Analysis: Hatoyama Speech to 173rd Session of the Diet: Part 4

Written By: guyjin on November 2, 2009 No Comment

This is the final part of my discussion of Prime Minister Hatoyama’s speech to the Diet last week. In the final part of his speech, Hatoyama discussed Japan’s role in the international community, touching on each of the major issues facing Japan including those that he discussed at the United Nations recently. The main topics that he mentioned here were the environment, nuclear proliferation, US-Japan relations, Afghanistan and Pakistan support, North Korea, Japan-Russia relations, and Japan’s relationship with East Asia. I will touch on each of these below.

Firstly the environment. This is a topic that I have already covered from Hatoyama’s trip to the UN (see Hatoyama’s Speech to the UN), but what is most striking about Hatoyama’s remarks here are that he gives his greenhouse gas emissions target several major qualifiers. He says that his target of reducing these emissions by 25% of 1990 levels by 202 is:

“premised on the creation of a fair and effective international framework which includes all major economies and an agreement on ambitious targets by each of them”.

In other words, if all of the major economies (read US, China, India etc) do not make ambitious targets, then Japan’s proposal is null and void. Since their is a very low likelihood of China and India coming out with ambitious targets in the near future, and with the US themselves likely to be locked in a major battle to pass ambitious targets through their Congress, the Hatoyama plan may not be worth the paper that it is printed on….

I also discussed Hatoyama’s thoughts on nuclear proliferation in a recent post (see Hatoyama Addresses UN). In this speech, he reiterates his desire for a nuclear free world, and expresses his support for President Obama’s proposals. He says that Japan is the one country that can most persuasively argue against nuclear weapons, and pledges to serve as a “bridge” to take steps towards nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation. Unfortunately there is no discussion on just how that might be accomplished, or how rogue states and dictators may be persuaded to give up their nuclear ambitions…

Hatoyama addresses the US-Japan relationship from the position of seeking to be treated as an “equal”. Just what this means in a policy sense is unclear, since he fails to give any specifics, including in regard to the realignment of US forces. Specifics are also missing from his discussion of Afghanistan and Pakistan. It seems clear that the administration is not yet clear themselves as to how they will handle the January 2010 deadline for the extension of support activities. Hatoyama does state that Japan will look to provide “agricultural assistance, vocational training for former combatants and the reinforcement of police functions”. But just how and when and to what extent these will take place is not clear, especially given that it is highly unlikely that the Japanese government will be sponsoring missions directly on the ground at this point in time. There was no indication in this speech as to the fate of the replenishment support activities that are underway in the Indian Ocean.

After addressing these issues, Hatoyama gives a brief acknowledgement of outstanding issues with North Korea and Russia. As for North Korea, he pledges to continue Six-Party talks aimed at de-nuclearisation, and to resolve the abduction issue “using all conceivable means”. He also signals a desire to once and for all seek a final settlement to the Northern Territories issue with Russia, and to conclude a long-awaited peace treaty.

Japan’s relationship with East Asia gets more than a third of his foreign policy exposition, with Hatoyama laying out some of the ways in which he feels that Japan can serve as a bridge “linking east and west, developed and developing countries, and diverse cultures”. This idea of Japan as a bridge is hardly a new one, but Hataoyama seems determined to extend ties throughout South East Asia, through humanitarian, economic and cultural means. He announces an intention to significantly expand international students in Japan and Japanese people studying abroad, and “greatly increase the number of specialists in the various languages and cultures of the region”.

The Prime Minister wraps his speech up with a return to his favorite word, yuai. He speaks of a “bloodless Heisei Reformation” that is taking place, restoring sovereign power to the people. It is true that the DPJ victory in the recent election brought about a major change in Japanese politics, and that it was a truly historic event. But some of the rhetoric at the end of the speech does go a little too far in terms of the scale of the event:

“To enable Japan to walk down the right path, I will stand at the fore, pushing forward novel policies designed to protect the daily lives of the Japanese people. I will attain the public’s active participation in politics and government and together with the people I will devote my utmost efforts to changing history in the true sense and leading Japan to a dramatic leap higher”.

These words near the end of the speech sound like they have been pulled word for word from a Barack Obama speech. There is almost a hint of arrogance at the idea that we need Hatoyama standing before us, “to enable [us] to walk down the right path”. And also in the idea that we require him to “change history”. Sure, there are many challenges ahead, and many things that require work and change. But personally I prefer politicians, even leaders, to acknowledge that it is the people that make the history, and that choose the paths that they will walk. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt, that this is what he meant…. On the whole, I felt that Hatoyama came across as genuine in this speech, and I have no doubt that he feels the empathies and sympathies that he purports to throughout the speech. I find some of his remedies naive, and others utterly incomplete, so it will be interesting to see how he goes about governing.