Japan's Summer of Discontent

...While the U.S...

...People like myself only get carried along when things are going well...

...The Japanese name of the party Nihon Shakai-to, remains the same...

...Nevertheless, this is a summer of discontent in Japan...

...In fact, the most striking change in Japan's largest opposition grouping has been its new name: the Japan Social Democratic Party...

...A nationalist renegade, he defies his superiors while at sea in somewhat the same manner as Tom Clancy's Soviet skipper in The Hunt for Red October...

...That is why Americans dominate the socalled U.S.-Japan dialogue...

...No amount of humor can bring smiles to the faces of Japanese officials, however, for as they stagger through this summer of discontent they are worrying about what will have to be confronted in autumn...

...We made money too easily...

...More seriously, the recent revelations that brokerage houses paid out better than $900 million to compensate "important" clients for their losses have reinforced feelings that the market is rigged to favor the powerful at the expense of individual investors...

...Still, the perception of growing military tensions between the two countries does not come from Japan alone...

...Despite its weaknesses, the LDP has stayed on top because the political opposition, despite its opportunities, has failed to exploit them...

...Japanese leaders—businesspeople as well as diplomats and politicians— are inarticulate when it comes to communicating with Westerners...

...Ozawa resigned from his party post last April after backing the losing candidate in the race for governor of Tokyo...

...further, he was linked to the Recruit tangle...

...Much of our frustration with these opinions and trends is of our own making," says businessman Harutoshi Kato...

...This was the sole issue members could agree on at their July convention, and only when the makeover was confined to English—a redesigned label for foreign consumption...

...Given the scandals, the weak leadership and yet another looming trade crunch with the U.S., it is little wonder that the Japanese seem to have become escapists of sorts...

...When the party convention is held in October, he is likely to be re-elected for a second two-year term...

...Hashimoto, meanwhile, has been criticized for his ministry's lack of diligence in the stock compensation scandal, and for revelations implicating his top aide and three of his close friends in $ 10 million worth of fraudulent bank loans...

...Strangely, the one person here who has benefited from all the turmoil is Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu...

...The domestic economy remains robust, and Japanese business is opportunely positioned abroad to ride the expected growth in Europe and Asia well into the next century...

...In short, Kaifu is still the "safe" Prime Minister in the eyes of the LDP bosses...

...We have lost our way," asenior Japanese executive admits...

...The party is best described as an always-competitive alliance of mainstream conservative factions, each with a leader who hopes someday to become Prime Minister...

...But that affair obliged former Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita to resign, and it also tainted his heir apparent, Shintaro Abe (who died earlier this year...

...The protagonist who has captured imaginations here is its captain...

...Its involvement in the scandal has sullied a bureaucracy once believed to be above and beyond the dirty world of kickbacks and other forms of corruption...

...he then suffered a heart attack in June...

...A senior U.S...

...Kato and his peers are equally critical of the domestic agenda...

...weapons on Japanese electronic components have been reported here as a typical Washington reaction to what it considers "the Japanese threat...

...Doi, the only woman ever to head a Japanese political party and the nation's most popular politician, seemed set to challenge the LDP in the next Lower House elections...

...Miyazawa, the bureaucrats' choice, is keenly disliked by most LDP veterans for what they call his haughty demeanor...

...Both of the strongest young leaders, former LDP Secretary General Ichiro Ozawa and Finance Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto, have experienced setbacks...

...It makes me angry...

...Perhaps the void explains, too, why so many Japanese who yearn for dynamic leadership turn to comic books...

...That indignation extends to the most powerful arm of the Japanese government, the Ministry of Finance...

...But rather than winning praise, the gesture has been dismissed by those who are Japan's military allies—and business competitors—as too little too late...

...Two older faction heads, Kiichi Miyazawa and Michio Watanabe, would like to replace Kaifu, but they are not trouble-free either...

...Silent Squadron, for example, is the story of Japan's first nuclear submarine, built secretly with American help...

...This is the result...

...Critics of this analysis argue that Japan is falling victim to "the American disease"—excessive spending on military matters to the detriment of vital civil infrastructure projects...

...Until the Recruit Company shares-forfavors scandal hit three years ago, the LDP could elect anyone from its ranks to the job...

...Its clearly limited defense capabilities and the lack of any public support for a change notwithstanding, Japan is seen by some as a future military power...

...Marine officer told the Washington Post last year that the stationing of American forces in Japan was one way to prevent it from fully rearming...

...One executive said that the brokerage house scandal occurred because "we have no real national objectives except making money...

...For the second time in three years, a major scandal has tainted prominent business and political leaders...

...She says she resigned because of a string of local election defeats, but the real reason for her departure, aides maintain, was frustration...

...Captain Kaieda seems to speak for Japanese neonationalists when he calls theU.S...

...The obvious ploy led one journalist to joke: "My name is Hiro Tanaka, but outside Japan I am known as Babe Ruth...

...In this country where there is a passion for comic books— millions of adults read them in every vein from pornography to economics— the latest hit subject is geopolitical fantasy...

...By dispatching minesweepers to help clear the Persian Gulf, the government broke a taboo in place since World War II against sending the military on foreign missions...

...It just proves what I suspected," said a worker during a television news interview...

...Michael Berger contributes jrequently to The New Leader from Japan...

...Yet the Japanese are not only unhappy about domestic affairs...

...And in recent months, Congressional testimony and conspicuous media coverage of the increasing dependence of U.S...

...Her replacement, Makato Tonabe, is a veteran middle-of-the-road Socialist who does not appear capable of rejuvenating the moribund party...

...That is when the growing American trade deficit with Japan will once again become a point of contention...

...His goal is to become an independent force, so he attacks the American and Russian fleets...

...Captain Kaieda, though, is not looking to defect...

...When the man picked to fill the gap, Sosuki Uno, soon stepped down because of a sex scandal, a power vacuum formed and Kaifu was designated to fill it...

...Indeed, lately Japan's defense policies have hardly pleased anyone...

...Today, Doi is out of office...

...Even the historic signing of the start nuclear arms reduction treaty was a net minus for the Japanese: It did not include any cuts in either land or sea-based nuclear missiles in Asia...

...Instead of following sensible business rules, we began making our own rules...

...Thus at a time when Western governments are paring down military budgets, Japan is holding the line...

...We became arrogant...

...and Europe are strengthening their political and economic ties with the USSR, Japan is no closer to resolving its 46-year-old dispute with the Soviets over the Kurile Islands...

...Brought into office as a "clean" leader after his two predecessors were forced out by scandals, Kaifu was seen as a transitional figure because he lacks a firm power base in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP...

...LDP insiders privately fear that Watanabe has some skeletons in his political closet that could easily be exposed if he came to power...

...alliance a 'dead letter,'" wrote Mainichi newspaper reporter Naoki Sakai in a commentary...

...Two years ago, in the wake of the Recruit disclosures, a Leftist coalition led by Japan Socialist Party (JSP) leader Takako Doi took control of the less powerful Upper House of Parliament for the first time in a generation...

...Although he belongs to a minor LDP faction and is said to be tightly controlled by Takeshita, Kaifu has become secure in his position for the simple reason that there is no one to replace him...

...Defense planners here argue that until there are serious reductions in the thousands of missiles in Siberian silos and aboard Soviet subs patrolling the Pacific, a sense of threat will continue to prevail in the Far East...