A Beautiful Country, Japan: Part 1
(Note: This essay is the first in a four part series examining Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s “A Beautiful Country, Japan” Initiative)
Part 1: Culture, Tradition, History and Nature
In his policy speech to the Diet on October 2nd, Prime Minister Abe laid out the four pillars of his “A Beautiful Country, Japan” initiative. In describing the first of these pillars, Abe stated, “‘A beautiful country, Japan’ is a country that values culture, tradition, history and nature.” Although Abe spoke less on this topic than the other three, I think it’s worth looking at what he had to say and how what he might do as prime minister could be intimated.
Although he made no direct reference to policies targeting culture and tradition, Abe did declare that reform of the social security system is necessary in order to “construct a sustainable Japanese-style social security system that places value on the spirit of self-reliance and is easy to understand and reliable.” Abe indicated that by the term “social security system,” he was referring to the nation’s pension, medical care and nursing systems.
The social security system with its pensions, medical care and nursing at its core is an extension of the spirit of mutual help that the Japanese people have possessed intrinsically.
Whether or not one agrees with the above assertion, it is telling. With an aging population, the continuance and administration of these three social institutions will prove to have an increasingly burdonsome effect on the national social security system.
In its response to Mr Abe’s statements on this issue, the conservative Yomiuri Shimbun stated:
…Problems facing the health sector–including an excessive work burden on doctors and nurses, depopulated regions suffering from a dearth of doctors and the large number of hospitals on the brink of bankruptcy–cannot be resolved simply through changes to medical charges…It is clear that there should be a strategic review of the entire medical service system, not just debate on the pros and cons regarding revisions to medical bills.
This sounds like a much larger project than what Mr Abe has proposed. The prime minister’s comments impy that due to the intrinsic nature of Japanese people, the elderly will be properly cared for, if national government policy can guide them to the right path.
Although data from the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare show a continued increase in the number of nurses working in Japan as well as increases in the numbers of doctors and dentists, many worry that the number of health care practictioners remains too low and that many accidents are caused at hospitals due to the shortage of nurses.
The idea of importing foreign nurses to work in Japan has been proposed, not least by private industry leaders who stand to benefit from providing training courses to potential nurses. To this end, at the 2004 ASEAN summit in Laos, the Japanese government agreed to allow a quota of 400-500 nurses from the Philippines to work in Japan provided that they acquire a Japanese nursing license. The Philippine government had argued for a demand-driven limit on the number of nurses; that the Japanese government yielded restrictions on its labor laws at all remains somewhat surprising to this observer.
The above plan to allow nurses from the Philippines can be seen as something of an experiment. Whether or not it succeeds will depend on several factors, many of them out of the control of the guest workers themselves. If the experiment is to be successful, the nurses must be accepted and treated properly by their places of employment, and trusted by their patients. This issue strikes at another aspect of Japanese society and culture: with a declining birthrate and thus, a declining workforce, will foreign laborers be permitted to enter Japan and contribute to the labor force? Will they find job opportunites open to them or will they be rejected by a populace that treats them with suspicion? History suggests difficult times ahead for the first wave of foreign workers.
History forms another beam in this first pillar of Mr Abe’s “A Beautiful Country, Japan” initiative. A recent New York Times editorial declared:
Nothing is more important to Japan’s prosperity and security than normal relations with [China]. An ugly, but increasingly distant, history of Japanese aggression and war crimes stands in the way. Mr. Koizumi, in one of the greatest errors of his administration, deliberately glorified this history, playing into the hands of Chinese leaders who often use nationalism to distract their people from official corruption and political repression.
Mr. Abe needs to extricate Japan from this destructive dynamic. The first step should be declaring that he will not continue Mr. Koizumi’s provocative practice of visiting the Yasukuni Shrine, where the spirits of convicted war criminals are honored.
Some will agree enthusiastically with the Times’ assessment; others will disagree vehemently and claim that China, with all its human rights abuses, has no place in trying to take the moral high ground from Japan.
Regardless of opinion, from a practical standpoint, it is difficult to maintain bilateral relations at the highest diplomatic levels when the emotional charge of history remains such a roadblock. Abe’s challenge is to remove this roadblock so that Japan and China can move on to discuss more important issues, such as trade and the environment. This challenge, however, does not sit only with Abe; China’s leaders must also be willing to work together without seeing eye to eye with the prime minister’s view of history.
Some have even labelled Abe as dangerous: Liberal commentator Minoru Morita has said that Abe might be, “the politician who could lead this country to war.” On September 15, a group of citizens in Tokyo’s Suginami Ward filed a lawsuit against then-Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe and the Liberal Democratic Party with the Tokyo District Court, “claiming they broke the law by intervening in the approval process for a revisionist history text,” according to the Japan Times.
The prime minister is a supporter of having ‘patriotism’ taught in Japan’s public schools, and to have elementary school students graded on how well they display love for their country. In a recent Japan Times editorial, Roger Pulvers asks:
“Is “Japan the beautiful” just another national mythic concept, like the samurai spirit and the divine Emperor, to rally all Japanese into a malleable lump under the flag of the Rising Sun?”
This writer would like to give a strong negative response to the above question. It is quite common for foreign observers in Japan to overplay the ‘groupthink’ of the Japanese people. Comparing the policy initiatives of a prime minister in 2006, despite how nationalistic his views may be, to the wartime education system that demanded emperor worship and loyalty to the death, is just plain misguided and foolish.
Finally, we get to nature. Mr Abe actually spoke quite little about nature, and retained a tone of almost aggressive vagueness. He had this to say:
In order to honor Japan’s commitments under the Kyoto Protocol beginning in 2008, I will steadily advance the Kyoto Protocol Target Attainment Plan. The government is also working on a global warming prevention plan under the concept of starting with matters that are easily addressable: by promoting the introduction of solar power generation and rooftop vegetation on government buildings, including those in local (sic) regions. Moreover, I will also accelerate the use of biomass, including the use of bioethanol as a vehicle fuel.
Vague to say the least: no numbers, no targets, no names. It strikes this observer that most of this cause will be taken up by private industry, with perhaps some targets given by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, and that only those branches leading to profit will truly be pursued.
In a sense, this is what Mr Abe’s policy speech is meant to provide: a guideline for various ministries to employ in their development of public policy. That policy, traditionally, is meted out to the industry leaders at lunches and dinners throught some of the smokier rooms in Tokyo. In the end, whether or not any concreteness will be added to the prime minister’s pillar will depend largely upon what goes on in those meetings.
In the next part of this series, we’ll be looking at the beauty of a free society underpinned by discipline and dignity.
Related Posts:
