TR EMERITUS

By Masahiro Matsumura writing for South China Morning Post The biggest challenge for Japan's new government will be to break the stranglehold of the mandarins The landslide election victory by the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) terminated the one-party-dominated system that the catch-all Liberal Democratic Party has controlled almost without interruption since 1955. For most of the last decade, the DPJ was not seen as a viable alternative to the LDP, although they appeared to form a pseudo-two-party system. Twenty years after the cold war's end, Japan will at last have a post-cold-war system of government. The Japanese public, even now, remains uncertain about the DPJ's ability to govern and is sceptical of its rosy programmes of wealth redistribution. They are also aware that the ideologically fragmented DPJ lacks a pragmatic, coherent foreign and security policy. Yet the DPJ will form the next government because of public disgust with the LDP. For the past four years, the LDP had shown itself to be utterly unresponsive to the key issues of popular concern: pensions, unemployment and the fraying social safety net. Moreover, the LDP was plagued by a string of minor scandals and consistent bungling. The LDP's need for three different prime ministers in little more than a year made plain that the party's power nucleus had melted down. Once in power, the DPJ will confront the massive bureaucracy and entrenched mandarins, which usually sabotage any efforts at administrative reform that threatens their power and vested interests. Indeed, the budget estimates for the next fiscal year are due. The figures to be presented are the result of a lengthy process, in which the bureaucracy closely consulted with the LDP. So, without breaking the regular budget cycle, the DPJ will be forced to implement not only the supplementary budget drawn up by the LDP, but will also be stuck with next year's budget, which embodies LDP policies the DPJ has denounced. As a result, the DPJ has announced plans to revoke the LDP's guidelines for a ceiling on budget requests so it can formulate its own budget from scratch. It will revise the supplementary budget as well. But time is short, and few of the new DPJ lawmakers have the legislative experience and budgetary expertise to make that happen. To gain control of the mandarins, the DPJ plans to place 100 lawmakers in the ministries' top leadership, as well as three dozen political appointees to policy staffs in the office of the prime minister. Unfortunately, the DPJ scrapped an LDP-sponsored civil-service reform bill, which would have allowed the DPJ to replace mandarins with an army of political appointees. The DPJ, despite its manifesto, seems unprepared to tame the mandarins, and so may be forced to rely on them. The ascendancy of the mandarins is a legacy of Japan's unique historical development dating back to its early modern period. Unlike in Europe, Japan developed its state before building a strong civil society. Indeed, fully fledged "society"-building started only after the 1868 Meiji Restoration, which tipped the balance of power definitively in favour of the state. As a result, the mandarins survived the second world war and the post-war American occupation relatively undamaged, and they will strive to survive the DPJ government as well. They will most likely succeed. LDP lawmakers and mandarins developed a routine in which mandarins drafted cabinet-sponsored bills, LDP lawmakers checked the bills, and the two together finalised legislative drafts before they were introduced to the Diet (parliament). Since the LDP, recently with a coalition partner, controlled the Diet, the legislative process was simply the interaction between LDP lawmakers and mandarins, centred in the LDP's headquarters. The Diet's role was merely pro forma. Indeed, under the LDP-led one-party-dominant system, this extra-constitutional mechanism became an integral part of Japan's government polity. The DPJ government will collide head-on with the mandarins, partly because the party will find it hard to recruit sufficiently qualified policymakers. The mandarins have maintained their privileged position in this regard, owing partly to the tax system, which prevents the emergence of non-profit institutions, especially think tanks, where independent policy expertise can be forged. Moreover, perhaps in anticipation of a change in power, the mandarins have moved forward the annual personnel changes in the major ministries' top administrative positions. And what of the LDP? Having fallen from power, it will lose its control of the redistribution of government funds. Unable to pay off its constituencies, disintegration looms, for the LDP has never been a party with entrenched grass-roots support, but instead operates as a machine of power and redistribution through a web of insiders in the industrial sectors, occupational associations and local communities. A comeback will only be possible if the party recruits new blood and creates a solid ideological platform. The DPJ has even weaker grass-roots support, so the mandarins will most likely try to cajole the party by teaching it to mimic the LDP in using state money and contracts to underwrite constituencies such as unions and other interest groups. The birth of the DPJ government can yet be a turning point. A major power shift in favour of "society" has taken place. If the DPJ can break free of mandarin control by centralising policy formation in the office of the prime minister, as it intends, Japan can emerge as a more resilient democracy with a fully fledged two-party system and greater willingness to assume an international leadership role. Masahiro Matsumura is professor of International Politics at St Andrew's (Momoyama Gakuin) University, Osaka. Source: SCMP   EDITORS' NOTE: Temasek Review is a paid subscriber of the South China Morning Post  Read More →

From our Correspondent According to a study conducted by Tsao Foundation and research firm TNS, seven in ten Singaporeans give their parents an allowance and two in three pay for their medical bills. (read article here) The Tsao Foundation is a non-profit organization which deals with issues of aging and the elderly. The survey was conducted online among 222 people looking after at least one person aged 60 or more with white-collar workers making up 69 per cent of the respondents. While the state media proclaimed that the study showed that "aged parents are cared for" in Singapore, the study has some limitations as follows: 1. The sample size may not be exactly representative of Singapore's working population with an unusual high proportion of white collar workers who are more likely to have the financial means to support their parents. 2. It was not mentioned in the report the monthly allowance given and whether it is sufficient to meet the needs of the elderly. It also fail to answer questions on whether Singaporeans in the lower income group are able to support their parents and if they can afford their medical bills. As Tsao Foundation's President Dr Mary Ann-Tsao admitted in a later report, there is a dearth of research on aging issues. Singaporeans hit by the economic downturn may not be able to give an adequate allowance to their parents who may be suffering in silence as they do not want to embarrass their children by reporting them to the authorities. Though the government has passed a legislation requiring Singaporeans to take care of their own parents in old age, it did not contain any provisions for those who are genuinely unable to do so due to financial constraints.  Read More →

From our Correspondent Singapore will spend $100 million dollars to host the Apec forum meetings this year. Among the leaders attending the meeting are U.S.'s Barack Obama and China's Hu Jintao. While the leaders' meetings will be held at the Istana, other meetings will be decentralized and held at various locations to minimize public disruption. Singapore is playing host to a series of Apec meetings this year, the 20th anniversary of the 21-member grouping. So far, about 5,700 delegates have already attended the various meetings. The year will culminate in the large- scale Apec Leaders' Week from Nov 8 to 15, which will gather 10,000 delegates, businessmen and media people here. The last time Singapore played host to an international meeting was the IMF world bank meetings in September 2006 which were soured by the Singapore government's refusal to allow accreditated human rights activists to hold outdoor protests. There is unlikely to be a repeat of the fracas this year during the Apec forum as even solo protest is illegal under a new law passed recently to give the police widespread powers including "move on" orders to remove the protestor(s) forcibly from the scene. Singapore has come under harsh criticism from human rights organizations for its repressive laws curtailing civil liberties. However, the Singapore government insists that the measures are necessary to maintain "public order and stability". A recent move by the police to install CCTVs at Hong Lim Park, the only place in Sinagpore where protests can be held legally was construed as another indirect method to clamp down on political dissent. The Apec meetings will be a timely international event to give Singapore a massive PR boost in the midst of an economic gloom.  Read More →