Mr. Koizumi is Gone, Long Reign Mr. Koizumi
// The Outgoing Japanese Prime Minister Leaves Some Big Shoes to Fill
In the slightly more than ten years before Junichiro Koizumi, a dozen good fellows served as Japanese prime minister, but do we remember a single one of them today? If we remember anyone, it is Ryucharo Hashimoto – known as "friend Ru" thanks to the immediate and good-natured reaction of Boris Yeltsin, who enjoyed a wonderful bit of fishing on the Yenisey River with his Japanese colleague. Still, that event is probably absent from our short memories: before Koizumi there were no real prominent personalities in Japanese politics, no charismatic figures distinguished by a vivid individuality. Instead, there was a kind of collective intellect represented by the leadership of the country's unchanging ruling party, the Liberal Democratic Party – something along the lines of the Soviet Politburo, Japanese style. And the country's leader, who was elected not by the people but by this Japanese Politburo, conscientiously repeated what the Politburo demanded from him.
This stage in the life of modern Japan ended with Junichiro Koizumi. Mr. Koizumi, with a surprising lightness uncharacteristic of his cautious predecessors, stormed the bulwarks, promulgating one plan after another for revolutionary overhauls of Japan's economic and political systems. The arguments that flared up five years ago concerning whether he is a great reformer or a big schemer still have not been settled. In Japan there are both those who adore him and those who cannot stand him. But no one is indifferent, and that is the main outcome of his leadership. Koizumi rescued his compatriots from political frigidity; he roused a complacent, slumbering society from hibernation. And in terms of Japan, whose citizens for decades considered politics to be the preserve of a small group of functionaries from the ruling party who decided the fate of the country in tightly closed, smoke-filled backrooms or in the half-light of Tokyo bars, that counts for a lot.
But that is still not all. The outgoing prime minister has set the bar high for his successors: after him no Japanese prime minister will be able to get away with being nothing more than the party's mouthpiece. After all, the Japanese people have already seen that politicians and politics can be different – i.e., they can be alive. Now, consciously or not, they will be comparing the new cabinet chiefs with Mr. Koizumi. And in order not to lose in the eyes of the electorate, future prime ministers will not only have to try to do the same things, and in the same spirit, as Junichiro Koizumi – they will have to try to do them better (whether they will succeed is another question).
As such, the leadership of Mr. Koizumi's replacement, Shinzo Abe, promises to be a dramatic period for Japan, one with sharp moves from side to side and steps by the country's leader that are brave occasionally to the point of folly. This was the kind of impulsive politics practiced by Mr. Koizumi, and that, for all of its minuses, was its strength and its appeal to Japanese society. Shinzo Abe and those who come after him will certainly use this know-how.
With regard to relations with Russia and the notorious territorial problems that resurface from time to time, we have nothing to fear. Not that there is much of anything to calculate with. Japan, after all, has never been a priority for Russia, nor Russia for Japan. Everyone has long been accustomed to this state of affairs; everyone is calm, even if they are possibly dissatisfied. And anyway here the role of an individual, even one on the largest scale, is minimal.
Sergey Strokan
All the Article in Russian as of Sep. 21, 2006
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