The roots of scandal in Japan

...Nonetheless, public outcry forced Kanemaru's resignation from the Diet...

...When young, he was himself a member of one of the largest of the more than two thousand yakuza "families" (yakuza means gangster in colloquial Japanese...

...The title he chose for his book is identical to one chosen some sixty years ago by Ikki Kita, a fanatical militarist, who inspired young, frustrated Army officers to the abortive coup d'etat that led Japan irrevocably down the path to World War II...

...new elections were called...

...If the Socialist party had been ineffective, the tax measures would have been adopted with almost complete disregard of democratic procedures...

...But in June 1993 the bill was voted down in the Diet, placing Miyazawa in political jeopardy...

...It is alleged that Nakasone refused to nominate Takeshita as his successor unless the latter proved himself capable of "controlling" the ultranationalist yakuza...

...The probable result: two parties dominating the political world...

...After his conviction in the Lockheed Scandal, his successors— except for Noboru Takeshita—were chosen from other families, although Tanaka played a decisive role in the decisions...

...Komei-to's political philosophy is almost identical to the LDP's...

...Particularly important was the transgression of normal parliamentary procedures to push electoral "reform" through the Diet (Parliament...

...For all practical purposes, the Socialists were kept out of the loop, and they soon quit the government...

...he was accused of accepting a large illegal payment from a yakuza-related trucking firm...

...One will be a new party fashioned by Ozawa in association with Komei-to, backed by Soka-gakkai and seeking to lure disaffected LDPers...

...Ozawa was able to convince the three LDP-splinters, together with the Socialist party, Komei-to, and other small groups to form a non-LDP coalition government...

...Hamada repeatedly challenged the LDP leadership to subpoena him before the Disciplinary Committee of the Diet so that he could testify under oath as to the veracity of his charges...

...Ozawa also wanted to dump the Socialists and other moderates from the "reform" government...

...Ozawa was probably the most articulate, resourceful, and Machiavellian politician in the LDP and, at one time or another, occupied all major party posts except the chairmanship...

...And while he came into office as a protagonist of honesty, he was forced to resign this past April because of a scandal...

...As chief of the largest LDP family, Kanemaru played a pivotal role in selecting prime ministers...

...A recent incident illustrates what may be on the agenda...

...After being refused entry, he bowed deeply in front of the 320 • DISSENT Politics Abroad main gate...

...It was alleged that Ozawa then contracted the attorney general to guarantee that his mentor would only have to pay a minor fine...

...His protege Ichiro Ozawa apparently designated Kiichi Miyazawa for the top job...

...When Watanabe couldn't deliver the necessary parliamentary defections to compensate for the eviction of the Socialists and the others, Ozawa turned to Tsutomu Hata, a trusted confederate from the days when both men were in the old Tanaka family...

...Nobody in the cabinet or the Diet was informed...

...The electoral reforms establish a modified single-member district system...

...Hosokawa, a neophyte in national politics who championed change, emphasized the need to rid the Japanese political system of the influence of the scandal-ridden LDP...

...Ozawa, despite his own advocacy of reform, called for a vote of no confidence, which was passed by an astounding majority...

...In the July 1993 elections, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) lost its majority in the House of Representatives for the first time since its founding in 1955...

...The circumstances in which Takeshita followed Nakasone as prime minister in 1987 reveal much about the LDP and its relationships with some ultranationalist yakuza families...

...A few days after the reform passed the Diet, Hosokawa called a press conference in the middle of the night to announce a substantial incometax reduction together with the introduction of a "National Welfare Tax" (a sales tax of 7 percent, replacing the current consumption tax of 3 percent...

...His concern was less the merit of the system than how such change would reshape the Japanese political constellation...

...This was not altered by the collapse of LDP hegemony, and the choice first of Hosokawa and now of Hata will only draw Japan further into a political quagmire...

...Career bureaucrats retire relatively young, going to work either in the big businesses they had previously supervised or in the public corporations previously under their jurisdiction...

...Ultranationalist yakuza with close ties to Tanaka launched a boisterous campaign accusing Takeshita of "patricide...

...Its ostensible purpose was "safeguarding Japan from the threat of communism and socialism...

...Ozawa chose Hosokawa as its head, even though the Socialists, with 70 seats, had the largest single Diet delegation...

...Japan is sinking into a political quagmire, and although the times and circumstances are obviously very different, there is an odor reminiscent of the prewar years...

...He appointed a fiercely independent minister of justice who promptly had Kanemaru arrested on charges of tax evasion and other offenses...

...Two years later, however, Takeshita was forced to resign due to a scandal...

...Suddenly, a plethora of "reform" parties had emerged that had broken from the LDP...

...Japan found itself with a new government composed of a previously unimaginable seven-party coalition— parties ranging from the ultraconservative Shinsei-to (Renaissance) and the quasireligious Komei-to to the once dogmatic Socialists...

...Ozawa and other Kanemaru lieutenants never forgave him...

...Socialist ministers protested, an angry public outcry ensued, and a few days later Hosokawa nonchalantly called another press conference and withdrew the proposals...

...As premier, Hosokawa, aided by Ozawa, rammed "reform" through the Diet...

...In his national best-seller, Nine Politicians Who Corrupted Japan, Koichi Hamada detailed a number of incidents, some possibly of a criminal nature, and named the political figures involved, occasionally adding slanderous remarks...

...rather, each was bound together by personal fealties...

...The electoral reform would almost annihilate them while Komei-to would most likely be absorbed into the LDP...

...Kanemaru was avenged...

...Japan's political world now gravitates around the "Ozawa Coalition" and the teetering LDP, both with staunchly conservative politics and behavioral characteristics of the yakuza...

...The Socialists and other parties are likely to be decimated in future polling, and major political and policy decisions will, consequently, be the result not of open democratic discourse in the Diet but of backroom deals between the parties and the powerful, arrogant state bureaucracy—all of which have long characterized Japan's politics...

...With the future of the Socialists so uncertain there are no effective countervailing democratic forces either in Parliament or in the society at large, and the troika system will be reinforced...

...However, he was persuaded by the family don that he was too much of a coward for yakuza life and that he should pursue instead a career in politics...

...His pretext was that he was fed up with a party that was so corrupt that it turned down the reforms he had advocated...

...Under this new constellation, the troika system will be reinforced, and the state bureaucracy will probably become more assertive and decisive—especially so with no countervailing forces in the Diet...

...at a minimum, its small cadre of conscientious reformers will disappear altogether from the scene...

...It turns out that this was actually Ozawa's initiative, in collusion with the deputy minister of finance...

...On entering office, his approval ratings soared beyond that of any previous premier...

...The chairman of the LDP was chosen from the bosses of the families Since the LDP was assured a comfortable majority in the House of Representatives, its chairman automatically became premier thanks to these "kingmakers...

...His successor, Tsutomu Hata, was his foreign minister and leader of Shinsei-to...

...In the elections the Socialist party suffered astounding losses—losing roughly half its seats—while the three splinter parties ran far better than expected...

...Ozawa's grand scheme included restructuring the electoral system along British lines, with small constituencies...

...This has had deleterious consequences for professional discipline and the integrity of virtually all social institutions, including, of course, the bureaucracy itself...

...Takeshita then paid a "pious" visit to Tanaka's home...

...The divergence between the economic performance of Japanese industries and the living standards of ordinary people widened steadily...

...For the last twenty years or so, the largest family in the LDP was Tanaka's...

...There was also a persistent rumor that Ozawa talked Makoto Tanabe, then head of the Socialists, into dumping the radical left of the party together with many genuinely reform-minded younger members (almost all of them were defeated in the last election...

...Hosokawa's Japan New Party had been founded the previous year by exLDPers, and another group soon formed the "Harbinger party...

...But in eight short months he made one political blunder after another, some with grave consequences...

...Its activities, however, still draw substantial resources from the latter...

...The LDP's structure, Hamada suggests, can be likened to the popular image of the Mafia in America...

...Hamada says it came from the leadership of Soka-gakkai (the "Value-Creation Society"), a powerful religious organization, originally a branch of a fanatical Buddhist sect...

...One of the salient features of the country's political system throughout the last forty years has been the intimate collaboration between the LDP and the bureaucracy to create a milieu favorable to the interests of big business, frequently at the expense of social justice and public welfare...

...Shin Kanemaru replaced him as family boss, but Takeshita refused to quit the scene, and rivalry between them led eventually to the breakdown of their family, an important development in the eventual demise of the LDP hegemony...

...It isn't easy for outsiders to understand the internal workings of the Japanese political world...

...Hamada's book alleges that Ozawa talked Soka-gakkai's leader into supporting a broad restructuring of Japanese politics on the basis of a fusion of Komei-to and the LDP splinters...

...Throughout the episode, there was a disconcerting absence of criticism from the press, perhaps indicating how much its professionalism has been compromised by four decades of the troika system...

...Concurrently, big businesses donated, legally or otherwise, large sums of money annually to the LDP, which, in turn, collaborated with career bureaucrats in catering to the interests of big business...

...Ozawa immediately led his cronies out of the LDP to form Shinseito...

...But in 1992 it was Kanemaru's turn to be enmeshed in scandal...

...it is popularly believed to be derived from "8-9-3" —a worthless roll of the dice...

...Komei-to was—but is SUMMER • 1994 • 321 Politics Abroad no longer—a political arm of Soka-gakkai...

...When its measures become effective, the Socialist party is likely to be further reduced in size...

...No legal action has yet been initiated...

...Reading him, one gets the feeling that in his heart are aspirations to restore the glories of imperial Japan...

...Two political forces, the Socialist party and Komei-to, had been potential threats to the LDP...

...Remarkably, the activities of the yakuza ended...

...322 • DISSENT...

...In the ensuing reshuffle of his cabinet, Miyazawa was able, for the first time, to make appointments without the dictates of Kanemaru and Ozawa...

...None of them had a specific political orientation...

...His best-selling book, Blueprint for a New Japan, articulates a fiercely conservative and occasionally ultranationalist political philosophy...

...Each constituent group retained organizational and pecuniary independence within the LDP, becoming a "faction," or more appropriately, a family...

...At the same time, the distribution of wealth and income became entirely skewed...

...The scandal that forced his resignation was, in terms of scale, roughly comparable to Whitewater, but Ozawa deemed the prime minister's effectiveness to be finished, and asked him to quit...

...A book published in December 1993 by a senior LDP politician described candidly how major decisions were made in the past...

...It has been rumored that large sums of money were funneled into Shinsei-to at its founding and during the election...

...For reasons known only to himself, Miyazwa strongly committed himself to reform...

...Morihiro Hosokawa, an obscure leader of the Japan New Party, was chosen as prime minister...

...The Socialists were long dominated by rigid ideologues, but they were also the more formidable opposition, occasionally coming close to toppling the LDP in the past...

...He rose in the LDP, serving as chairman of the powerful Ways and Means Committee in the House of Representatives...

...Each government ministry is a powerful organizational entity, with a well-demarcated .....11.n SUMMER • 1994 • 319 Politics Abroad domain of control and regulation...

...But no party won a majority...

...Many claim that this will enhance Japanese democracy, but the most likely outcome will be political dominance by two parties whose political philosophies and organizational structures differ little from the bankrupt LDP...

...Thus the election of the chairman became an occasion when rivalry between the families was most keen and conspicuous, and huge amounts of money were reportedly passed among them...

...But Miyazawa had committed a major sin in the yakuza world, for he owed the premiership to Kanemaru (via Ozawa) and had betrayed his benefactor...

...This constellation was possible solely because of the desire to establish a non-LDP government...

...Takeshita was made prime minister...

...That Hosokawa is now out of the picture doesn't change matters much...

...The other will be what is left of the LDP...

...In his book, Hamada describes in detail how successive prime ministers were chosen, from the legendary Kakuei Tanaka (premier in the early 1970s) to Kiichi Miyazawa, the last LDP premier...

...Takeshita had just become a family boss by usurping power from Tanaka and undoing his family...

...The LDP was founded as a grand coalition of all the conservative parties in postwar Japan...

...With this in mind he sought to lure from the LDP, with a promise of the premiership, Michio Watanabe, a former foreign minister who is boss of the most conservative LDP clan and a perennial aspirant to the top post...

...The heavy concentration of power in the "troika" of the LDP, the bureaucracy, and big business spurred the Japanese economy...

...The LDP, generally, was instrumental in funding the latter...