Japan’s Lost Leaders

If a Martian landed in the middle of Ginza, Tokyo's upscale shopping district, 20 years ago and said, "Take me to your leader," he would have had many possible destinations. Some Japanese would have taken him to the Imperial Palace to meet the emperor. Others would have veered off toward one of the government offices to meet the bureaucratic barons. Still others might have dragged him off to Tokyo's Capitol Hill to meet a political bigwig, or even up to the financial district to chat with business leaders.

Today, by contrast, most Japanese would be embarrassed by the question and the Martian would go away disappointed. Tokyo is headless. The emperor suffers from stress-related illnesses, government ministries are discredited, Japan's politicians are transparently inept, and the business elite cannot fix what is broken. No one seems to be in charge.

The irony is that Japan has a rich tradition of leadership. Visionaries have often emerged to guide the country forward at critical moments in the past—as in the 19th century, when Japan was threatened with Western imperialism, or in the mid-20th, when it was occupied by a foreign conqueror. Earlier this decade, Junichiro Koizumi strode onto—and then off—the scene as the most popular and successful leader in living memory. Now, however, no such figure can be found on the horizon. Public-approval ratings for Taro Aso, the current prime minister, are near an all-time low. And the opposition is hardly more promising. Until recently, the Democratic Party of Japan looked poised to win power for the first time, but then prosecutors arrested the chief of staff of Ichiro Ozawa, the DPJ leader, for corruption. Now it seems the party may have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

To make matters worse, there are no other viable alternatives. The left departed the scene in the 1990s, when the Socialists betrayed their supporters by sleeping with the LDP, and the Communists proved their irrelevance by refusing to acknowledge the end of the Cold War. There are, it seems, no real mavericks left in the country—only phony ones who declaim Japan's failings but offer no constructive designs of their own.

Japan is paying a high price for this leadership deficit, and the costs are growing. In the last quarter, its economy shrank by 12 percent, twice the rate of decline in the United States and Europe. At home, the government's loss of 50 million pension records has inspired intense public distrust of the once vaunted bureaucracy. So has the realization that Japan's public debt is now more than twice the size of America's (relative to the overall size of the economy). The best and the brightest no longer seek government jobs.

For its part, the Japanese public remains deeply divided over necessary reforms to the Constitution, the health-care system, pension policy, pork-barrel politics and economic policy. Yet with no politicians to lead them, there is no one to bridge the gaps. The same goes for Japan's foreign affairs. While Tokyo has long claimed that it wants to act like a "normal" state, it continues to behave as abnormally as ever. Last autumn, Japan blew its latest chance to lead in providing global security. Rather than join the U.S. and several dozen other countries in defending shipping lanes against Somali pirates, Japan dithered—until China sent its own warships. Suddenly, Tokyo's "us too" diplomacy kicked in, something seen far too often in the past. Its Navy is finally steaming to the region.

Elsewhere, despite decades of talk about how Tokyo is ready to help provide global public goods, only 38 Japanese troops are participating in just three U.N. peacekeeping operations. (Even the normally reticent China now has 2,000 soldiers serving abroad, in 11 U.N. missions.) Japan's defense budget continues to decline; it is now less than 0.9 percent of GDP—by far the lowest in the G8 in relative terms. Support for U.S. forces stationed in Japan was temporarily suspended last year, and the LDP government has abandoned its efforts to reinterpret the Constitution to allow its military to protect allied forces should they come under fire outside Japanese territory—an event that, if it comes to pass, could cause the U.S.-Japanese alliance to collapse.

Of course, Japan doesn't actually need to exercise leadership. It could theoretically continue to drift, bobbing like a mercantile cork in a turbulent geopolitical sea. Japan is, after all, still very rich, and its $5 trillion economy could afford it more than a modicum of security. Nor does Japan need to act like a great power, despite boasting the world's second-largest economy. Japan's Asian neighbors still distrust it for its colonial legacy and would surely rather it remain rudderless than fall prey to a demagogue who promises redemption while steering Japan further yet from a "normal" role.

Japan could, in other words, continue to muddle through. But doing so while China continues to rise and assert itself, and Washington explores accommodation with Beijing, will leave Tokyo less able than ever to tilt world politics and the global economy in a favorable direction. Even transforming Japan into a "middle power" will require leadership. The Japanese people—and the world—are waiting.

Samuels is the Ford International professor of political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

© 2009