Will Japan finally get a Cabinet that makes policy?

       TO APPRECIATE the potential for Japan's global role following the first change in more than half a century of its ruling party, we must remind ourselves what that role has been until now.
       Economically, Japan was formidable, dominating the globalised economy and seriously challenging entire industrial sectors in the US and Europe. Also as a creditor nation, Japan gained an indirect but considerable political and strategic significance. But in the theatre of strategic moves and diplomacy, there has been an odd vacancy that Japan could, and in many eyes should, have filled. The world has long become used to what at first was considered a great anomaly of the globe's second largest industrial power not being a global political presence.
       The Minshuto (Democratic Party of Japan), which has just defeated the staid and internationally comatose LDP with 308 seats in the lower-house elections, intends to change this. Whether it can actually do so will depend on its ability to turn itself into a genuinely "ruling" party - something that will require much political imagination and wisdom for forging a cooperative relationship with bureaucrats, crucial support from the media and, probably, lots of luck. Many Japanese and foreign commentators remain very sceptical.
       But it must be kept in mind that this party has wanted to do this for 16 years since their earlier failed attempt at creating a cabinet that functions like one and does not put signatures on what bureaucrats have compiled. The fact is that no Japanese PM or any faction hiding behind him or any council has so far constituted a forum to which other countries could turn. Even the Finance Ministry, powerful body that it always has been, was not an effective substitute for an actual policymaking body of the central government.
       Japanese politicians have since the 1960s been in the business of power brokering rather than policymaking, which was left to government bureaucrats. Hence, the new government must create suitable institutions to deal with domestic as well as international matters practically from scratch. The party has already begun setting up a "National Strategy Office" as a policy coordinating center, which will be led by Kan Naoto, one of Japan's most capable politicians.
       Rarely having experienced top-down political decision-making, Japan's elite among the parties, and especially the bureaucracy, the media and academia will have to get used to what may be called a revolutionary change in their environment. This will take some doing, and we must expect that for the first year, domestic issues will receive most attention as the incumbents consolidate their position.
       But if Minshuto politicians are allowed to have their way, and can survive the attempts by bureaucrats to bring them down through trumped up scandals, we may get to know a different Japan. This will happen at a time when regional circumstances look more than ready for it.
       Japan was able to build its economic miracle in the comfort of a strategic shelter. Besides providing military protection, the US also played the crucial role of "buyer of last resort" to keep Japan's immense production machinery humming. Until the credit crisis struck last year. The abrupt discontinuation of demand for Japanese goods has been a big blow to a system that was already showing some signs of exhaustion.
       Since China gets all the attention when it comes to buying US debt, it has recently been forgotten that Japan is the biggest net lender to the US. Until China emerged as the next biggest buyer of US Treasuries half a decade ago, Japan had provided the main pillar of support for the dollar. It was Japan that initially taught Washington the possibility of having "deficits without tears". But the upward pressure on the yen is no longer something that Japanese business believes must be stopped at all costs. The fact that Japanese-owned dollars circulating in the US economy no longer guarantee American purchases in Japan has prompted a rethinking of priorities in the higher reaches of the Japanese business community.
       The Minshuto wants to start other engines of economic growth besides the export sector. China is on the way to become Japan's No-1 trading partner, or has already done so, and the two countries have begun to work more closely together in other areas too, as in their agreement to promote a strengthening of Asian currency reserves.
       Prominent members of the Minshuto are ready to take the idea of an Asean+3 (China, Japan and South Korea) seriously. This plan for formalising and deepening aspects of cooperation between the aforementioned nations stalled because of foot dragging in Tokyo. There are further prospects for better political relations with China; Yukio Hatoyama, the prime minister designate, has already made the symbolically important announcement that he will not be visiting the Yasukuni shrine (something that caused a significant crisis in Chinese-Japanese relations when Koizumi was Prime Minister).
       Relations with Japan's largest neighbour, Russia, need urgent attention as well. Attempts to normalise and improve them stalled as a result of a government addicted to the status quo. Given time, a Minshuto government may well be the agent for what the world has been expecting in the way of Japan playing a positive regional role.
       Should the previous hurdles be resolved, the DPJ will be able to fix its eyes on what is Japan's most problematic international relationship: the United States. Its problems are not caused by any mutual hostility - the trade and industrial "frictions" of a couple of decades ago or any recent deep disagreement. The problem is that the true nature of the relationship cannot be openly addressed. Japan has been, with regard to its international position, for all intents and purposes a protectorate of the US.
       Some Minshuto politicians, including the prime-minister-to-be Yukio Hatoyama, have emphasised the need for Japan to become less dependent on the US and work toward a more equal relationship. Washington, which has long taken Japan for granted, has already made clear that renegotiation of already reached agreements with the outgoing government is out of the question. How this will be resolved will be seen as a first test of the Hatoyama government.