Word: hatoyamas
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After Japan's momentous election on Aug. 30, when the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) hammered the long-serving Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), both American and Japanese commentators picked up on a remark by Prime Minister - in-waiting Yukio Hatoyama that there needed to be more "balance" in the U.S.-Japan relationship, read an article in which Hatoyama criticized the U.S. and wondered about the solidity of the alliance between Tokyo and Washington. Then Hatoyama called U.S. President Barack Obama and told him that of course - of course! - the alliance was the bedrock of Japanese foreign policy, and everyone relaxed...
...first place, the DPJ's interest in finding a new balance is not just a matter of Hatoyama's speeches. Ichiro Ozawa, the veteran politician who is now the party's general secretary, has argued for decades that Japan should be a "normal" country, with its own foreign- and domestic-policy priorities, set in relation to its own interests. Ozawa is not anti-American; when I spoke to him earlier this year, he stressed that the U.S.-Japan alliance is "the most important relationship for Japan." But at the same time, Ozawa insisted that in "global disputes," Japan should take...
...Second, the article by Hatoyama that caused so much fuss does not read like an Op-Ed dashed off by a summer intern. It is a thoughtful and quite radical analysis of how globalization and the financial crisis have changed the landscape in which Japan and the U.S. find themselves. Hatoyama said that Japan had been "buffeted by the winds of market fundamentalism in a U.S.-led movement that is usually called globalization," and criticized a "way of thinking based on the idea that American-style free-market economics represents a universal and ideal economic order." "The influence...
...overwhelmed with feeling," said Hatoyama at his debut press conference, describing his reaction to being elected Prime Minister, "and at the same time I felt a hefty responsibility on my shoulders." The heft is more than responsibility: it is the weight of an entire nation - and a shadow shogun - looking over his shoulder...
...Hatoyama is dead serious about changing the way Japan is governed," says Columbia University's Curtis, who points out that his Cabinet appointments clearly demonstrate the DPJ's view that ministerial positions are critical to policy, that important decisions won't be left to the bureaucrats as in past administrations. "[The new Cabinet] is not simply a change of characters in a game that continues to be played in the same way as before. They're serious about changing the way that government works - and that's reflected in this Cabinet." Hatoyama has surrounded himself with key DPJ executives...