Year in Review 2005 Japan

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Introduction
Area:
377,899 sq km (145,908 sq mi)
Population
(2005 est.): 128,085,000
Capital:
Tokyo
Symbol of state:
Emperor Akihito
Head of government:
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi
Domestic Affairs.

An election that nobody wanted produced a hallmark in Japanese politics in 2005 that nobody expected. For the first time since the end of World War II, Japanese voters handed a government more than two-thirds of the seats in the powerful lower house of the Diet (parliament). The surprise early election, which was held on September 11, came about as a result of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's refusal to accept defeat on postal reform—a goal he had been seeking throughout much of his political career. In early August some 30 members of Koizumi's own Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) joined the opposition in the upper house of the Diet to vote down Koizumi's plan to privatize Japan's postal service, the country's largest savings and insurance institution. The plan had earlier passed the lower house by a mere five votes. Rejecting the advice of advisers who warned him against staging an election when his party was split, Koizumi carried through on his threats to dissolve the lower house should his privatization bills end in defeat. He then purged antireform members of his party and handpicked high-profile, pro-reform candidates (described by the media as “assassins”) to run against them. The prime minister also made a direct appeal to voters for postal reform and declared that he would resign if his coalition government lost its majority “even by one seat.”

Koizumi's gamble paid off. Predictions that Japanese voters would for the first time carry out a change of government evaporated as the LDP won the largest percentage of seats in any election since 1969 and scored the biggest-ever single-election gain. With the LDP claiming 296 of the 480 contested seats (a pickup of 84 seats) and its coalition partner, the Buddhist-backed New Komeito Party, taking another 31 seats, the ruling coalition increased its presence in the lower house to a commanding 327 seats. The main opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) saw its share dwindle from 175 to 113 seats. So overwhelming was the coalition victory that leaders of both the LDP and the New Komeito Party called for Koizumi to continue serving as prime minister after his term as party president ended in September 2006. Koizumi, however, said that he had promised many times to step down on schedule and would not change his mind now.

DPJ leader Katsuya Okada resigned even before the vote counting ended. He was replaced by Seiji Maehara, who at the age of 43 became the youngest Japanese politician ever selected to head a major party. In a vote by party members, Maehara, an expert on security issues who favoured strong ties with the U.S., won by two votes over former DPJ leader Naoto Kan. Maehara promised to “revitalize” the DPJ, eliminate waste in government spending, and push for a revision of Japan's no-war constitution to include the right of “collective self-defense.”

Several factors that had an impact on the election underscored the current strength of the LDP. One was that an unprecedented number of highly qualified women agreed to run for the LDP instead of for the opposition. A record 26 female LDP candidates won seats. A second factor was the resumption of political contributions to the LDP from the powerful Japan Keidanren, a pro-business lobby group. In 1994 the group had halted contributions when the LDP appeared to be losing power. Another factor was the continuing success of politicians who took over seats in the Diet formerly occupied by their fathers, grandfathers, or other relatives. Of all winning candidates this time, 125 won “inherited seats.” Of those, 107 were Liberal Democrats.

The only negative for the LDP was its continuing reliance upon the New Komeito Party. Drawing upon members of a Buddhist laymen's group, the Soka Gakkai, who were expected to support the party as part of their religious practices, the New Komeito had been a coalition partner of the LDP since 1999. It had backed Liberal Democratic candidates running in single-seat districts in exchange for the LDP's support for the New Komeito's proportional representation lists from which the bulk of its politicians was elected. Many Japanese observers believed that the LDP could not win a majority without the New Komeito's support.

In the aftermath of the election, Koizumi returned his postal reform bills to the Diet, where the legislation sailed through the lower house and won approval in the upper house by a 134–100 vote in October. Privatization of the postal service was to be completed in stages by the year 2017, with shares going on sale to the public beginning in 2007. Whether the postal service's estimated ¥330 trillion (about $2.9 trillion) in assets would actually be put under the control of the private sector and how many jobs the privatized postal company would maintain remained unclear.

By year's end, speculation had begun to mount over possible successors to the prime minister. Shinzo Abe, the 51-year-old chief cabinet secretary, was viewed by many as the front-runner, but he, like Koizumi and Yasuo Fukuda, 69, a former chief cabinet secretary who also was touted as a potential leader, belonged to the faction of LDP politicians headed by former prime minister Yoshiro Mori. Choosing a third consecutive prime minister from the same faction would violate the ruling party's tradition of balancing power. Other possibilities were Finance Minister Sadakazu Tanigaki, 60, and Taro Aso, 65, who was appointed foreign minister in a new cabinet Koizumi formed on October 31.


The Economy.

The Japanese economy took an upturn in 2005. Stock prices rose 40.2%, the biggest spurt since 1986, while corporate profits expanded and unemployment dropped. The government announced that the economy grew at an annualized rate of 5.3% during the first quarter of the year and at an annualized 3.3% during the second quarter. The Economist magazine predicted that Japan's economy would grow by 2.2% in 2005 and by 2% in 2006—better than the average 1% real annual growth since 1992. Toshihiko Fukui, governor of the Bank of Japan, indicated that by the third quarter of 2005, rising oil prices had begun to “subdue” growth but would not send it back into decline.

Fukui also pointed to the likelihood that by the summer of 2006, the central bank would move away from its decade-long policy of suppressing interest rates to virtually zero. Koizumi opposed such a move, however. “It's too early. Deflation still exists,” he declared in mid-November. Fukui admitted that the zero-interest policy had deprived Japanese households of interest income totaling ¥154 trillion (about $1.34 trillion) between 1993 and 2002. Nonetheless, Fitch Ratings, in a special report issued on May 6, predicted that Japan could grow 2% a year in real terms over the next five years, with corporate investment providing the main domestic driving force. Externally, Japan's burgeoning trade with China and the U.S. provided a huge prop.

According to figures announced in September by the National Tax Agency, average wages for full-time employees in 2004 fell to ¥4.39 million (about $38,000), down 1.2% from the previous year. Much of the decline occurred as companies hired more part-time workers to trim personnel costs. The percentage of workers who were not in full-time jobs rose to 35% in 2004. Japan's unemployment rate, however, dropped to 4.2% in June—the lowest it had been since mid-1998.

In central Tokyo a construction boom helped drive up land prices for the first time after 15 years of decline. In Nagoya, Japan's fourth largest city, the new Chubu International Airport opened—astonishingly ¥130 billion (about $1.13 billion) under budget. The 2005 World Expo, held over the course of six months in central Aichi prefecture, was an overwhelming success. The event attracted an estimated 22 million visitors—7 million more than originally anticipated—and infused some ¥1.3 trillion (about $11.3 billion) into the regional economy.

Major corporations in Japan announced new plans during the year that were aimed at trimming losses. Sony Corp. unveiled a plan to slash 10,000 jobs and close 11 factories as the once high-flying electronics and entertainment giant faced its first annual loss in more than a decade. In March Sony appointed Howard Stringer (see Biographies) its chairman and CEO. Sanyo Electric said that it would eliminate 15,000 jobs by 2008, but as it later announced an outlook for a 72% drop in operating profits, the company decided to move up 10,000 of the cuts to January 2006. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., announced that it would spend ¥68 billion (about $600 million) to take over control of Seiyu as the Japanese supermarket chain projected its fourth consecutive loss since the American giant first purchased a stake in the company in 2002.

Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Inc., came into existence on October 1 as the world's largest banking group in terms of assets. The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi and UFJ Bank were scheduled to join the group on Jan. 1, 2006, and become its core units. The new group would hold an estimated ¥190 trillion (about $1.64 trillion) in assets—a sum that was roughly 40% of Japan's GDP. It would assume responsibility for repaying the ¥1.5 trillion (about $12.9 billion) that the government had injected into UFJ Bank to help it clean up its bad loans. Repayment was to be completed by March 2008.

Deaths exceeded births by about 10,000 persons, which indicated that Japan's looming decline in population had started two years earlier than expected.


Foreign Affairs.

Although Prime Minister Koizumi's cozy relations with U.S. Pres. George W. Bush continued throughout the year, Japan's overall diplomacy suffered a series of setbacks in 2005.

Frictions with China reached a new high. The trouble began when Japan's Ministry of Education approved a textbook for use in junior high schools that mentioned only that “many” Chinese were victimized during the 1937–38 Nanking Massacre without describing details of the mass atrocities of murder and rape committed by the Japanese military while destroying the Chinese city. Although fewer than 1% of the schools in Japan actually selected the textbook, demonstrations ensued in Beijing, Shanghai, and other Chinese cities that turned into near riots. Chinese police stood by as more than 10,000 protesters hurled bottles, stones and other objects at the Japanese embassy in Beijing and consulate general in Shanghai. Vandals also trashed private shops that served Japanese food or sold Japanese goods.

The Japanese government issued an official protest on April 16 against China's failure to halt the vandalism. When Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura demanded an apology and payment for damages, his Chinese counterpart, Li Zhaoxing, responded that “the Chinese government has never done anything for which it has to apologize to the Japanese people.” Later, when Vice Premier Wu Yi became the most senior Chinese official to have visited Japan in two years, Japanese exploded with anger after Wu flew home on May 23 without a word of apology, snubbing a scheduled meeting with Koizumi. Beijing officials explained that her abrupt departure was meant to protest remarks that Koizumi had made justifying his visits to the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, where Japan's war dead—including 14 World War II leaders executed for “war crimes”—were enshrined. On June 7 Machimura called China's criticism of the Yasukuni visits “absurd” and defended the controversial textbook.

The uproar attracted major international attention, inducing Koizumi to make two blanket apologies on top of some 20 previous statements of remorse for Japan's wartime aggression and colonialism. He made one of the apologies at a meeting of Asian and African nations in Jakarta and the other in Tokyo on the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II. Nonetheless, as an autumn religious festival began at Yasukuni on October 17, Koizumi paid his fifth visit to the shrine since he became prime minister in 2001. China and South Korea immediately protested, and China canceled a scheduled visit to Beijing by Foreign Minister Machimura. Koizumi declared that he visited the shrine to pay respects to Japan's war dead and to pledge that Japan would remain “a country of peace that will never launch a war again.” Foreign governments, he added, “should not intervene in a matter of the heart” for Japanese people.

Also exacerbating relations between Japan and China were disputes over an island chain held by Japan in the South China Sea, Chinese drilling for natural gas in waters near Japan's exclusive economic zone, and Japan's worries about burgeoning increases in China's military budget. In addition, China launched a campaign against Japan's bid to win a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. (See China: Sidebar.) Although President Bush and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, during separate visits to Japan, declared that Washington supported Japan's becoming a permanent member of the UN Security Council, both refrained from offering to Japan veto power that was now held by all of the current permanent Security Council members, including China. American officials explained that the U.S. did not want to weaken the decision-making power of the council. The snub, however, dealt a major blow to Japan's prestige. In September Machimura announced that Japan would seek to reduce its 19.4% share of contributions to the UN budget—an amount that exceeded the combined 15.3% that permanent members Britain, France, China, and Russia paid together. Japan's payments ranked second only to those of the U.S., which contributed 22% of the UN budget.

Lesser issues with the U.S. added irritations to the Tokyo-Washington relationship throughout the year. By September, U.S. congressmen demanded that the White House impose sanctions against Japan for failing to lift a ban on imports of American beef imposed in 2003 when a single cow in Washington state had tested positive for mad cow disease. Only in December did Japan finally lift the ban after asserting that the U.S. had to limit its exports to cattle not older than 20 months (an age group in which no cases of mad cow disease had been found). Japan and the U.S. finally agreed—after nine years of negotiations—on a plan to relocate a U.S. Marine air station on the island of Okinawa. Ambassador Thomas Schieffer, meanwhile, announced that the U.S. Navy would base a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier for the first time at the Yokosuka naval base after the conventionally powered USS Kitty Hawk was decommissioned in 2008. Local residents in both Okinawa and Yokosuka immediately opposed the moves despite a revelation that 7,000 Marines would be relocated to Guam “to reduce the footprint” of American troops in Japan. In December, Koizumi authorized an extension for up to one year of Japan's deployment of 550 noncombat troops in Iraq.

New tensions arose in Japan's relations with the two Koreas. South Korean Pres. Roh Moo Hyun retracted a promise to stop making a political issue of Japan's colonial rule of Korea and condemned Japan for continuing to claim sovereignty over two tiny islands off the coast of South Korea. North Korea, which Koizumi had visited twice in an attempt to establish diplomatic relations, told Japan that negotiations were “finished” over Tokyo's demands for detailed explanations of what had happened to the more than 100 Japanese citizens believed to have been abducted by North Korean agents between the 1970s and the late '90s.

Relations with Russia, meanwhile, remained in a stalemate. Even before he visited Tokyo in November, Pres. Vladimir Putin declared in a televised “town hall” meeting with Russian citizens in September that four northern islands claimed by Japan were “under Russian sovereignty”—a status he said was “fixed in international law.” He and Koizumi agreed to enlarge business cooperation but were unable to issue any statement on the territorial dispute. Although Soviet troops had entered World War II against Japan only six days before Japan's surrender, they seized the four islands off the coast of Hokkaido after the war ended. The two countries restored diplomatic relations in 1956, but they had yet to sign a peace treaty.


Sam Jameson

      Japan." Encyclopædia Britannica from Encyclopædia Britannica 2007 Ultimate Reference Suite . (2007).

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