FROM THE EDITOR

Osaka, Japan’s second largest prefecture, now has its—and Japan’s—first-ever female governor. Ôta Fusae, a 46-year-old former Ministry of International Trade and Industry bureaucrat, was chosen in a snap election on February 6 after “Knock” Yokoyama (Yamada Isamu) stepped down under a cloud of accusations that he had sexually harassed a female campaign worker during his April 1999 reelection campaign. Vice-governors, who are chosen directly by governors, have nine women among their number; but they are mainly placed in charge of areas like environmental and welfare issues. Women remain woefully underrepresented in the National Diet, where only 9% of upper- and lower-house members are female. On the local level the situation is somewhat better: Increasing numbers of women have been finding their way into local assemblies. Even so, the powerful post of prefectural governor remains dominated by men. In this sense, Ôta's election—in Japan’s second most populous prefecture, no less—is a significant development, and one that should make it less of a radical move in the future to include women’s names on gubernatorial ballots.

PROBLEMS IN POLITICS The Osaka election saw a very strange political situation, in which Ôta had the support not only of the Liberal Democratic Party, Liberal Party, and New Kômeitô, the three parties in the coalition now governing the nation, but also of the opposition Democratic Party of Japan. Only the Japanese Communist Party backed an independent candidate. The latter two parties were at the time boycotting Diet proceedings, a move sparked by the ruling coalition’s handling of a move to reduce the number of seats in the House of Representatives by 20. In line with a condition set down by the Liberal Party for its remaining in the coalition, the three partners pushed the bill through the Diet at the beginning of the current session, passing it in the absence of the opposition legislators.

The fundamental rules of democracy state that the legislature is a place to debate policies and that majority decisions carry the day; the opposition contention, however, was that sufficient time was not allowed to discuss the seat reduction bill. Faced with this odd situation of a group of legislators refusing to legislate, the public came to place the blame on both the ruling and opposition blocs, and the end result was to increase public mistrust of politics in general.

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The Japanese people must certainly be wondering what their representatives are up to at a time when there is little sign of strong economic recovery and any number of important topics remain to be discussed. An election must be held for the lower house no later than this autumn, and July will see the G8 summit held in Okinawa. Prime Minister Obuchi Keizô is sure to be carefully calculating the best time to call elections from the standpoint of his own LDP. Meanwhile, the opposition parties are pushing for early elections, hoping to create the impression that they forced the prime minister to dissolve the Diet, thereby enhancing their own appearance of strength. But people now see the ruling bloc in an unfavorable light and the opposition as unreliable, leaving them with no party for which they want to vote. So I fear that we may see very low voter turnout in the upcoming election. As with our February issue, we are not dedicating many pages to political matters this time. This is because the political situation remains opaque, and commentators are uncertain about what will happen.

ISHIHARA MAKES WAVES Just recently, as the Japanese people had been seeing their faith in national politics drain away, they witnessed an event that reminded them of strong leadership's potential to let fresh air into the seemingly ossified political and societal situations in Japan. On February 7 Tokyo Governor Ishihara Shintarô announced at a press conference a plan to levy a 3% regional tax on banks' gross profits—a policy that the central government has been talking about for years but has failed to implement. The Tokyo tax will be paid by banks with ¥5 trillion or more in funds available for lending, and will be levied for a period of five years. Laws governing regional taxation allow local governments to unilaterally impose this sort of tax, but this is the first time one has actually done so. The Tokyo metropolitan government is in dire fiscal straits, faced with a major decline in corporate tax revenues, and has been forced to reduce the level of services provided for residents and lower government officials' pay.

Confronted with the need to find new revenue sources, Ishihara has sought one in the banks operating in Tokyo. This is touted as an age of decentralization of power, and people are looking to local governments for fresh, independent ideas. It is no surprise that one focus of these ideas will be the tax system. The announcement of this plan, which Ishihara crafted behind closed doors, brought down the wrath of Financial Reconstruction Commission head Ochi Michio, who thundered that “we were not informed of this ahead of time.” The national government apparently insists on viewing the relationship between the center and the regions as a vertical one, keeping the reins of power in its own hands.

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Some have decried the unfairness of targeting only the banking industry for the tax increase. The banks, however, have received special treatment in the form of infusions of public funds to prop them up; and they have paid high salaries to their employees, racked up profits thanks to the central bank’s zero-interest policy, and handed out dividends to shareholders while using write-offs of their nonperforming assets to keep their books in the red, thus reducing their tax burden. No matter how one slices this situation, it is wrong for banks to avoid paying taxes. The governor’s thinking on this matter is shared by some 80% of the populace. Even people like me, who did not vote for Ishihara, are in agreement with his claims that the national government has been slow to act and people are fed up with it. Tokyoites are beginning to watch him closely, looking forward to the next move of a governor who appears to be in the vanguard of the forces of change in Japan. Governors in other prefectures, with their pitiful statements that this tax should have been applied uniformly across Japan, should be ashamed of themselves. They need to wake up to the fact that this is an age when new, persuasive ideas are what matter.

LOOKING AT JAPAN’S FUTURE As we move into the new millennium, we are seeing a spate of articles and speeches focusing on the historical significance of this milestone year and looking back over the half century since World War II, or reviewing the 1990s, or musing on Japan’s prospects in the coming century. In a number of ways, thinkers are groping for answers to questions like: What will happen to Japan in the next hundred years? What developments will we see in society and the lives of individuals? What must we do to prepare for these changes? One event sparking debate on these questions was the release by an advisory panel to the prime minister of a report painting a picture of what Japan should become in the twenty-first century. Kojima Akira, a member of our editorial board who also served on the advisory panel, comments on and summarizes its recommendations in this issue of Japan Echo.

Foreign players are coming to wield greater power on the Japanese economic scene. In the current atmosphere of financial crisis, they are making waves by buying up real estate and carrying out takeovers and mergers. We have included a section on this “ gaijin power,” which is making its impact felt throughout Japanese society.

Japan has long prided itself on its exceptionally low crime rate. Over the past couple of years, however, the police have been involved in a series of troubling misdeeds. In the most recent case to make the headlines, two officers in senior positions have been sacked, and the head of the National Police Agency has had part of his salary docked for his failure to prevent the incident. There is a clear need for reform both of the police system and of the functioning of the National Public Safety Commission, a group of citizens’ representatives who are supposed to act as a watchdog over the constabulary. As a member of this commission, I strongly feel the difficulty of winning public understanding under circumstances where information cannot be freely disclosed. (IWAO Sumiko)

© 2000 Japan Echo Inc.