By Feng Zhaokui

The domestic political situation of the United States maintains significant influence over that of Japan thanks to the unique relationship between the two countries since the end of World War II.

One apparent fact in this regard is that since the 1950s, the Japanese government has tended to be steady and conservative (such as Yoshida Shigeru, who was prime minister for the first time from May 1946 to May 1947 and then re-elected to the post for four terms in a row between October 1948 and December 1954; Ikeda Hayato, who was prime minister for three terms between July 1960 and November 1964; Murayama Tomiichi, who was in office from June 1994 to January 1996; and Hashimoto Ryutaro, who succeeded Murayama in January 1996 and left office July 1998) when the Democrats were in control of the US administration; and, when the conservatives were in power, their Japanese counterparts assumed a similarly hawkish posture more often than not (for example, Kishi Nobusuke, who was prime minister from December 1957 to July 1960; Sato Eisaku, who succeeded Ikeda Hayato in January 1964 and left office in July 1972; Nakasone Yasuhiro, who was in office from November 1982 to November 1987; and Junichiro Koizumi, who was there from April 2001 to September 2006.)

Both the steady conservatives and the hawkish conservatives emphasize Japan's ties with the US and the Japan-US alliance, but the former (except Yoshida Shigeru) tended to attach more importance to balancing the Japan-US ties and Japan-China relations, while the latter (with the exception of Nakasone Yasuhiro) were mostly more pro-US and tough on China.

Within the Bush administration today, there is a sort of rivalry between the neo-conservative faction led by Vice-President Dick Cheney and an international coordination-oriented approach. The neo-conservatives led by Cheney have dominated American policymaking process and marginalized the international coordination-oriented approach advocated by former secretaries of state Colin Powell and James Baker.

When the neo-conservatives were in control of the US politics, then Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi (in office 2001-06) pursued a "totally pro-US" policy with such fervor that even former British prime minister Tony Blair failed to match, making Japan in a sense "more British than Great Britain" (It is a fundamental resolve of the US neo-conservatives to make Japan the "Great Britain of the Far East") and pushing the Japan-US alliance into "the best ever in history." It is safe to say the "honeymoon diplomacy" forged by Junichiro Koizumi and US President George W. Bush is also a "honeymoon period" for the joint forces of the US Republican administration and the Japanese right-wing hawkish government.

Since Prime Minister Shinzo Abe took office, however, the Japan-US honeymoon has cooled down a bit. For instance, some Japanese analysts observed that during his visit to Washington in May this year, "Abe appeared to have been welcomed by President Bush, but their meeting covered little substance as he was not treated as a head of state and in fact given a cold shoulder". And "there is little denying Abe's US trip is a major flop in the history of Japan-US relations".

The US Senate Foreign Relations Committee passed a resolution over the issue of "comfort women" before Abe's US visit, while a New York Times editorial described him as "a dangerous nationalist". Some US officials said in private they were not sure Abe "was the man he appeared to be". Nevertheless, Abe decided to extend the mission in Iraq by Japanese Self-Defense Forces to provide an airlift service to US troops there and continued to support America's war in Iraq, while maintaining the domestic policy of following the US neo-liberalist economic doctrine and rammed through the citizen voting law designed to facilitate constitutional revision in an avid bid to rewrite Article 9 of the post-war pacifist Constitution. That constitutional revision would legalize combat missions by Japanese forces overseas - "alongside US forces".

All this shows that, despite the serious setbacks the neo-conservative Bush administration has suffered, the Republican Party's bloody loss in last year's Congressional midterm elections and mounting criticism of the Bush administration's war policy and neo-liberalist economic policy, Abe's cabinet remained firm on the course of echoing the US neo-liberalism set by his predecessor Junichiro Koizumi.

In Japan's domestic affairs, however, Abe had to go almost all out to address the newly exposed pension insurance management mess as popular anxiety over the matter pushed aside his plan to set constitutional revision the "focal point" in the upcoming Upper House election, while the opposition parties seized the opportunity to launch a fierce round of criticism aimed at the pro-US neo-liberalist economic policy adopted by Abe and his predecessor Junichiro Koizumi. At the same time, the Communist Party of Japan and the Socialist Party also blasted Abe's attempt to revise Article 9 of the post-war pacifist Constitution, with considerable support from many voters to boot.

Abe did not choose foreign policy as the "match point" of his ruling party to rely on for winning the upcoming Upper House election. The Bush administration has been in such a disastrous state lately that he "does not want to see any document concerning (North Korea) on his desk". His aides understand him so well they started talking directly to North Korean government without bringing Tokyo along in a bid to get over with the "Korea nuclear issue" as soon as possible. This move in fact left Japan out of the loop, which some Japanese right-wing commentators saw as "yet another example of over-our-head diplomacy" and another failure of Japan's foreign policy concerning North Korea.

The quieting of the Korean issue also cost Abe an important "trump card", as a key reason why Abe won the October 2006 Lower House by-election is that many voters concerned about the "Korean nuclear issue" backed his Liberal Democratic Party. Besides, he was lucky to have gotten no flogging from opposition parties for his ill handling of the "comfort women issue", as the US government also "cut him some slack" by putting off the Congressional vote on this issue till after Japan's Upper House election next week.

In the US, which practices bipartisan politics, many people think the eight-year administration of Republican President Bush will very likely hand over the White House to a Democrat in next November's presidential election. And even if the Republican Party wins again, it will have to adopt a set of policies very different from what the Bush administration has been playing with.

This trend is already impacting on Japan's political landscape. Some right-wing commentators have gone so far as to warn that Japan would find itself in a "Year 2008 Crisis" if the results of the Republic of Korea's presidential election this December, the election in Taiwan of China next year, and the US primary in 2008 all turn out not what the Japanese hawkish conservatives would like to see.

Naturally, the "crisis" they were talking about is in fact a "crisis" for Japan's hawkish conservative politics, not for Japan's national interest. Currently, though there is still more than a year before George W. Bush bids adieu to his "war and neo-conservatism" presidency, the likelihood of the Democrats taking over the US administration from the Republicans means the post-Bush world politics might take on a major change. Japan's Upper House election is unfolding exactly in such a setting.

Needless to say, the two major conservative parties in today's Japan aren't exactly black and white as far as their policies are concerned, as there is a steady conservative faction within the hawkish conservative LDP while the steady conservative Democratic Party has a hawkish conservative faction in itself. Rivaling political philosophies within the two major conservative parties are jostling for attention.

Currently some of the young and rising politicians within the Democratic Party don't necessarily agree with the party leadership's political outlook and are committed to "aiming their guns at the enemy" for the time being only because they hate LDP's "majority might" and look forward to a bipartisan system for Japan.

After the Upper House election next week, some factional split and reshuffle may happen among Japan's political parties. With this possible scenario in mind and think about Japan's next Lower House election in two years' time, it seems not a good idea to simply draw the line only around the LDP and Democratic Party when we discuss how the changing political trend in the US affects Japan's party politics.

The author is a researcher with the Institute of Japan Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

(China Daily July 27, 2007)