How a lowly samurai inspired Koizumi to put rebels to sword

September 28, 2005
By Richard Lloyd Parry and Robert Thomson

Japan's reforming Prime Minister tells of his great political gamble
Interview transcript

Late in the 16th century, after a century of continual civil war, Japan was adrift and in despair. Out of nowhere came a lowly samurai named Oda Nobunaga, who won a series of brilliant victories, overcame the corrupt aristocracy and dominated Japan.

He was an aesthete, art patron and merciless killer. His most notorious act of brutality was to burn down 3,000 Buddhist temples outside Kyoto and butcher their inhabitants. And 400 years later, Oda Nobunaga is a source of inspiration, if not a role model.

"I am learning greatly about the harsh life of a samurai warlord," Mr Koizumi told The Times in his first interview since winning an election that has turned Japan’s political order on its head. "Every day they faced death. There are a lot of lessons to be learnt." Like his samurai exemplar, Mr Koizumi has risen from relative obscurity to set in motion a transformation of Japanese politics.

After taking office in 2001 during Japan’s worst postwar recession, he has overhauled the country’s debt-stricken banks, presided over a modest economic recovery and sent troops to Iraq, overcoming a half-century taboo on the dispatch of Japanese military force overseas. In the past few weeks he has carried out a political purge as devastating, in its way, as Oda Nobunaga’s liquidation of the monks of Kyoto.

It began last month with the defeat in the Upper House of Japan’s Diet of legislation that would have brought about Mr Koizumi’s lifelong political goal — the privatisation of Japan’s post office services. To the dismay of his friends, as well as enemies, the Prime Minister forced a snap election. His Liberal Democratic Party split as opponents of the postal Bills deserted their leader to run as rebel independents.

Mr Koizumi fought the election on a simple set of either/or choices. Postal privatisation or not? Continuing structural reform or a return to the old ways? With me — or with the rebels? "This election was about asking the Japanese people to turn around the Diet’s decision," he says.

The result was a massacre. The LDP leapt from 212 MPs to 296; together with their small coalition partner, they control 327 out of 480 Lower House seats. Half of the rebels were wiped out, and 83 new MPs, most of them fervent Koizumi supporters, were elected.

Yesterday, in an exclusive interview in his official residence, he talked about his bitter victory, about the exhausting war against his party enemies, and about the tension between Japan and its neighbours caused by his visits to the nationalist Yasukuni Shrine.

Who could name any of the seven prime ministers who came and went in the ten years before Mr Koizumi? Traditionally it was a job passed from one grey man to the next, and between the competing factions that made up the LDP. Mr Koizumi has put a personal stamp on the office.

It is on his orders that his aides have taken what for Japanese bureaucrats is a radical step: casting off their jackets and ties in favour of open-necked shirts, intended to reduce the need for air conditioning.

Perhaps because of the presence of The Times photographer, the Prime Minister wears a tie today. He talks for 40 minutes in his staccato style, punctuated by jabbing, emphatic hand gestures.

Mr Koizumi’s obsession with postal reform goes back decades. As a young politician he wrote not one, but two, books on the subject (Reasons to Reassemble the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications was followed by Reasons to Privatise Posts and Telecommunications). "I have been saying all along that my top priority has been the privatisation of Japan Post," he says. "I have called it the bastion of reform. I said that if this can be realised it will be a political miracle. Now it looks likely that the miracle will happen."

The importance of privatisation has less to do with stamps and letter boxes than with Japan’s postal savings, the vast pot of 355 trillion yen (£1,800 billion) deposited in low-interest accounts by Japan’s cautious and conscientious families. As a vast reserve of money under government control, it has served as a "pork barrel piggy bank": a fund for the inefficient and wasteful public works projects such as dams, bridges and airports that enrich local construction companies while depleting tax revenues and harming the environment.

The problem for Mr Koizumi is that this money has for decades been the lifeblood of the party he leads. LDP members won supporters and secured their seats by lobbying for money from central government to be spent on construction projects in their constituencies. Mr Koizumi’s reform plans are an attack on an entire system of political patronage. "It was not just the opposition but members of the ruling parties who were opposed," he said. "In a democracy, it’s no wonder that people doubted its feasibility."

But in the end, the matter of the postal reform was less important than the manner in which it was pursued: aggressively, confrontationally, by a man with a knack of presenting himself as both Prime Minister and underdog.

"There are people who oppose me, leaders of the ruling party who call me a dictator, ‘Hitler’," he says. "It is rather a complicated picture. Partly (I won because of) appreciation of my track record over the past four years and public support for the reforms I’ve advanced. I think these are all intertwined."

The postal Bills are being debated in the newly re-elected Lower House this month; in the Upper House, most of the MPs who threw it out are expected to capitulate this time.

Mr Koizumi’s electoral success is balanced by what looks increasingly like a damaging failure of foreign policy: the unnerving tension between Japan and its powerful neighbour, China. Chinese suspicion of Japan goes back to the invasion of the 1930s. Ten years ago, on the 50th anniversary of the end of the war, things improved a little when the Japanese Prime Minister offered an apology for Japan’s wartime conduct.

This has been reaffirmed, with varying degrees of emphasis, by subsequent Japanese leaders, including Mr Koizumi. The problem is that he has revived the custom, abandoned by Japanese prime ministers in the 1980s, of paying an annual visit to Japan’s Yasukuni Shrine. There the spirits of the war dead are enshrined as Shinto deities, along with those of 14 Class A war criminals. The reaction from South Korea, and above all China, has been ferocious. In April mobs of demonstrators stoned the Japanese consulate in Beijing.

In June seven former prime ministers pleaded with Mr Koizumi to reconsider; recently, he has been less explicit about his determination to make a pilgrimage this year. But yesterday he gave the impression that he would visit Yasukuni before the year’s end.

"I believe Chinese leaders are aware of my intentions," he said. "China is opposing my visits to Yasukuni Shrine for political reasons. In addition, I’d assume that China doesn’t welcome a growth in Japan’s political influence. They are opposed, for example, to Japan becoming a permanent member of the UN Security Council because they want to check Japan’s influence."

He passionately denies a commonly expressed suspicion: that under his leadership, Japan is undergoing a resurgence of nationalism. "What you see is not nationalism," he says. "I believe that Japanese people have deeply reflected over the past. They have remorse about the Second World War, and the strong conviction that they must never again wage war."

Perhaps the biggest mystery surrounding Mr Koizumi concerns his future. LDP rules require that he step down as party leader, and therefore as Prime Minister, in a year — a time limit with which he appears quite happy. "I’ll do my level best and in September next year I shall retire," he says. "I believe I can fulfil what I need to do."

But Mr Koizumi’s personal popularity is so much higher than his party’s that many LDP MPs know that without his leadership they will lose their seats. He does not rule out the possibility of standing again, but sounds as if he is looking forward to retirement.

"As Prime Minister I enjoy music, but it’s CDs in bed," he says. "When I quit I’ll go to concerts and movie theatres instead of films on DVD."

After Oda’s defeat and suicide, it took two more warlords before peace came to Japan. It may be that, like his hero, he will come with hindsight to look more like a transitional figure than the revolutionary he appears. Perhaps the best he can hope for is that, unlike Oda’s, his career ends peacefully and on his own terms.

HARDLINE CHIEFS

ODA NOBUNAGA

(1534-1582)
Historical legacy Reunified Japan in late 16th century
Greatest massacre The warrior monks of Mt Hiei, near Kyoto, 1571
Hobbies The tea ceremony
Career end Hara kiri after military defeat in 1582

JUNICHIRO KOIZUMI
(1942-?)
Historical legacy Reformer in early 21st-century Japan
Greatest massacre Rebels against Postal Privatisation Bill, 2005
Hobbies Listening to Elvis
Career end Due to step down September 2006

KOIZUMI'S WORDS

‘Leaders of the ruling party call me a dictator, Hitler. It is complicated’

‘I am reading about the harsh life of a samurai warlord. Every day they faced death. There are a lot of lessons to be learnt’

‘China doesn’t welcome a growth in Japan’s political influence’

‘Japanese people have very deeply reflected on the past. They have remorse about the Second World War and more than any other people have the strong conviction that they must never again wage war’

Defense chief Kyuma cautious about permanent SDF dispatch law

Sep 26 11:46 AM US/Eastern

TOKYO, Sept. 27 (AP) - (Kyodo) — New Defense Agency Director General Fumio Kyuma said Tuesday he sees difficulties in compiling a single law that would allow Japan to dispatch the Self-Defense Forces overseas for international peace cooperation activities as the circumstances in such deployments may vary from case to case.

"There are various cases involved in sending the SDF abroad," Kyuma said in a late-night press conference at the agency. "I think there will be some difficult aspects in trying to put all the cases together under one law."

He pointed out that Japan's SDF dispatches to Iraq for reconstruction assistance, to the Indian Ocean to provide rear-area logistics support for U.S.-led antiterrorism activities, and to places such as East Timor and the Golan Heights to take part in U.N. peacekeeping operations were all under differing circumstances.

"It would be nice if possible to come up with a single law covering all situations, but then how do you restrict the prerequisites for implementation for each case? There would be cases backed by a U.N. resolution and cases without one," he said.

"The technique for compiling such legislation is very difficult in terms of placing restrictive conditions (on each deployment), so I do not have enough confidence to say at this point that I will work on it," said Kyuma, who also served as Japan's defense chief between 1996 and 1998.

His predecessor, Fukushiro Nukaga, had expressed hope of a permanent law on dispatching the SDF overseas, while Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, in his previous capacity as chief Cabinet secretary, had also called for such legislation to make it easier for Japan to contribute to peace-building around the world.

On whether he plans to visit the war-related Yasukuni Shrine, Kyuma said he is unlikely to do so because he does not see the need to create awkward ties with neighboring countries such as China and South Korea, which have protested at former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visits there.

The defense chief also said he is not willing to pay his respects at the shrine in Tokyo where wartime Japanese Prime Minister Gen. Hideki Tojo, who he said was responsible for fighting a losing battle in World War II, is among those honored.

Kyuma noted that he did not pay homage at the shrine during his first appointment as agency chief under Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto.

He expressed hope that a bill to upgrade the Defense Agency to a ministry and a bill to extend the special antiterrorism law, set to expire Nov. 1, by a year would be passed by the Diet as soon as possible.

At an earlier news conference at the prime minister's office, Kyuma called for discussions on reviewing the Japanese government's interpretation of the right to collective self-defense to reflect the current times.

"There has long been a certain concept of the right to collective self-defense under government policy, but I believe there are various views such as the one which questions the current interpretation 60 years after the war," Kyuma said just after being named defense chief by Abe.

Under the current government's interpretation, Japan has the inherent right to collective self-defense but is not allowed to use it under the Constitution, and therefore cannot take action to defend an ally even when the ally is under attack.

The interpretation is based on Article 9 of Japan's post-World War II Constitution which bars the nation from the use of force for settling international disputes.

Kyuma said he will abide by the current interpretation, but suggested "there is room to examine" whether this interpretation makes it possible to deal with various situations that could come up.

The 65-year-old lawmaker representing Nagasaki Prefecture said Abe had asked him to coordinate with related government ministries and agencies and local governments to implement the Japan-U.S. agreement on the realignment of U.S. forces in Japan.

While some regional governments are opposed to some of the plans agreed to between Tokyo and Washington, Kyuma said he wants to tell the localities that the schemes provide good opportunities such as reducing the number of U.S. Marines in Okinawa Prefecture.

Defense chief Kyuma seeks debate on Japan's collective defense right

Sep 26 07:01 AM US/Eastern

TOKYO, Sept. 26 (AP) - (Kyodo) — Newly appointed Defense Agency Director General Fumio Kyuma called Tuesday for discussions in terms of reviewing the Japanese government's interpretation of the right to collective self-defense to reflect the current times.

"There has long been a certain concept of the right to collective self-defense under government policy, but I believe there are various thoughts such as the one which questions the current interpretation 60 years after the war," Kyuma said just after being named defense chief by new Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Under the current government's interpretation, Japan has the inherent right to collective self-defense but is not allowed to use it under the Constitution, and therefore cannot take action to defend an ally even when the ally is under attack.

The interpretation is based on Article 9 of Japan's post-World War II Constitution which bars the nation from the use of force for settling international disputes.

Kyuma, who served as Defense Agency director general between 1996 and said he will abide by the current interpretation, but suggested "there is room to examine" whether this interpretation makes it possible to deal with various situations that could come up.

The 65-year-old lawmaker representing Nagasaki Prefecture said Abe had asked him to coordinate with related government ministries and agencies and local governments to implement the Japan-U.S. agreement on the realignment of U.S. forces in Japan.

While some regional governments are opposed to some of the plans agreed to between Tokyo and Washington, Kyuma said he wants to tell the localities that the schemes provide good opportunities such as reducing the number of U.S. Marines in Okinawa Prefecture.

Kyuma said he will make an "appropriate decision" on whether to visit the war-related Yasukuni Shrine while considering various aspects, including Japan's ties with neighboring countries and the thoughts of the bereaved families of those honored at the shrine in Tokyo.

He noted that he did not pay homage to the shrine during his first appointment as agency chief.

A Risky Game Of Chicken

By Christian Caryl | NEWSWEEK
Sep 18, 2006 Issue

Japan and China's growing assertiveness in the East China Sea could start a military skirmish--or worse.

It's a glorious late-summer day over the East China Sea, cobalt blue ocean beneath a warm and hazy sky. But this mission is all business for the crew of a P3-C Orion flown by the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Forces (as Tokyo refers to its Navy). Dropping down to a mere 200 meters above the waves, the plane slowly banks to peek at a yellow-and-white drilling platform anchored in the sea below. Suddenly the radio loudspeaker in the plane's cockpit crackles, and a rapid burst of Mandarin Chinese attests that the men on the rig have taken notice of the visitor. "Sometimes you can even see the Chinese flag down there," says one of the pilots.

Not that either side needs a reminder of who's who. The Chunxiao gas fields in the center of the East China Sea--where Beijing is hunting for energy in waters hard against the boundary line of the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) claimed by Japan--are a long way from the back rooms of Tokyo. But there's no question that events in this lonely corner of the ocean will be much on the mind of Shinzo Abe, Japan's prospective prime minister, as he settles into his new job over the next few weeks. Earlier this month, tensions in the area rose another notch, when the Japanese government protested the completion of yet another Chinese drilling rig in the area. Tokyo fears that the Chinese might siphon off energy resources from its side of the line.

This isn't just a scuffle over scarce natural resources, but one part of a much larger jigsaw puzzle of problems. The dispute over EEZ boundaries, for example, is intimately linked to China's insistence that the nearby, uninhabited Senkaku Islands (Diaoyutai in Chinese) really belong to the mainland. Tokyo begs to differ. And behind the complex tussles over maritime law looms the much more fundamental issue of how to manage potential conflict between the rising naval aspirations of Beijing and the tightly linked forces of Japan and its ally the United States.

"Just look at the map," says Toshi Yoshihara, an expert on naval strategy at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. To the north, he points out, the East China Sea gives way to the Tsushima Strait, one of the strategic linchpins of Northeast Asia, where Russia and Japan fought an epochal battle in 1905. To the south lies Taiwan, which Beijing has pledged to reunite with the People's Republic, and which both Japan and the United States have recently begun to define as a common strategic interest they are obliged to defend. China's rapid naval buildup-- featuring a shopping spree in Russia for state-of-the-art weaponry, including superquiet Kilo subs--is aimed at helping it grab military control over Taiwan in the event of war. Part of its plan, say experts, involves pushing Chinese sea-defense lines far out into the western Pacific. But Beijing won't be able to do that unless it can slip its subs and ships through the chain of the Ryukyu Islands, which extends Japanese territory nearly all the way to Taiwan (particularly if you include the Senkakus). The key there is Okinawa, home to America's main military base in the region and the last bead in the Ryukyu chain.

For strategic purposes, China is trying to map the entire region's sea bottom--and testing the reaction times and capabilities of Japanese and U.S. forces in the area. At the beginning of this year, for example, the Japan Defense Agency revealed that it had scrambled fighter jets 107 times last year in response to Chinese planes that were approaching Japanese airspace. The number in 2004 was 13; the year before that, two. In November 2004, a Chinese submarine actually entered Japanese territorial waters, threading its way through a gap in the Ryukyus. It was pursued by Japanese Navy planes until it left the area. Last fall, just as Japan was preparing for its general election, a group of Chinese warships turned up near the Chunxiao fields in a show of strength. One of the ships even aimed a gun at a Japanese surveillance plane flying nearby. "They were trying to send a message," says retired U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Eric McVadon, a former military attaché in Beijing. "They were saying to the Japanese, 'We used to be inferior to you. Now we have to be taken seriously'." He notes that the main ship in the group was a high-tech destroyer purchased by the Chinese Navy from the Russians, who designed it, says McVadon, to counter U.S. Navy ships equipped with the powerful Aegis radar system.

As a potential flashpoint, the territorial dispute in the East China Sea is much more worrisome than the customary Sino-Japanese squabble over memories of World War II. As both nations maneuver for position, the threat of an accident, misunderstanding or fateful encounter that could draw the two sides into open conflict is rising. In July 2004, a Chinese naval vessel "came close" to a Japanese research ship, according to MSDF officials--close enough, other sources say, that the Japanese ship was forced to veer out of the way. "People play chicken," says McVadon. "And that's when things can happen." The risk is compounded by the paucity of direct military-to-military contacts between the two sides.

There is one positive sign: both countries recently started talks about opening a "hot line" that could help smooth over potential incidents. But until that connection is made, and until the two countries establish more regular diplomatic contact and perhaps seek arbitration of the maritime EEZ disputes, the East China Sea will not be anywhere near as placid as it looks from the air.

With Akiko Kashiwagi