Read The Enigma of Japanese Power Online
Authors: Karel van Wolferen
Tags: #Japan - Economic Policy - 1945-1989, #Japan - Politics and Government - 1945, #Japan, #Political Culture - Japan, #Political Culture, #Business & Economics, #International, #General, #Political Science, #International Relations, #Public Policy, #Economic Policy, #Social Science, #Anthropology, #Cultural, #Political culture—Japan, #Japan—Politics and government—1945–, #Japan—Economic policy—1945–
Tanaka’s difference lay in the fact that he made a large proportion of his political funds through his own business deals. At one point it seemed as if there was hardly any other business in Niigata apart from the construction business. Tanaka speculated in real estate without risk because of his inside information concerning government projects. He owned a number of dummy companies that did nothing but buy and sell land.
Tanaka once explained to his secretary, Hayasaka Shigeo, that he could not have followed the example of his fellow politicians because he did not have their background. No Todai in his past linked him to the rest of the System.
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Unlike Ikeda, Fukuda Takeo and Ohira Masayoshi, he had not served in the Ministry of Finance, thereby establishing strong financial ties to banks, insurance firms and basic industries such as steel. Unlike Miki Takeo, he had not married into a fortune made by chemical fertilisers, or been supported by utility companies.
Here perhaps is part of the explanation for the collective condemnation of Tanaka. He was relatively independent. The business components of the System did not, ultimately, have a grip on him. They can veto the choice, or retention, of a prime minister only so long as he is not privately very wealthy. Tanaka remained, in the end, an outsider. This was made poignantly clear after the Lockheed verdict in 1983, when he refused to make the smallest gesture that could be interpreted as a sign of contrition. Many even of his sympathisers agreed with his enemies that this was going too far, and that he was behaving in an ‘un-Japanese’ manner. Ritual penance was what everyone expected, and if he had gone further and resigned his Diet seat to ‘let the people speak’ in the forthcoming election, a resounding victory would have given him maximum political elbow-room. He was, however, furious and chose to defy the élite of the nation.
Yet the main reason for the anti-Tanaka clamour probably lies in that essential aspect of the System that we have been considering in this chapter: its informality. In some ways Tanaka was too honest. He had gained his power by exploiting the unofficial opportunities inherent in the political system more skilfully than anyone had done before him. Then he tried to make explicit what had been only implicit; he tried to systematise the System. What Tanaka did became too obvious. In the 1974 Upper House election campaign, waged when he was prime minister, there was no attempt to hide the many attempts at vote buying or the pressure on corporations to order their employees to vote for LDP candidates. Moreover, the structural corruption that every administrator knew existed, but could pretend to be ignorant of, began to be practised in such an open manner that there was no longer any way to deny it.
With this was combined another disturbing development. The unschooled political genius who had broken all barriers to move into the centre of a world dominated by Todai-ordained administrators had, through brilliant craftsmanship at both the grass-roots and Tokyo levels, become seemingly invincible. The balance among cliques within the LDP had been upset by the supremacy of Tanaka’s
gundan
. For concerned Japanese this was terrifying. In many eyes, the essence of Japanese ‘democracy’ lies in preserving a balance among the components of the System, and within the LDP subsystem.
Tanaka’s dominating presence provoked a chronic reaction that, among administrators, sometimes reached frenzied proportions. A great irony of the saga was the behaviour of the newspaper editors. They tried to be exorcists instead of analysts; one of the most interesting developments in post-war Japanese politics prompted moral indignation rather than rational thought. Even though Tanaka’s greatest power, the power that enabled him to choose Japan’s prime ministers, dated from after his downfall as prime minister and after his arrest in the Lockheed case, during the same nine years that his power kept growing the press predicted at regular intervals, and nearly unanimously, his imminent demise. The predictions were partly intended as self-fulfilling prophecies. In its role as guardian of the nation’s morals, the press tried, by reporting his waning powers, to make Tanaka go away. This would probably have worked with a smaller man, but Japan’s editors consistently underrated Tanaka. And because he simply thumbed his nose at them, their voices became ever more strident and hysterical. They stopped only when it became clear that the ‘shadow shogun’, partly paralysed and suffering from a speech impediment, was finally losing control over one of the greatest
jinmyaku
systems Japan had ever seen.
A major problem of Japanese politics is that the LDP has not been able to develop a generally accepted method for choosing its president. For a while this was solved by prime ministers who picked their own successors with the encouragement and blessings of the business world. Thus Kishi handed the job to Ikeda, who in turn passed it on to Sato. But when Sato was forced to retire in 1972 he did not appoint anyone, starting a power struggle that was to provide the main substance of political news and discussion for a dozen years.
Political commentary in Japanese newspapers concentrates almost solely on what clique leaders are doing to keep or gain leverage over each other. When in the spring of 1987 Takeshita Noboru finally declared his intention of running for the LDP presidency, thereby splitting the Tanaka
gundan
, he touched off half a year of media speculation concerning Nakasone Yasuhiro’s successor. Yet not once did editorial comment take up the question of who among the four contenders might make the best prime minister. Japanese political comment is for the most part narrowly focused on the perennial guessing-game as to who is doing what to whom in Byzantine manoeuvrings. References to policy find no place in it; there are no policy differences to refer to.
Sophisticated theories that see LDP cliques as
de facto
political parties vying with each other for influences in political decision-making are wrong.
Habatsu
compete with each other for the prime ministership and for unmediated access to the bureaucracy in order to deliver on pork-barrel promises. No idea or principle concerning how power ought to be exercised enters into it.
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Habatsu
politics does not correspond to any form of pluralism. It is a power game, entirely bereft of meaningful political discussion, and one over which the voters exercise no influence at all.
The number of
habatsu
fluctuates because of splits and mergers; during the 1970s and 1980s there have been from five to seven important ones at any one time. They take their names from their leaders, who are the prime candidates for the presidency of the LDP and thus the prime ministership. The
habatsu
are a source of never-ending friction, and sometimes of such severe tension that the LDP appears on the verge of disintegration. Cabinet posts are apportioned in accordance with the size of each
habatsu
, and if one of them is seen as receiving a single portfolio too many, this prompts immediate debate over the ‘sensitive’ or ‘very delicate’ situation. The
habatsu
help regulate the distribution of political spoils, and perform an essential function in the disbursement of funds. Because the multi-member constituencies encourage competition among LDP candidates themselves, highly placed
habatsu
members are expected to campaign on behalf of their fellow members and against LDP candidates belonging to other
habatsu
. Local LDP offices, where they exist at all, are meaningless and may even be regarded with hostility in these internecine contests.
Alliances between
habatsu
are needed to produce prime ministers, and successful ones are generally referred to as the ‘mainstream’ of a government’s support. The rival, ‘anti-mainstream’
habatsu
are still rewarded with cabinet posts, but they are also watched carefully for moves that could spell the beginning of a campaign to undermine the incumbent. In recent years, defections and new link-ups between segments of rival
habatsu
in overlapping ‘study groups’ have made it increasingly difficult to distinguish between ‘mainstream’ and ‘anti-mainstream’.
Since 1985 the manoeuvrings of the
habatsu
, the configuration of their alliances and the probabilities of succession to the prime ministership – the very substance, that is, of Japanese politics – have become less predictable. This is because Tanaka no longer makes the important choices. Even before Tanaka gained the power to do this in the late 1970s, the struggle within the LDP stuck to fairly predictable patterns, for one major conflict dominating everything else had, in fact, become institutionalised. This lengthy episode in post-war Japanese politics is commonly referred to as the Kaku–Fuku war – Kaku from the first character of Tanaka’s given name, and Fuku from the first character of Fukuda’s family name.
The conflict came into the open in 1972 when Tanaka bought the presidency of the LDP, and ended with Fukuda’s nearly total defeat in the late 1970s. As we have already noted in several contexts, LDP politicians function mainly as brokers who, standing between the guardians of the budget and local interests, regulate the distribution of Japan’s plenty. After the death of Kono Ichiro in the waning days of the Sato government, only two politicians – Fukuda and Tanaka – had the
jinmyaku
, the claim of accumulated indebtedness on entire ministerial bureaux, the talent and the stamina to be boss among these brokers. The two giants had much in common. Both began the day by meeting large numbers of petitioners at their homes. Both were exceptions among cabinet ministers in that they had maintained their power over the bureaucrats in a succession of different cabinet positions. Both had been responsible for important promotions within the ministries and had thus created a coterie of personally loyal bureaucrats. But their differences, rooted in schooling and social background, were much more important. When Sato Eisaku withdrew as prime minister, each knew that he could not tolerate the other in the top position. Their rivalry was sharpened by more than the lure of the office as such; as became clear in the following years, it was a fight over a right to manage Japanese politics extending far beyond the office of prime minister.
While Tanaka was prime minister, Fukuda, though defeated, had not as yet relinquished any real power. Made finance minister by Tanaka in order to get the budget back into manageable shape after what one scholar has called ‘the largest pork-barrel in the history of Japanese public finance’,
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he continued to exert extraordinary influence in the same position under Prime Minister Miki Takeo. At this point Fukuda had probably gained an ascendancy over Tanaka that he might have maintained had Tanaka not been pushed underground. He played a major role in stirring up the scandal over Tanaka’s ‘money polities’. But when this forced Tanaka to step down, he still had to contend with Ohira Masayoshi, also a former Ministry of Finance bureaucrat and an old ally of Tanaka from previous
habatsu
fights. A party elder, Shiina Etsusaburo, was asked to find a way out of the impasse caused by the roughly equal strength of Fukuda and Ohira, and he found a solution in the elevation of a boss of a much smaller and weaker
habatsu
, Miki Takeo. The latter’s reputation as an unusually ‘clean’ politician was an advantage for the LDP that year.
With Miki as compromise prime minister, it seemed, at least to some, that pork-barrel methods would decline. Miki himself had an active dislike for what Japanese politics entailed in practice, and apparently wanted to introduce genuine parliamentary proceedings into Japan. Although this . ambition was unlikely to be achieved, if only for Miki’s lack of a strong power base, the enthusiasm with which talk of ‘clean politics’ was greeted by the press created the illusion that the nation was getting ready to dump the system of power brokerage.
If the illusion ever took hold at all, it was shattered by Fukuda’s famous handshake with Ohira, which paved the way for Miki’s ejection from office at the end of 1976, and for Fukuda’s rise to the prime ministership. Ohira took over from Fukuda, as they had agreed. But Fukuda did not step aside gracefully. And the most dramatic climax, perhaps, of LDP history occurred in the forty-day battle of 1979, when both he and Ohira presented themselves as candidates for prime minister in the Diet. Tanaka made sure that Ohira won, but Fukuda and Miki betrayed the Ohira government in 1980 by keeping their
habatsu
members out of the Diet during voting on a routine no-confidence motion tabled by the opposition. This is widely believed to have caused the heart attack that Ohira died from ten days before the national elections. His death produced a sympathy vote and large gains for the LDP that added to Tanaka’s power, leaving him free to pick Suzuki Zenko as the next prime minister.
In retrospect it seems that the question of which LDP
habatsu
would have the greatest power behind the scenes was settled in 1978. Neither Ohira nor Suzuki showed ambition to rule as master of the brokers, so that relations between the bureaucrats and special interest groups were tended mainly by Tanaka’s
gundan
. This had still not changed in the late 1980s, for even though Tanaka himself was incapacitated and out of the picture, his disloyal ex-retainer, Takeshita Noboru, was prime minister and formally in charge of the
gundan
, with his relative through marriage Kanemaru Shin, veteran sub-boss of Tanaka’s ‘machine’, as the power behind the LDP throne.
The Kaku–Fuku war reflected to some extent an older struggle between bureaucrats-turned-politicians and grass-roots politicians. Tanaka’s was the second attempt by a grass-roots politician to wrest control over the party from the smaller but dominating group of former bureaucrats, for Kono Ichiro had also tried it, unsuccessfully, in the first decade of the LDP’s existence. While the political division between the two groups was much clearer in earlier days than it is now, the distinction none the less continues to be made, and Diet members are sometimes classified as
tojinha
, grass-roots politicians, or
kanryoha
, former bureaucrats. Members of the latter group resent the label since they wish to make it quite clear that they were, after all, elected by the people.
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In the 1950s and 1960s there was a clear division of labour between
tojinha
and
kanryoha
members of the LDP. The role of the former was mainly restricted to getting re-elected and keeping the number of LDP members in parliament up to strength. The former bureaucrats, as befitted genuine administrators, used their knowledge of legal stipulations and their
jinmyaku
with former colleagues and the
zaikai
to promote the policies that helped create Japan’s economic success.
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Following the deaths of Ono Bamboku and Kono Ichiro in 1964 and 1965, there were no longer any strong party politicians who could challenge the bureaucrats-turned-politicians, until Tanaka, ensconced in the
habatsu
of former bureaucrat Sato Eisaku (and making himself indispensable to the latter with his money-making skills), rose above all the others.
There is no insurmountable class division between the former bureaucrats and the rest of the LDP. The two groups mingle in the
habatsu
. Their differences did not trouble Tanaka’s alliance with Ohira’s
habatsu
, which is particularly known for its strong
kanryoha
character. A symbiotic relationship has evolved between the two groups, with the former bureaucrats teaching the grass-roots politicians the techniques of tackling the bureaucracy, and the latter initiating the former into the art of electioneering. Former bureaucrats are no longer promoted to ministerial positions as quickly as Kishi, Ikeda and Sato were, which means that one source of irritation for the grass-roots politicians has disappeared.
Nevertheless, the smaller
kanryoha
group is without doubt the more important segment of the LDP. It is still easier for former bureaucrats to collect funds from the business world, whereas the grass-roots politician may risk ending up in the orbit of shady right-wing organisations or rich but dubious individuals. There are only a handful of notably strong and capable
tojinha
politicians, among them former finance minister Watanabe Michio. Tanaka himself carefully cultivated and used the bureaucrats, and it is significant that the younger and increasingly powerful Watanabe is grooming ex-bureaucrats to be his main followers in the LDP. In the Lower House elections of 1986 a strikingly large number of former career officials, twenty-five in all, tried to get themselves an LDP seat for the first time. A sign of how valuable they are still considered as a means of strengthening a
habatsu
is that in these elections – the last before a change of prime minister – all four rivals hoping to succeed Nakasone, together with Watanabe Michio, were seeking to recruit them into their own ranks.
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Another proof that former bureaucrats still enjoy a privileged position in the LDP was the fact that they were given most of the top slots for the national constituency in the Upper House elections of 1986.
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The former bureaucrats in the LDP are expected to represent the interests of their former ministry to some extent at least, because if they did not their
jinmyaku
with their former colleagues would fade and they would become less useful to the LDP. And, while Japanese scholars and journalists have been disagreeing as to whether the politicians or the bureaucrats hold the most power, relations between the two groups range in fact from the mutually supportive to the truly symbiotic. The antagonism that Kono Ichiro created as agriculture and construction minister by dismissing and appointing officials left and right was exceptional. More representative of the norm is something Ohira Masayoshi wrote around the time of the LDP’s formation: ‘a minister must consider himself only a temporary visitor to his government office and must try as hard as he can not to be disliked by his officials’.
No easy assumptions should be made about the relationship between minister and ministry. The ex-bureaucrat minister who has come from a different ministry is often easier to work with than a minister returning to his old stamping ground. And
tojinha
ministers may speak up more fervently on behalf of the bureaucrats they supposedly lead than their
kanryoha
colleagues would, since in almost all cases they must make a greater effort to cultivate bureaucratic support for the furtherance of private political goals.
Where the power to influence highly placed LDP colleagues, whether inside or outside the cabinet, is concerned, the grass-roots politician has the advantage. The difference is clearly illustrated by former bureaucrat Miyazawa Kiichi and arch-politician Kanemaru Shin. The former has held most of the important cabinet posts, yet has some difficulty in making even subordinate leaders in his own
habatsu
see things his way, whereas Kanemaru is considered the best manipulator of Diet members to be found in the LDP. On the other hand, Gotoda Masaharu, a former bureaucrat (head of the National Police Agency), has been an exception. Both Tanaka and Nakasone used him as their right-hand man in dealing with the bureaucrats, while at the same time he has great powers of political manipulation. And while Takeshita did not want to run the risk of being upstaged by Gotoda and thus excluded him from his cabinet, he, Gotoda and Kanemaru Shin conferred three weeks after the formation of the Takeshita government to arrange for monthly meetings among them.
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If there was a centre of gravity to the LDP in 1988, it was formed by this trio.
Different
habatsu
have varying reputations among bureaucrats. The members of Abe Shintaro’s
habatsu
, formerly Fukuda’s clique, are said to be very demanding, whereas the bureaucrats generally feel comfortable and relaxed with a minister from among Tanaka’s people.
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Ambitious LDP members try to establish a power base in influential ministries such as Finance, Construction, Transport or Agriculture. The very powerful will have their
habatsu
‘colonise’ a ministry. A good example of this is the dominance the Tanaka
gundan
has gained over the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications where, ever since the late 1970s, the younger members of the group have unfailingly been rewarded with the parliamentary vice-ministership. For anyone entering the new telecommunications field it is considered a prerequisite that he should establish friendly relations with members of the Tanaka
gundan
– or the Takeshita
habatsu
, as it has come to be known since 1987.
On their side, the bureaucrats have many resources and well-developed techniques for coping with politicians. They are highly adept at making subtle adjustments in response to the changing pattern of
habatsu
alliances. As they say: ‘Bureaucrats must move their antennae like those of an insect in the direction from which power emanates’.
What bureaucrats might do to upset a hypothetical non-LDP government must remain in the realm of speculation, but there is the example of Fukuda Takeo, who, when chief of the budget bureau of the Ministry of Finance, played a key role in undermining the Katayama cabinet. (Formed in May 1947 as the first and only socialist Japanese government, it lasted only nine months.) Fukuda could not find the money Katayama wanted for a sensitive programme, even though he came up with the needed funds for the next, conservative, prime minister, Ashida.
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On a day-to-day level, ministries use a number of routine mechanisms to keep their minister in good spirits and to prevent him from prying too much into their affairs. A special ‘secretary’, one of the brighter middle-echelon officials, is assigned to gauge the direction of the minister’s thinking and inclinations. Together with the chief of the ministry’s secretariat (the second highest career position), he must sometimes make a show of taking the minister’s side against entrenched opposition among his fellow officials.
Bureaucrats will not openly criticise, let alone openly defy, political leaders. Politicians can afford to talk down to bureaucrats, and to berate them in public. They will sometimes do so to demonstrate their own superiority, but such superiority is mostly illusory. Although the Diet is immune from criticism by the bureaucrats (whose widely shared views about the ignorance and incompetence of politicians never, by tacit agreement, appear in print), its members are kept informed only to the extent deemed necessary by the bureaucrats.
Yet there is an incentive for bureaucrats to make themselves popular among LDP politicians, in that to do so improves the chances for a positive evaluation of their administrative skills. The minister has a major weapon at his disposal in his power to dismiss top officials who get in his way. If he uses this power, however, he may permanently damage his chances of future benefit from his stint at the ministry. Personnel management is one of the bureaucratic sanctuaries where no minister can tread with impunity. If he interferes too explicitly he cannot build a
jinmyaku
.
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His influence in this area must be exercised through hints, preferably directed at former administrative vice-ministers. At MITI, to take one example, the group of former vice-ministers has most influence in determining the highest appointments in the ministry. In over 90 per cent of all cases, the MITI minister will go along with the appointment of vice-minister made by the outgoing vice-minister.
Even if a minister uses all his remaining powers, it will not enable him in practice to redirect Japanese policy in any noticeable manner. A minister may have influence over a ministry in the sense that he can promote or fire officials, and exert leverage in the allocation of resources to benefit his supporters and constituency. But this is different from wielding strong political power over a bureaucracy. Except when it is part of a longstanding campaign to assert control over education, for example, a minister’s ‘policy-making’ is generally too limited to deserve the name at all.