Sept. 4, 2009
Japan’s next prime minister Hatoyama looks to Asia
Yukio Hatoyama, 62, Japan’s incoming prime minister, hopes to reshape Japan’s diplomatic policy while focusing on its identity as an Asian country. His initiative, if successful, may amount to a review of Japan’s quest to be an influential member of the rich Western nations’ club since the Meiji Era. Japan is the only Asian country which succeeded in modernizing itself to counter waves of colonization by Western powers since the 19th century. This tended to cause the Japanese to give greater emphasis to Western values than Asian values. Japanese people sometimes forget even today that they are Asians. Japan’s hard work for nation-building since the second half of the 19th century was carried out under the slogan “Pull out of Asia to enter the Western world.” Hatoyama’s pro-Asia agenda may be called “Pull out of the U.S. dominance to reenter Asia.”
In an essay contributed to the Aug. 27 electronic edition of The New York Times, Hatoyama called for creating an East Asian community. “We must not forget our identity as a nation located in Asia,” he said. The East Asian region “must be recognized as Japan’s basic sphere of being.” He bases the idea on his pet word “fraternity.” Fraternity can be a principle that aims to protect countries’ citizens from the unrestricted market fundamentalism and financial capitalism which have caused human dignity to be lost, the new Japanese leader says.
U.S. policymakers in Washington have raised their eyebrows at what he broached in the essay. They fear that Hatoyama and his 11-year-old Democratic Party of Japan may move to reexamine Japan’s longstanding security alliance with the United States. The DPJ won 308 of the 480 seats of the all-important House of Representatives in a landslide in the Aug. 30 general elections. This put an end to the long dominance of the pro-Washington Liberal Democratic Party in Japan's politics. Hatoyama will be elected Japan’s next prime minister in the Diet, Japan’s parliament, on Sept. 16. In a telephone conversation with President Barack Obama three days after his election win, Hatoyama reassured him that the security treaty between Japan and the United States will continue to be the “cornerstone” of Japan’s foreign policy. But more time should be necessary for the two countries to fully understand each other under the new Japanese leader’s regime.
In an essay contributed to the Aug. 27 electronic edition of The New York Times, Hatoyama called for creating an East Asian community. “We must not forget our identity as a nation located in Asia,” he said. The East Asian region “must be recognized as Japan’s basic sphere of being.” He bases the idea on his pet word “fraternity.” Fraternity can be a principle that aims to protect countries’ citizens from the unrestricted market fundamentalism and financial capitalism which have caused human dignity to be lost, the new Japanese leader says.
U.S. policymakers in Washington have raised their eyebrows at what he broached in the essay. They fear that Hatoyama and his 11-year-old Democratic Party of Japan may move to reexamine Japan’s longstanding security alliance with the United States. The DPJ won 308 of the 480 seats of the all-important House of Representatives in a landslide in the Aug. 30 general elections. This put an end to the long dominance of the pro-Washington Liberal Democratic Party in Japan's politics. Hatoyama will be elected Japan’s next prime minister in the Diet, Japan’s parliament, on Sept. 16. In a telephone conversation with President Barack Obama three days after his election win, Hatoyama reassured him that the security treaty between Japan and the United States will continue to be the “cornerstone” of Japan’s foreign policy. But more time should be necessary for the two countries to fully understand each other under the new Japanese leader’s regime.
Hatoyama, a Stanford University PHD and a scholar-turned politician, entered politics in 1986 when he was 39. He will be the first Japanese prime minister with a scientific educational background. Hatoyama was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. His father was a foreign minister, his grandfather was a prime minister and his great-grandfather was a lower house speaker and a samurai's son.
Hatoyama is nicknamed as “a being from outer space.” This reflects the fact that his character and behavior are unusual as a Japanese politician and hard to grasp. He does not care about being so called, though the term sounds slightly insulting. He sometimes introduces himself by using the nickname. This itself shows why he is called a being from outer space.
In the essay, titled “A New Path for Japan,” he referred to China’s increasing presence in the global political and economic scenes. He stressed that Japan should think how to maintain its political and economic independence when caught between the United States and China. He is well aware of the need for Japan to maintain good relations with China in order to establish the proposed East Asian community.
Hatoyama is nicknamed as “a being from outer space.” This reflects the fact that his character and behavior are unusual as a Japanese politician and hard to grasp. He does not care about being so called, though the term sounds slightly insulting. He sometimes introduces himself by using the nickname. This itself shows why he is called a being from outer space.
In the essay, titled “A New Path for Japan,” he referred to China’s increasing presence in the global political and economic scenes. He stressed that Japan should think how to maintain its political and economic independence when caught between the United States and China. He is well aware of the need for Japan to maintain good relations with China in order to establish the proposed East Asian community.
Relations between the two Asian powers became shaky from time to time in recent years over Japanese political leaders’ visits to a war-related Shinto shrine in Tokyo. Hatoyama has made clear that he will refrain from visiting the shrine, which has been criticized as a symbol of the militarist Japan. Japan owes numerous things to China through centuries-long interchanges. Japan made hard efforts in the ancient years to import China's cultures and knowledge. Some people sent on such missions to China lost their lives during voyages across the sea, while some others perished in China. Nakamaro Abe, an eighth century politician who served China’s Tang Dynasty, composed the following waka poem while longing for a return to Japan :
When I look at the night sky, the moon is shining far above,
the same moon as I saw on Mikasa Hill in Kasuga a long time ago.
(A personal translation)
Nakamaro was sent to China as a young student. He could never return to Japan and died in China after spending over 50 years as a top official of the dynasty there. The most vitally important things Japan imported from China include “kanji” Chinese letters. Japanese cannot express their language without kanji letters. Japanese have two separate kinds of letters—hiragana and katakana letters. These phonetic letters also originate from kanji letters. Some linguists advocated abolishing the use of kanji letters in the Meiji Era, but they failed. This episode is little remembered today. Elsewhere in the Chinese letter cultural zone, Korea invented its own letter structure, the Hangle alphabet, in the 15th century, and the use of Chinese letters is limited in their ordinary life today. Vietnamese adopted the Western alphabet to spell their language under French colonial rule. Japan’s continued use of kanji letters enables Japanese to “talk” with their Chinese friends by writing down sentences with kanji letters. This reminds them of the cultural closeness between the two countries.
Hatoyama will try to find a narrow path between the two difficult jobs of adapting the decades-old security alliance with the United States to today's political environment and building favorable relations with China. His pursuit of the dual missions is unlikely to be a success immediately. The Japanese voters who have given his party a mandate to renovate Japan’s politics must be patient until Hatoyama and the DPJ find an answer to their challenges related to its Asian and Pacific neighbors.
When I look at the night sky, the moon is shining far above,
the same moon as I saw on Mikasa Hill in Kasuga a long time ago.
(A personal translation)
Nakamaro was sent to China as a young student. He could never return to Japan and died in China after spending over 50 years as a top official of the dynasty there. The most vitally important things Japan imported from China include “kanji” Chinese letters. Japanese cannot express their language without kanji letters. Japanese have two separate kinds of letters—hiragana and katakana letters. These phonetic letters also originate from kanji letters. Some linguists advocated abolishing the use of kanji letters in the Meiji Era, but they failed. This episode is little remembered today. Elsewhere in the Chinese letter cultural zone, Korea invented its own letter structure, the Hangle alphabet, in the 15th century, and the use of Chinese letters is limited in their ordinary life today. Vietnamese adopted the Western alphabet to spell their language under French colonial rule. Japan’s continued use of kanji letters enables Japanese to “talk” with their Chinese friends by writing down sentences with kanji letters. This reminds them of the cultural closeness between the two countries.
Hatoyama will try to find a narrow path between the two difficult jobs of adapting the decades-old security alliance with the United States to today's political environment and building favorable relations with China. His pursuit of the dual missions is unlikely to be a success immediately. The Japanese voters who have given his party a mandate to renovate Japan’s politics must be patient until Hatoyama and the DPJ find an answer to their challenges related to its Asian and Pacific neighbors.
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