and for a time Minobe’s view prevailed. During the 1930s, however, Minobe’s interpretation that the Emperor WASAN@ORGANOFTHE3TATECOLLAPSEDASARESULTOFTHE@ORGAN theory incident’, though it was revived after the war. In my opinion, what Prime Minister Abe and his advisers are saying sounds like a return to the views of Hozumi -INOBE4ATSUKICHIn #ONSTITUTIONALSCHOLAR0ROFESSOR at Tokyo Imperial University. He propounded the view that executive power rested with the State, and maintained the organ theory of the Emperor, whereby the Emperor was merely one organ of the State. This became a political position in support of party cabinets. In the 1930s he was attacked as an opponent of the National Polity, and in 1935 he was prosecuted for lèse majesté, and his books were banned. 12 Hozumi Yatsuka (1860–1912). Constitutional scholar. Tokyo Imperial University Professor. He supported imperial absolutism. He criticized the former civil law drafted by Boissonade. Minobe’s organ theory of the Emperor was developed as a criticism of Hozumi’s constitutional scholarship. 11

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THE ABE EXPERIMENT AND THE FUTURE OF JAPAN

Yatsuka. They are collectively bringing back into focus the National Polity (kokutai), attacking the organ theory of the %MPEROR ANDAIMINGTORETURNTOTHECONCEPTOF@ALINEOF Emperors from time immemorial’. But they have probably never read Hozumi Yatsuka’s book Kenpo- teiyo- (A Summary of the Constitution). Yamaguchi. When I talk with constitutional scholars, I get the impression that they have a strong faith in bureaucratic institutions that exercise state power. The principles underlying the pre-war and post-war constitutions differ. "UTALTHOUGH)WOULDNOTGOSOFARASTOCALLIT@TRANSCENDENTALISM;THEVIEWTHATTHEBUREAUCRACYSHOULDDEVELOP policy without reference to the Diet or political parties], there is continuity in interpretation and management; in other words, there is a part that needs to be shut off from political movements, and I think that this is understood as directing state power. Bureaucratic structures are like this, and the Cabinet Legislative Bureau (naikaku ho-seikyoku), currently subject to dispute, is a typical example. They argue that in order to maintain legislative stability, constitutional interpretation ought not to be easily changed. It was placed within Cabinet in order to guarantee continuity, its director designated as a professional government servant, and it was developed as a barrier to protect against waves of party politics. Constitutional scholars gave it the OK. This being the case, the view was that it could curb democratic excesses. Now the Abe Government has fingered it, and has made the director of the Cabinet Legislative Bureau subject to party politics. In a certain sense we could call this democratization. In fact Ozawa Ichiro- in the DPJ Government period, said that it was disgraceful for officials to settle all constitutional issues, and that this was undemocratic. He had been arguing for a considerable time that, in other

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words, the construction of a barrier against party politics obstructed democratization. This though is a very subtle problem. It is precisely because professional government OFlCIALS@TRANSCENDENTALLYPROVIDECONSTITUTIONALINTERPREtations that party politics is able to function. Specifically, unless basic issues of the political system are addressed, the themes dealt with by party politics will be confined to simply paying close attention to everyday policy issues. This was an important premise for LDP politics, which promotes an agenda of constitutional revision. On the surface they talk about revising the Constitution, but from the 1960s they expended scant energy on constitutional issues; indeed LDP politics consisted in concentrating on daily issues within the framework of the Constitution. Banno. I have explained the Meiji constitutional regime in terms of an interpretation of the Constitution based on THREEPOLITICALPRINCIPLES@THEPOLITICSOFSUPREMEPOWER @CABINETPOLITICS AND@POLITICSBASEDONTHEPEOPLEminponshugi) (Kindai Nihon no kokka ko-so- ;3TATE 3TRUCTURE IN Modern Japan], Chapter 3, Iwanami Gendai Bunko-, 1996). The politics of supreme power is the theory of Hozumi Yatsuka, interpreting the Constitution as meaning that the Emperor may freely decide important State policies. Cabinet politics is the view of Minobe Tatsukichi, according to which constitutional interpretation is done by Cabinet, and there was no question in his mind of consulting with THE$IETORAPPEALINGTOTHEPEOPLE@0OLITICSBASEDONTHE people’ was the brain-child of Yoshino Sakuzo-,13 who 13

Yoshino Sakuzo- )n  0OLITICAL SCIENTIST 4OKYO )MPERIAL University Professor. From the early Taisho- PERIOD ;IE AFTER 1912], he promoted his principle of minponshugi, argued for universal suffrage and for a party cabinet system, and provided a theoretical basis for Taisho- Democracy. He founded the intellectual

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THE ABE EXPERIMENT AND THE FUTURE OF JAPAN

argued that policy could be changed by the Diet. This is why Minobe and Yoshino did not get on. The Commission concerning Restructuring of the Legal Basis for National Security (Anpo ho-sei kon),14 which recommended reforming the interpretation of paragraph 2 of article 9 of the Constitution, took the Minobe position, but differed in its position from the views of Prime Minister Abe, who adheres to the Hozumi interpretation. The Japanese Constitution, however, takes its stance on the minponshugi of Yoshino. Since constitutional supporters do NOTUNDERSTANDTHIS THEYTAKE-INOBES@CABINETPOLITICS ATFACEVALUE)NRELATIONTO@CABINETPOLITICS THEYTAKETHE same position as that of the LDP Secretary-General Ishiba. Yamaguchi. Indeed. Post-war constitutional scholars ARE FOLLOWING IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF -INOBES @CABINET POLItics’. In this sense there was an aspect here of preserving the power of the bureaucratic system. Their opposition is based on the principle that it is quite wrong for party politics to trespass on the sacred territory of cabinet politics. Matsushita Keiichi,15 who broadcast his opposition to

14

15

group Reimeikai, and was involved in the formation of the Social Democratic Masses Party (Shakai Minshu-to-) and the Social Masses Party (Shakai Taishu-to-). Anpo ho-sei kon !BBREVIATION OF Anzen hosho- no ho-teki kiban ni kansuru kondankai (The Commission concerning Restructuring of the Legal Basis for National Security). Yanai Shunji, former Foreign Minnistry Permanent Vice-Minister, was its Chair. Its report, issued in May 2014, maintained that the implementation of collective defence and participation in United Nations collective security should be possible under the Constitution. Matsushita Keiichi (1929 -). Political scientist. Critical of theories of State control, advocate of citizens autonomy. He exercised great influence on distribution of power to localities, and on revision of administrative institutions to give the leading role to politics. On

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traditional constitutional scholarship based on the State, was by contrast an adherent of politics based on the people. He wanted to destroy cabinet politics, and pursue distribution of power to local areas, as well as the principle of cabinet within parliament. Banno. Yes, because it means a society made up of citizens. )HAVETOREPEATMYSELFHERE BUT-INOBES@SUPPORTFOR PARTYCABINETSHADITSBASISINTHE@REGULATIONSFOR-INISTERS of State’16 in article 55 of the Meiji Constitution. The idea THATHEMOVEDFROMSUPPORTINGJUST@#ABINETTOSUPPORTINGA@PARTYCABINETSYSTEM ANDTHUSSUPPORTING@CABINET within parliament’ is incorrect. Yoshino Sakuzo-, for his part, advocating minponshugi, thought that once the people controlled the Diet through universal suffrage, then party cabinets would naturally emerge. On this point he was close to the position of the Abe Cabinet that once victorious in elections they could do what they wanted. Since we are a country of parliamentary democracy, a party cabinet that wins an election can control parliament. Because, however, the Ko-meito-ISWORKINGHARD;WITHINTHECOALItion government, to check the LDP on certain issues], the Abe Government does not entirely control the Diet. Those in favour of the Constitution, now able only to rely on the Cabinet Legislative Bureau and on the Ko-meito-, should work for victory in the next general elections… constitutional theory, see Shimin jichi no kenpo- riron (Constitutional Theory of Citizens’ Autonomy), Iwanami Shinsho, 1975. 16 !RTICLEOFTHE-EIJI#ONSTITUTION@4HERESPECTIVE-INISTERSOF State shall give their advice to the Emperor and be responsible for it…’ Minobe Tatsukichi revised his interpretation of this article, which was thought to deny collective cabinet responsibility, and established a basis for party cabinets.

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THE ABE EXPERIMENT AND THE FUTURE OF JAPAN

SHOULD WE RELY ON FLUCTUATING PUBLIC OPINION?

Yamaguchi. The politics of Japan in the 1990s saw the establishment of a freedom of information act, as well as progress in distribution of power to the regions, so that it converged on liberal values. People grappled with issues of reducing the power of bureaucrats and augmenting the strength of citizen society, but I think that reform was not possible within the cabinet politics that rested on traditional constitutional scholarship. After all, politics based on the people will not work unless we destroy cabinet politics, Even so, many strands of public opinion are objectionable to people. Politics based on the people, if based on popular views infused with low quality nationalism, enters into cabinet politics, and when there is talk of changing the interpretation of article 9 of the Constitution, what is THESOLUTION)FWELOOKAT(ASHIMOTO4O- ru, the Mayor of Osaka, and at Prime Minister Abe, I am inclined to think that politics based on the people is connected with antiintellectual attitudes. If we argue that there are bad as well as good aspects of politics based on the people, it may be necessary to curtail popular power. Banno. If we examine public opinion polls, I think that support for constitutional revision is not that widespread, and there is a great deal of opposition to collective defence, so that if we question the seriousness of public opinion, I think we find that revision of the Constitution by the Abe Government is opposed, and collective defence is also opposed. But when I have looked at public opinion, I find it generally emerges late. Even now that there is serious opposition, it seems that the reality of the Constitution has already radically changed. If foreign policy and domestic social policy were being conducted in a reasonable fashion,

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I would not be particularly opposed to mounting a defence of constitutional politics, and would not criticize it. But the fight has gone out of me. Yamaguchi. I understand the feeling. Banno. Since I suffered such a setback in the struggles against the Security treaty in 1960, I have resolved not to act unless both my head and my heart are moving together. If my head and heart were together, I would join the Constitutional Democracy Society (Rikken demokurashii no kai), but my heart is not in it. With my head though I understand it… Since I am following a separate path, you should take your own road. But we may work together again. Yamaguchi. This reminds me of the phrase by Trotsky THATYOUQUOTEINYOURLETTEROFFOURYEARSBACK@!DVANCE individually, attack together.’ Banno. That’s right. Let’s proceed on that basis. From my point of view, I think we should make clear why we should support the Constitution, and what it means in terms of international politics. At the risk of sounding repetitive, unless those who support the Constitution link it to national defence in the sense of achieving friendship between Japan and China, I think that opposition to collective defence will not reach a satisfactory conclusion. Now that almost seventy years have passed since the post-war reforms, since there have been changes of party in power, and so a response to political democratization has been given, the next task is to steer in the direction of improving Japan through fundamental policies. If the right answer to the problem of national security is JapanChina friendship, the core domestic political problem is big business (zaikai) control. The Abe Cabinet proclaims that it is increasing wages, but in fact what it is doing is to facilitate the earning of higher profits by corporations.

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THE ABE EXPERIMENT AND THE FUTURE OF JAPAN

I want to talk about this later, but I think that if attaining friendship between Japan and China is pursued in parallel with improving social welfare, the problem of collective defence will disappear of its own accord. I think that Japanese intellectuals, being fully aware of anti-Japanese sentiment on the part of many Chinese, and also being aware of the effects of fukoku kyo-hei ;THE@PROSperous country, strong army’ slogan of the Meiji period], should vociferously call for Japan-China friendship. If this is done, the position taken by those supporting the Constitution will spread. I think that support for the Constitution as such ought to be switched to the aim of friendship between Japan and China, in other words to the search FORPEACE4HEGOALSHOULDBE@PEACEESTABLISHEDTHROUGH friendship between Japan and China, and to this end the Constitution should not be revised. Here and there people say that the Constitution is being revised, and that this is a real danger, but in fact I don’t think the Japanese people are going to change article 9, as long as their victim consciousness is strong. This has penetrated generally among ordinary people. Yamaguchi. The problem is that generations with no experience of war have now become the mainstream, no doubt.

Chapter 2

WHY WAS POST-WAR 0!#)&)3-$%&%#4)6%

y WHY THE ROOTS OF ‘PEACE’ ARE SHALLOW

Banno. I have long believed it wrong that post-war democratic discourse has only talked about peace. There is absolutely no tradition of social democracy, tackling issues of equality, and I have always been saying that there is no future in just advocating peace. But if we look at the present situation, peace has become a serious subject. So I think that we now need to rethink peace, which liberals since the war have talked about for about seventy years. Even so, today of all days, those people who throughout the period since the war have fed on a diet of peace, are talking about the Senkaku islands as Japan’s own territory. They say this, and then say that they support the Constitution. I feel that just defending the Constitution does not constitute a peace policy. Isn’t this why peace FORCESAREWITHERING When I speak about Japan-China friendship, this is not just a question of defending the Constitution, but of defending peace itself. The fact that a noisy minority is

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THE ABE EXPERIMENT AND THE FUTURE OF JAPAN

now spreading is partly because those who want to defend the Constitution have stopped thinking. In fact, if we want to defend peace, we need not only to protect article 9, but also to maintain good relations with our neighbours. Yamaguchi. Peace was a major value in post-war democracy and everybody came to be content with being at peace, but acceptance of peace was no stronger than that. But in a situation where territorial disputes have been growing in intensity, and our neighbour China has been increasing its economic and military power, I think we should acknowledge the present reality that we cannot simply sustain the post-war peace framework. Banno. If we ask why the roots of peace have been so shallow, I think a major reason is that Japanese people did not really accept defeat in the war. In August 1945, they flipped a switch and said that now we have peace. Moreover, the reason I think the peace of postwar Japan was irresponsible is that having arbitrarily invaded other countries, the moment the war finished the slogan was @DONTSENDYOURSONSINTOBATTLEAGAIN ANDTHISWASSURELY unacceptable. After mercilessly battering your opponent, you then say stop doing it because your hand that did the batterINGISSORE7HATABOUTTHEPERSONTHATHASBEENATTACKED Since people have gone ahead with that kind of thinking, they had no sense of having lost the war, and started out after THEWARASCITIZENSOFASPLENDID@0EACE3TATE Yamaguchi. I think that’s right. Victim consciousness in relation to the war was strong, and the idea that with 15 August as the transition point, Japan was reborn as a peace state, even though intellectuals and ordinary people used different language to describe it, was held in common between them, and existed very widely. The bill for Japan having failed to deal with the aftermath of the Second World War is the present situation



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29

of worsening relations with our Asian neighbours that is happening nearly seventy years after the war was lost. It is a manifestation of the fact that territorial disputes, including those over the Northern Territories, Takeshima and Senkaku, remain as unresolved issues left over from the post-war peace settlement. With the San Francisco Peace Treaty of 1951, the state of war came to an end. The Soviet Union separately in 1956, in the form of a joint declaration, restored diplomatic relations, but the Northern Territories dispute remained unsolved. Since South Korea was a former Japanese colony, Japan should have established state-to-state relations with the Republic of Korea on the basis of a general settlement, but even in the Basic Treaty signed between the two countries in 1965, the settlement arrived at was insufficient, and did not manage to establish the boundary between the two countries. Relations with China were eventually normalized in 1972. But territorial issues between them were shelved. Why is it that Japan has not been able to manage the post-war, which has been allowed to drag on for nearly SEVENTYYEARS4HISISVERYSTRANGE4HETWOOTHERFORMER Axis nations, Germany and Italy, entered into post-war settlements, and helped construct the new regime of the %UROPEAN 5NION SO WHAT MADE THE DIFFERENCE 0ERHAPS the greatest difference is that Japan was not able to do the work of investigating and settling on what the war meant and through what process it came about, and on this basis pursue the responsibility of the leaders who had promoted the war. I recently re-read the discussion volume entitled Sengo hoshu seiji no kiseki (The Path of Post-war Conservative Politics) published by Iwanami Contemporary Library, a central contributor to which was Mr Goto- Motoo of the

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THE ABE EXPERIMENT AND THE FUTURE OF JAPAN

Asahi Shinbun editorial bureau. I once again thought that Mr Goto- hit the nail on the head in arguing that when we think about the starting point of post-war politics, the most important question is to establish who it was who brought the war to an end. In the case of Germany, Hitler committed suicide, the Nazi regime collapsed and the war came to an end. In the case of Italy, Mussolini was executed. At any rate the process whereby the war was brought to a close was clear. Those who had promoted the war were swept aside, but in the case of Japan the story was that the Sho-wa Emperor deigned to make his decision and thus led Japan into ending the war. If this was the case, the war ended by a decision of the Emperor, and those who felt they had been rescued by this were the mainstream, so that according to this version of events, they had to bear the handicap of accounting for the war and constructing post-war democracy. Banno. It is difficult to respond to this question in a word. For instance, the choice of which day of the year *APANSHOULDSWEAR@NOTTOWAGEWARAGAINMAKESAGREAT deal of difference. If Japan were to make this commitment ON!UGUST ITWOULDMEAN@NOTWAGINGWARAGAINWITH !MERICA ASWELLAS@*APAN 53ALLIANCE)F*APANWERETO renounce waging war on 8 December,1ITWOULDMEAN@NOT waging war against a country stronger than your own’. If *APAN DID SO TODAY IT WOULD MEAN @NOT WAGING WAR NOT only against America but also against China’. This would BE A DAY TO CELEBRATE BOTH @*APAN 53 ALLIANCE AND ALSO  $ECEMBER /N THIS DAY IN  LOCAL DATE  $ECEMBER THE Japanese Navy made a surprise attack on the American naval base at Pearl Harbor on Oahu island in Hawai’i. This was the reason for the outbreak of the Pacific War.

1



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@*APAN #HINA FRIENDSHIP ) THINK THAT  *ULY2 means @DONOTUNDERESTIMATE#HINASPOWER*USTASAMATTEROF record, there is the famous story that Ishii Itaro-, East Asia Bureau Chief of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, pursued the responsibility of an official who had mistakenly looked DOWNON#HINAASA@DOGINSTEADOFFEARINGITASA@WOLF If Japan had sworn not to wage war on 18 September,3 I think that Japan would have had to reflect on the fact that because China had exercised self-restraint and given tacit acceptance, that should not have been taken as Chinese assent. The abovementioned Northern Territories issue alone is different in character, but both the Treaty on Basic Relations between Japan and the Republic of Korea, and restoration of relations between Japan and China are close TOTHEEXAMPLEINTHE-ANCHURIAN)NCIDENTOFOF@TACIT ACCEPTANCEBEINGMISCONSTRUEDAS@APPROVAL0OWERRELAtions then and now were different, and circumstances were not the same, but the lessons of history are that you should not look down on your adversaries, nor fight an adversary who is stronger than you are. Yamaguchi. As Inoue Hisashi wrote in his novel Ichibun no ichi /NE$IVIDEDBY/NE ;+o- dansha, 2011], if Japan, like Germany, had had a divided occupation, if Chinese military forces had been stationed in Japan, the attitudes of Japanese people towards the war and acceptance of defeat  *ULY /N THIS DATE IN  NEAR -ARCO 0OLO "RIDGE #HINESE Lugouqiao, Japanese Roko-kyo-) on the Yong Ding (Eitei) river in a southern suburb of Beijing, there was an armed clash between the Japanese and Chinese armies. The Marco Polo Bridge incident precipitated the Japan-China War. -gun, at Liu Tiao (Ryu-jo-) 3 3EPTEMBER/NTHISDAYIN THE+ANTo Lake in the suburbs of Mukden blew up the South Manchurian railway, and pointed the finger of blame on the Chinese Army (Ryu-jo- Lake incident). As a result, the Manchurian Incident began. 2

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would have been very different. In fact, given the situation that the Emperor was in place, and the government that Japanese people had constructed still more or less functioned, Japan slipped into the post-war without confronting the phenomenon of defeat. It was rather a question of the Japanese being able to deceive themselves that they had been reborn. The American historian John Dower, in his book Embracing Defeat (Penguin, 1999), wrote that everyone rejoiced at defeat as liberation, and with gratitude received liberty and equality as the result of post-war reforms. Seen from America, this could be read as a success story. Perhaps for many Japanese this was just how they felt. Banno. This is from the point of view of 15 August. From the standpoint of 8 December, 7 July and 18 September, this kind of view was not relevant. WHO DID JAPAN LOSE TO?

Yamaguchi. It is clear that there is a great absence of understanding about the question of by whom Japan was defeated. The Japanese all realize that they were defeated by the United States, and this determined Japanese politics after the war. But to what extent do Japanese people understand THATHAVINGINVADED#HINATHEYWEREDEFEATEDBY#HINA In order to make a proper post-war settlement, the starting point is surely to reach a common view about who Japan was fighting and by whom was Japan defeated. Without apology and compensation for the fact of having invaded, followed by defeat, a post-war settlement was not possible, but this area remained vague, and this being the case, people were deceived. I have recently read Dai To-A senso- no isan (Legacy of the Great East Asia War), by Ueyama Shunbei



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(Chu-ko- so-sho), who made a clear distinction between war among imperialist states, and aggressive war against Asia, claiming that in war between imperialist states it is not a question of which one is bad and which one is correct. It was Japan that launched war against the United States, but the US that engaged in indiscriminate bombing, finally dropping atomic bombs, killing hundreds of thousands of Japanese, so that neither side could be said to be justified in its actions. On the other hand, since Japan clearly invaded Asia, it should take full responsibility for that, in his view. The fact that Japan built its post-war regime without confronting the fact that it had invaded Asian countries, only to be defeated in the end, meant that the bill was very costly. Indeed, at the time of the restoration of diplomatic relations between Japan and China in 1972, the Japanese side ought to have discussed this with Mao Zedong and Zhou En Lai. Given that the fault lay with Japanese militarism, it can be argued that in a sense it was China that made a political compromise, and that Japan avoided the opportunity to make a historical reckoning. There were opportunities at other times as well, but I think that failure to take them up has led to the deterioration in Japan’s international environment, and its increasing isolation. Banno. Yes, Japan made war with America, but it is forgotten that Japan was fighting China a long time before that. This was because of Pearl Harbor. Seven months before Pearl Harbor, on 30 April 1941, the four-year term of the House of Representatives expired. So there should have been general elections at that time, but that was the one time when the Seiyu-kai and the Minseito- took the decision to extend the parliament. Why did they do THIS )T WAS BECAUSE THE #HINESE LINE OF BATTLE WAS TRULY formidable, so that this was not the time to hold general elections. Even though the Japan-China War was going

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so unfavourably, this fact was entirely forgotten in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor. Without Pearl Harbor, it is quite possible that the territories occupied by Japan would have been taken back one by one by China, and then Japan might well have been expelled from Manchuria. But what resulted was a war against the US and the UK. This meant that the idea of Japan possibly being defeated by China slipped out of the Japanese consciousness. The government of the day duly held the postponed general elections on 30 April 1942. @4ORA TORA TORA THE TELEGRAPHIC SIGNAL THAT THE SURPRISE attack had worked), persuaded people that success had been achieved. Supposing that an opinion poll of the Japanese people had been held four years after Pearl Harbor, it would have revealed very little awareness that Japan was conducting a war with China. Three-and-a-half years after the Marco Polo Bridge incident, the disadvantageous position of the Japanese forces in China seemed of little interest in face of the overriding imperative of pursuing war with the US. Naturally there was no sense of being defeated by China. Japanese became really conscious of the war in 1944 and 1945. From 1944 even the mainland was subjected to bombing, and when it came to 1945, soldiers in the field were all facing gyokusai (honourable death). The fall of Saipan, the total destruction at Iwojima, annihilation in Okinawa… In such a situation, when asked who those who died at Iwojima were killed by, everyone answered that they were killed by the Americans. Gyokusai at a time of defeat is after all especially terrible. The post-war image of the war was made up of gyokusai and air raids. This being the case, Japan-China relations dropped out of a central position in Japanese foreign policy history.



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People talk of the fifteen years war, but in fact most people think of it as a four-year war – from December 1941 until August 1945. Moreover, in actual fact, just the final two years off that period. And now, with China becoming a great power, even when it is said that they won the war, in Japan there is neither knowledge nor READINESSTOACCEPTTHIS@7HATDOYOUMEANnh*APANWAS DEFEATEDBY#HINAv
 Military specialists make detailed researches into the battle of Midway or the battle of Leyte, but there is no @STUDYOFDEFEATATTHETIMEOFTHE*APAN #HINA7ARBEFORE December 1941. This is a really big problem. Moreover, imagination is lacking. People now feel humiliated over what is happening over the Senkaku islands, but how was IT AT THE TIME OF THE -ANCHURIAN )NCIDENT n FROM THE Chinese perspective that is not to be compared with humiliation over the Senkakus. People just lack the imagination to make such comparisons. JAPAN REMAINS OUTSIDE THE WORLD OF VICTORIOUS NATIONS

Yamaguchi. In 2005, I travelled briefly to Great Britain,

which gave me the opportunity to see the anniversary commemoration of victory over Germany, which had surrendered sixty years earlier in May 1945. The United States, France, Britain and even Russia were together celebrating victory in the Second World War. As for Germany, by its acceptance of defeat it could also be invited into the group. I felt acutely that the victorious powers had established a robust post-war order after the Second World War was over. The year 2005 was the time of a major argument about whether Koizumi would make his pilgrimage to the

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Yasukuni Shrine. The difference in the international environments of Europe and of East Asia gives the sense THAT THE WORD @PEACE HAS VERY DIFFERENT MEANINGS IN THE two regions. In particular, in Asia there is an international environment in which the Japanese prime minister can go to the Yasukuni Shrine and pray to war criminals. And this is because the United States has permitted it. Unfortunately, the countries of East Asia did not act as Britain and France acted in relation to Germany. Nearly ten years later, however, the situation has greatly changed. In 2013, when Prime Minister Abe visited the Yasukuni Shrine, or a little earlier, when he made his stateMENTABOUTWARTIME@COMFORTWOMEN THE5NITED3TATES expressed fierce opposition. Specifically, the US sent a very clear signal of denial in relation to Japanese leaders who appeared to be negating the meaning of the Second World War. On this point the US and China are agreed. Banno. As for China, it is asking what defeated countries are saying in relation to the victors, including themselves. The content of what they are saying will be made use of more and more. This is one of the reasons why we need to switch our way of thinking. Yamaguchi. 2005 was also the year when a major campaign was launched to secure a permanent seat for Japan on the United Nations Security Council. This was a really nonsensical proposal. The United Nations was essentially a great power club established by the victor nations in the Second World War, and the Security Council even more so. For Japan to think it can be a large presence in such an organization is to misunderstand history. It was most interesting to hear the right-wing controversialist, Nakanishi Terumasa, distance himself from the international critics who criticize Yasukuni Shrine pilgrimages, and write that we should build a new



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international organization separate from the United Nations, which follows a historical line centred on the Second World War victors. I thought this was a man of integrity. He admits the defeat as a reality, but in putting this meaning on it, he is rejecting defeat. If one takes the historical position that Japan was not bad, then it can wave the flag and construct a separate United Nations. On the other hand, this is impossible. It is an empty dream lacking reality. If we consider peace-building, which was of a piece with attributing meaning to history, we have to say that the Japanese post-war elite was inadequate. Even though compensation was needed if peace for Japan were to be secured, the consequences of having neglected this are still being felt today. Banno. We really need to think carefully about war. But as for the fourteen years of war history between September 1931 and August 1945, there were too many incidents to remember. As a historian, I ought to remember them all, but even when I was a child I disliked the war. Even now that I have become a historian, I am not really interested in military history. ‘PEACE’ IN POST-WAR DEMOCRACY

Yamaguchi. I think that it was the conservatives among

the elite that accepted defeat and confronted it head on. Kishi Nobusuke only accepted it as a humiliation, and I think that it was in his mind to shift the view of what had happened towards the attitude that Japan had not been defeated. Perhaps his demand for equality between Japan and the United States sprang also from this state of mind. If only these kinds of conservative had internalized the fact of having gone to war with China and lost, they might

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have taken more independent action on behalf of Japan, first of all to fix the boundaries of the State, then to deal with the question of how the war should be judged, and to provide compensation for the many sacrifices and destruction inflicted by Japan. If they had done this, I think they might have managed to overcome resentment and envy, and so been able to create peace in the post-war period. But if, as at present, their argument begins and ends with the proposition that since we were defeated we now have to win, it is impossible to make peace in this sense. While retaining a fierce sense of regret and envy, and also operating in a broad international environment where they cannot vent such sentiments directly against America, they have worked to dispel resentment at home. This has meant conservative politicians uttering thoughtless remarks, and making pilgrimages to the Yasukuni Shrine. Banno. A method of dispelling resentment, for conservatives, was to create an independent constitution. But what I really still remember about this was that all it amounted to WAS@3HO- WAHISTORY CONSISTINGOF@HONOURABLEDEATHAND air raids in 1944 and 1945. For me, whose sole real memORYOFTHEWARISESCAPINGAIRRAIDS THE@&AR%ASTERN-ILITARY Tribunal’ should also have judged the American forces for continuing bombing raids. When I think of myself as a historian and myself as someone who experienced the end of the war, my two personalities do not merge into one. Yamaguchi. For ordinary people like us, when we speak of peace, we enjoyed peace during the Cold War. The United States and the Soviet Union did not directly clash with each other but tension continued, the US used Japan as an ally, and Japan provided military bases. Since, because of article 9 of the Constitution, Japan had no need to engage in war together with the US, Japan got away without bearing a direct burden in the Vietnam War,



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but rather made money from it. For a long period we became accustomed to peace under the American shadow, and in the background of the Cold War. Leaving aside Okinawa, those who upheld article 9 and spoke of peace, luxuriated in this warm bath of peace, and received the benefits of economic growth. Banno. I think that post-war democracy was really no more than the search for peace. At the time of the 1960 Security Treaty crisis, at meetings of parliamentarians, BEHAVINGLIKESTUDENTMEETINGS MEMBERSWOULDSAYTHAT @!MERICAISSENDINGBLACKJETSTO!SIA ANDTHISWILLMEAN THATPEACEISDESTROYED)TWASANATMOSPHEREOF@ANYTHING goes’. In an instant strikes were approved. It was no use saying that democracy was in crisis. Therefore, what Maruyama Masao said was particularly special. Because he talked about democracy and about the parliamentary system, we didn’t engage with him. While we were directing an anti-war, pro-peace movement, we thought it was fine for riot police to enter the Diet. It would liven things up. But Professor Maruyama got into a towering rage over the fact that riot police had been allowed to enter the Diet, and took action. I think this was a big difference between us. If we divide the values of post-war democracy into peace, freedom and equality, Maruyama thought of it in terms of freedom. He did talk about peace, but for him the essence was not peace, nor was it equality, but freedom. His rejection of ultra-nationalism was ferocious, he spoke of those stupid militarists who talked big and dragged the people by force into a catastrophic war, and held that fascism was the enemy of democracy. By contrast, the Socialist Party, the Communist Party ANDTHE3ECURITY4REATY:ENGAKUREN;STUDENTMOVEMENT= WEREANTI WARANDPRO PEACE@7EHATETHATKINDOFWAR

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THE ABE EXPERIMENT AND THE FUTURE OF JAPAN

was all they talked about. However, it was not Pearl Harbor or Nanjing that they were referring to, but the fact that we had the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki done to us, we had air raids done to us, we had our sons taken into the armed forces, in other words this was an anti-war and peace movement of victims. Even at the time of the 1960 Security Treaty struggles, the talk was about Japan being engulfed by the Security Treaty, and peace being threatened. I think that our weakness came from this discourse about peace. For peace itself, one cycle has ended, and a new one needs to be built. At the same time, there are aspects of freedom, concealed behind the issue of peace, that need to be debated. Yamaguchi. But I think that Maruyama Masao was himself quite committed to peace. Either at the time of the San Francisco Peace Treaty, or IN THE EARLY #OLD 7AR PERIOD HE WROTE @! 4HIRD 4REAtise on Peace’ for the Peace Problems Discussion Group (Heiwa mondai danwakai).4 This was a gathering of intellectuals related to Iwanami Publishers, which developed various arguments in defence of article 9. Banno. That is so, but I think that Maruyama cared for democracy more than he cared for peace, and indeed he cared for freedom more than he cared for democracy. His article Cho-kokkashugi no ronri to shinri (The Rationale and 0EACE0ROBLEMS$ISCUSSION'ROUP!BODYOFINTELLECTUALSBROUGHT together in 1949 around the journal Sekai. They argued for peaceful coexistence between the Eastern and Western camps, and a peace treaty to be signed by all the allied powers. The first and second parts of their declaration Mitabi heiwa ni tsuite (Three Times concerning Peace) were published by Maruyama Masao in Sekai, December 1950.

4



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Mentality of Ultranationalism) (1946), evinced a ferocious anger against the totalitarianism of the Emperor system. It is not just Maruyama, but the elite of that generation. They were people who bore a fierce grudge against those idiots who had forced them to read the Imperial Rescript on Education. Moreover, When Maruyama was at the First Higher School, he attended lectures by Hasegawa Nyozekan,5 and since he was arrested for this, he was conscripted, not as a young officer, but as a private second class. This was despite the fact that he was an associate professor at Tokyo University. And this was also the world of Noma Hiroshi.6 Yamaguchi. With 1960 as the watershed, the focus shifted from opposition to war and promotion of peace, to economic growth and prosperity. Banno. At around the same time Maruyama went INTO A SULK (IS FAMOUS WORDS @3ENGO MINSHUSHUGI NO kyobo- ni kakeru’ (Betting on the Delusion of Democracy) dates from 1964. He thought that the government was operating a sunshine policy, and since it had put in place its income doubling plan, the people were completely bowled over by it. Yamaguchi. And yet, if we think about it, in the period of the 1960s into the 1970s, article 9 became a great paradigm, even the Liberal Democratic Party paid attention to it, and the LDP wove its own version of a Japanese-style (ASEGAWA .YOZEKAN n  *OURNALIST COMMENTATOR AND liberal, active between the Meiji and Sho- wa periods. 6 .OMA (IROSHI n  .OVELIST #ENTRAL PROMOTER OF THE post-war literary tendency. In Shinku- chitai (Vacuum Zone), he portrayed the closed and violent world within the Japanese Army. Among his other novels were Kuroi e (Black Picture), and Seinen no wa (Young Men’s Circle). 5

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peace line. This was a product of the Japanese people’s political energy, as shown in the 1960s Security Treaty struggles. This is shown in the three non-nuclear principles of Prime Minister Sato- Eisaku, in the officially NON NUCLEAR STATUS ;OF /KINAWA= DESPITE THE EXISTENCE OF A SECRET TREATY ;PERMITTING RE INTRODUCTION OF NUCLEAR weapons in an emergency], and in the cap placed on military spending. And then in the Miki Government period ;n= THECONCEPTOF@BASICDEFENCECAPACITYWAS launched in the Bo-ei keikaku no taiko- (Outline Defence Plan), so that the Self Defence Forces were OK under article 9, but only for the purposes of national defence, since they absolutely could not be used to invade another country. This was one of a number of peace-oriented lines developed at the time. Thinking about it later, the fact that the LDP government had put forward the new concept of self defence capacity could be seen as having an extraordinarily great significance. This was because not only the Socialist Party, but also the peace forces of postwar democracy, were strong. My friend Sakai Tetsuya has dubbed the post-war JapANESEREGIMEAS@ARTICLETHE3ECURITY4REATYREGIME @h+YU- jo-ANPOTAISEIvNOSHU- EN;4HEENDOFTHEARTICLE   3ECURITY 4REATY REGIME= Kokusai Mondai, no. 372, 1991). Despite confrontation between conservatives and progressives, the effective foreign policy of Japan was based on low levels of armament, so that article 9 of the Constitution and the Japan-US Mutual Security Treaty were a package, and this was what sustained the peace of Japan. This, however, if we look at it, is pacifism in one country. The story was that the US performs all the big tasks for us, and the Self-Defence Forces, because of article 9, just do the defence of Japanese territory.



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Banno. When my elder brother was a university student, I once attended the Komaba Festival of Tokyo University. Even today I still remember an open-air play in which a student dressed up as the prime minister, SAYING@4HEhoantai;PREDECESSOROFTHE3ELF $EFENCE&ORCES= is not war potential; I say that it is a force for defence.’ The government of the time went along with the line that THESECONDPARAGRAPHOFARTICLEOUTLAWED@WARPOTENTIAL It also at the time adhered to the division of the word guntai (military forces), such that gun was unacceptable, whereas tai was OK. The term jieitai (Self Defence Forces) was also bound by article 9, paragraph 2. This constraint meant that Japan could not confront China with force. Now that *APANHASSUBSTITUTEDCONSTRAINTFOR@FREEDOM THEPRESENT government really bears a heavy responsibility. TURNING POINT AFTER THE COLD WAR

Yamaguchi. The period when the fading of war experi-

ence was becoming a serious issue was after the Cold War, in the 1990s. After the Cold War ended, it became quite difficult to talk about peace. This was a crucial reason for the collapse of the Japan Socialist Party. A short while after the ending of the Cold War, episodes occurred in which international society intervened by force to resolve regional disputes and eliminate terrorists, with the United States as the emerging strongman at their centre. Sometimes, there were episodes where force was used, justified by universal principles such as democracy and human rights. Whatever then was the MEANINGFOR*APANOFDEFENDINGPEACE0ROGRESSIVEFORCES and those defending the Constitution, were troubled by this. Banno. You were a case in point.

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Yamaguchi. )N  ) USED THE TERM @CONSTITUTION building’ (so-ken). My argument was that after placing limits on the Self Defence Forces, they should be recognized, but should be used in the maintenance of peace, not in war. This was the line taken by middle powers such as Sweden and Canada, and I presented the proposal that the Japanese commitment to peace should be given substance. There might have been a chance of bringing this about in the 1990s, but in 1992, at the time of passage of the Peace Keeping Operations (PKO) law, the Socialist Party, in an extension of its policies since the 1960 Security Treaty conflict, argued against sending troops abroad, and so I think the idea lost credibility. The Socialist Party, in the time after the ending of the Cold War, looked into the peace policies and arguments put forward by Mr Sakamoto Yoshikazu earlier, and they should have thought carefully about future security and peace policies. But they did nothing about this. To keep arguing about whether the Self Defence Forces infringed article 9 of the Constitution is quite meaningless. The Self Defence Forces should be precisely recognized, but carefully reined in. I told the Socialist Party that then, making sure that the Japan-US Security Treaty not be given the flavour of a military alliance, they should pursue this path, but they showed neither the wisdom nor the strength to do this. Now that the Abe Government has recognized the right of collective defence, and is changing the character of the Self Defence Forces. Yanagisawa Kyo- ji and others, former defence officials supporting peace policies in practical ways, have come out in favour of the policies I have mentioned. It is my firm belief that once the Cold War was over, Japanese progressive forces largely abandoned Marxism and Socialism for article 9 of the



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constitution as its final point of reference. I think that this has become rather rigid, or perhaps has become a matter of principle. Banno. Yes. This is my strong impression also. My old friends from the Zengakuren used to gather every year on 15 June at the southern public gate of the National Diet building, calling for defence of article 9. This is not what we were fighting for at the very gate; rather, our struggle was for revolution, even though it is embarrassing to say so. Whenever that date came round, I would get quite angry. Those well-known revolutionary leaders, including sub-leaders, having reached a good age, were shouting out @DEFENDTHE#ONSTITUTION In 1993, Ozawa Ichiro- wrote Nihon kaizo- keikaku (Plan to Reform Japan), in which he presented the concept of @ANORMAL3TATE)THOUGHTTHATWASAGOODIDEA BUTINAN instant he was being attacked for it. Yamaguchi. !T THAT TIME @NORMAL COUNTRY WAS SEEN as an antithesis to post-war pacifism. I was on my guard against it as well. Even so, what Ozawa was saying at first was not so unreasonable. Banno. Yes, because the idea was to control the SelfDefence Forces. Yamaguchi. In 1994, I was in an hour-long TV programme of debate with Ozawa, and I put a question to HIM ABOUT @NORMAL COUNTRY 7HEN ) ASKED @)S !MERICA NORMAL /ZAWA REPLIED @!MERICA IS NOT NORMAL AND @PERCENTOF*APANSINTERNATIONALCONTRIBUTIONISNON MILITARY(EARINGTHISSTATEMENTFROMTHE@HAWK/ZAWA I remember thinking this was most unexpected. Banno. 4HE@NORMALCOUNTRYARGUMENTWASTORPEDOED by the fact that all its proponents were right wing. The proposition that we should recognize the Self-Defence Forces but strictly control them seemed to me a good idea.

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!NDTHENWECOULDMAKE@INTERNATIONALCONTRIBUTIONSOFA non-military nature. Yamaguchi. In the first half of the 1990s, provoked by /ZAWAS@NORMALCOUNTRYARGUMENT SEVERALNATIONALVISIONS were published. It was just at the time that the LDP governMENTCOLLAPSED THE(OSOKAWA;COALITION=GOVERNMENTWAS formed, and later the Murayama Government consisting of the LDP, the Japan Socialist Party and the Sakigake Party came to power. During this process, I thought up my own version of a peace coalition arrangement. The constitutionmaking argument was a method to this end. When Mr Hosokawa was Prime Minister, he created the Defence Problems Discussion Group (Bo-ei mondai kondankai).7 This was not single-track approach based on the Japan-US Security Treaty redolent of the Cold War, but rather it argued that a structure should be built based on multi-faceted, multi-directional security. The Cold War had ended, China was still at the starting point of its economic development, and the prevailing atmosphere was that this was not a threat, so that in tune with the realities of the 1990s, Japan should consider a reorientation of policy in order to become a peace State. A little earlier than this, the Self-Defence Forces left for peace-keeping operations in Cambodia. In this situation, in response to the group, including /ZAWA AIMINGTOMAKE*APANA@NORMALCOUNTRY )THOUGHT that if it were possible to create a force that brought together 7

Defence Problems Discussion Group. Established by Prime Minister Hosokawa Morihiro in 1994, as a discussion forum, under Higuchi Ko- taro-, Chairman of Asahi Beer, to study security in the aftermath of the Cold War. It published the so-called Higuchi Report, entitled Nihon no anzen hosho- to bo-eiryoku no arikata (A proposal for Japanese national security and defence capacity)



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the Socialist Party and the dovish Miyazawa faction of the LDP, that would be a rather clever two-party situation. I was therefore positively disposed to the Murayama Government that replaced the Hosokawa coalition after its collapse. Within the LDP, the Ko- chikai, in other words the Miyazawa faction, took a moderate, commonsense approach to issues of history and foreign policy. In 1993, there was the Ko- NOSTATEMENTON@COMFORTWOMEN WHICH accepted responsibility for the comfort women problem, and the line was to develop friendly relations with China. Indeed, during the Miyazawa Government period, in 1992, the Emperor even went to China. At this point, there was an end to the argument that article 9 and the Self-Defence Forces were incompatible, and I thought that it was necessary to break with arguments between the view that the Self-Defence Forces should be used for peaceful purposes, and the view that their military aspects ought to be given primary emphasis. Thinking that it was worth creating a vision of a new post-Cold War peace State, that would bring together the overt doctrine of support for the Constitution and the covert doctrine of DEFENSIVEDEFENCE;senshu bo-ei], I supported the Murayama Government. Later, the Murayama Government, with no vision whatsoever, slipped into a position of simply recognizing the Self-Defence Forces. If the Government had imposed a more positive direction, the subsequent rapid decline of the Socialist Party might have been avoided. Even so, in 1995 the Murayama Government issued the Murayama Statement on the fiftieth anniversary of the end of the war, and thus I think created an extremely important foundation stone for a peace State. Banno. Because the statement clearly admitted that Japan was the wrongdoer, this was a great turning point.

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Yamaguchi. Exactly. What I thought at that time was that it was worth once again putting together a force that would recognize the defeat of Japan as a defeat, would make compensation and take responsibility, and would construct peace and order in Asia as a country that did not go to war. Since right-wing forces that wished to make war legitimate were deep rooted within the LDP, and since I was extremely critical of this, I thought that if the really decent elements could be detached from the LDP, and respectable conservatives could join up with socialist elements, a middle-of-the-road, moderate, political force might be brought into being. This was one of the frameworks that came to the fore during discussions about party reconstruction during the 1990s. Banno. I think that could have proved a turning point. It was a chance to create peace and freedom. The fact that it was not tackled skilfully is still reverberating Yamaguchi. Now that East Asia is becoming harsh towards us, even though the peace vision in the 1990s did not work out as such, I think that following the line of limITEDARMAMENTSWITH@ARTICLE3ECURITY4REATYREGIME ought to be followed, on the basis of compensation and reconciliation with Asia. Subsequently, with revisions of the Security Treaty, unification of the Self Defence Forces and the US forces has made considerable progress. But since article 9 exists, there is an absolute limit to this. That is why the Abe regime was determined to pursue collective defence, in order to overcome this obstacle. At the very least, collective defence ought absolutely not to be recognized. Japan’s identity as a peace State must not be thrown away.

Chapter 3

IS THERE A JAPANESE 0/,)4)#!,%,)4%

y IF AN ANTI-SYSTEM ELITE HOLDS POWER

Banno. If we look back at the road to war trodden by

Japan before the war, we see that half way through the 1920s universal suffrage was introduced into parliamentary politics, but at exactly the same time, the Army and Navy elites were being excluded from the ruling elites.. The Minseito- Government of Hamaguchi Osachi failed to defend the demands of the Navy to secure a number of large cruisers amounting to 70 per cent of the American total, and in 1930 signed the London Naval Disarmament Treaty, overriding opposition from the naval high command. Subsequently, Minobe Tatsukichi was pressing for the army and navy ministers to be civilians. Dissatisfaction with all this quickly burst forth, with young Army and Navy officers losing their sense of belonging to a ruling elite, so that they developed the intention of becoming an anti-regime elite, like socialists and the right wing. They took part in military coups d’état and terrorism, and overseas the Kanto-gun cooked up the Manchurian Incident.

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THE ABE EXPERIMENT AND THE FUTURE OF JAPAN

If they had been the ruling elite, they would have determined national policy, but as an anti-regime elite, they acted irresponsibly, and at times they even killed the prime minister. Yamaguchi. You say that from the mid-1920s the Army and Navy became an anti-regime elite. So that it is interesting that the Kanto-gun got out of control, and that domestically military men conducted acts of terror. "UTWHYDIDITENDUPLIKETHAT)TWASTHEMILITARYTHAT controlled those who designed the Meiji State, and the military elite, until around the time of the Russo-Japanese War, seems to have been quite rational. Banno. Things gradually shifted. Even when the era of party cabinets began, Katsura Taro-1 founded the Rikken Do-shikai party, Tanaka Giichi2 became President of the Seiyu-kai, Ugaki Kazushige3 was involved in the Minseitoparty, top military brass continued in an elite role, and became one wing of the political elite. But since universal male suffrage was introduced in 1925, the Army and Navy 1

2

3

-    3OLDIER AND POLITICIAN 0RIME -INISTER Katsura Taro

three times, alternated in power with Saionji Kinmochi. After he resigned with the first constitutional defence movement, he founded the Rikken Do- shikai. Tanaka Giichi  3OLDIER POLITICIAN!RMY-INISTERINTHE Hara Cabinet. He became President of the Seiyu-kai in 1925, and Prime Minister in 1927. He conducted a hard-line foreign policy towards China, including the Shandong expedition. He resigned over his handling of the Chang Tso-Lin assassination in 1928. Ugaki Kazushige  3OLDIER POLITICIAN$URINGTHE4AISHO period (1912-1926), he accomplished measures of disarmament and army modernization. In 1937, after the Hirota Ko-ki Government resigned, he received the mission of forming a government, but because of opposition from the military he failed to construct a cabinet.



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were excluded from political decisions. A symbol of this was the London Disarmament Treaty of 1930. The young naval officers interpreted this to mean that the political parties had stolen power, and were plotting to go so far as also to steal the right of command. On this the young officers of the Army and Navy were united and even ready for action, and spoke of acting on 11 February 1932, date of the festival of Kigensetsu;%MPIRE$AY THEACCESSIONTOTHE Throne of the first Emperor]. If they had really been part of the elite, since the general election was scheduled for 20 February, they would at least have contemplated the opportunities it gave, but this was not at all within their sights. Their idea was to undertake a meritorious act on 11 February, like the assassination of the Tairo- ;'REAT#OUNcillor] Ii Naosuke at the Sakurada Gate in the Bakumatsu period. During the 1920s party politics and parliamentary politics developed as far as they could go. Once we come to the 1930s, however, the reaction against this, centred on the military, became extremely fierce. The diary of Lieutenant Fujii Hitoshi, at the end of  MISTAKENLY WROTE @+ONOE $IVISION AND &IRST $IVIsion’. The person who wrote that it was the first regiment of the Konoe Division, as well as the first and third regiments of the First Division, that would stage an uprising, was Leutenant Suganami Saburo-, who correctly described the situation, but Fujii, perhaps because he was in the Navy, got it wrong. If we correct this mistake, this plan was just the same as the uprising that actually took place on 26 February 1936 (the 2/26 Incident). What was planned was not an act of terror, but a military coup d’état against the ruling elite, including political party leaders and the Imperial Court. The young Army and Navy officers at the end of 1931 were already planning the 2/26 Incident. Because the young army officers dropped out, and Fujii

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THE ABE EXPERIMENT AND THE FUTURE OF JAPAN

was killed in action in the Shanghai Incident of January 1932, the plan was scaled right down, and the date for the uprising was postponed, but those still involved decided to continue, and this eventually materialized as the 5/15 InciDENT;ON-AY=4HISSHOWSTHATTHESEPEOPLEWERE in no sense part of the elite. From the time of the Washington Treaty, party cabinets consistently pursued disarmament. Hara Kei talked about returning all occupied territories except for Manchuria and Mongolia. Shidehara Kiju-ro- pursued a conciliatory foreign policy and did not send troops to China. From the 1920s an extreme sense of isolation permeated the Army and Navy, and in the end even led to uprisings. In that they were anti-regime, they should not be seen as elite forces. I think that Nagata Tetsuzan,4 To- jo- Hideki and Ishiwara +ANJIHAVEALLBEENOVERESTIMATED4HEREISTHESAYING@.O Nagata before Nagata, no Nagata after Nagata’, but if we compare them with former Army leaders, clearly there was a drastic decline in situational understanding and political power. Once they had become distant from political power, inevitably their understanding of the world became demented, and they were essentially localized. Yamaguchi. Given the fact that in the 1920s international reconciliation and party democracy were working reasonably well, there was a thorough replacement of elites. Banno. That’s right. The international sensitivity and cool-headedness that prevailed under Yamagata Aritomo, Katsura Taro-, Terauchi Masatake, Tanaka Giichi and Ugaki 4

Nagata Tetsuzan    3OLDIER -ILITARY "UREAU $IRECTOR from 1934. A central figure in the Control Faction (to-sei-ha ;WITHIN the Army]. Stabbed to death in his own office in the Army Ministry BYASOLDIERBELONGINGTOTHE;RIVAL=)MPERIAL7AY&ACTIONko-do--ha).



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Kazushige, were later lost in the Army and Navy. At the same time, the anxiety that had existed since the RussoJapanese War concerning Chinese determination to wrest back sovereignty over Manchuria, largely evaporated. This was despite the fact that, since the Japanese victory in the Russo-Japanese War, the elite all knew that China should not be belittled. In fact, in the Manchurian Incident of 1931, China withdrew without fighting against the Japanese Army. For them this was rational. Later on, China made preparations, and when it came to the Marco Polo Incident of 1937, they stuck to their guns and absolutely refused to retreat. The Japanese Army underestimated the Chinese, thinking that the Japan-China War could be quickly dealt with, but quickly fell into a quagmire. Yamaguchi. Professor Maruyama Masao, in his analyses, compared the war leaders of Japan and Germany, and concluded that the German leaders acted with great wickedness, but as individuals they carried out their plans, and meticulously fulfilled their responsibilities. In the Japanese case I have the feeling that nobody knew who were those responsible for giving orders, as though a snake was hanging on to your tail. Banno. Japanese war criminals were not members of the elite. Because they saw themselves as anti-regime elite, they had absolutely no sense of responsibility. When Nagata was assassinated, he was head of the Army Bureau, and Ishihara was Kanto-gun staff officer. To- jo- in the end became prime minister, but when he became Army Vice-Minister, the Japan-China War was becoming a quagmire. He had had no time to accumulate the experience of a politician representing the Army. Since it was this calibre of individual that was directing the armed forces, the central focus of power was disappearing.

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THE ABE EXPERIMENT AND THE FUTURE OF JAPAN

Yamaguchi. It is very important for those who are regarded as elite, quite apart from the fact that they are in the position of running the State, and irrespective of whether they are good or bad, to tackle the things they should naturally be concerned about, not to fly in the face of international norms, to consider the whole situation and not to spend too much money. After all, elites of this kind disappeared from the Japan of the 1930s. Banno. Among the military, the ability to make a cool assessment of the international situation disappeared, and the only people who were just about able to do this were to be found within the Imperial Palace, among those close to the Emperor. The so-called ju-shin (Imperial advisers) had been the target of the young officers from the first plan of the May 15 Incident. The Lord Privy Seal, the Head Chamberlain, and the Imperial Household Minister became the targets as well. Since the Imperial Palace, taking a commonsense view of international affairs, imposed its will from above, the lower levels of the military thought they would be free if those idiots just disappeared. The Emperor’s closest advisers, Saionji Kinmochi5 and Makino Nobuaki,6 did their best to impose a sensible 5

6

Saionji Kinmochi    0OLITICIAN !S 0RESIDENT OF THE Seiyu-kai, he served twice as Prime Minister, and was a founder of the system based on alternation in power between Katsura and Saionji. As the last of the Elder Statesmen (genro-) in the Sho-wa PERIOD;FROM= ITWASHISTASKTORECOMMENDTOTHE%MPEROR the next prime minister. Makino Nobuaki    0OLITICIAN 3ECOND SON OF /kubo Toshimichi. As Imperial Household Minister and Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal, he exercised the real power in the Imperial Palace behind Saionji Kinmochi. He was criticized by the military for being pro-American and pro-British, and was attacked during the February 26 Incident but managed to escape.



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policy of international cooperation. But among those who were dissatisfied, they had no international sense of substituting themselves for the Emperor’s advisers. In the period of repeated coup attempts leading up to the February 26 Incident, the broad extent of their ability to control events as leaders eventually disappeared. THE PRESENT PRIME MINISTER IS PART OF THE ANTI-REGIME ELITE

Yamaguchi. It sounds as though the party politics of the

1920s and the subsequent military reaction fit in with the current story. In Japan today, the anti-regime elite seems to have attained the centre of power. I am inclined to think THAT@ESCAPEFROMTHEPOST WARREGIMEISTHEMANTRAOFTHE anti-regime elite. Banno. That is right, I think. For me, it was in the person of Abe Shinzo- that the anti-regime elite assumed the position of prime minister. Yamaguchi. During the period in which the LDP was OUT OF POWER ; = IT COULD NO LONGER ENGAGE IN interest politics, and therefore it had no choice but to purify conservatism ideologically. Banno. Over the three-and-a-half years the LDP was out of power, it became like the pre-war young army officers. Yamaguchi. Those who were backing the LDP while it was out of power were essentially grass-roots conservatives and ideological right-wingers. In this sense Abe Shinzo- is interesting though. He was first elected in the general elections of 1993 that brought about the Hosokawa Cabinet. So he started his political career at a time when his party was out of power. He was a man who began his political life motivated by the desire to restore his party to power,

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THE ABE EXPERIMENT AND THE FUTURE OF JAPAN

and regain lost ground. Moreover, during the 1990s, in the period of prime ministers Hosokawa, Murayama and Hashimoto, there was a common feeling, evident in both LDP non-LDP governments, hostile to aggressive war, and favourable to compensation, even though it might be inadequate – something that transcended party differences. Even in the LDP at that time, there were politicians of moderate, commonsense persuasion, such as Hashimoto Ryu-taro-, Kato- Ko-ichi, Kajiyama Seiroku, Nonaka Hiromu and Obuchi Keizo-. Banno. They all died or retired, so that the influence of their policies disappeared from the LDP. Yamaguchi. The movements backing the LDP when it was out of power acted with quite ideological motivations. Reacting fiercely against the common view of international relations that had become generally accepted from around half way through the 1990s, the grass-roots conservative movement rallied over the issue of history textbooks, and stimulated into activity from this, Abe Shinzo-’s movement to recover the political ground that had been lost, began from this point. If the central political forces become marginalized in a space belonging to parties out of power, what happens is that the anti-regime elite maintains its ideology and self-awareness, so that once power is regained things become chaotic. Banno. The experience of the 1930s that I have been talking about, and that of the 2010s that you have been discussing, developed in parallel. They were both periods in which the real elite disappeared. Yamaguchi. They say that history repeats itself, and I thought that this might be the case here. It is a frightening story. Banno. Those who were neither constitutional scholars nor specialists in international relations became the key



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interpreters of the Constitution. So essentially we are facing the same situation in which Ishiwara Kanji had the greatest INmUENCE;INTHES= WHY DOES A RATIONAL ELITE NOT EMERGE?

Yamaguchi. I should like to give rather more thought to the elite question. If we consider the nuclear power station crisis of 11 March 2011, before that the collapse of the bubble economy and the issue of non-performing bank loans, I have a nasty feeling that there is a common pattern in catastrophic elite failure within Japanese ELITE ORGANIZATIONS ) THINK THIS IS A REPEAT OF THE @SYStem of irresponsibility’ among Japan’s wartime leaders, discussed by Professor Maruyama Masao. Why is it that nearly seventy years after the war, in the government bureaucracy, in industrial organizations, and in academic CIRCLES THIS @SYSTEM OF IRRESPONSIBILITY SHOULD CONTINUOUSLYmOWTHROUGHTHEWORLDOF*APANESEELITES%VENIN this sense, I wonder whether really detailed research has been conducted on the process and pattern of Japanese wartime decision-making, or on the nature and modus operandi of elite capacities. We need to question whether there has been a proper understanding and analysis of the actions of those in charge who brought about that mindless war. This should be investigated not from the perspective of an ethical overview. Why did the leaders of the Japanese military and government start the war, and then pursue A FRUITLESS STRATEGY 7HAT IS NEEDED IS INVESTIGATION INTO the decision-making process, as well as the ways in which information was collected and shared, To put it at its most extreme, it would be a simulation asking the question whether it was possible to win the war.

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THE ABE EXPERIMENT AND THE FUTURE OF JAPAN

Banno. I think there is hardly any such research in well-known texts. But just on war leadership in the Pacific War, Tobe Ryo- ichi et al., Shippai no honshitsu (The Essence of Failure) (Chu- ko- Bunko), does a good deal of such analysis. Yamaguchi. Modern war is determined by strength in resources, thus war capacity absolutely needs to be calculated by collating hard data on oil, metals, food and labour power whereas the Japanese elite ended up talking about spiritual values. Why should this emphasis on spirit have seeped into the discourse, and why should rational decision MAKINGHAVEPROVEDIMPOSSIBLEnTOANSWERTHESEQUEStions we need to uncover the ways in which the elite functioned internally, to extract from this the problems that lay hidden, and to overcome these. There ought to be more in this style of investigation. I think that the idea of creating a wise elite in this sense, and fostering an understanding of issues in industry and officialdom based on rational decision-making, has hardly existed in post-war Japan. Even within the progressive side of politics, which was anti-war and criticized the handling of the war by the elite, this kind of idea has been lacking. Banno. Concerning the spiritual emphasis, the view that a defence plan could not be written on the basis of it was to be found even before the Japan-China War in intellectual circles. In the journal Chu-o- Ko-ron for March 1937, criticizing the Basis of National Policy (kokusaku no kijun), drawn up the previous August, the military commentator Muto- 4EIICHI ARGUED THAT THE @.ATIONAL Defence Plan’ proposing that Japan should fight simultaneously against the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom AND THE 5NITED 3TATES OF !MERICA WAS @BEYOND *APANS capacity’. At the same time he wrote contemptuously



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REJECTINGTHENOTIONTHAT@THERECOULDBEANATIONALDEFENCE POLICYRELIANTUPON9AMATO;*APANESE=SPIRITANDTHEDIVINE wind’. So commentators were talking of rationalism while those who held power were talking about spiritual values. Yamaguchi. That is amazing. Something that I have been thinking about recently is the question of mutual guessing. Professor Maruyama Masao, in the period of WAR EXPANSION FROM THE -ANCHURIAN )NCIDENT ;OF = onwards, criticized the weakness of spirit of the military elite of that period, who though they were individually opposed to the spreading of war, because of the general atmosphere, or the course of events, were unable to oppose it. Those who, while examining the situation, expressed their own thinking about it in a critical fashion were probably the true elite, but they were extremely scarce in society as a whole. Rather, they sensed in advance the total atmosphere, and went out to meet it. They thus created a society without opposing arguments, where everyone was unanimous and nobody objected, things were decided by acclamation, and finally it all ended in a great failure. This was the repeated pattern, which it would have been so good somehow to disrupt. No easy policy to solve this problem is evident, but I think that episodically there are a reasonable number of people who are concerned about a society where everybody seeks to guess everyone else’s opinions, and about the problems of an irresponsible regime. Last year’s television drama series Hanzawa Naoki was a story about a man called Hanzawa, the hero of the piece, who pursued the elite of the financial world after the collapse of the BUBBLEECONOMY;INTHEEARLYS=4HEFACTTHATITWAS so popular no doubt relates to the fact that it focused UPONTHIS@MUTUALLYGUESSINGSOCIETY)TISALSOCONNECTED

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THE ABE EXPERIMENT AND THE FUTURE OF JAPAN

TO WHAT (ANNAH !RENDT CALLED THE @BANALITY OF EVIL7 The structure is one where people who ought to determine their position themselves, and people who, even if they have no power to make decisions, should exert influence on those who do, nevertheless assess the prevailing atmosphere and end up contributing to evil by their negativity. I think that those who are ashamed of all this are quite numerous. They constitute the converse of those who are unable to get things done in industry or political administration, Banno. And yet, until the first half of the 1930s, there WAS NOT SO MUCH OF AN @IRRESPONSIBLE REGIME !FTER THE war, up to prime ministers Ohira Masayoshi and Nakasone Yasuhiro, there was a sense of responsibility on the part of the elite. Both before and after the war, it was said that these were periods of the get rich quick phenomenon, but I think that in Japan today, fortunately, this has not become general. THE RATIONALE OF BREAKING THROUGH POPULAR CONSCIOUSNESS

Yamaguchi. There is another issue, namely that of the

attitudes of the people in general. Some people of course oppose pilgrimages to the Yasukuni Shrine by the Prime Minister, but a widespread view among the people at large is that this is not much of an issue. They died for their country, it is natural for the Prime Minister to mourn them 7

4HE BANALITY OF EVIL This was a term used by the American

political thinker Hannah Arendt to evaluate Adolf Eichmann, who participated in the massacre of Jews by Nazi Germany. It is in the report Eichmann in Jerusalem, composed by witnessing the Eichmann trial.



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– this is the level of basic popular sentiment, which really makes light of the issue. This popular view operates at the level of giving meaning to the war as a common experience of terrible ordeals. And precisely because that is such a strong feeling, it is disconnected from any idea of expressing responsibility, or of deciding what needs to be changed to avoid repeating the errors that led to war. In other words, just like a natural disaster, the argument comes to an end with such expresSIONSAS@THOSETIMESWERESOTERRIBLE)TISINFACTAPROBlem that liberals have not made sufficient efforts to break through the limits of such popular sentiment, and of such raw feelings. Banno. As I said earlier, such popular sentiment is grounded in the two years preceding the defeat. I am now SEVENTY SEVENYEARSOLD ANDWHEN)TALKABOUT@WAREXPERIENCESWITHMYSONS ITISJUSTTHESAME@4HOSELASTTWO years were so terrible.’ As a historian I consider only with MYHEADTHE@WAROFAGGRESSIONTHATPRECEDEDTHEM AND am unable to overcome my real feelings. Yamaguchi. There was a time when I read several works about this issue by Nakano Shigeharu,8 written immediately after the war. His essay Fuyu ni hairu (Entering Winter), written in 1946, made a deep impression on me. Writing from the perspective of good citizens who had been sacrificed for their country, he wrote an analysis in the form of an argument pursuing the responsibility of the wartime leaders. 8

Nakano Shigeharu  .OVELIST POET STANDARDBEAREROF proletarian literature and of democratic literature. Between 1947 and 1950 he was member of the House of Councillors for the Japan Communist Party. Later expelled from the JCP. Author of Uta no wakare (Changing Song), Muragimo (In the Depths of the Heart), etc.

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He was not discussing war responsibility from the perspective of a left-wing intellectual, but rather emphasizing the importance of considering war responsibility from the position of citizens who had followed the orders of the State, loyally taken part in the war, then lost their families, or, having been wounded themselves, fell into abject poverty. Nakano USEDTHETERM@POPULARREBUKECAMPkokumin monseki jin). I think that that angle was lacking from post-war discussions of war responsibility. It was a reckless war of aggression, but respect for those individuals who were conscripted and loyally carried out their duties, and the probing of the crimes of those elites responsible for the policies that created so many victims, were surely two lines of argument that should have been conducted in parallel. A minority left-wing opposition elite did indeed pursue issues of responsibility, but I think that this was why these ideas did not spread among the people. The fact that it proved impossible to develop an argument that would have reflected popular sentiment, namely to pursue the responsibility of those who had led Japan into a mistaken war, and, having established such responsibility, to re-launch Japan after the war, is a matter of regret. Since getting rid of nationalism probably cannot be done, it is surely imperative that we consider the possibility of censure on the part of good citizens. On this point as well, we may take guidance from Nakano Shigeharu. In his novel written just after the defeat, entitled Goshaku no sake (Four shots of saké), he proposed THEESTABLISHMENTOF@NATIONALMORALITY4HEANTI WARLEFT wing should have established some kind of morality among the Japanese people, starting with the investigation of war responsibility. Banno. I think a useful reference on this issue is a recently published book by the historian Yoshimi Yoshiaki, entitled



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Yakeato kara no demokurashii (Democracy out of the Ashes), 2 vols. Iwanami gendai zensho. He thoroughly researches the question of why people who had experienced the war made post-war democracy their own. I have argued that until the outbreak of the Japan-China War in 1937, the possibility of social democracy existed, was then shelved during the war, but emerged anew in the post-war period. He criticizes my argument, however, for ignoring the experiences of ordinary people through eight years of total war. I thought this was a most important criticism. But since Professor Yoshimi himself has published a splendid analysis of those eight years, the gap in my writing has now been filled.

Chapter 4

IS THE LIBERAL DEMOCRATIC 0!2492%!,,94%.!#)/53

y ONE ASPECT OF CONSERVATISM: LIBERAL CONSERVATISM

Yamaguchi. When we examine party political trends since

the end of the war, I think that in principle there have been three axes. Ishikawa Masumi wrote about this in the first part of his book Sengo seiji shi (Post-war Political History) (Iwanami Shinsho), in which he described his important discovery that from the first post-war general election onwards, the breakdown of support between conservatives and progressives was around two to one in favour of the former. In terms of principles, conservatism rested on two elements, while progressive views relied on only one. I think that the LDP’s secret of strength lay in these two elements that it could consistently utilize. Banno. Interesting. Yamaguchi. The first element of effectiveness for the conservatives was native grass-roots conservative strength. I don’t think that this has ever become a conscious principle, but I believe that in fact traditionalism has become the basis for conservative forces, and that it interacts quite well

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WITHBUREAUCRATICPOWER4HETERM@VERTICALSOCIETYMAY be used in this context, since traditional conservatism has resorted to a style of politics that favours the paternalism of hierarchical relationships, and depends on repayment for allegiance granted to a boss. This system developed gradually, and was maintained under careful control. Later all this came to be closely linked with the Tanaka faction and the Keiseikai.1 These forces developed close links with sparsely populated regions, and with economically weak workers in agriculture, and in small- and medium-sized companies. They rolled out policies particularly beneficial to nonelite elements of society. Typical personalities involved WERE THE POLITICIANS 4ANAKA +AKUEI ;0RIME -INISTER n= AND 4AKESHITA .OBORU ;0RIME -INISTER 1987–1989]. Their way of operating was in a sense quite compatible with post-war democracy. Indeed, most of their supporters were those who had first become independent farmers with the land reform, and were thus beneficiaries of the post-war reforms. And then there was also the common element of equalization, through policies of reducing differences between regions. KatoKo- ICHI;,$0POLITICIAN=SAYSTHATWHATUNDERPINNEDTHE post-war anti-war peace movement was not the Asahi newspaper nor Iwanami publishers, but farmers who had experienced military service. I think that these conservatives were not pushing themselves forward as an elite in an intellectual sense. Even among supporters of hierarchy and boss control in the regions, there were those inclined towards nationalism, linked with right-wing tendencies represented by Kishi, 1

+EISEIKAI An LDP faction formed in 1987 based on Takeshita Noboru. It contained elements from the Tanaka faction.

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Fukuda and Abe. But these were minority factions within the conservative base of support. Banno. Politicians elected as a result of their background as local notables are those who can attract material benefits for the district. This sort of conservatism of course existed also before the war. The politician Hoshi To- ru2 was the pioneer, and what he gave most attention to was his aim of attracting material benefits for the To- hoku region. This was around 1900, but he was the magnificent ancestor of Tanaka Kakuei and Takeshita Noboru. Yamaguchi. Conservative thought in general is based on respect for tradition, as argued by Edmund Burke,3 and rejection of totalitarian-type attitudes, whether in ideology or in power. I think that it is a characteristic of conservative philosophy to reject the kind of totalizing idea of changing everything at once on the basis of a single principle, or of painting everything in the same colour. It is difficult to determine how far there was a Burkeian conservative elite in Japan, and there is no simple answer to this question. I think that it combined the extent of historical understanding and the ability to evaluate impartially and coolly the many failures of State power leading to the war. I have the impression that Japanese conservative politicians 2

3

Hoshi To-run 0OLITICIAN)MPRISONEDDURINGTHE0OPULAR

Rights Movement. Joined the Jiyu-to-, engineered a split in the Kenseito-, which was an amalgam of the Jiyu-to- and the Shinpoto-, and as leader of the former Jiyu-to- tendency helped found the Seiyu-kai. Edmund Burke n  "RITISH POLITICIAN AND THINKER (E supported the American independence movement, opposed the French revolution, and backed a national system founded in tradition. His works include Reflections on the French Revolution.

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include many that emotionally identified with past elites, and feel that they should be exonerated or legitimized. On the conservative side it has been rather rare to find the argument that war responsibility ought to be strictly pursued, and that lessons should be learned so as not to repeat mistakes. And then, in Japanese society antipathy to conformism has been weak. I think that Japanese conservative politicians are insensitive to the idea that they should not standardize people and force them to conform. Has there ever existed in Japan a conservatism that defends individuals ANDMINORITIESAGAINSTTHEMAJORITY4HISISAPROBLEMCONnected with the inward-looking nature of Japanese society. Banno. In any case, because Japan is a country that began its path of modernization at the Meiji Restoration of  @CONSERVATISMHADTOCREATE@DEVELOPMENT)THINK that there was no time to foster the kind of conservatism that you are talking about. Yamaguchi. Unlike conservatism in Britain, in Japan the conservatives in power were as one with government officials, and therefore had to pursue the project of development and growth as a matter of urgency. Nativist, traditional conservatism which has formed a major stream in the LDP, constructed a powerful base of support in post-war democracy, centred on the rural areas, expanding its support among ordinary people, and as collateral for this support, it created a system providing material benefits. SECOND ASPECT OF CONSERVATISM: LIBERAL CONSERVATISM

Yamaguchi. Another strand of conservatism is that of

more refined elite groups. Former government officials

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connected with the Ko- chikai,4 as well as enlightened conservative politicians identified with the approach of Ishibashi Tanzan. In Tanzan’s case the backbone was economic theory, whereas in the case of Ohira Masayoshi ;0RIME-INISTER n=AND-IYAZAWA+IICHI;0RIME Minister, 1991–1993] it was the rational outlook of economic bureaucrats. Thus, they were people who examined things coolly and objectively. I think they were a most important element in the LDP. Banno. In the pre-war case, the Kenseikai party (later Minseito-) founded mainly by officials of the Ministry of Finance and the Home Ministry, were the most comparable with this. A connection is certainly there, but they were certainly not people having a whiff of the soil about them. Yamaguchi. If we ask how these two kinds of conservatism divided their roles between them, we find that it was the local level conservative forces that built up power bases for winning elections, and brought people together through the distribution of benefits, whereas it was the liberal and rationalistic conservative forces that acted as producers, addressing issues of foreign and economic policy, devising policies to deal with them. The LDP has this exquisite division of labour, which underpins its flexibility and strength. I think, however, that in the second tradition of liberal conservatism, there were some limits and problem points. During the Cold War, confrontation between liberalism and communism determined the broad lines of the political map, and this created problems from the standpoint of 4

Ko-CHIKAI An LDP faction set up on 1957 centred on Ikeda Hayato

;0RIME -INISTER n= )T WAS MODERATE CONSERVATIVE promoting economic liberalism.

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basic liberalism. From the standpoint of liberal generosity, involving diversity and pluralism, the Cold War led in the direction of pre-modern values. Another point is that until comparatively recently, the administrative bureaucracy was in many ways able to control economic markets, and the people for their part were insufficiently autonomous. In this respect paternalistic values still remained, and the ability to privilege market rationality and oppose bureaucratic and governmental power was quite weak. Sometimes, however, as with Sony and Honda, as well as in the case of Ogura Masao, manager of 9AMATO4RANSPORT INDEPENDENT@POPULARWAYSOFTHINKING come to the fore. Bureaucratic control becomes evident when we read the history of the development of nuclear power. In nuclear power, questions such as whether nuclear power was profitable, or whether it would have been a good thing for its non-conformity with market principles to have been more widely discussed, hardly got a mention. Even though nuclear power was officially in the private sector, in practice it played the same role as the government administration, and also, since it was in the private sector it was not subject to democratic control. Nevertheless, since in effect it received unlimited credit guarantees, it ventured into business which in managerial terms would not pay, or in which the risk was too great, as a result suffering large scale losses. Whereas the independent private sector and the government bureaucracy were in relations of mutual tension, the ability to contest complacent ideas and policies on the part of the bureaucracy was largely lacking. This kind of cosy relationship between the private sector and the government administration was something that underpinned Japanese conservative politics in the post-war period.

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THE RALLYING OF PRE-WAR CONSERVATIVE FORCES

Banno. Before the war, there was, firstly, bureaucracy

based on the former powerful domains, and secondly, traditional rural landlords. In this respect the popular RIGHTS;MOVEMENT=UNEARTHEDTHESEASPECTSANDCONSOLIdated them. These two features were brought together and were the basis of the Rikken Seiyu- kai founded in 1900. In that party, those at the top were former samurai and those at the bottom were rural landlords. At the time of the Popular Rights Movement of the 1880s, it was not so much a case of conflict between former samurai and rich landlords, but rather that the leaders wer e samurai and the supporters were rural landlords. And when we speak of the bureaucracy, almost all of them were former samurai. It was the liberal tradition represented by the Ko-junsha5 of Fukuzawa Yukichi that opposed this movement, consisting of two separate elements fused together. Research into the proportion of former samurai and farmers among students of Keio-'IJUKU5NIVERSITY;FOUNDED by Fukuzawa], shows that about 75 per cent were former samurai. Moreover, their opposing liberal opponents were also samurai. Since, however, on the side of Fukuzawa there were no farmers, the Kaishinto- party6 which represented this trend, was like grass without roots, lacking a

5

Ko-junsha  !SOCIALCLUBFOUNDEDBY&UKUZAWA9UKICHI)TS

6

Kaishinto- An important party of the Popular Rights movement,

principal members were city businessmen.

along with the Jiyu-to-. Founded essentially by Okuma Shigenobu in 1882. It established a base of support among graduates from KeioGijuku University.

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base of support outside the cities, and therefore could only be the number two party. As for the number one party, in this case rural landlords and bureaucrats, acting together, created the Rikken Seiyu-kai. Those who opposed them were essentially samurai, they were centred on Keio- Gijuku University, though later Waseda University graduates also participated, but they enjoyed little support outside the cities. From 1874, the Jiyu-to-, central to the Popular Rights Movement, was overwhelmingly powerful. Since this party worked together with the government administration, this most important group of conservatives was much superior to the others. The second most effective conservative party went through various name changes, from Kaishinto- to Kenseikai to Minseito-, but the political structure was such that it was always in an inferior position. When universal male suffrage was put in place in 1925, the power of the two parties, Seiyu-KAIAND+ENSEIKAI;LATER Minseito-], had won a victory. Just as Yoshino Sakuzo- had anticipated ten years earlier, with the introduction of universal suffrage, the single-party dominance of the Seiyu-kai came to an end. !FTERTHEWAR ;WHATHADBEEN=THE3EIYU- kai and Minseito- in 1955 merged into a single party, the Liberal Democratic party, or LDP. It was not without strength. The samurai who had brought about the Meiji Restoration were split three ways, between the bureaucrats, leaders of the Jiyu-to- and leaders of the Kaishinto-, so that they continued to oppose each other and make compromises, but since after the war they became a single party, the LDP, it became impossible to continue acting in this way. The progressive forces ranged against the LDP managed to secure one third of the seats, which was a splendid result. The reason they got this far was because of anti-war

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THE ABE EXPERIMENT AND THE FUTURE OF JAPAN

sentiment, and intense reactions against the war that had recently ended. Anti-war and anti-American sentiment sustained the progressive forces. Yamaguchi. Starting with my conclusion, the postwar LDP was relatively successful, uniting the people, engineering economic growth, and to a certain extent bringing about equality and maintaining peace. Probably some of this was down to good luck, however. Having said this, when I ask myself why we used to criticize the LDP, I don’t really understand why we did so. Indeed, since the Abe regime emerged, when he talks about overthrowing the post-war regime, no, quite the contrary, the real story is that it was the LDP itself that set up the post-war regime. What aspects of the post-war regime were problematical, what needed to be revised and how, and what was meant concretely by these questions, is basically unclear. The thing that is most difficult to explain logically are the real reasons for the political confusion after the change of PARTYINPOWER;IN= Banno. Even so, before the government changed there was no freedom to choose which party should take power. It was a big step when this did become possible. I am not particularly nostalgic for the time when, however many elections were held, it was always the LDP that won. THE LIGHT AND SHADE OF THE LDP PURSUIT OF EQUALITY

Yamaguchi. I think it is true that after the war, and

especially from the 1960s, a certain degree of economic equality was brought about. Economic growth was achieved at an incredible pace, and the problem of poverty was quickly resolved. So far as income distribution was

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concerned, extreme discrepancies of income and inequalities became hardly an issue in the Japanese case. The difference between the starting salaries of new graduates and those of company presidents in the US were several hundred-fold, but in Japan probably no more than ten-fold. Even though the LDP was a conservative party, it pursued rough equality as a principle of the party as a whole. Banno. I think that in this, historical tradition as well as international relations, especially the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, exerted an influence. In relation to tradition, there were Hara Kei and Takahashi Korekiyo in the Seiyu- kai, who though they were liberals promoted big government under the sloGAN @POSITIVE lNANCE AND ON THE OTHER HAND A NATIONalist group including Tanaka Giichi, who conducted an expansionist foreign policy and Emperor-centred politics. On the opposing side, in the Minseito-, there was a gungho market-centred group based on Inoue Junnosuke,7 and on the other hand a group based on Adachi Kenzo-8 and Nagai Ryu-taro-,9 who managed to combine nationalism and people-centred politics (minponshugi). Since 7

8

9

Inoue Junnosuke n  &INANCIER BANKER 0RESIDENT OF THE Bank of Japan. As Minister of Finance in the Hamaguchi Minseito Cabinet, he put into practice tight money policies and returned Japan to the gold standard. He was assassinated in the Blood League (ketsumeidan) Incident. - shikai, Adachi Kenzo-n 0OLITICIAN"OSSOFTHE2IKKEN$O Kenseikai and Minseito. Advocating a coalition cabinet with the Seiyu-kai, he brought about the destruction of the second Wakatsuki Cabinet and defected from the Minseito-. Nagai Ryu-taro-n 0OLITICIAN(AVINGBEENAPROFESSORAT Waseda University, he served as a Diet member for the Kenseikai and then the Minseito-. Well known for the eloquence of his speeches.

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THE ABE EXPERIMENT AND THE FUTURE OF JAPAN

all these tendencies had entered the LDP, it is hardly surprising that economic growth and mitigation of inequalities should have gone together. Another point is that not only in Japan, but also in Europe and America, the struggle against Soviet socialism played a part. A concern that if the government pursued real market fundamentalism, the people’s expectations might veer towards Soviet socialism, existed in Western COUNTRIES4HETERM@CREEPINGSOCIALISMWASUSEDATTHAT time. This kind of behaviour by the Japanese conservative party may be regarded as unique, but since the Seiyu-kai and the Minseito- were still there within the LDP, I think this was hardly surprising. Yamaguchi. On the other hand, I think that within the equality promoted by Japanese government departments, lies a major feature very much at odds with European welfare states. In my opinion, this is a point to be taken into consideration when we think about reforming the postwar regime, and this is a schema that I use in my book. I have formalized this as a vertical axis from socializing to individualizing, and a horizontal axis from universalistic policies to discretionary policies (see Figure 1). Risk consists of a range of difficulties that can visit the individual, including illness, poverty, as well as care for children and PARENTS4HE@SOCIALIZINGOFRISKULTIMATELYMEANSEQUALization, in the sense of covering risk through official strataGEMS4HE@INDIVIDUALIZINGOFRISKMEANSLEAVINGASMUCH as possible to the market, by means of American-style small government, in terms of a society in which dealing WITHRISKBECOMESINDIVIDUALRESPONSIBILITY@5NIVERSALIZing policies’ means that government acts on the basis of CLEARRULES WHEREAS@DISCRETIONARYPOLICIESMEANTHATTHE content of policy may change radically at the discretion of administrative organs.

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Figure 1: Types of policy and stages of politics

In the Western European welfare state the structure of rule-based socializing of risk has been established. In other words, a universal legal system, treating people on a fair and equal basis has been built. Systems have been constructed to deal with common risks affecting everybody, taking the form of public health insurance against sickness, public pension systems for old age, and various kinds of care and education policies for child-rearing. By contrast in Japan, risk has been systematically addressed in the form of universal pensions and universal health insurance, but in approaches towards employment and poverty, as well as reduction of inequalities, policies depend heavily on discretionary policies deployed by administrative organs. Through discretion and consideration by a bureaucracy that possesses funding and authority, the administration distributes individual funding to various regions, organizations and groups, and by adjusting administrative support they avoid conflict. By these and other methods, assistance can be adjusted. Avoidance of risk through discretionary policies has done much to enable the administration to display its own authority, and attract remarkable levels of loyalty from regions and industries that have

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THE ABE EXPERIMENT AND THE FUTURE OF JAPAN

been granted assistance. Moreover, for LDP politicians, a give and take relationship has developed, whereby in response to petitioning from regions and organizations, they exerted pressure on wealthy administrative agencies, distributed material benefits, and in exchange requested political contributions and vote mobilization at elections. This was the key to the long-term successes of the LDP. Therefore, in contrast to the equality of a European welfare state, in the Japanese case, the bureaucracy gave assistance and help, also borrowing the power of politicians, and as a result of this, they talked about equality, but it was never genuine fairness or equality. In the words of George Orwell’s Animal Farm @!LLANImals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others,’ but this is surely also the case with the concept of EQUALITYIN,$0POLITICS@!LL*APANESEPEOPLEAREEQUAL BUT some Japanese people are more equal than others.’ Niigata Prefecture, which produced Tanaka Kakuei, or industries THAT HAVE CULTIVATED ,$0 @TRIBAL POLITICIANS ;POLITICIANS with close links with a particular industry or policy area], are more equal, receiving superior levels of assistance and consideration. This process of overall equalization, accompanied by distortions and lack of transparency, has been a characteristic of LDP policies; Banno. It was the DPJ that tried to break through this. But while preparing over a long period for a change of government, they just criticized distortion and unfairness, forgetting to learn from the strong points of the LDP, which had brought about a broad-based equalization of society. SCENARIO OF A TWO-STAGE REVOLUTION

Yamaguchi. The LDP as an amalgam of nativist con-

servatism and enlightenment liberalism, even though its

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management was really bad, was very difficult to attack. Within one party there were two faces. If you wanted to attack the party for some mistake, there would be a pseudo-change of power, and the target of attack would have changed. For instance, if you want to attack nativist conservatism for its behaviour, seeing it as having committed disgraceful corruption, suddenly the book’s cover changes, and conservatism emerges in the form of enlightened liberalism. With this, at a time when issues of poverty are acute, the party works quite hard at redistribution, but when the economy is stagnating, it mobilizes the power of the private sector in the interests of a liberal policy line, it is able to roll out policies that are flexible and opportunistic. But the fact that the LDP has many faces was a really awful problem from the point of view of changing party in power. Once the Cold War ended, and socialism ceased being available as a choice, the era when the Western camp needed to make sure that the LDP remained as a pin to hold Japan in place came to an end. In fact from the beginning of the 1990s movements to reform conservatism came to the fore, and we moved into a period when all sorts of new groupings appeared, including Mr Hosokawa’s Japan New Party, THE .EW 0ARTY (ARBINGER ;Shinto- Sakigake] of Takemura Masayoshi, Tanaka Shu-sei and the Japan Renewal Party ;3HINSEITO-] of Ozawa Ichiro-. The idea of a two-stage revolution, mentioned in your LETTER;REFERREDTOATTHEBEGINNINGOFTHISBOOK= EXISTED in Japan from the 1990s. In the first stage, dissolution of the LDP. And then, after several strands in the party are sorted out, it divides into two, including on the one side the right wing pursuing nationalism and traditionalism, and on the other side, a liberal group that has accepted the post-war constitutional system, and thinks in terms

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of rational economic policies. This would make party politics easy to understand, and for the people it would make choices easy. Banno. Would the LDP revert to the position before the 1955 amalgamation, and split along the lines of the former Seiyu-kai and Minseito- Yamaguchi. Yes, it would be something like that. And then in the second stage, party reconstruction would take place along the lines of principles and policies. I thought rather like this in the early 1990s. I understand that this was WHAT(OSOKAWAMEANTBYHISPHRASE@ALOOSEMULTI PARTY system’. The reform of the electoral system that was accomplished at that period meant preparing an arena of contest that would promote reconstruction of the party system. With a combination, however, of single member districts and proportional representation blocs, party reconstruction was difficult. For one thing, the largest proportion of the seats in the new system now elected one member only, politicians came to be motivated by the need to shelter under the largest tree, and this acted as a constraint on party reconstruction. Since the Hosokawa Government, for twenty years I have pursued the idea of a two-stage revolution, but in 2009 the DPJ managed to take power and chase the LDP into opposition, while even the first stage had not yet been accomplished. If the DPJ had managed to remain in power for a second term, I think that the LDP would have split in various ways, but before this could happen the DPJ self-destructed, the LDP returned to power, and AS A BODY FORMINGAMULTI PARTYALLIANCE;gassho- renko- – the strategy of Saigo- Takamori before the Meiji Restoration], the LDP once again embarked upon a long spell in power.

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HAVE THEY MIXED UP PRINCIPLE AND POLICY?

Banno. Second-stage reconstruction would be a two-

PARTYSYSTEMBASEDON@PRINCIPLEAND@POLICY BUT)AM inclined to think that the leaders of the DPJ identified @PRINCIPLE WITH @POLICY SO THAT WHEN THEY STUMBLED OVER @POLICY THEY PANICKED @0RINCIPLE EVEN THOUGH it could not be realized right away, was something that they could definitely activate in the future, but even while they continued talking about it, finding fewer resources than expected available from cutting back on useless expenditure, they were inclined to give up on it. In this sense, I believe that the principal culprits were THOSEWHOWROTETHE-ANIFESTO;OFTHE$0*=!TTHETIME of the change of government in September 2009, all and sundry were believers in the Manifesto. But so far as the -ANIFESTOWASCONCERNED ITTENDEDTOJUDGEPARTY@PRINCIPLEINTERMSOFTHENUMBEROF@POLICIESCARRIEDOUT AND from that time on I became strongly opposed to it. In order to show that this is not ex post facto self-justification, I want to reproduce an interview for a journal that took place a mere sixteen days after 30 August. This was an interview that I gave on 15 September 2009 for a journalist from the journal Jo-kyo- (Situation), which is labelled @OLD STYLE.EW,EFT )NTERVIEWER@)FONEEXPECTSANYTHINGFROMTHISCHANGE of government, I think the question is whether the Manifesto promises can be achieved in practice. "ANNO @) DONT THINK SO )F THEY JUST WORK ON CONcrete policies, that will be a blind alley. What they need to do is to foster a general mood for reform, rather than concrete policies. But since they have provided a dream, that is on the right lines. … It is good that everybody has an interest in child care, but then someone would ask

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THE ABE EXPERIMENT AND THE FUTURE OF JAPAN

WHY DONT THEY TALK ABOUT AGING SOCIETY ISSUES )F IT IS A question of what to do about aging, how are they going TOFUNDPENSIONS4HUS INASOCIETYWITHALOWBIRTHRATE the question whether pensions can be afforded is likely to go round in circles, and it will be absolutely impossible to satisfy all the people by just dealing with concrete policies. )NTERVIEWER@$OYOUMEANTHATNOTHINGCANBEACHIEVED THROUGHPOLICIES "ANNO @0OLICIES ARE POSSIBLE %VERYBODY HAS THEIR own policies. But people will not be satisfied by what is done. … @4HUS AS FOR IRONING OUT INEQUALITIES BASICALLY THE approach lacks consistency, though it is fine to promote the idea of narrowing economic inequalities,… We should continue to say that we should take our stand on the politics of reducing inequalities, and helping out the weak, as a sort of Buddhist incantation.’ Jo-kyo-, November 2009, pp. 16–17. Ideologies and Buddhist incantations both use exaggerated expressions, but what they said here is that nothing can be achieved if, once the party takes power, it just ticks off each policy proclaimed in its manifesto. If reducing economic discrepancies and creating social equality is the principle of party members as a whole, it does not matter if in the short term this cannot be expressed in policy. This relates to the situation five years ago, but it is most disheartening if this principle is not upheld in the DPJ today. Yamaguchi. When Mr Ozawa was Representative of THE$0* HESELECTEDTHESOCIAL DEMOCRATICSLOGAN@PEOPLES livelihood is number one’. But the value of equality is not accepted throughout the party. Moreover, since Ozawa left the party with this slogan, it has now become difficult to argue about it within the DPJ.

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STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS OF PARTY ADHERENCE

Yamaguchi. Since the DPJ took its present form in 1998

as an alternative to the LDP, more than ten years have now elapsed, but when I see the DPJ today, what I like least about it is that DPJ Diet members have little sense of adherence to the party. Perhaps in my own clumsy way I have more affection for it than they do (laughter). I feel very frustrated about this. What I think is the secret of the energy that is so evident in the LDP is, most prominently, the sense of loyalty directed towards that party. Everyone is proud of that great party that has directed the affairs of Japan over more than half a century. Another factor is the strength of its support base. I am not so sure about the cities, but in the countryside of Hokkaido-, if you talked individually with local company managers, or small independent businessmen, they were all splendid people, they were the kind of people that hired many employees and supported local society, and these were the people that sponsored the LDP. It is these two factors that are the source of LDP strength. Its support base has been eroded to some extent, but it still remains in local areas. The DPJ is the precise opposite of this, and those within it have hardly any pride or loyalty towards their own party. They resign from the party without compunction. They NEVERGETBEYONDTHEADAGE@INTIMESOFADVERSITY)AMTHE person who should lead’. In so far as they lack the sense of tackling the next issue and sticking with it, the party will not have a future. When I said that there are no manly politicians believing that adversity is our opportunity, I was scolded by Osawa Mari, of the Institute of Social Science at Tokyo University, who told me that enduring adversity was a feminine accomplishment.

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Banno. 7HYDOYOUTHINKTHATTHE$0*ISLIKETHAT Yamaguchi. I think the problem lies in the mentality

of politicians. The LDP contains many types of people but there have been many within the party who in the end have the quality of acting together. This is of course to defend their power position, but even when the DPJ had power, it lacked the quality of staying together to the very end. This means that there is clearly a difference of character between these two sets of politicians. I discovered late in the day, through experiencing the DPJ government, that the ability to stick together through thick and thin, in defence of their power, is a most important virtue for a politician, I think that another reason is that they do not have the experience of a calling in which they endure situations of adversity where they sometimes float and sometimes sink. Banno. Didn’t those who voted for the LDP in the most recent general elections vote the way they did, not because they supported the LDP, but because they were FEDUPWITHTHE$0*GOVERNMENT)DONTTHINKTHATTHE support base for the LDP is that strong. I wonder how much of a support base there is for the right wingers who passionately back Abe. IS THE ABE GOVERNMENT AS FIRM AS A ROCK?

Yamaguchi. It is interesting that one political scientist crit-

icized the Abe LDP as a resistant bacterium against which ANTIBIOTICSDONOTWORK(EFAILEDONONEOCCASION;HISlRST administration, 2006–2007], but once the DPJ Government was formed, he burned with a fierce sense of destiny, BELIEVINGTHAT@WECANNOTACCEPTTHISSITUATION, and intensified the impact of right-wing policies. When he managed to wrest back power, based on his earlier experience of

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failed government, he determined to make sure he would be in power for an extended period, and boiled down his policies to the ideological aims of attacking the citadel of post-war policies centred on the Constitution and education. We may say that the bacterium mutated, and became resistant. He put his own colouring on those areas where politicians had hitherto refrained from acting, and which they had not politicized, in particular the Cabinet Legislative Bureau, NHK and the Bank of Japan. This is a highly infectious bacterium. Moreover, he did not yield to attacks from progressives and opposition parties. It is often said that the liberal factions in the LDP have disappeared, but it is meaningless to cry for such virtuous politicians today. First of all, with single member electoral districts and political contributions coming to THEPARTY;NOTTOFACTIONS= CONSOLIDATIONOFTHEPARTYHAS progressed, and anti-mainstream factions have practically disappeared. The Tanaka faction, which was one of the pillars of liberalism in the LDP has run out of steam with the dissolution of politics based on attracting material benefits. The Abe Government, backed by the business world, rushes headlong into globalizing policies, even talking of abolishing JA (Central Committee of the National Agricultural Co-operative Association), and of correcting inequalities in vote value at elections, so that the moderate conservatism that supported the standard of living of those living in the countryside continues to atrophy. Moreover, the structure for recruiting and training politicians has collapsed, and those knowledgeable about history and philosophy are no longer to be found in politics. This is probably the reason for the weakening of the Ko- chikai faction, which used to foster politicians having a background in government administration.

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Even so, I do not think that the Abe Government is as firm as a rock. Support for the government a year and a half after its formation remained around 50 per cent, in other words being stable at a high level. If, however, we examine levels of support and opposition to the restarting of nuclear power stations, or the use of collective defence, a majority of the people oppose the Abe Government. If the economic situation deteriorates, his political base of support will become unstable. In fact, at the time when collective defence became an issue, his support rating fell substantially. The problem is whether, if such a contingency occurs, an opposition party capable of replacing the LDP will have sharpened its claws. There are some people in the DPJ who advocate the idea of a coming together of opposition parties, in order to create a large cluster to oppose the LDP, and they think that the DPJ should follow in the footsteps of the Ko- chikai. I think that the current opposition parties ought to adopt the policy line developed previously by Ishibashi Tanzan, Miki Takeo and Miyazawa Kiichi. The politics of the Ko- chikai, however, requires intelligence and education. Those politicians who identify with the Ko- chikai cannot possibly ally themselves with Hashimoto To- RU;-AYOROF/SAKA FOUNDEROFTHE*APAN2ESTORATION 0ARTY;Nihon ishin no kai], who is the incarnation of antiintellectualism. THE POSSIBILITY OF LIBERALISM PLUS SOCIAL DEMOCRACY

Yamaguchi. Although it may be somewhat unrealistic to

say so at this point, coordination between the forces of liberalism and the forces of social democracy is necessary, in my opinion. This would combine the policy rationality

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of liberalism and the structures of redistribution and equality embodied in social democracy. The campaign for the governorship of Tokyo by Hosokawa Morihiro in February 2014 was a kind of testing ground for co-operation between liberals and social democrats. In conservative politics, there is no effective policy against natural disasters and accidents at nuclear reactors, nor in relation to our super-aging society, nor to our shrinking population. Unless the public sector takes some responsibility, putting in place various aspects of a welfare state, it will prove impossible to solve the problems of an aging society and a society with a declining population. In this situation of deteriorating conservative politics, there is a great insistence on the bonds that bind families together, but this is of no help in solving the population problem. In addition, since conservative politics appreciates the past and the present, it fosters an irresponsible regime. 4HEIR LINE IS TO SUPPORT THE SO CALLED @NUCLEAR VILLAGE SO as to promote nuclear power. And so, since they promote policies supporting the Abe Government that is so ignorant of history and isolates Japan from the world, I think that in order to defend peace and democracy, a combination of liberalism and social democracy is essential. As for social democracy, Hosokawa and Koizumi LAUNCHED THEIR CAMPAIGN ;FOR THE 4OKYO GOVERNORSHIP= maintaining that they were keeping the responsible policies they had pursued before, but it was not possible to create in this way a large-scale rallying point. Here I think that a certain amount of generosity is needed, absorbing different elements. At the same time, liberalism is not just a question of constructing a single-model economic system based on neo-liberal, American-style market competition. But rather, what is needed is to consider the possibility of social stability and social continuity, taking on board

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social-democratic style redistributive elements, and in this way, to stabilize the market economy. Even though there are difficult issues in both, in order to combat the recklessness and degradation of current conservative politics, I think we need to replace the two-parts conservative, onepart progressive structure of Japanese politics, and replace it with a combination of liberalism and social democracy. Banno. Before our eyes we see the bankruptcy of an aging and diminishing population. In order to succeed in making policy to combat this, I think that Japan needs to turn itself into an attractive model. Just by saying that Japan is a constitutional State based on article 9, and that we do not make war, cannot produce such a model. In the case of China, reduction in the birth rate and an aging society is clearly evident. I agree that we should construct a model of co-operation between liberalism and social democracy. Since women are going out to work, the most important thing is childminding centres and pre-schools. On the other hand, I am now seventy-seven, and since we are a nuclear family and cannot ask family members to look after us, until we are about eighty-five my wife and I will look after each other, but if that becomes impossible then the only choice will be to go into a home. Therefore, pre-schools and nursing homes (help with care of children and assistance for the elderly) are social imperatives. Neither of these can be cut. From a population studies point of view, this is an absolutely necessary path to follow, but nobody has taken it seriously. I think this is a real problem. Sensitivity to it is lacking. Yamaguchi. As you have just said, providing services for child-care support and old-age care can only be provided by society. When you think how much money governmental agencies require for this, we must talk about how

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much taxation it is necessary to raise in order to meet these needs, but the Ministry of Finance vetoes any such discussion. It places a cap on expenditure, but does very little else. Even if the financial situation becomes healthy, society is annihilated. In other words, money is paid out by everybody, but obvious financial democracy used to satisfy public needs does not exist in Japan. Of course, political parties professing social democracy have continued to insist on opposing tax increases, and this has impoverished welfare state policy arguments in Japan. Banno. There are two problems where there is no alternative but to act in this way. One is the strengthening of social security. The other one is the maintenance of article 9 of the Constitution. Given that, if the second paragraph of article 9 disappeared, this would give out the message of an intention to fight China, it is absolutely impossible to do this. These two are essential. When we talk of a combination of liberalism and social democracy, we are talking about social security and peace. If this succeeds, I think we might become a model State.

Chapter 5

WHY CAN’T WE TACKLE 2%$5#4)/.).).%15!,)4)%3

y WHY IS SOCIAL DEMOCRACY WEAK IN JAPAN?

Yamaguchi. The left wing in post-war Japan was essentially socialist, and social democracy was not main stream. In post-war history the progressive forces accounted for one third of the political spectrum, and their core was the Japan Socialist Party, supported by the leftist So-hyo-1 labour movement. After the Japan-US Security Treaty revision crisis of 1960, when the period of rapid economic growth had already got under way, the problem for the Japanese left wing lay in the fact that the influence of Marxism continued as before.

1

So-hyo- Abbreviation of Nihon ro-do- kumiai so-hyo-gikai (General

Council of Japanese Trade Unions). A national council of labour unions established in 1950. It was launched initially following orders from the Occupation GHQ, but it gradually became more confrontational, and called clearly for reform of capitalism. It became the principal base of support for the Japan Socialist Party. It was dissolved in 1989 with the formation of Rengo-.



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In 1960 the Democratic Socialist Party (DSP) was formed, and such top ranking intellectuals as Ro- yama Masamichi2 and Ryu- Shintaro- 3 gave theoretical underpinning to it. There was also a movement to establish a Japanese-style social democratic force, but the DSP only became a minor party, representing the interests of labour unions in large firms in the private sector. I suppose that a period of rapid growth, with wages rising fast, was a time when a social democratic force in party politics was not really needed. In a world of workers in employment, the trend was for income to rise and life to become prosperous by distributing the fruits of growth centred on corporate firms. In the world of agriculture where employment was scarcer, and in the world of the self-employed, there were policies under LDP governments whereby each industry would distribute material benefits, leading to stability and rises in the standard of living. In this sense, social democracy really became necessary when rapid economic growth came to an end, the bubble burst and the economy went into a long period of stagnation. Around the same time, the aging of society began to accelerate, essentially from the 1990s. In this sense, left-wing progressive forces did not think carefully enough about the role they might play if they changed policy to confront socio-economic problems. 2

3

Ro-yama Masamichi n  0OLITICAL SCIENTIST AND PUBLIC

administration specialist. Before the war he was a professor at Tokyo Imperial University. After the war he was President of Ochanomizu Women’s University, among other positions. He backed the Democratic Socialist Party. Ryu- Shintaro- n  *OURNALIST !S CHIEF EDITORIALIST OF THE Asahi Shinbun, he fashioned the Asahi’s line of argument.

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Instead they concentrated mainly on political themes, the central one being the Constitution, and they identified their raison d’être as being to prevent the LDP from revising it. Having one-third of the parliamentary seats, they used this advantage to good effect, and helped keep the Constitution intact. Banno. As you have said, from about ten years ago, questions of inequality, low birth rate and aging society have come to the fore, suggesting that social democratic forces ought to have emerged, but the Japan Socialist Party (JSP) and the Japan Communist Party (JCP) were only concerned with opposing the Emperor system and opposing war. Before the outbreak of the Japan-China War in 1937, the left-wing leader of the Japanese socialists, Suzuki Mosaburo-,4 FORMED A @POPULAR FRONT FACTION OPPOSING WAR AGAINST the Soviet Union (which was strongly backing the Japanese anti-war movement), in order to defend the socialist camp. This tendency continued into the post-war period, so that socialism became identified with anti-war and antifascist positions. I think that the post-war DSP was upset about this, but its ancestor, the pre-war So- do- mei,5 which was the largest

4

Suzuki Mosaburo- n 0OLITICIAN"EFORETHEWARHEWASA

5

journalist, then moved into the labour movement. After the war he was one of the founders of the JSP. He became the central figure in THATPARTYSLEFTWING ANDWASPARTYCHAIRMANFROMn;lRST of the Left Socialist Party, then from 1955 in the reunited JSP]. - aikai So-do-MEI abbreviation of Nihon Ro-do- So-do-mei. The Yu (Friendship Society), founded in 1912, changed its name to - do-mei in 1921. Critical of the left wing, it favoured co-operation So between labour and management. It gradually began to co-operate with moves towards war, but was dissolved in 1940.



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pre-war labour union, led by Matsuoka Komakichi6 and Nishio Suehiro,7 was not able to make much progress except among small and medium enterprises. As for large enterprises, the Japan Industrial Club (Nihon Ko-gyo- Kurabu) JUST LIKE THE POST WAR +EIDANREN ;&EDERATION OF %CONOMIC/RGANIZATIONS=AND.IKKEIREN;*APAN&EDERATIONOF Employers’ Organizations]) severely oppressed the unions, so that although So-do-mei itself created organized labour, it was only able to operate in the textile industry and smallscale machine industries. Certainly it worked consistently and hard, but after the war, it was attacked for allegedly having co-operated with the war effort. Thus voices that were not strong in the first place, became even weaker. Before the war, the Home Ministry concentrated intensively on fashioning social policy. From the 1920s the Social Policy Bureau of the Home Ministry8 made strenuous efforts, and joined forces with the Social Masses Party (Shakai Taishu-to-).9 Those from the Home Ministry Social Bureau 6

7

8

9

Matsuoka Komakichi n  ,ABOUR MOVEMENT LEADER Politician. Central figure in the right wing of So-do-mei. Participant in the foundation of the Shakai Minshu-to- and the Shakai Taishu-to-. After the war he participated in the foundation of the Japan Socialist Party. Nishio Suehiro n  ,ABOUR UNIONIST 0OLITICIAN #ENTRAL figure in the right wing of the So-do-mei. Participant in the foundation of the Shakai Minshu-to- and the Shakai Taishu-to-. After the war he participated in the foundation of the Japan Socialist Party. In 1960 he split the JSP and founded the Democratic Socialist Party, becoming its first Chairman. (OME -INISTRY 3OCIAL "UREAU Established in 1920. It dealt with social and labour administration. It proposed a Labour Disputes Conciliation Law. In 1938 it was taken over by the Ministry of Welfare. Shakai Taishu-to- 3OCIAL -ASSES 0ARTY  A proletarian party formed through the merger of the National Labour Farmer Masses Party

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tendency were weak within the bureaucracy, and the idea of joining with them and exchanging experiences did not exist among workers in large enterprises. Yasui Eiji10 wrote a book entitled Ro-do- kyo-yaku horon (The Labour Convention Law). In order to facilitate co-operation between labour and management, and to create a labour convention, the approach of the Home Ministry was to restrain both capital and extreme socialism. The labour movement went along with this, but since unions operated in very small enterprises (typically textiles), though they might co-operate with the Home Ministry in drawing up a labour law, it would not be able to absorb the kind of national-level management exercised by the Home Ministry. Therefore, I think it would have been better if those in labour organizations within large firms, aiming to access Home Ministry knowhow, had gained control of the postwar labour movement, but that did not happen. Yamaguchi. The post-war starting point was that the labour movement, like left-wing parties, was imbued with socialist ideology. Later, with economic recovery and growth, through enterprise union structures and longterm stable economic private sector growth, the fruits of their labour were distributed among workers, and this created a degree of equality. Such long-term stable employ-

10

(Zenkoku Ro-no-Taishu-to-) and the Social Democratic Masses Party (Shakai Minshu-to-). Its Chairman was Abe Isoo and its Secretary General was Aso- Hisashi. At its peak it had thirty-six members in the House of Representatives. Yasui Eiji n (OME-INISTRYOFlCIAL0OLITICIAN%NTERED the Home Ministry. He was involved in drafting the preliminary draft of a labour union law, and in 1923 he carried out a survey in Germany. He was successively head of the labour section of the Social Division, Governor of Osaka Prefecture, Minister of Culture and Home Minister.



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ment upheld the security of Japanese society, but it hardly created social democracy. The political scientist Miyamoto Taro- has written about this in detail. According to him, the relevance of class-based political discussion rapidly diminished in post-war Japan. In this sense it was symbolic that the Mitsui Miike coal mining struggle after the Security Treaty crisis of 1960 was the last large-scale instance of a class struggle drama, in a dispute between labour and management. The model in which employees identified with their firm and worked as hard as they could, in exchange receiving long-term employment security and access to various services in housing and living standards, was most attractive to salaried employees even though they might not speak about it. On the other hand, we should not overlook the fact that restrictions and constraints on freedom were bound up with equality in industrial society. From the 1960s the labour movement based on class struggle rapidly disappeared, and evolved from fighting about how to distribute the fruits of economic growth, to a situation where unions took over from firms the role of unifying and controlling workers. So far as Japanese men were concerned, the great majority of them were brought together in industrial society, they lived their lives working and earning wages, so that in my opinion this system somewhat harmed the growth and maturity of citizens supporting democracy. DIFFERENCES BROUGHT ABOUT BY WAR

Banno. Why was it that, despite the existence of a classbased labour movement before the Mitsui Miike dispute, a social democratic movement emphasizing the ideas of income redistribution and correction of inequalities did not

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EMERGE)WANTTOSUGGESTTHATONEREASONWHYWELFARESTATE arguments did not appear is to be found in the wartime regime. After the Japan-China War broke out in 1937, in the years 1938 and 1939 a levelling up of inequalities took place within the wartime regime. For instance, a small farmer called Nishiyama Ko-ichi in Niigata prefecture rapidly accumulated wealth during the war, was able to buy back his own land, and well before the post-war land reform he became an independent farmer at his own expense. At the time of the land reform, he became a member of the land reform preparation committee, not representing tenant farmers, but as the proud representative of independent farmers. He was able to become independent during the wartime regime through his own efforts (Nishida Yoshiaki, Kubo Yasuo (eds), Nishiyama Ko-ichi nikki ;.ISHIYAMA+O- ichi Diary], Introduction; Tokyo Daigaku Suppankai, 1991). So it is clear that the wartime regime eliminated the former patterns of agricultural society based on the five classes of parasitic landlords, working landlords, independent farmers, independent small farmers and tenant farmers. Similarly, there seems to have been change in the labour movement during the wartime period. Under the dispenSATION KNOWN AS @FASCISM FROM ABOVE EMBODIED IN THE Sangyo- ho-kokukai (Industrial Patriotic Service Movement), the labour movement lost its freedom, but in exchange factory committees in large enterprises actually survived and grew, forming the basis, it is said, for the post-war labour movement centred on large industrial firms. On the other hand, the chorus master was the Japan Communist Party, whose members had spent eighteen years in prison, as well as the Labour-Farmer faction (Ro-no- ha), which had been central to the aforementioned Mitsui Miike struggle, and included those such as Sakisaka



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Itsuro-, who had been arrested at the time of the United Front incident11 (1937–1938). These people, at the time of the first arrests, which took place at the end of 1937 after the Marco Polo Bridge incident, and the second round of arrests in February 1938, were totally uprooted. Therefore, the post-war Communist Party and the left wing of the Socialist Party lacked the experience of State management in conjunction with the Planning Board (Kikakuin),12 under the total mobilization regime. The post-war JCP and the left wing of the JSP had not co-operated with the war effort, and they also completely lacked the knowhow that would have come from participation in the wartime government. As a result, they had no goal for the kind of regime to construct after the post-war reforms were completed. EssenTIALLY ALLTHEYTHOUGHTABOUTWAS@ANTI WARAND@PEACE This was a major difference over the eight years of war, and while up to the present those who co-operated with the war effort have been seen in a negative light, I think it is possible to argue that we should re-evaluate them, to the extent that after the war they turned their experience to good use. Yamaguchi. It is said that those who adopted policies of social reform in the 1930s that somewhat reduced 11

12

United Front incident (Jinmin sensen jjiken $ECEMBER!IMING

to form an anti-Fascist popular front, Kato- Kanju-, Yamakawa Hitoshi, Arahata Kanson, Suzuki Mosaburo-, Sakisaka Itsuro-, Omori Yoshitaro and others were arrested, and the Japan Proletarian Party (Nihon musanto-) and the Zenpyo- labour federation were dissolved. In February 1938, the Labour-Farmer group of academics, Ouchi Hyoei, Arisawa Hiromi, Minobe Ryokichi, Wakimura Yoshitaroand others, were also arrested. +IKAKUIN A government agency established in 1937 under the first Konoe cabinet. It reported directly to the prime minister, and prepared plans for the wartime controlled economy. In 1943 it was absorbed into the Military Procurement Ministry.

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inequalities, lacked power after the war because they had co-operated with the war effort. By comparison, in Britain there was a national unity government and important politicians such as the Labour Party leader Attlee had worked in government under the Conservative Party leader, Churchill. On the basis of this experience the Labour Party won the first election after the war, and a Labour Party administration was formed, which implemented the Beveridge Report.13 Policy competence and knowledge of finance frequently inhibit new thinking about policy, but this does not mean that talking in an abstract fashion leads to policy, nor does it mean you can manage a government. The most important element is to plan well and work so as to accumulate funding that can be recycled to the people, thus gaining real experience of managing government. It was the problem of lack of experience in government management that dogged the recent DPJ regime. Banno. Yes. In other words, one reason for the reduction of interest in the socialization of risk was that, with intellectuals and the left wing having rejected the wartime regime after the war, their ability to manage affairs of State disappeared. It is clear that during the war society became much more equal. It is a fact that there were former socialists who penetrated the Taisei Yokusankai (Imperial Rule Assistance Association) and the Sangyo- ho-kokukai (Industrial Patriotic Service Movement), but after the war this was not discussed. This question, however, is difficult to judge. 13

"EVERIDGE2EPORT A report produced in 1943 by William Beveridge to consolidate the social security system. In 1945, when the Labour Party won the general election and the Attlee Government was FORMED A SOCIAL SECURITY SYSTEM ENVISAGING @CRADLE TO GRAVE provision, was established.



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For this reason, I cannot agree with the view that there was AGOODSIDETO@TOTALWARORTHE@TOTALWARREGIME)THINK it is the other way round. What I feel about it is that even if there had been no war, equalization would probably have occurred as part of the independent development of society. Once more than ten years had elapsed from the introduction of universal male suffrage, this would have happened naturally. The equalization of society would have followed on from Meiji democracy and Taisho- democracy, and could have taken place in a democratic fashion. THE ‘AGE OF THE NEW MIDDLE CLASS’ ALSO EXISTED IN THE PRE-WAR

Yamaguchi. After all, there was no real successor to the

social democratic forces after the war, whereas the post-war LDP was rather effective in tackling the value issue of equality. Many politicians of rural origin had a sense of mission to remedy regional discrepancies in standards of living, invested public resources in the regions where they had been born and brought up, established a firm basis for prosperity, created employment opportunities, and worked on reducing discrepancies between their areas and big cities. Out of this CAMETHESLOGAN@BALANCEDTERRITORIALDEVELOPMENT%QUALITY came to be understood principally in a spatial sense. In other words, rather than equality between social classes, equality was pursued spatially, between cities and rural areas. As a result, discrepancies and inequalities within cities and within rural areas came to be neglected as an issue. But then, in the bubble economy period of the 1980s, with THESLOGANOFTHE4AKESHITA'OVERNMENT;n=@CREation of furusato ;HOMETOWN=ANDCREATIVITY FORTHEMOST part the story of development plus territorial balance came

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to an end. After this, I have the impression that LDP no longer knew how to put into practice the value of equality. Thus in post-war Japan, dwellers in the city just as dwellers in the countryside, lived in the same kind of house, used the same kind of electrical goods and cars, sent their children to university, engaged in similar leisure activities, watched the same TV programmes and read the same newspapers, and the phenomenon that emerged was the homogenizing and equalizing of the whole of Japanese society. Murakami Yasusuke in 1984 wrote a book entitled @4HE.EW!GEOFTHE-IDDLE-ASSShin chu-kan taishu- no jidai), published by Chu-o- Ko-ron. While social democratic forces did very little for this, through economic growth and LDP conservative politics, an equal society came to be achieved. Many questions lurk behind all this, but while the reverberations of economic growth remain, the problems came to be ignored. Banno. Recent research shed light on rather similar [email protected]!GEOFTHE-IDDLE-ASS and it was conducted during the eight years from the outbreak of the Japan-China War in July 1937 to the 1945 defeat. Recently there has been much research progress about domestic social conditions during those eight years, and as this research has progressed, the conclusion becomes clear that if there had been no war and no dictatorship, this would have been a really good period. Most recently, in the February 2014 issue of the journal Medeia shi kenkyu(Media History Research), there is an article by Ms Itagaki Kuniko. The title of the article is Kokumin gakko- ko-to- ka shu-ryo-sha no shinro (1942–1945 ;#AREERSOF'RADUATESFROM Advanced Courses of State Schools, 1942–1945]. Its contents are quite shocking and provocative. The date starts from 1942, but my first thought about it was that we should perhaps end the custom of remembering



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the outbreak of war on 8 December 1941. If we did this, the title would become Taiheiyo- senso- ka no ko- sho- sotsugyosha no shinro (Careers of Graduates from Advanced and Elementary courses during the Pacific War). What becomes crystal clear from this is that the findings closely resemble the situation when the group recruitment period of the latter half of the 1960s gave way with the oil shock of the 1970s to the high qualification society of the 1970s. With a shortage of labour, or a situation of full employment in which even schoolgirls were drafted into munitions factories, a desire to enter the best schools was quite high among men and women alike. Now, the situation that you have described whereby @THROUGH ECONOMIC GROWTH AND THE CONSERVATIVE POLItics of the LDP, an equal society came to be achieved’, OCCURREDALSOUNDERA@TOTALWARSOCIETYAFTERTHE0ACIlC War broke out. 7EOUGHTTORECOGNIZEFRANKLYTHEFACTTHATTHIS@PERIOD of the new middle mass’ occurred both under LDP politics and under a total war system, and the important thing is to investigate how far it came about because of conservative politics or a system of total war. I think that economic growth and social equality could occur under both liberalism and social democracy. Rather than fruitlessly understanding them as linked together with either conservative politics or dictatorial politics, it would be a good idea to reflect that even though some social phenomena are inevitable, neither liberals nor social democrats have sought to run with them. THE PROBLEM OF DIVERSITY AND POVERTY HAS SUDDENLY APPEARED

Yamaguchi. Even though the economic bubble burst,

reverberations of growth continued at least until the

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middle of the 1990s, and the movement to tackle inequalities and the problem of poverty did not exist in the Japan Socialist Party, with which I had friendly relations at that time. Even at the time of the Hosokawa ;n= AND -URAYAMA ;n= GOVERNMENTS ;IN BOTH OF WHICH THE *30 PARTICIPATED= THEY WENT IN for supplementary budgets and considerably increased spending on public works, but they did not expect to be able to return the economy to the path of economic growth that it had taken hitherto. In 1995, Nikkeiren (Japanese Confederation of ManAGERS AS IT WAS THEN PUBLISHED A REPORT ENTITLED @*APanese Management for the New Age’ (Shin jidai no Nihonteki keiei), in which it proposed that the system of permanent employment should be done away with. Faced by the pressures of globalization, in which it was necessary to reduce labour costs because of fierce competition, managers came to change their policies. The situation requiring solutions to problems of inequality and poverty really began about half way through the 1990s. But even though, through public policy, politicians needed to consider how far it should guarantee equality, I have the impression that they were extremely late in tackling this. In the second half of the 1990s, a major movement towards deregulation had begun, and I think that there was hardly anybody expressing direct opposition to the advance of deregulation in employment. A unique exception was the economic commentator Uchibayashi Katsuto. But at that period Japanese-style industrial society was in a bad way, and the predominant view, which was quite optimistic, was that permanent employment should be abolished, and a society ought to be created in which individuals could work freely. The optimistic view that in



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compensation for abandoning equality, freedom would be gained, became the standard opinion. Moreover, at that time the evils of bureaucratic control were emerging in all sorts of ways. The issue of poor quality financial bonds, the scandal of blood products tainted with the AIDS virus, and that of extravagant public works, were debated, so that bureaucracy-bashing rose in intensity, and the view that policies of government officials promoting equality should be reversed came to the fore. This brought about widening inequalities, but I think that there was a short time-lag before they began to pose an evident threat to the livelihoods of those lacking means. Banno. As a historian I cannot criticize so loudly. It was in 1998, when I reached university retirement age, THAT)BECAMEINTERESTEDINTHE@PEOPLE BASEDDEMOCRACY (minponshugi) of Yoshino Sakuzo-, and in my 1991 essay Kindai Nihon no kokka ko-so- (The Idea of the State in Modern Japan), contained in Chapter 3, I analysed the complex relations between social democracy and national socialism, which was close to military fascism. I first of all noticed THAT THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN @FREEDOM AND EQUALITY AND @CORRECTINGINEQUALITIESISNOTLIKEASINGLESTRANDOFROPE A historian must not boast too much about his clear vision of the future. Yamaguchi. When the twenty-first century began, and with it the Koizumi Government, issues of difference, poverty and inequality suddenly became visible. At the time when the Koizumi Government had only just begun, because of his huge popularity problems related to his small government line, going under the name of @STRUCTURALREFORM WEREHARDLYNOTICED&ROMTHES however, corporate profits rose while wages continued to fall, and the mutual relationship between profits and wages moved from positive to negative. Behind this

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was the problem of increasing levels of non-standard labour. Then in the general election of 2005, fought on the single issue of postal services privatization, the LDP carried off an impressive victory, and privatization became national policy. Koizumi prepared for a long-term stay in office, and began to change various areas of policy. Among these, for instance, amalgamation of local authorities, large-scale reduction in local tax grants and largescale cutting back of public works were brought in one after the other. It was in the latter half of the 2000s that everybody noticed how terrible was the damage from all this. Around 2006, the word kakusa (disparities) began to appear freQUENTLY IN THE MEDIA AND !KAGI 4OMOHIROS STATEMENT @)WOULDLIKETOBEATUP-ARUYAMA-ASAO)AMATHIRTY one-year-old freeter (independent worker in casual jobs). My wish is for war’, was published in the journal Ronza for January 2007. As you have already remarked, it is the poorest sections of the community that put their expectations on fascism. At any rate, even though we lump workers together into one category, there is a big difference between regular workers and non-regular workers, so that seen from the viewpoint of non-regular workers and young people, it is the older generation, showered with benefits from permanent employment, who are those with the real vested interests. The logic is that it is right and proper to wrest back the special privileges of those who have vested interests. Even so, since it is by no means simple to devise a political mechanism to eliminate vested interests, when I saw that this young man thought it would be good to have a war, this really came as a great shock. Rather than using an electrical circuit, through democratic politics, in pursuit



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of equality, he demands a kind of reset through war. I learn from this the extent to which this young person has lost all hope in the future. JAPAN’S MODERN HISTORY OF SAMURAI, PEASANTS, ARTISANS AND MERCHANTS

Banno. Akagi’s article has a double meaning for me.

In my book Nihon seiji (shippai) no kenkyu- (A Study OF ;THE &AILURE OF= *APANESE 0OLITICS PUBLISHED BY Ko- bo- sha, later by Ko- dansha gakujutsu bunko- , I wrote that in Maruyama Masao’s writings on history, although freedom and equality were there, he gave insufficient attention to equality, so that now the progression from disparities to war, to attacking Maruyama, does not come as so much of a shock. The question was, however, how to respond, as a specialist in Japanese modern history, to an understanding of @DISPARITIESĺ@WAR BUTALSOOF@WARĺ@REDUCTIONOFDISparities’. Since my own position on this question was not established, my whole corpus of writing ended with the outbreak of the Japan-China War on 7 July 1937. Now that I have reached a certain age, it is useless to expect that I shall now conduct empirical research on Japanese society during the war, between 1937 and 1945. But wanting at least to establish my position on the relevant issues, I have read extensively in high quality research conducted recently in this area. I have established my credentials by reading Senji sengo taisei ron (The Wartime and Post-war System), by Amemiya Sho-ichi, published by Iwanami Shoten, and the aforementioned book by Yoshimi Yoshiaki and article by Itagaki Kuniko. As a result, I have come up with two expressions from the completely moribund language of Marxist history,

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NAMELY @BASE AND @SUPERSTRUCTURE 4HIS IS RATHER ROUGH but I would like to suggest that socio-economics is the base, while law and politics is the superstructure. In Marxist history, the legal and political system changes in accordance with the stage of development of socio-economics. )FWECONNECTTHISWITH@EQUALITYOR@REDUCINGDISPARIties’, then since the Meiji Restoration disparities have steadily declined. If we take samurai, farmers, artisans and merchants (shi no- ko- sho-), first of all the samurai disappeared, the age of farmers – that is to say, rural landlords – lasted for a long time, but from about the time of the First World War, the merchants enjoyed approximately the same amount of power as the farmers. The proportions of land tax paid by rural landlords and income tax paid by urban middle classes went into reverse, with income tax exceeding land tax by about three to one. Following on from the SAMURAI THESOCIALPOSITIONOFTHE@FARMERSDECLINED WHILE THATOFTHE@MERCHANTSROSE)NACCORDANCEWITHTHISCHANGE INTHESOCIO ECONOMIC@BASE INUNIVERSALMALESUFfrage was enacted. It was also important that workers and small peasants gained the right to vote, but in addition it is greatly significant that the age in which the rural landlords dominated the House of Representatives came to an end. /NCETHE@BASEHADMOVEDINTHEDIRECTIONSAMURAIĺ farmers ĺ merchants, the age arrived of artisans – in other WORDSWORKERSANDSMALLPEASANTS3OFARASTHE@SUPERSTRUCture’ is concerned, the number of seats won by socialist parties in the House of Representatives increased. Until just before the Japan-China War broke out, the Social Masses Party (Shakai taishu-to-) remained a minor party in terms of its total number of seats, but it continued to make remarkable progress. If the Japan-China War had not occurred, I think that the thirty-six seats that it won in April 1937 might have doubled to seventy-two seats in the next



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general election, and then to 144 seats in the next, out of a seat total of 466. Behind all this, in the process of escaping from the global recession of the early 1930s, Japanese corporations first of all came close to the level of British firms in the light industrial sector, and then in the second half of the 1930s the heavy and chemical industry sector was developing a degree of power inferior only to that of the United States and the Soviet Union. With increases in the demand for labour, the power of labour strengthened, and the value of agricultural products, supported by the development of manufacturing industry tended to rise rapidly, and the position of small peasants improved also. Improvement in the position of workers and small farmERSINTHESOCIO ECONOMIC@BASE BECAUSEOFTHEOUTBREAKOF the Japan-China War, did not lead to Socialist strength in the Diet. Although the next general election ought to have taken place at the latest in April 1941, it was postponed for another year as a result of the intensifying of the Japan-China War. In April 1942, the Pacific War had already begun. In order, however, to continue the Japan-China War and the Pacific War, it was essential to win the co-operation of workers and small peasants, who had managed to raise their socio-economic status. I disagree that total war and the total war regime raised the status of workers and small peasants, rather the opposite. Therefore, I thought that the idea of making war in order to reduce widening social disparities, and then pillory Maruyama Masao, a genuine believer in parliamentary government, was to put the cart before the horse. I did not state my position on this then, nor have I done so up to the present, but what I have just said is my reply to Akagi Tomohiro. These are my thoughts after studying the history over more than seven years from that time.

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WHY DID THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY LINE OF GIVING HIGHEST PRIORITY TO WELFARE FAIL?

Yamaguchi. In 2008, the Lehmann shock occurred, the

@4EMPORARY7ORKERS6ILLAGEMOVEMENTOF;THEANTI POVerty social activist] Yuasa Makoto and others, began, and at that time in the media, rather than talking about individual responsibility, the principal discourse was that poverty should be taken as a distortion in society as a whole. 7HENTHE$0*USEDTHESLOGAN@0EOPLESLIVELIHOODlRST and proposed to tackle disparities and poverty, I myself worked as hard as I could on this project. After the DPJ had been soundly defeated in the 2005 general election, I argued that the LDP had abandoned its long-held redistributive politics, and had turned to market-centred and competition-centred neo-liberalism, so that that the only thing to do was to construct a system consisting of two major parties, in which the DPJ, on the basis of social democratic policies, would confront the LDP. For me as an academic, such a scheme seems absolutely natural. The party Representative at that time, however, was Maehara Seiji, who was unable to understand this. While he was hesitating, the so-called bogus letter incident occurred, ;-AEHARAHADTORESIGN=AND/ZAWA)CHIRO- emerged as leader. Soon after he was appointed, Ozawa shifted the DPJ towards a democratic socialist line. For me this was a one in a million chance, and it seemed that a path towards alternating politics was available. Later, the Lehmann shock occurred, medical services deteriorated, people lost access to nursing assistance, and local areas became weaker, in other words society was rapidly losing its resilience. In these circumstances, in 2009, a change of government finally took place. Banno. In the face of neo-liberalism the DPJ position of correcting disparities was extremely weak though. After Ozawa became leader, the smell that attached to him came



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out into the open; I suspected that you were advising him, but I had a strong feeling that he was strongly tainted by corruption. Yamaguchi. At any rate, once the government had CHANGED )FELTMOSTACUTELYTHATTHESLOGAN@PEOPLESLIVElihood first’ was very different from social democracy. @0EOPLES LIVELIHOOD lRST WAS A TERM THAT EMERGED AS A means of selling social democratic policies in the Japanese political arena, but there was nothing there at the level of thought and theory. Even though aid was given to children and senior high school fees were abolished, arguments at a theoretical level about why such policies should be implemented, or what kind of Japanese society should be constructed, were totally lacking within the DPJ itself. Thinking about where the funds might come from to underpin such a universal policy programme remained at a superficial level. Ozawa Ichiro- was the legitimate successor of the LDP +EISEIKAI FACTION ;FACTION FOUNDED BY THE FORMER PRIME minister, Takeshita Noboru, in the 1980s]. Where the money came from is a question the Ministry of Finance had to deal with, and how the money was divided up, were all issues resolved by the thought that this was politicians’ business. I think that this was one of the reasons for the failure of the DPJ government. Banno. In the pre-war period as well, in January 1874, a petition to establish a popularly elected assembly was brought, and from then it took fifty-one years for universal male suffrage to be established in 1925. From that point, questions of social policy and questions of social improvement should have been pursued, but politicians did not make forward preparations for this. It was a good thing that universal suffrage was introduced, but afterwards, as before, nobody understood what ought to be done.

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The same thing happened after the war, the defeat led to the post-war reforms and to a parliamentary system with cabinet within parliament, but then it took a long time until the government changed in 2009, and a two-party system was born. Concrete discussion of social policies should really have taken place in advance. After an interval, social policy should have been pursued, and although questions of the content to be debated in a reformed political system should have been discussed, why was it that this WASNOTDONE THE JAPANESE LEFT WING LIKES SMALL GOVERNMENT

- Osamu, Banno. The comparative economic historian Saito Professor Emeritus of Hitotsubashi University, is someone with whom I am quite friendly, but after I sent him my book Nihon kindai shi (Japan’s Modern History), he wrote me a letter of thanks, in which he asked why socialists after the introduction of universal suffrage failed to become advocates of a welfare state. Having read my book he asked me why, even though with universal suffrage in 1925 socialists were moving worldwide towards a welfare state, Japanese socialists did not do so. The popular parties,14 during the first Diet session in the 1890s, succeeded in their VIGOROUS PROMOTION OF @REDUCING GOVERNMENT EXPENDItures’ (seihi setsugen AND @MITIGATION OF PEOPLES BURDENS (minryoku kyu-yo-). In other words the idea of small government was accepted with open arms. This became the platform of left-wing liberals, the tradition was strong, even 14

- to- and the Popular parties (minto-  Those parties such as the Jiyu

Rikken Kaishinto-, that had taken in the line of the Popular Rights Movement, and opposed the hanbatsu (domain clique) government.



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at the time when political equality came about in 1925, and later, the small government argument prevailed across the spectrum from liberals to the left wing. They supported the super-deflationary policies of the Minseito- party’s Inoue Junnosuke, and on the other hand, the left gave hardly any backing to inflationary policies after Takahashi Korekiyo. In fact after the war too, the Japan Socialist Party labourFARMER FACTION ;Ro-no--ha] economists, including Ouchi Hyo-e, were opposed to the issuing of deficit bonds and viscerally against inflation, When the income doubling plan made spectacular progress with rapid economic growth ;IN THE S= IT IS RATHER ASTONISHING THAT THEY MADE NO attempt to theorize about redistribution. Yamaguchi. Marxist economists were indeed really committed deflationists. When I wrote the fundamental argument of my book Okurasho- kanryo- shihai no shu-en (The End of Control by Ministry of Finance Officials) (Iwanami Shoten, 1987), I was surprised to see the reactions of various scholars at the time when the first government bond since the war was raised in 1965. In a colloquium among five economists, Ouchi Hyo-e expressed total oppoSITIONTOTHEISSUINGOFDElCITBONDS@+O- sai hakko- ron o hihan suru’ (Opposing the issue of public bonds), Sekai, December 1965. He even said that so far as recession was concerned, just doing nothing about it would ensure the health of capitalism. This was certainly not Keynesianism. When I read this I was astonished. Banno. Post-war Marxist economists were indeed like this. In some ways I think there were common elements BETWEENTHEMANDTHE+OIZUMI 4AKENAKATEAM;INGOVernment 2001–2006]. Yamaguchi. When the first government bond since the war was raised, one of the reasons why the JSP opposed it was that deficit financing was linked with war. The ban

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on issuing government bonds in article 4 of the Finance Law stemmed from reflection on the haphazard issuance of international loans for purposes of war, and since they said that both article 9 of the Constitution and article 4 of the Finance Law bound Japan to pacifism, the JSP opposed national loans. This meant that deflation and peace were linked together, just as inflation and war were linked. Therefore, from the post-war period to the present, the left wing and progressive side of politics has refrained from USINGTHEARGUMENTFORPOSITIVE;EXPANSIONIST=lNANCEAND maintenance of employment. Banno. In fact, since inflationary policies were conducted BY 4AKAHASHI +OREKIYO AS &INANCE -INISTER ;n= by the time of the Japan-China War the national finances were somewhat in deficit, but the balance of payments was not in a bad state. This did not mean that war occurred because Japan had deficit loans, but rather that to legitimize deficit loans was extremely useful in pursuit of total war. Since, however, military expenses connected with the Manchurian Incident used up several hundred million yen, it is true that this money was used for military expansion. For post-war socialists and for both the JSP and JCP, national deficit loans were bad, as was inflation. What I OFTENHEARDASAHIGHSCHOOLSTUDENTWASTHESONG@!RACE between prices and wages is always completely oppressive for the people. Money is crunching in the stomach of ;0RIME-INISTER=9OSHIDA SELLEROFHISCOUNTRY&ROMTHE 1950s this became part of everybody’s beliefs. I think that, because this kind of sentiment was still embedded in people, WHEN/ZAWAINTHE$0*TALKEDABOUT@PEOPLESLIVELIHOOD first’, he aroused tremendous resistance within the party. Even within the DPJ, many supported neo-liberalism, and following habitual DPJ attitudes, a welfare state was not something they understood. The JSP, which was in one



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sense the original party of the DPJ, also had no idea what this was about. At any rate, when those who had no training either in theory or policy, but became ministers because they were good party members, they would only follow the Finance Ministry LINE4HOSEWHOSAID@He understands policy well’, in almost every instance, would turn out to be excellent pupils of the Ministry of Finance. Nobody worked out his own blueprint, or trained himself to devise policy to be actually implemented. 7HYISITTHATTHEREWERENOSUCHIDEASAROUND Yamaguchi. At the time of the DPJ government, there were some politicians who had experience as chief executives of local authorities, but did not dance to the tune of the Finance Ministry. Katayama Yoshihiro, who as General Affairs Minister clashed with Ministry of Finance, had served two terms as governor of Tottori Prefecture, while the Vice-Minister of General Affairs, Suzuki Katsumasa, had been Mayor of Kamago-ri in Aichi Prefecture. I think such people were extremely good. Banno. I am not personally acquainted with him, but I have seen Katayama on television and in newspapers, and I am very happy with him. He is a politician I respect. The argument of Ouchi Hyo-e opposing the issuing of national bonds, is an approach connected with the personalizing of risk. In fact, for a very long time the opposition parties have pressed the wrong button. If increasing spending with Abenomics comes to its logical conclusion, perhaps Japan will fall into a situation similar to that of Greece, FACINGDEFAULT!TTHATTIME SHOULDTHENEW$0*THATYOU are trying to construct come to power, it might again adopt super-retrenchment policies. Yamaguchi. Because it would come to power like an insolvent official, needing to recover from bankruptcy, no doubt.

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Banno. Once the button is switched over, it will be almost impossible to reverse the consequent process. Except in circumstances where Japan faces default, the Abe LDP regime will not be displaced. Yamaguchi. This is an unpleasant subject. When I hear about the origins of the anti-taxation left wing, going back TOOLDSLOGANSLIKE@REDUCINGGOVERNMENTEXPENDITURESAND @MITIGATION OF PEOPLES BURDENS ) UNDERSTAND HOW DEEP the roots are of such attitudes. Banno. @2EDUCINGGOVERNMENTEXPENDITUREASASLOGAN of the Jiyu-to-OFTHES WASTHESAMEAS@EXAMINATION of expenditure’ (jigyo- shiwake). But if you propose reducing waste and spending the amount saved on welfare, the SLOGAN@PEOPLESLIVELIHOODlRSTMAYBEFULlLLED"UTSINCE the talk is all about returning to the primary balance, this is not going to work. Yamaguchi. In the American independence revolution, opposition to taxation motivated the revolution, and in the Japanese case the left wing, from an anti-regime position, has come out against taxation. The idea that everybody has to pay taxes and that that this is universal, is something that the Japanese left wing does not express. The left wing does not like the idea of a welfare state. This is really difficult. Banno. People should come out with a policy line statING THAT ;TAX= BURDENS NEED TO BE INCREASED AND THAT THE increase must be used with great care. Politicians who are puppets of the Finance Ministry, once they have increased taxation do not write about the ways in which the increase should be used. They just express relief that the financial deficit has been reduced.

Chapter 6

WHERE SHOULD 7%'/&2/-(%2%

y HOW SHOULD JAPAN GO FROM HERE?

Yamaguchi. The year 2009, when the government

changed and the Democratic Party came to power, was an uplifting and extraordinary moment in Japanese postwar politics. The people had veered towards idealism, and were genuinely pursuing an ideal. The long years of LDP rule were ended by the will of the people, and the DPJ Government was born. What was most striking as a result was the novelty and reversals of policy that soon became apparent. Seen from the present perspective, the Hatoyama 'OVERNMENTSAIDMANYWONDERFULTHINGS SUCHAS@ASOCIETY INWHICHEVERYONEHASHISORHERPLACEANDROLE OR@AN%AST Asia community’, or reducing greenhouse gases by 25 per cent. It also projected internally and externally the sense that it would tackle idealistic issues. There were some things that had really changed. In policies to reform social welfare relations, especially in matters of employment, poverty policy, and policy for the disabled, social democratic aspects were to the fore. But in

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general the government failed in management, the DPJ self-destructed, and in foreign policy management, it lacked political skills and capabilities, so that the electorate became disgusted with the pursuit of ideals. Thus a mood became widespread that they should cease trying to make ideals a reality by political means. They began to aim for stability rather than reform. If we look at recent public opinion polls, an interesting characteristic becomes clear. When people are asked about specific policy issues, they do not support the line being promoted by the Abe Government. When we see polls mainly on the Constitution and collective defence, the people have generally strengthened their pacifist inclinations. When they are asked about the economy, even though the economic situation may have improved and business profits increased because of Abenomics, ordinary people do not see a positive outlook for their interests in employment, wages or social security payments, and exhibit a highly realistic understanding of these matters. On the question of nuclear power stations, public opinion is clearly strongly in favour of an exit from nuclear energy. Despite the fact that on individual policy issues support for the Abe Government’s policies is low, support for the Government from its inauguration until the official ACCEPTANCEOFCOLLECTIVEDEFENCE;IN*ULY= REMAINED consistently at about 50 per cent. But this is not a case of supporting the government because its policies are good. People think that, since they dislike situations where the prime minister is always changing, or an immature party takes power and causes mayhem, they will place emphasis, not on policies, but rather on political stability. I think that it is a mind-set that does not want things to change, prefers a stable situation, and is inclined to support the Abe regime.



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On the other hand, after the Eastern Japan earthquake disaster, voices saying that Japan must change became stronger. Various people came to say that we should reconsider the assumption that economic growth and expansion cures all problems. The movement that demands an end to nuclear power stations is the same. On the other hand, I think that with the decision in 2012 to award the 2020 Olympics to Japan, the dream of seeing growth once again coexisted in a contradictory fashion with its opposite in people’s minds. Banno. A fairly large number of people feel a sense of hostility to the right-wing pronouncements of the Abe Cabinet and those around it. But while I share this hostility, I think that what supports the regime is a negative feeling on the part of those who are concerned with stability, and viscerally object to criticism, which they want to close down. My own strong feeling is, rather than saying that things are DANGEROUSASTHEYARE TOSHOUT@WONTYOUJUSTKEEPQUIET Yamaguchi. My feeling is the same. The sense I have when I see the politics that surrounds Abe, or when I see the reactions of the media and intellectuals, is one of antiintellectualism and neglect of history. The Abe regime differs substantially in nature from previous manifestations of conservatism. In a word, its lack of self-control starts, for instance, with the Bank of Japan President, but also includes the Director of the Cabinet Legislative Bureau, the Director of NHK and so on, all of whom try to paint their own colouring onto all institutions and organizations, and seek to change overnight all the constitutional interpretations that have been built up historically. When I regard their behaviour, I have the feeling that they lack respect for intellect. Neglecting intellect is the same as neglecting history. When Abe first became Prime Minister, he put

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ABOUTTHESLOGAN@ABEAUTIFULCOUNTRY)TWASAFORMOF self-absorption or narcissism. When narcissism goes in a historical direction, it links itself with historical nostalgia, or historical justification. Rather than telling history as fact, history is told as a story, involving a strong desire to glorify oneself and one’s ancestors. There has never been a previous time when history has been politicized to such an extent. This is not just a case of the history of the past few DECADES)NRELATIONTOTHE;EARTHQUAKE=DISASTERSTHREE years back, anti-historical attitudes were in evidence. They deliberately reject the practice of thinking about lessons from history and accepting such lessons, and take the view that things should return to the way they were before the disaster. Up to the present at least, the Prime Minister has been engaging in self-centred behaviour, promoting policies that ignore history, and although academics, intellectuals and the media strongly criticize him, such attempts to curb him seem to have hardly any impact. Universities, over the past ten years or so, have been becoming weaker, and broadly speaking their scope for making critical statements has been disappearing. Intellectuals also at present have abandoned their role of sounding warnings, and the media are hardly in a healthy condition. In general, it is a case of seizing the moment. Time has come to be thought of, not in terms of extent, but rather of a point. It is not just a question of time, since sensitivity to space has also become peculiar. There is now a complete inability to imagine how Asians and Americans think about Japanese perceptions of history. Both time and space have become points. I think that the shrinking of perspective into a single point affects not just political leaders, but is a common issue for the elite in general.



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FREEDOM IS DANGEROUS

Banno. In a society where nobody thinks about the future, there is no interest in the past either. It follows that a lack of interest in history means, I think, that nobody is likely to think about their own future. Recently, invited by a friend, I went to see the opening of the Inuimon Gate of the Imperial Palace. After I retired I walked many times in the Higashi Gyo-EN ;PARK= NEXT door to it, so I wanted to have a look inside. But when we went on the first day, 350,000 people were waiting in a queue for two hours. I thought that I should once again witness this phenomenon of so many people gathering for this event, so a few days later when I returned to see the people standing in line, there were around 100,000. Putting these figures together, it is clear that many hundreds of thousands of people had crowded into the Imperial Palace. 7HAT DOES THIS MEAN ) DONT THINK THAT THEY WERE JUST determined to see inside the Inuimon Gate, nor that there were people in there with some sort of special knowledge. When I saw so many people standing in such great number from morning onwards, I thought that people’s only interest was in the space-time to control the instant. Yamaguchi. When I think of my contemporaries, during our university days we read many books together in seminars, and developed an understanding of world issues, but when they went into companies, they started only to talk about economic growth strategy. Hardly any of them maintained an attitude of facing up to social contradictions by reforming politics. Around the beginning of the 1960s, novelists such as Kuroi Senji wrote works on the theme of industrial society and individual conscience, but at some point this kind of writing died out. If there is anything like this being written at present it would probably the novels of Ikei Tojun.

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At this time when companies and workers have been cut out, revenge would be sweet, but it seems to me that novelists’ criticism of society is also becoming narrower. Banno. I think that the issue of societal freedom is important. Recently, when I spoke at a small history research society put together by a citizens’ group, and I allowed myself freely to criticize the Abe Government, ONEPARTICIPANTSAID@)THOUGHTTHATTHISKINDOFDISCOURSE was inadmissible in groups like this one, but it is great that you are talking like this’, and her face was radiant. Today there is an atmosphere where it is difficult to express political opinions in front of other people. I feel that before you say anything, you need first to look to right and left, and then to look ahead of you and behind you. I thought that it was really imperative to have freedom in a small society like that. The atmosphere is stifling, and gives me an unpleasant feeling. In some cases though, there are people around me who change channels or switch off the TV when Mr Abe’s face appears. Now some people feel extreme liking or extreme dislike for him, and as a result they may find it difficult to discuss such issues among friends. The ability to express contrasting opinions is a crucial condition for freedom, but people are not used to this. Yamaguchi. Yes indeed. I think that the value of freedom is becoming more and more crucial. The nationalism being promoted by the Abe regime emphasizes the homogeneity of the people, creates crises in foreign relations, and with this the freedom of citizens is sacrificed. If this is correct, it means that the most traditional aspect of human rights, namely freedom, is under threat. Even if this is not the case, Japan, being a society in which falling into line and uniformity predominate, the scope for minorities, dissident opinions and heresies is extremely limited.



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3O HOW SHOULD WE GUARANTEE FREEDOM (OW MAY WE CREATEASOCIETYMADEOFVARIOUSANDDISPARATEVALUES(OW can we preserve free private space, independent of governMENT4HISISBOTHANOLDQUESTIONANDANEWQUESTION AND I feel that we have to think hard about it. A TWO-PARTY SYSTEM WITHOUT SOCIAL CLASSES WON’T WORK

Banno. Returning to our discussions about the pre-war, at the first general election under universal male suffrage the electorate had grown overnight from 3 million to 12 million, in other words a fourfold increase. These people had no idea how they should express their political opinions. Out of the 12 million, those whose votes went to socialist parties only amounted to 460,000, if we add together workers and tenant farmers, they amounted to 4,600,000. A large majority of them did not vote for the socialist parties but voted for the Seiyu-kai and the Minseito-. Since not only they, but indeed all social classes, did not understand what they should expect from which political party, they vacillated between those two parties, and this resulted in unity cabinets that included both of them. The Saito- Makoto #ABINETFORMEDAFTERTHE)NCIDENT;ARIGHTISTUPRISING on 15 May 1932 that cost the life of Prime Minister Inukai Tsuyoshi and ended party cabinets], the Okada Keisuke #ABINETTHATFOLLOWEDTHE4EIJIN)NCIDENT;OF*ULY – a financial scandal involving the textile industry and the Bank of Taiwan, which brought down the Saito- Government], and the Hirota Ko-ki Cabinet that followed the 2/26 )NCIDENT;ANATTEMPTEDCOUPBYYOUNGMILITARYOFlCERSTHAT resulted in the deaths of former prime ministers Takahashi Korekiyo and Saito- Makoto as well as other senior officials], as well as the later cabinets of Hayashi Senju-ro- and

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Konoe Fumimaro, were all national unity cabinets. Thus, it became difficult to understand just where clashes of interest lay. There were 12 million electors, all of whom were workers, tenant farmers or members of the bourgeoisie, they had one vote each, and the system was based on two parties, the Seiyu-kai and the Minseito-. But my impression is that people did not understand what each group was proposing nor where they should place their vote. Yamaguchi. After the development of democracy as a system, for most people the way to decide politically how to pursue one’s own interests on the basis of one’s own interest relationships, did not work well. Banno. That’s right. Yamaguchi. Free elections had come into being, but the voters’ choice as usual fluctuated between the Seiyu-kai and the Minseito-, so that in the end this resulted in national unity cabinets. This is a story that has something in common with what is happening today. I previously argued that with the current Abe Cabinet, there is a contradiction between policy considerations and political party support, and they run in parallel to each other. Listening to what you have just said, I see an explanation for this, namely that people really feel that Japan should exit from nuclear power, that they should support the peace clause of the Constitution, and they have a precise sense of their own interests, but they don’t understand what they ought to do in order to protect their own interests. Understanding one’s political interests, but in addition knowing how to act politically, is quite a high-grade skill. In the case of Europe, there is class confrontation, and political participation through trade union mobilization, so that how to vote in order to pursue your interests is predetermined. This being the case, it is easy to decide



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how to participate politically. In nineteenth-century Britain, political democratization progressed with the development of social movements, including the Chartists1 and trade unions, and those who had been given the right to vote, by sending trade union representatives to Westminster, so that they were easily able to pursue their interests by means of political democratization and by policy. Banno. Japan did not develop in that direction. Those who voted for legal proletarian and social democratic parties were only 10 per cent of workers and tenant farmers, ALTHOUGHBYTHETIMEOFTHEFOURTHANDlFTHELECTIONS;AFTER universal suffrage] the proportion had doubled. Yamaguchi. In the case of Europe, unification leading to political parties was premised on the reality of a class society. Since the movement developed from social movement to political participation to systemic democratization, the link between the pursuit of socio-economic interest and political participation was self-evident. In the US case, from the New Deal onwards, trade unions, agricultural groups and various minorities increasingly engaged in political participation. In the case of Japan, people did not come together behind a political party in pursuit of their own interests. It is surprising, isn’t it, that from the beginning their support fluctuated between the Seiyu-kai and the Minseito-. Banno. There were three general elections, in 1928, 1930 and 1933, and each time between 1,500,000 and 2,000,000 votes shifted from the Seiyu-kai to the Minseito-, or from the Minseito- to the Seiyu-kai. About 3,000,000 1

Chartists. This was a political movement of the working class in

Britain that developed between the late 1830s and the 1850s, It derived from the People’s Charter, demanding suffrage rights.

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remained firm, so that if 1,500,000 floating votes came your way, that was a great victory. There were 5,500,000 farmers. If we divide them up into PARASITIC;ABSENTEE=LANDLORDS WORKINGLANDLORDS INDEPENdent farmers and tenant farmers, it was difficult to detect much political difference between them. All were unstable IN THEIR ;VOTING= BEHAVIOUR /UT OF    ELECTORS 5,500,000 were farmers, 3,100,000 were workers, and the remaining 3,500,000 to 3,600 000 were middle-class city dwellers. It is the same as today when the first district in any region is dominated by the urban middle class. TaishoDemocracy was brought about by the urban middle class, but when it was achieved they did not understand what their real interest was. Yamaguchi. The absence of loyalty to political parties is extremely unusual in countries having modern competitive party politics. Since in Japan parties lack roots, they are always subject to the danger of being severely defeated as the result of very temporary changes in wind direction. We seem to be observing a Japan where at every election one party or other will win an overwhelming victory. How long in the pre-war period did the period of alterNATINGPOLITICSACTUALLYLAST Banno. About seven years. We usually count from the cabinet of three pro-Constitution factions in June 1924, but at that time the Seiyu-kai was one wing of the coalition of parties in power. I have come to say, generally speaking, that alternating politics started from the time when the Seiyu-kai, led by Tanaka Giichi, defected from the three party cabinet IN!UGUST ANDTHE+ENSEIKAI;LATER-INSEITO- ] formed a single party cabinet, and lasted until May 1933.2 2

Alternation in power in pre-war Japan between the two major parties. The second Kato- Takaaki cabinet from August 1925



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I think that when universal male suffrage was introduced in 1925, modern Japan lost its sense of direction. By abolishing domains and setting up prefectures, the feudal system was destroyed, the Popular Rights Movement led to the establishment of the Diet, and through Taisho- democracy universal male suffrage was achieved, but after that people did not know which way to go, and nobody was able to say that particular actions would lead to a bright future. This vacuum was later filled by fascism. I think the present situation is rather similar. As soon as the long desired change of government took place, nobody understood what they were supposed to do. With the acceptance of collective defence, nobody expected that this might really mean becoming involved in a war with China. No judgement was made. The situation came about that we should not complain about the present situation. Prime Minister Abe seems to have ten or twenty different colours. If you think he is pro-American, then he turns out to be a nationalist, and since it is those who believe IN@NATIONALESSENCETHATINSISTONA*APAN 53ALLIANCE WE are in a position where nothing can be understood. When something takes our fancy we support it, but we are incapable of thinking about anything in the long term. Before the war, once universal suffrage had been achieved in 1925, and political democracy had been more or less put in place, (Kenseikai); the first Wakatsuki Reijiro- cabinet from January 1926 (Kenseikai) ĺ the Tanaka Giichi cabinet from April 1927 (Seiyu-kai) ĺ the Hamaguchi Osachi cabinet from July 1929 (Minseito-AMALGAMATIONOFTHE+ENSEIKAIANDTHE+ENSEIHONTO- ); the second Wakatsuki Reijiro- cabinet from April 1931 (Minseito-) ĺ the Inukai Tsuyoshi cabinet from December 1931 (Seiyu-kai).

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this was followed by around twenty years of turmoil, and I think that perhaps we should have been prepared for such turmoil. Yamaguchi. The story about goals being lost at the time of the introduction of universal male suffrage in 1925 is comparable with the story of the political confusion after the change in government in 2009. In the post-war period under the new Constitution, democracy was basically achieved, but if we are talking about democratic politics in terms of competition and alternation in power, an incomplete form of democracy, in which a single party was dominant, continued over a long period. The change of power that occurred in 2009 marked the arrival point of democratic politics, and is comparable to 1925 in the pre-war period. Banno. /URLONG HELDDREAMWASREALIZED
Yamaguchi. That’s right. This was a change of power representing the finishing touches of democracy. After this had been accomplished, as a sense of not knowing which way to go, of losing direction, began to take hold, and in this directionless situation the DPJ, whose politics was all over the place, took power. When it began to run out of steam, I likened it to an undergraduate suffering depression two months after entering university. This story involves confusion on the part of the DPJ. Everyone came together to overthrow the LDP, and in this way many elements combined to increase the size of the party, finally Ozawa came in as well, and in 2009 the DPJ won a great victory. But the tasks of binding together people with common interests so as to create a majority, and making policy changes that would benefit those people, were not sufficiently implemented. This was a major issue in the failure of the change of government. I think that the party should have adopted a position of representing sub-categories, including certain age



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groups and certain occupations. It would have been much better to tackle these issues head-on, representing sub-categories of people who had been too much ignored by the political world, and cold-shouldered by the bureaucracy, to target their interests through specific policy, effect fundamental policy changes, and thus mitigate social contradictions. Among the policy changes promoted by the DPJ in government, were some particular specific reforms. But there was no explanation of who they were for, or how society would be improved by their implementation. They rejected the idea of targeting particular categories and thus attracting specific interests, and instead they made the mistake of speaking vaguely of the national interest. Giving help to people who were offloading burdens onto poor people or working mothers could be justified in terms of improving society. Banno. We could say that this was not a movement towards democracy in the sense of making policy, in some form or other, out of the self interest of every class. In August 2009 the excitement of the whole Japanese people was not based just on reason, but really on a wish to attain democracy, expressed in a terrific frenzy. As soon as people realized that post-war democracy was completed, THEIRREACTIONWASTOASK@WHATISTHISALLABOUTINASTATEOF incomprehension. Now while the Abe Government still continues in office, WESHOULDREVISEOURTHINKINGABOUTTHEQUESTION@WHATIS PARTYPOLITICSALLABOUT)FWETAKETHEYEAR WHENPRE war democracy reached its peak, I think that the Sho-wa era ;THENJUSTBEGINNING= WHICHISNOWSEENASTHEERAOFFAScism, had already begun. We who experienced 2009, in our confusion went in this direction, went in that direction, and do not understand what came out of it. We should think carefully what kind of disorder is likely to eventuate.

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JAPAN-CHINA FRIENDSHIP, AND INTERNTIONAL COOPERATION, ONCE AGAIN

Yamaguchi. I think it is not particularly difficult to write

works looking forward to the future. This is because when a right winger called Abe Shinzo- became Prime MinisTERHEEMBARKEDUPONTHEHIGHLYPOLITICALAIMOF@BREAKing with the post-war regime’. His attempts to change the regime constitute an extremely dangerous and mistaken line of action. To contest this line is in some ways quite simple. As you have said, if we counter Abe’s politics with social improvement domestically and international co-operation overseas, it should be possible to build an effective political party. Touching on foreign policy first of all, in order to combat the isolationism of the Abe Government, we must PROMOTE A POLICY OF INTERNATIONALISM 4HE @*APAN #HINA friendship’ that you referred to at the beginning of the book should in my opinion be included in this. If we examine the international environment surrounding Japan, the United States has considerable reservations about the Abe Government. The Abe Government says that post-war Japan was distorted by a constitution imposed by the Americans, and that we should now escape from this post-war regime. And the US does not overlook this. The Americans are not at all happy with the fact that, even though they urged restraint, Abe has made pilgrimages to the Yasukuni Shrine. Europe is even more concerned about this. The Abe regime is itself making historical issues into political disputes, so that not only is outrage increasing in China and the Republic of Korea, but also concern is growing in Europe and America. When Mr Abe visited the Davos Conference, he pointed out in his speech similarities in relations between the United Kingdom and Germany



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just before the First World War, and Japan-China relations today. This naturally caused anxiety that Japan was deliberately stoking tensions in East Asia. In other words, the international environment surrounding Japan is such that not only may China and South Korea possibly clash with Japan, but also in addition, the Second World War victors, namely the United States and countries of Western Europe, feel uncertainty and alarm. The government is moving in an isolationist direction. So to oppose the Abe regime we need to base ourselves on international commonsense, and to unfurl the banner of internationalism. Politicians and intellectuals must insist that we must not fall into narrow-minded nationalism. As for Japanese conservatism, it in any case pays its respects to the United States, and then accepts that in domestic politics it is fine to engage in historical revisionist propaganda, as well as being quite acceptable to create tense relations with neighbouring countries, thus presuming on American indulgence. The US, however, with China emerging, has no desire to become involved in East Asian struggles, but earnestly desires stability in East Asia. By contrast with the question of the Americans becoming involved in war, there is the danger of Japan actually fomenting war and the United States becoming involved. When Japan lifted the ban on collective defence, it was in order to be able to involve the US. Banno. While we were preparing the manuscript of this dialogue, an interview was published in the Asahi Shinbun by my senior, Professor Mitani Taiichiro- (Emeritus Professor of Tokyo University) on the study of Japanese political and foreign policy history (10 June, morning edition). What he was saying was almost identical with your argument, on the point that he criticized the acceptance OF COLLECTIVE DEFENCE AS @TARGETING #HINA AS A hPOTENTIAL

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ENEMYv ASWELLASINTHESENSETHATITWASTHEVERYFACTOF MAINTAINING@THESENSEOFRELIABILITYOF*APANSOWNANTI WAR stance in international society’ that constituted Japanese @REALISM!SFORTHEENDORSEMENTOFCOLLECTIVEDEFENCEAND revision of article 9 of the Constitution, I am not against THEMATAN@IDEALLEVEL BUTWHENFROMAREALISTVIEWPOINT I see the current relationships between Europe, the US and China, on the one hand, and Japan, on the other, I think it [email protected] As I have touched on before, in pre-war Japan, China really continued to be regarded as a potential enemy. Superficially, the Army supported the Imperial Defence Plan that identified Russia (later the Soviet Union) as a potential enemy, but after the Russo-Japanese War in 1905, it came to be China that was the antagonist. When the Japan-China War broke out in July 1937, China was already relatively strong. As I mentioned before, Ishii Itaro- WROTE IN HIS DIARY @#HINA WHICH HAS BEEN thought of as a dog, has become a wolf. The Army has miscalculated this. The people have been made a fool of, and do not know that it is facing a wolf’ (Ishii Itaro- nikki, Chu-o- Ko-ronsha, pp. 183–4). Today’s China is not a wolf, but a lion. It is essential to re-establish Japan-China relations on a realist basis. Yamaguchi. In Weimar Germany, a crisis of legitimacy lasted for fifteen years, and the Weimar regime was dissolved by the Nazi Enabling Law placing full powers into Nazi hands. By contrast to the case of Weimar, postwar Japan has held firm for nearly seventy years. This is because the generation that had experienced the war continued to exist within the LDP. But in the case of Japan, attitudes from the old regime, rejecting the legitimacy of the post-war regime, have been inherited by those who were born after the war, and this has become



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the mainstream current in that party. So through what the Deputy Prime Minister Aso- Taro- CALLED@ESSENTIALLY Nazi methods’, by limitless concentration of power in Cabinet, they aim to deny the legitimacy of the post-war regime. This is a genuine turning point. I think that we must make the utmost efforts to recognize and together accept the fundamental principle of the post-war regime that we should not go to war a second time against other countries, especially those in Asia. A SOCIETY IN WHICH EVERYBODY CAN LEAD LIVES BEFITTING HUMAN BEINGS

Yamaguchi. The next issue is that of social democratic policies and domestic social improvement. Ever since the 2000s, it has been evident that companies have been increasing their profits while wages have been falling. This shows that the redistributive mechanism has broken down. Even though in a general sense GDP may increase a little, it disappears into the withholding of profits, distribution of shares, and granting of bonuses for officials, within companies, whereas it is not recycled to ordinary working people. Such a model developed in the US a long time ago. Therefore, growth without distribution is actually harmful for most people. Reconstruction of the distribution mechanism is the key issue for social improvement. At the same time, however, revision of the long-term stable employment and enterprise unions of post-war Japan is surely unavoidable. We should build a system whereby a couple both of whom are working, even if they engage in non-regular work, can lead a life befitting human beings. In other words, we must construct policies that reform the model to one based on human values, and this should

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include all the stages of life, from working life and the structure of the family to life in old age. There is one other point. We need of course to contemplate fair distribution in today’s society. At the same time, if we extend the time dimension into the future, the key word should be durability, and I think that the problem should be set out in such a way as to make sure that we leave to future generations the current kind of environment for living. Just to maintain economic growth and increase the wealth of society as a whole will not be a durable model. When we consider this, what to do about nuclear power becomes an important issue. Precisely at this moment, we should be setting out an approach against the view of Abenomics that it is fine just to make money, and we should bequeath to future generations of Japanese people a prosperous and stable life environment. Banno. This last point is what I would like to hear your opinion about. Since I do not know the present condition of social democratic forces in Europe, nor how welfare states were reconstructed after hitting bankruptcy, my arguments seem unpersuasive if I say that since we can’t just talk of freedom and peace, therefore we must emphasize equality. Even though we may be nostalgic for the old system, we cannot simply return to a Japanese-style employment system of permanent employment, nor should we ignore the financial deficit, nor can we set up something that imitates A7ESTERN%UROPEANWELFARESYSTEM3INCE@DURABILITYALSO INVOLVES@PRACTICABILITY PLEASELETUSHAVEAPOLICYPACKAGE following the order of priorities that should have been put into practice under the DPJ Government. Yamaguchi. Right. Total rejection of economic growth would not be a good policy. But it is a fact that with population declining, the underlying growth rate is close to zero. Thus, as in Abenomics and growth strategy,



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if growth is pursued as a selfish policy, ordinary people are increasingly made the victims. In growth strategy, deregulation of employment is taking place in such a way that overtime is no longer paid. In other words, the slogan is that we do not increase wage distribution. On the other hand, the setting up of casinos is lauded as a special way of enlivening the local economy. The reverse coin of reducing wages is the acceptance of gambling. It is a plot to suck the workers dry. Growth is not given as the goal, but they have created an economic model in which, rather than workers working diligently, and aiming to increase GDP, they should create wealth in order to use it themselves. Banno. The finishing touches were given to this dialogue in April 2014, and soon after that I received from a British scholar whom we both know the manuscript of a lecture given in the UK. This was about ten days after YOUSUGGESTEDTHETITLE@$ONT2EPEAT(ISTORY7HEN) received it, I was amazed. He strongly criticized the Abe #ABINET ANDTHETITLEOFHISPAPERWAS@4IMELY2EFORM OR0UTTINGTHE#LOCK"ACK!LTHOUGHTHETITLEENDSWITH a question mark, obviously the thrust of the paper was @.OT TO 0UT THE #LOCK "ACK AND IF WE TRANSLATE THAT into Japanese, it becomes Rekishi o kurikaesu na (Don’t Put the Clock Back). So just at the time that we were finishing this book, our British friend was saying just the same thing. When, in some excitement, I let him know by mail WHATOURTITLEWAS HEREPLIED@4HETITLEISBRILLIANT!SYOU mentioned at the beginning of this dialogue, the reputation of the Abe Government in Western Europe is at rock bottom. The constitutional scholar Hasebe Yasuo works consistently and hard on collective defence, while the authority on Japanese political and diplomatic history, Mitani

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Taichiro-, has gradually become active. This shows that the view of Japanese academics as useless is wrong, and I want to say that we can work well together. Yamaguchi. I think that the number is growing of those who believe that, whether or not they have influence, if in present circumstances they say nothing, they have no reason to be in the academic world. PROBLEMS OF RAISING AN ELITE THAT CAN OPPOSE

Yamaguchi. It is easy to develop a policy of clearly oppos-

ing Abe politics, but it is very difficult indeed to foster party politicians of sufficient influence to transform this into policy in the political world. Even now I meet from time to time with middle-ranking and young politicians from the DPJ, and we hold study sessions, but they still carry with them the memory of their defeat. I get angry with them for being irresponsible. In the DPJ everyone expends enormous energy on avoiding a party split, but their capacity to project themselves outside the party is nil. It is pathetic. After the DPJ was defeated in the general election of 2012, the opposition parties fragmented. Your Party (Minna no to-) and the Japan Restoration Party (Nihon ishin no to-) both split. It was a situation where there were no opposition parties capable of proposing moderate, healthy, political commonsense. Even though it would be good if the DPJ got down to it and became a moderate opposition party, within the DPJ itself there are many different politicians that coexist with difficulty, so that we have a difficult situation where solutions are hard to apply. Banno. In the opposition parties a sense of identity is too much lacking. Before the war the opposition leaders



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studied frantically and worked hard. Compared with them the current leaders are a complete mess. Yamaguchi. What to do about this is our last issue for discussion, but we must not take one step back and two steps forward. The DPJ should have a thorough debate about its fundamental line, and I think that if as a result it splits, that needs to be accepted. People who join up with dubious populist parties can leave. Those who want to revise the Constitution should also leave. In addition, the only thing to do is to unfurl the flag of socio-economic durability and peaceful diplomacy, once again bringing together healthy sensible politicians. Naturally, in the LDP and in some small parties, there are moderate, sensible politicians, so that I think it may require a time frame of around ten years to carry out such a major reformation. This is the image I have previously mentioned of a coalition between social democracy and liberalism. The most difficult thing is to build a political party. You may think you have succeeded, and then you face repeated failures. It is a cycle of twenty or even thirty years. But to give up would be regrettable, and since I cannot leave this life while things are as they are, I think I have to persist in arguing for a sensible, liberal, moderate result. Banno. Since the time when the DPJ was in power, just as when it was out of power, it was too disorganized, I am reminded of the example of Saigo- Takamori, and his @QUALITYOFA#ONTESTINGELITE4HISWASNOTAN@%STABLISHMENTELITE NORAN@ANTI %STABLISHMENTELITE BUTA@#ONtesting elite’. In the history of post-war Japan, the LDP WASCONSISTENTLYTHE@%STABLISHMENTELITE ANDTHE*30WAS CONSISTENTLYTHE@ANTI %STABLISHMENTELITE7HILEITWASDIFficult to overthrow the Establishment elite, after it had been OVERTHROWNITWASTHENNECESSARYTOBECOMETHE@%STABLISHment elite’ yourselves.

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I will leave out the details here, but from before the Ansei purge of 1858, it took ten years before the Bakufu was overthrown, and the men who overthrew the Bakufu, abolished the nearly 300 domains and created the new Meiji government, were neither an Establishment elite, nor AANTI %STABLISHMENTELITE BUTAGENUINE@#ONTESTINGELITE Even Saigo-, however, balked at the abolition of domains and creation of prefectures. In countries of Europe and North America where alternation in power of different parties has become normal, both the party in power, and the party out of power, at A PARTICULAR TIME MAY BECOME @#ONTESTING ELITES "OTH parties in power and parties out of power have such experience. The Japan Socialist Party and subsequently the Democratic Party, over fifty-four years between 1955 and 2009, were never more than an anti-Establishment elite. The fact THAT THEY NEVER ASSUMED THE CHARACTER OF A @#ONTESTING elite’, capable of overthrowing the regime and succeeding to it, was surely inevitable. How to foster this from now on is the responsibility of you and your friends, but I well understand that it is stupendously difficult. But I think that there is no other choice, unless everybody works to bring ABOUTA@#ONTESTINGELITE Yamaguchi. I think that to create a coalition between liberalism and social democracy, it is necessary to devise a plan for policy confrontation. In a country where human beings are treated as nothing more than labour commodities THATCANBEDISCARDED WHATFUTUREISTHERE4HISISWHAT) must ask liberals to think about. At the same time, returning to the model set up at an unusual period in post-war Japan, it would be difficult to re-establish a system based entirely on regular workers with full career contracts, but it is realistic to consider how the wages of non-regular workers can be substantially increased, and social insurance improved.



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Banno. To return to such high wages and lifetime employment as existed in the past is impossible. What we can expect is to give dismissed workers enough money to bring up children, and to provide as many child-minding centres as possible. Yamaguchi. In this sense I think that we should move out of acceptance of the status quo, and move to improve it. Liberalism and social democracy should join hands in this enterprise. Banno. My writings in recent years have always ended on an optimistic note. I would like this time also to finish optimistically. The Abe Cabinet made a cabinet decision to recognize collective defence, though to a limited extent. In this dialogue I have focused on Japanese politics over the more than 160 years since the arrival of Commodore Perry’s ships ;IN= AND)AMNOTPESSIMISTICABOUTTHEPRESENTSITUAtion. I do not think that current disputes have included anything beyond announcing the end of aerial warfare between an ideological right-wing and an ideological left-wing. In August 2009, I applauded from the bottom of my heart the first real change of government since the end of the war, but I did not expect that a struggle would begin between constitutional revisionists and defenders of the Constitution. What I expected from the change of government was firstly, the attainment of freedom of choice, and secondly, a check on the widening of social disparities. Even though the ideological right-wing is now victorious, the government decision to approve the right of collective defence will not make a practical difference TO INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS !S FOR @PEACE UNLESS FRIENDLY relations can be established with neighbouring countries, constitutional interpretation cannot be sustained. This is something that I have repeatedly insisted upon in the course

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of this dialogue. And then, unless concrete improvement POLICIES ARE PUT IN PLACE @RECTIlCATION OF DISPARITIES WILL become another argument similar to that of supporting the Constitution – this is what you have repeatedly insisted upon in the course of this dialogue. A war is not going to break out tomorrow. We still have more time. But this time must not be wasted. And with that we must wrap up this dialogue. Yamaguchi. Yes. The Japanese people are not stupid, and they can understand the foolish arguments of the Abe regime. All we can do is to continue to consider real issues.

AFTERWORD by Banno Junji As We Have often repeated, the aim of this dialogue has been to extract key issues from 150 years of modern Japanese history, and so far as possible indicate a path towards a resolution of those issues, in a discussion between Professor Yamaguchi Jiro-, who as a political scientist has conducted practical analysis of the seventy years of contemporary history since the war, and myself. In my case, I have researched more than eighty years of Japanese modern history since the arrival of Perry’s fleet in 1853. I think that the relations between the two of us will be to some extent comprehensible from the letter summarized at the beginning of the book. There has never been a teacher-pupil relationship between us at university. There has never been a relationship in, for instance, a political science association, or similar professional body. Just one thing is in common between us, namely that we have come to believe that the humanities and social sciences are not just a world of hobbies. More than twenty years ago I became tired of merely pursuing objective truth and conducting value-free empirical research, and I developed a strong feeling that I should utilize my specialist knowledge, to some extent at

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least, so as to contribute to the improvement of political society. It was about that time that I began to realize that I had much in common with the words and actions of Professor Yamaguchi. Comparable with my case as someone belonging to the 1960 Security Treaty protest generation, he continues to explain his own views in newspapers and on television, with no concern for current fashions of thought, and no doubt my former self merges with this current personality.

INDEX

y 2/26 Incident (uprising on 26 February 1936), 16, 51, 119 2020 Olympics, 115 )NCIDENT;-AY= 52, 119 Abe Cabinet, 23, 25, 115, 120, 131, 135 Abe Government, ix, x, xi, xii, 6, 15, 18, 20, 23, 24, 44, 82–4, 85, 114, 118, 125, 126, 131 Abe Shinzo-, xi, 55, 56, 126 Abe’s politics, 4, 126 Abenomics, xi, 111, 114, 130 Abokudo (America), 10 Adachi Kenzo-, 73 Advance individually, attack together, 4, 25 Aichi Prefecture, 111 Akagi Tomohiro, 102, 103, 105 American Alliance, 12 Ansei purge (1858), 134 anti-Establishment elite, 133, 134 anti-regime elite, 49, 50, 53, 55–7 Arendt, Hannah, 60 Army and Navy elites, 49, 50 Army Bureau, 53

artisans, 103–105 Asia-Pacific War, xi Asianist nationalism, 10 Asianists, 10 Aso- Taro-, Deputy Prime Minister, 129 atomic bombs, 33 Attlee, Clement, 96 Axis nations, 29 Bakufu, 134 Bakumatsu period, 51 banality of evil, 60 Bank of Japan, 83 Bank of Japan President, 115 Bank of Taiwan, 119 basic defence capacity, concept of, 42 Basic Treaty (1965), 29 Basis of National Policy (kokusaku no kijun), 58 Beveridge, William, 96 Beveridge Report, 96 big business (zaikai) control, 25 Bo-ei keikaku no taiko- (Outline Defence Plan), 42 Britain, see Great Britain

140

bureaucratic power, 65 Burke, Edmund, 66 Cabinet Legislation Bureau (naikaku ho-seikyoku), 18 Cabinet Legislative Bureau, 20, 23, 83, 115 Cabinet politics, 19, 21, 22, 23, 24 Cambodia, 46 Canada, 44 #HARTER/ATH;OFTHE-EIJI Emperor], 16, 17 Chartists, 121 Chiang Kai-Shek, 8 child-care, 79, 86 child-minding, 86, 135 child-rearing, 75 China, xi, xiii, 6–9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 17, 25, 26, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 43, 46, 47, 52, 53, 86, 87, 123, 126, 127, 128 Chinese nationalism, 8 Chinese Revolution of 1911, 11 Churchill, Winston, 96 Class A war criminals, xii Cold War, 38, 39, 40, 43–8, 68, 69, 73, 77 collective defence, ix, 6, 9, 22, 24, 25, 26, 44, 48, 84, 114, 123, 127, 128, 131, 135 comfort women, 36 comfort women, Ko-no statement on, 47 Commission Concerning Restructuring of the Legal Basis for National Security (Anpo ho-sei kon), 22

INDEX

conservative forces, 64, 68, 70–2 Constitution, 1947, x, xi, xii, 6, 15, 17, 21, 23, 25, 26, 27, 28, 43, 45, 47, 57, 83, 90, 114, 120, 122, 124, 133, 135, 136 Constitution, Article 9 of the, 7, 9, 22, 24, 26, 38, 41, 42, 44, 87, 110, 128 Constitutional Democracy Society (rikken demokurashi no kai), 15, 25 Constitutionalism (rikkenshugi), 15–19 constitution-building (so-ken), 44 Contesting elite, 133, 134 creeping socialism, 74 Davos Conference, 126 Defence Problems Discussion Group (Bo-ei mondai kondankai), 46 Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), 1, 3, 4, 18, 20, 76, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 84, 96, 106–108, 110, 111, 113, 114, 124, 125, 130, 132, 133, 134 Democratic Socialist Party (DSP), 89, 90, 91 Diet, the, 15, 17, 20, 21, 22, 23, 39, 45, 73, 81, 105, 108, 123 Director of NHK, 115 Director of the Cabinet Legislative Bureau, 20, 115 discretionary policies, 74, 75 diversity, 69, 99–103 Do-shikai, 2 DPJ Manifesto, 79, 80

INDEX

East Asia, xiii, 36, 48, 113, 127 East Asian partnership, 12 East China Sea, xi Eastern Japan earthquake disaster, 11, 115, 116 Emperor system, 41, 90 employment, 75, 89, 93, 97, 100, 102, 110, 113, 114, 129, 130, 131, 135 enlightened liberalism, 77 equality, 4, 27, 32, 37, 39, 72–6, 80, 85, 92, 93, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 103, 104, 109, 130 escape from Asia (datsu-A) argument, 11 Establishment elite, 133, 134 Europe, 2, 10, 11, 36, 74, 120, 121, 126, 128, 130, 134 European Union, 29 examination of expenditure (jigyoshiwake), 112 Extraordinary Commission for the 21st Century, 2 Far Eastern Military Tribunal, 38 farmers, 17, 65, 70, 94, 104, 105, 119, 120, 121, 122 Finance Law, article 4 of the, 110 First Higher School, 41 First World War, 8, 104, 127 France, 35, 36 freedom of information act, 24 freeter (independent worker in casual jobs), 102 Fujii Hitoshi, Lieutenant, 51 fukoku kyo-hei;@PROSPEROUS country, strong army’], 7, 26

141

Fukuzawa Yukichi, 70 furusato;HOMETOWN=  GDP, 129 genro-;ELDERSTATESMEN=   Germany, 29, 30, 31, 35, 36, 53, 92126 Goto- Motoo, 29 Great Britain, 35, 36, 67, 96, 121 Greece, 111 guntai (military forces), 43 Guomindang, 8 gyokusai (honourable death), 34 Hamaguchi Osachi, 49, 123 Hanzawa Naoki, 59 Hara Kei, 8, 52, 73 Hasebe Yasuo, 131 Hasegawa Nyozekan, 41 Hashimoto Ryu-taro-, 56 Hashimoto To-ru (Mayor of - saka), 24, 84 O Hatoyama Government, 2, 113 Hatoyama Yukio, 1, 12 Hayashi Senju-ro-, 119 Head Chamberlain, 54 Higashi Gyo-EN;PARK=  Hiroshima, 40 Hirota Ko-ki Cabinet, 119 Hitler, 30 hoantai, 43 Hokkaido-, 81 Home Ministry, 68, 91, 92 Honda, 69 Hoshi To-ru, 66 Hosokawa Coalition Cabinet, 46, 47, 55

142

(OSOKAWA'OVERNMENT;n 1974], 100 Hosokawa Morihiro, 46, 56, 77, 78, 85 House of Representatives, 16, 33, 92, 104 Hozumi Yatsuka, 19, 20, 21, 22 Ii Naosuke, 51 Ikei Tojun, 117 Imperial Defence Plan, 128 Imperial Defence Policy (1907), 7 Imperial Household Minister, 54 Imperial Palace, 54 Imperial Rescript on Education, 41 indiscriminate bombing, 33 individualizing of risk, 74 Inoue Hisashi, 31 Inoue Junnosuke, 73 Inoue Kowashi, 16 Institute of Social Science, 81 Inuimon Gate (Imperial Palace), 117 Inukai Tsuyoshi, Prime Minister, 119 Iraq, 13 Ishiba, LDP Secretary-General, 22 Ishibashi Tanzan, 12, 68, 84 Ishihara Shintaro- (former governor of Tokyo), 13, 14, 53 Ishii Itaro- (East Asia Bureau Chief of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs), 31, 128 Ishikawa Masumi, 64 Ishiwara Kanji, 52, 57

INDEX

Italy, 29, 30 Iwojima, 34 JA (Central Committee of the Japan Co-operative Association), 83 Japan-China friendship, 7, 9–12, 14, 15, 25, 26, 27, 31, 126–9 Japan-China War, 9, 16, 31, 33, 35, 53, 58, 63, 90, 94, 98, 103, 104, 105, 110, 128 Japan Communist Party, 39, 61, 90, 95 Japan Industrial Club (Nihon Ko-gyo- Kurabu), 91 Japan New Party, 77 Japan Renewal Party ;3HINSEITO- ], 77 *APAN2ESTORATION0ARTY;Nihon ishin no kai], 84, 132 Japan Socialist Party (JSP), 43, 46, 88, 90, 91, 95, 100, 109, 110, 133, 134 Japan-US Alliance, 30, 123 Japan-US Mutual Security Treaty, 42, 44, 46, 88 Japanese defeat, xi Japanese Imperial Forces, xi jieitai (Self Defence Forces), 43 Jiyu-to-, 2, 66, 70, 71, 108, 112 ju-shin (Imperial Advisers), 54 Kaishinto- party, 70 Kajiyama Seiroku, 56 kakusa (disparities), 102 Kamago-ri, 111 Kan Government, 11 Kan Naoto, 11

INDEX

Kanto-gun, 31, 49, 50, 53 Katayama Yoshihiro (General Affairs Minister), 111 Kato- Ko-ICHI;,$0POLITICIAN= 56, 65 Kato- Takaaki, 2 Katsura Taro-, 50, 52 +EIDANREN;&EDERATIONOF Economic Organizations], 91 Keio- Gijuku University, 70, 71 Kenseikai, 3, 68, 71, 122 Kigensetsu;%MPIRE$AY=  Kishi Nobusuke, 37 Ko-chikai, 47, 68, 83, 84 Koizumi Junichiro-, 35, 85, 102 Koizumi Government, 101 Koizumi-Takenaka team, 109 Ko-junsha, 70 Komaba Festival of Tokyo University, 43 Ko-meito-, 23 Konoe Division and First Division, 51 Konoe Fumimaro, 120 Ko- sai hakko- ron o hihan suru (Opposing the issue of public bonds), 109 Kuroi Senji, 117 Kwantung Army, 8 Labour-Farmer faction (Ro-no- ha), 94 labour unions, 89 land reform, 65, 94 land reform preparation committee, 94 landlords, 70, 71, 94, 104, 122 Lehmann shock (2008), 106

143

Leyte, battle of, 35 Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), 1, 41, 64–87 London Naval Disarmament Treaty (1930), 49, 51 Lord Privy Seal, 54 Maehara Seiji, 106 Makino Nobukai, 54 Manchuria, 6, 7, 9, 10, 12, 13, 34, 52, 53 Manchurian Incident (1931), 31, 35, 49, 53, 59, 110 Mao Zedong, 33 Marco Polo Bridge Incident (1937), 13, 31, 34, 53, 95 Maruyama Masao, Professor, 15, 39, 40, 41, 53, 57, 59, 102, 103, 105 Marxism, 44, 88 Marxist economists, 109 Marxist history, 103 Matsuoka Komakichi, 91 Matsushita Keiichi, 22 Medeia shi kenkyu- (Media History Research) journal, 98 Meiji Constitution, 5, 16, 17, 19, 23 Meiji Democracy, 17, 97 Meiji Emperor, 16 Meiji Restoration, 7, 67, 71, 78, 104 merchants, 103–105 Midway, battle of, 35 -IKI'OVERNMENT;n 1976], 42 Miki Takeo, 84 military bases, 38

144

Ministry of Finance, 68, 87, 107, 109, 111 Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 31 Minobe Tatsukichi, 19, 21, 22, 23, 49 Minseito-, 16, 33, 50, 68, 71, 73, 74, 78, 109, 119, 120, 121, 122 Minseito- Government, 49 Mitani Taiichiro-, Professor, 127, 131–2 mitigation of people’s burdens (minryoku kyu-yo-), 108, 112 Mitsui Miike, 93, 94 Miyamoto Taro-, 93 -IYAZAWA+IICHI;0RIME-INISTER 1991–1993], 47, 68, 84 modern war, 58 Mongolia, 13, 52 MULTI PARTYALLIANCE;gassho- renko-], 78 -URAYAMA'OVERNMENT;n 1976], 46, 47, 100 Mussolini, 30 Muto- Teiichi, 58 Nagai Ryu-taro-, 73 Nagasaki, 40 Nagata Tetsuzan, 52, 53 Nakanishi Terumasa, 36 Nakano Shigeharu, 61, 62 Nakasone Yasuhiro, 60 Nanjing, 40 National Defence Plan, 58 National Diet, see Diet National Mobilization Law (1938), 16 National Polity (kokutai), 20 nativist conservatism, 67, 76, 77

INDEX

Nazi Enabling Law, 128 Nazi Germany, 60 Nazi regime, 30 neo-liberalism, 106, 110 New Deal, 121 new middle class, 97–9 New Party Harbinger (ShintoSakigake), 77 NHK, 18, 83, 115 Nihon kaizo- keikaku (Plan to Reform Japan), 45 Niigata Prefecture, 76, 94 .IKKEIREN;*APAN&EDERATIONOF Employers’ Organizations], 91, 100 Nine-Power Agreement, 8 Nishio Suehiro, 91 Nishiyama Ko-ichi, 94 No Nagata before Nagata, no Nagata after Nagata, 52 Noma Hiroshi, 41 Nonaka Hiromu, 56 Northern Attack (hokubatsu), 8 Northern Territories, 29 nuclear family, 86 nuclear power, 69, 84, 85, 114, 115, 120, 130 nuclear power station crisis, 57 nuclear village, 85 nuclear weapons, 42 nursing homes, 86 Obuchi Keizo-, 56 Ogura Masao (manager of Yamato Transport), 69 - HIRA-ASAYOSHI;0RIME O Minister, 1978–1980], 60, 68 Okinawa, 13, 34, 39, 42

INDEX

Okudaira Yasuhiro, Professor, 15 old-age care, 86 old age pensions, 75 Orwell, George, 76 - saka, 24, 84 O - sawa Mari, 81 O - uchi Hyo-e, 109 O Ozawa Ichiro-, 20, 45, 77, 106, 107, 110 Pacific War, xi, 58, 99, 105 party political trends, 64 Peace Keeping Operations (PKO), 44 Peace State, 28, 46, 47, 48 Pearl Harbor, 33, 34, 40 People’s livelihood first, 80, 106, 107, 110, 112 people-based democracy (minponshugi), 101 people-centred politics (minponshugi), 73 Perry, Commodore, 135, 137 Planning Board (Kikakuin), 95 pluralism, 69 Political economy, 3 Politics based on the people (minponshugi), 19–23, 24 politics of supreme power, 21 popular rebuke camp (kokumin monseki jin), 62 Popular Rights Movement, 16, 17, 66, 70, 71, 123 poverty, 62, 72, 74, 75, 77, 99–103, 106, 113 pre-schools, 86 private sector, 69, 77, 89, 92

145

public health insurance, 75 public pension systems, 75 reducing government expenditure (seihi setsugen), 108, 112 Rekishi o kurikaesu na (Don’t Put the Clock Back), 131 Republic of Korea, 29, 31, 126 resources, 58, 79, 97 right-wing government, xi Rikken Do-shikai party, 2, 50 Rikken Seiyu-kai, 2, 70, 71 Ronza journal, 102 Ro-yama Masamichi, 89 rural landlords, 70, 71, 104 Russia, 6, 7, 35, 128 Russian Empire, 7 Russo-Japanese War, 6, 9, 50, 53, 128 Ryu- Shintaro, 89 Saigo- Takamori, 78, 133, 134 Saionji Kinmochi, 54 Saipan, 34 Saito- Makoto Cabinet, 119 Saito- Osamu, 108 Saito- Takao, 16 Sakai Tetsuya, 42 Sakamoto Yoshikazu, 44 Sakigake Party, 46 Sakisaka Itsuro-, 94–5 Sakurada Gate, 51 samurai, 17, 70, 71, 103–105 San Francisco Peace Treaty (1951), 29, 40

146

Sangyo- ho-kokukai (Industrial Patriotic Service Movement), 94, 96 Sato- Eisaku, Prime Minister, 42 Second World War, ix, 28, 35, 36, 37, 127 Security Treaty, 3, 40, 44, 48, 138 Security Treaty crisis, 39, 93 Security Treaty struggles, 15, 25, 40, 42, 44 Security Treaty Zengakuren ;STUDENTMOVEMENT=  Seiyu-kai Party, 8 Seiyu-kai, 33, 50, 71, 73, 74, 78, 119, 120, 121, 122 Self Defence Forces, 14, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48 Sengo minshushugi no kyoboni kakeru (Betting on the Delusion of Democracy), 41 Sengoku Yoshito, 2 Senkaku islands, 27, 29, 35 Shandong, 8 Shanghai Incident (January 1932), 52 Shidehara Kijuro-, 52 Sho-wa Democracy, 17 Sho-wa Emperor, 30 Sho-wa era, 125 small Japan, 13 social democracy, 2, 27, 63, 84–7, 88–93, 99, 101, 107, 133, 134, 135 Social Masses Party (Shakai Taishu-to-), 17, 91, 104 Social Policy Bureau, 91 Socialism, 44, 77, 90, 92, 101 Socialist Party, 39, 42, 44, 47, 95

INDEX

socializing of risk, 74, 75 So-do-mei, 90, 91 So-hyo labour movement, 88 Sony, 69 South Korea, xi, 6, 29, 127 Soviet socialism, 74 Soviet Union, 7, 29, 38, 58, 73, 90, 105, 128 structural reform, 101 Suganami Saburo-, Lieutenant, 51 Suzuki Katsumasa (Vice-Minister of General Affairs), 111 Suzuki Mosaburo-, 90 Sweden, 44 Taisei Yokusankai (Imperial Rule Assistance Association), 96 Taisho- Democracy, 17, 97, 122, 123 Taisho- Period, 1912–1926, 17 Takahashi Korekiyo (Finance -INISTER ;n=   109, 110, 119 Takemura Masayoshi, 77 Takeshima, 29 4AKESHITA'OVERNMENT;n 1989], 97 4AKESHITA.OBORU;0RIME Minister, 1987–1989], 65, 66, 107 Takeuchi Yoshimi, Professor, 15 Tanaka Giichi (President of the Seiyu-kai), 50, 52, 73, 122 4ANAKA+AKUEI;0RIME-INISTER 1972–1974], 65, 76 Tanaka Shu-sei, 77 4EIJIN)NCIDENT;*ULY=  Temporary Workers’ Village, 106

INDEX

Terauchi Masatake, 52 textile industry, 91, 119 To-hoku region, 66 To-jo- Hideki, 52, 53 Tokyo University, 41, 43, 81, 127 Tokyo war crimes trials, xii Tora, tora, tora, 34 Tottori Prefecture, 111 traditionalism, 64, 77 tribal politicians, 76 Trotsky, Leon, 4, 25 Uchibayashi Katsuto, 100 Ugaki Kazushige, 50, 52–3 UK see United Kingdom ultra-nationalism, 39 United Front incident (1937– 1938), 95 United Kingdom, 34, 58, 126 United Nations, 36, 37 United Nations Security Council, 36 United Nations Security Council, permanent seat for Japan on, 36 United States, 6, 12, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 42, 43, 58, 73, 105, 126, 127, 128, 129 universal male suffrage, 50, 71, 97, 104, 107, 119, 123, 124 universal suffrage, 23, 49, 107, 108, 121, 123 universalizing policies, 74 US see United States US forces, 48

147

vertical society, 65 Vietnam War, 38 wages, 25, 89, 93, 101, 110, 114, 129, 131, 134, 135 war capacity, 58 war potential, 43 Waseda University, 71 Washington Conference, 8 Washington Treaty, 52 Weimar Germany, 128 welfare state, 85, 87, 94, 108, 110, 112, 130 West, the, 12 Western Europe, 127 Western European social democratic parties, 3 Western European welfare state, 75, 76, 130 Yamagata Aritomo, 7, 8, 11, 52 Yamato (Japanese) spirit, 10, 11, 59 Yamato Transport, 69 Yanagisawa Kyo-ji, 44 Yasui Eiji, 92 Yasukuni Shrine, xi, 6, 11, 36, 38, 60, 126 Yo-ra (Europe), 10 Yoshida Sho-in, 10, 110 Yoshimi Yoshiaki, 62, 63, 103 Yoshino Sakuzo-, 21, 22, 23, 71, 101 Your Party (Minna no to-), 132 Zengakuren, 45 Zhou En Lai, 33