|
|
|
Toru Hanai/Reuters
Yukio Hatoyama, Japan’s incoming prime minister, told environmentalists on Monday that he would press his country to cut greenhouse gas emissions, if other major polluters did the same.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/08/world/asia/08japan.html
Japan’s Next Premier Vows to Cut Emissions Sharply
By HIROKO TABUCHI
Published: September 7, 2009
TOKYO — Japan’s presumptive prime minister breathed new life on Monday into efforts to curb global warming, standing by a campaign pledge to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent in the next 10 years from 1990 levels — a target that environmentalists said puts Japan at the forefront of the fight against climate change.
Nonetheless, the incoming prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, whose center-left Democrats swept to a landmark electoral victory last month, attached what appeared to be a new caveat to his pledge, saying it was contingent on similarly ambitious goals by other major polluters.
That could become a major obstacle because of a deadlock between industrialized and emerging economies over who should bear the most responsibility for emission cuts.
“Climate change is already upon us, and its effects are amplifying,” Mr. Hatoyama said at an environment conference in Tokyo. “Of course, Japan’s reduction targets alone cannot stop climate change. We will seek to build an international framework that involves all major countries and is fair and realistic.”
He also said, “The condition for Japan’s promise to international society is that all major countries agree to ambitious targets.”
Toru Hanai/Reuters
Taro Aso, Japan’s prime minister, on Sunday, the day voters ousted his Liberal Democratic Party.
U.S. Is Seeing Policy Thorns in Japan Shift
Published: September 1, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/02/world/asia/02diplo.html?_r=1
WASHINGTON — Japan’s landmark election presents the Obama administration with an untested government, creating a new set of imponderables for a White House already burdened by foreign policy headaches in Afghanistan, Iran and North Korea.
Inside the administration, the historic change in Tokyo is raising concerns that Japan may back away from supporting key American priorities like the war in Afghanistan or the redeployment of American troops in Asia, according to senior officials.
Specifically, the newly elected Democratic Party says it may recall the Japanese naval forces from a mission to refuel American warships near Afghanistan. And it wants to reopen an agreement to relocate a Marine airfield on Okinawa, which requires Japan to pick up much of the cost for moving thousands of Marines to Guam.
The victory of the Democrats on Sunday means the White House must deal, for the first time in decades, with a Japanese government that is a complete stranger, and one that has expressed blunt criticism of the United States. The party’s leader and presumptive prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, recently spoke out against American-led globalization and called for a greater Japanese focus on Asia.
Despite the party’s campaign rhetoric, its leaders insist they will not threaten the alliance with the United States, particularly when Japan faces a fast-rising China and a nuclear-armed North Korea. Senior American officials said they expected Japan to remain a bulwark in Asia, even noting that the new government, unburdened by history, could play a more central role in negotiating with North Korea.
But for the most part, the United States is perplexed by what one official described as a “seismic event,” with unknown consequences for one of its most important relationships.
“The election of a new party could produce new ways of doing things, which we will have to adjust to,” said a senior official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the matter. “You’ll have this period of unpredictability.”
The big question many in Washington are asking is whether the vote was a harbinger of a deeper change in Japan, away from its historic dependence on the United States.
“There is a fear of dramatic change in the U.S.-Japan alliance,” said Michael Auslin, an expert on Japanese foreign policy at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. “No one knows what will happen next, or even who to talk to for answers.”
The Democratic Party struck a chord with its talk of improving ties with China and other neighbors, reflecting the fact that Japan’s $5 trillion economy has grown more dependent on commerce with its neighbors.
Fears of Japanese drift seemed to be confirmed last week when an article by Mr. Hatoyama, excerpted and translated from a Japanese journal, appeared on the Web site of The New York Times. It stirred a hornet’s nest in Washington by casting Japan’s embattled economy as the victim of American-inspired free-market fundamentalism. Yet it also stressed the importance of the American alliance.
Mr. Hatoyama’s views sent many in Washington’s diplomatic establishment scurrying to learn more about him and the Democrats. That highlighted a problem: While American officials and academics have spent decades cultivating close ties with the Liberal Democrats, who have governed Japan for most of the last half century, they have built few links to the opposition.
Some Japan experts said it would be a mistake to read too much into Mr. Hatoyama’s remarks, and Japanese officials privately conveyed that same caution to the Obama administration.
“It was an indication they still haven’t figured out what they’re going to do in power,” said Michael J. Green, a professor of international relations at Georgetown University who served on the National Security Council during the last Bush administration. “This could get confused and dysfunctional for a while.”
Stung by the reaction, Mr. Hatoyama appears to be back-pedaling and engaging in damage control. On Monday night, he said he had not intended for the article to appear abroad, and said it was being misinterpreted. “If you read the entire essay, you will understand that it is definitely not expressing anti-American ideas,” he said.
Professor Green noted that in many ways, relations between the United States and Japan were smoother now than in years past because the trade disputes of the 1980s and 1990s were largely settled.
He said the new government would find that some of its proposals, like reopening talks on the relocation of the Futenma Marine airfield on Okinawa, were unrealistic, given the years it took to negotiate that deal. For the Obama administration, he said, the challenge will be to give Japan’s new leaders a face-saving way to back down.
Japan, experts said, could play a more muscular role in talks with North Korea if, as expected, the Democrats turn down the heat on the issue of Japanese abducted by North Korea decades ago, a perennial sticking point for the Liberal Democrats.
And Obama administration officials said they were eager to dispel perceptions in Japan that a better relationship with China would somehow undermine its alliance with the United States.
“We have no desire to see our defense commitment tested by battle,” a senior official said. “We see no contradiction between Japan reducing frictions with China and a strong Japan-U.S. alliance.”
In recent years, many Japanese have thought the United States took the relationship for granted, paying more attention to China.
Traditionally, the United States has sent high-powered diplomats or political figures to Tokyo. But the Obama administration chose to send a big campaign donor, John Roos, as ambassador, passing over a longtime Asia hand, Joseph S. Nye Jr., who had been championed by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Administration officials counter that Mr. Roos, a Silicon Valley lawyer, will be influential because he has the ear of President Obama.
Political analysts and former diplomats say the Democrats are so sharply divided ideologically — between pacifist former Socialists and flag-flying former Liberal Democrats — that they will avoid treading too heavily on divisive foreign policy issues for fear of splitting the party.
Policy analysts also say the Japanese public would turn against the Democrats if they undermined the Washington alliance, pointing out that the opposition won because of anger with the incumbents’ failed economic policies, not because of a desire to change the nation’s reliance on the United States, which remains widely accepted here.
“They do not have a mandate for changing the alliance with the U.S.,” said Yukio Okamoto, a former adviser to several prime ministers on foreign affairs.
Mark Landler reported from Washington, and Martin Fackler from Tokyo.
Shizuo Kambayashi/Associated Press
Yukio Hatoyama, left, is expected to be Japan’s next prime minister as leader of the Democrats.
Japan’s Victors Warily Prepare for Power
Published: September 12, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/world/asia/13japan.html
TOKYO — As the newly elected Democratic Party works to assemble what will be only the second government in Japan’s postwar history not to be led by the Liberal Democratic Party, it is treading carefully to avoid infighting that could split the ideologically diverse party or drive a wedge between it and its coalition allies.
Since smashing the Liberal Democrats’ nearly uninterrupted half-century monopoly on power two weeks ago, the center-left Democrats and their leader, Yukio Hatoyama, 62, have hurried to fill top posts in the party and his incoming cabinet and to cobble together a coalition with other parties before their government’s formal accession to power on Sept. 16. The party is working under unrelenting scrutiny from the news media and from Japanese citizens still affected by the bitter aftertaste of their only previous experience with non-Liberal Democratic rule since 1955. That government, which took power in 1993, lasted less than a year before collapsing amid bickering and defections. Nightly news broadcasts, which are dominated by detailed coverage of the political maneuverings within the newly formed coalition, frequently feature veterans of the earlier failed government who offer lessons from their brief, rocky time in power. While there have been no major bumps so far, warning signs are already appearing. On Wednesday, when Mr. Hatoyama and the heads of two smaller anti-laissez-faire parties, the Social Democratic Party and the People’s New Party, agreed to form a coalition government, they left unresolved disagreements over the status of 50,000 American service members in Japan. Mr. Hatoyama has spoken in vague terms of re-examining the American military bases, while still trying to remain close to Washington, but the leftist Social Democrats want the bases removed.
There have also been signs of division in the Democratic Party since Mr. Hatoyama gave a top party position to one of the party’s most powerful men, Ichiro Ozawa, in what analysts say was an attempt to keep his loyalty. But in doing so, Mr. Hatoyama raised concerns by other Democrats that the party was embracing a shadowy kingmaker whose money-oriented political style closely resembled that of the Liberal Democrats they defeated. Those critics fear that Mr. Ozawa, 67, will compete with Mr. Hatoyama for control of the party; Mr. Ozawa was a member of the 1993-1994 government, and political analysts have blamed his clashes with other coalition members for contributing to its demise. On Thursday, many Democrats lobbied to have Seiji Maehara, a young proponent of clean politics, included in the new cabinet to help offset Mr. Ozawa’s influence. Mr. Hatoyama has tried to dispel concerns that he is creating competing centers of power. This will not create a dual power structure,” Mr. Hatoyama, the presumptive next prime minister, told reporters. He added that policy would be set by his cabinet and not the party. Still, the barest hints of fissures within the party have made news in a nation keen to see if the Democrats can pull off the daunting task of essentially dragging the country into a true multiparty system. The 1993-94 government, which included eight small parties and groups and was first led by Morihiro Hosokawa as prime minister, lasted only 11 months. Its quick collapse drove disappointed Japanese voters back into the arms of the Liberal Democrats, where they stayed until the election. While there are many differences between now and 1993 — the biggest being the fact that a single, large party, the Democratic Party, has beaten the Liberal Democrats — the mistakes of that earlier government still cast a shadow, according to veterans of that coalition. “It took 16 years to get this second chance,” Mr. Hosokawa, who retired from politics in 1998, said in an interview. “Lack of cohesiveness has always plagued efforts to build a second big political party.” Mr. Hosokawa said the Democrats’ main weak point might be their broad manifesto of campaign promises, which would be hard to achieve quickly enough to satisfy Japan’s recession-weary voters. The party is trying to reinvigorate Japan’s sclerotic system of government by empowering elected politicians and consumers over the bureaucracy and industry, and to blunt the pain from globalization with a stronger social safety net.
Instead, Mr. Hosokawa said, focusing on a few high-profile policies would make it easier to keep the party on the same track and offer voters results.
“They need a single flag to stand under,” he said.
Adding to the difficulty will be the fact that Mr. Hatoyama heads a party that is broad and often hazy in its identity. The party was formed in 1998 as a motley grouping of former Socialists and defectors from the conservative Liberal Democratic Party. Since then, it has tried to forge a unique culture and identity, with mixed success. By finally winning power, the party has been robbed of its main source of unity, say political analysts and former politicians. The glue that held the Democrats together has been a shared desire to end the Liberal Democrats’ rule. “The Democrats are like wet, unformed concrete, which still lacks a mold,” said Atsuo Ito, an independent political analyst who wrote a book on the party. “Just holding power may be enough to keep the party together at first, but eventually the party will need shared beliefs to keep from flying apart.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601101&sid=aLt.Jo66oJSE
Hatoyama Tells UN He Will Boost Japan’s Recovery (Update1)
By Sachiko Sakamaki
Sept. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Japan’s new Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama said today his administration will revive the world’s second-largest economy and strive to create an East Asian community similar to the European Union.
Hatoyama, who came to office Sept. 16 after his Democratic Party of Japanwon a landslide victory in last month’s election, said his government wants to stimulate household spending and cut greenhouse gas emissions 25 percent by 2020.
“By reviewing economic policies through this change of power, Japan is sending a clear signal of the forthcoming revival of its economy,” Hatoyama said in an address to the United Nations General Assembly.
He cited his plan to provide a 5.5 trillion yen ($60 billion) child allowance, cut auto-related taxes worth 2.5 trillion yen and to broaden the market for clean-energy industries such as electric vehicles and solar power generation by cutting the country’s emissions from 1990 levels.
Japan’s gross domestic product expanded at a 2.3 percent annual pace in the three months that ended June 30, less than first estimated, as the nation recovers from the worst recession in the postwar era.
‘Respond Appropriately’
Japan needs to “respond appropriately to globalization,” Hatoyama said. He pledged cooperation with other leaders at the Group of 20 meetings that begin later today on formulating common rules to reduce income disparity and “excessive money- making games.”
In an opinion article published in the New York Times last month, Hatoyama wrote that “the era of U.S.-led globalism is coming to an end.” He also criticized “American-style free- market economics” that he said is destroying Japan’s traditional communities.
Hatoyama said today he wants to promote Asian cooperation in free trade agreements, finance, currency, energy, environment and disaster relief. Japan must become more deeply involved in Asian affairs, overcoming past reluctance to do so because of its past aggression in the region, he said.
“It is my hope that new Japan can overcome this history and become a ‘bridge’ among the countries of Asia,” he said.
Hatoyama came to office after defeating former Prime Minister Taro Aso’sLiberal Democratic Party, which has governed Japan for all but 10 months since 1955.
Following his UN speech, Hatoyama flew to Pittsburgh to attend the meeting of the Group of 20 nations.
To contact the reporter on this story: Sachiko Sakamaki in New York atSsakamaki1@bloomberg.net
Early life and family
Hatoyama comes from a prominent Japanese political family which has been called the "Kennedy family of Japan."[1]
Hatoyama, who was born in Bunkyo, Tokyo, is a fourth generation politician. His paternal great-grandfather, Kazuo Hatoyama, was speaker of the House of Representatives of the Diet of Japanfrom 1896 to 1897 during the Meiji era.[2] Kazuo later served as the president of Waseda University.[2] His paternal great-grandmother, Haruko Hatoyama, was a co-founder of what is known today as Kyoritsu Women's University. His paternal grandfather, Ichiro Hatoyama, was a major politician; he served as Prime Minister and was a founder and the first President of the Liberal Democratic Party (????? Jiyu-Minshuto?, 1954–1955). As Prime Minister, he restoreddiplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, which cleared the way for Japan's membership in theUnited Nations.[2]
Hatoyama is the son of Iichiro Hatoyama, who was Foreign Minister for a time. His mother,Yasuko Hatoyama, is a daughter of Shojiro Ishibashi, the founder of Bridgestone Corporation andheir to his significant inheritance.[1] Yasuko Hatoyama is known as the "Godmother" within the Japanese political world for her financial contributions to both of her sons' political ambitions.[2] In particular, Yasuko donated billions of yen when Kunio and Yukio co-created the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) in 1996 to help establish her sons' fledgling political party.[2]
His younger brother, Kunio Hatoyama, served as Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications under Prime Minister Taro Aso until 12 June 2009.
Hatoyama graduated from the University of Tokyo in 1969 and received a Ph.D. in managerial engineering from Stanford University in 1976.[3] He met his wife, Miyuki Hatoyama, while studying at Stanford.[2] The couple married in 1975 after she divorced her previous husband.[1] The couple's son, Kiichiro, is a visiting engineering researcher at Moscow State University.[2]
Hatoyama worked as a research assistant at the Tokyo Institute of Technology and later moved to Senshu University and was promoted to assistant professor.
Political career
Hatoyama ran for a seat in Hokkaido's 38th district and was elected to the House of Representatives in 1986 representing the ruling LDP. In 1993 he left the LDP to form the New Party Sakigake with Naoto Kan, Masayoshi Takemura and Shuhei Tanaka. He and Kan then left to join the newly formed Democratic Party of Japan.
Hatoyama and his younger brother, Kunio Hatoyama, co-created the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) in 1996, using billions of yen donated by their mother, Yasuko.[2] Kunio Hatoyama eventually left the DPJ, saying the party had drifted too far to the left from its original centrist roots, and rejoined the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).[2] Yukio remained with the party through its merger with several other opposition parties in 1998.
The elder Hatoyama became the DPJ Party Chairman and leader of the opposition from 1999 to 2002, after which he resigned to take responsibility for the confusion that arose from rumors of mergers with Ichiro Ozawa's then Liberal Party. He was Secretary-General of the DPJ[3] before he succeeded Ozawa as party leader following Ozawa's resignation on 11 May 2009. Hatoyama was chosen by fellow party representatives on 16 May 2009, winning 124 of the 219 votes and defeating rival Katsuya Okada.[4]
Hatoyama has indicated that his wife, Miyuki Hatoyama, will take a prominent role for a Japanese First Lady during his administration.[5]
Because of his quirky hairstyle and eccentric manner, he is known by his supporters and his opposition alike as "ET" or "The Alien"[6], a nickname his wife states he earned because of how different he is from old-style Japanese politicians. She claims he is not motivated by personal interest or greed.[7]
Notes
- ^ a b c Suzuki, Miwa (2009-08-24). "Japan's first lady hopeful an outgoing TV lifestyle guru". Agence France-Presse (France 24). Retrieved 2009-08-31.; Hayashi, Yuka. "Japan's Hatoyama Sustains Family Political Tradition," Wall Street Journal (WSJ). 1 August 2009.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Takahashi, Kosuke. "Japan on the brink of a new era", Asia Times, 29 August 2009.
- ^ a b "Yukio Hatoyama". The Democratic Party of Japan. Archived from the original on 2007-08-07.
- ^ "Hatoyama Wins Election to Head Japan’s Biggest Opposition Party". Bloomberg News. 2009-05-16. Retrieved 2009-05-16.
- ^ Klaus, Mary (2009-08-31). "Japanese election: Hatoyama's agenda includes tax breaks and distance from US". The Telegraph. Retrieved 2009-08-31.
- ^ "New Japan PM earned alien name, wife says". Brisbane Times. 2009-08-31. Retrieved 2009-09-01.
- ^ Willacy, Mark (2009-09-01). "New Japan PM earned alien name, wife says". ABC News (Australia). Retrieved 2009-09-01.
By HIROKO TABUCHI; MARK MCDONALD CONTRIBUTED REPORTING FROM HONG KONG.
Yukio Hatoyama took office on Wednesday, promising to bring change to a country mired in stagnation after a half-century of one-party dominance.
September 17, 2009
By MARTIN FACKLER
As it prepares to take power after an election victory, the Democratic Party is trying to avoid the infighting that helped bring down a coalition in the 1990s.
September 13, 2009
By HIROKO TABUCHI
Japan’s prime minister-elect re-affirmed a campaign pledge to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent in the next 10 years from 1990 levels.
September 8, 2009
By MARTIN FACKLER
Yukio Hatoyama, a management professor turned prophet of change, has said little about what he will actually do when he takes power in Japan.
September 6, 2009
By MARTIN FACKLER
Yukio Hatoyama told President Obama that the U.S. alliance was the basis of Japanese foreign policy.
September 4, 2009
By MARTIN FACKLER
Moving quickly to fulfill an election promise, Japan’s newly victorious Democratic Party has begun its battle to rein in the nation’s powerful bureaucracy.
September 3, 2009
By MARK LANDLER and MARTIN FACKLER; MARK LANDLER REPORTED FROM WASHINGTON, and MARTIN FACKLER FROM TOKYO.
Japan’s landmark election presents the Obama administration with an untested government, creating a new set of imponderables for the White House.
September 2, 2009
The end of economic decline and political stagnation will take real leadership, not just trading one group of politicians for another.
September 1, 2009
By HIROKO TABUCHI
Japan’s opposition party returned to power on a pledge to a shift away from deregulation and market-led growth.
September 1, 2009
By MARTIN FACKLER
The opposition is poised to unseat the incumbent Liberal Democrats for only the second time since 1955.
August 30, 2009
By JAMES BROOKE
Yukio Hatoyama resigns as leader of Japan's largest opposition party, adding to political turmoil; sudden downfall after only three months follows failure to form coalition with Liberals and Democratic Party's poor showing in by-elections
December 4, 2002
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Yukio Hatoyama resigns from Liberal Democratic Party, one of parties in Japan's ruling coalition, laying groundwork for formation of new party and perhaps a long-awaited political realignment
August 29, 1996
|
Copyright 2006 International News Limited. All rights reserved. |
|
