The symbol of that change and the country’s incoming prime minister is 55-year-old Morihiro Hosokawa, who understood early that this time, finally, Japan was ready for some reform. The same Tokyo cynics who thought he’d never make it this far have already begun writing him off. He’s wishy-washy. He’ll be a pawn of ex-LDP power broker Ichiro Ozawa. His government will collapse quickly. He’s got skeletons in his closet. Don’t bet on any of this logic. Hosokawa’s ascension is a big plus not just for Japan but, in the longer term, for the United States.
The first thing that distinguishes Hosokawa from other Japanese politicians is that he’s an aristocrat, descended on both sides from feudal lords. His ancestral home in Kumamoto is grand by Japanese standards. The exquisite teahouse on the grounds is a reminder that the first Hosokawas helped establish the art of the tea ceremony. Buried nearby is Gracia Hosokawa, a legendary 16th-century Christian who was ordered murdered by her husband and became the model for the character Mariko in James Clavell’s best seller, “Shogun.”
More recent family history weighs heavily on Hosokawa. During the Meiji Restoration period in the 1860s, a key rebellion erupted nearby, but the Hosokawa overlords sat on their hands and missed a chance to shape the future. Between 1937 and 1941, Hosokawa’s maternal grandfather, Fumimaro Konoye, served as prime minister, but as the military dragged the country into World War II, he, too, stayed on the sidelines. (After the war be committed suicide before he could be tried as a war criminal.)
Hosokawa has his own equivocal style. Just last week he looked indecisive for flirting so long with the LDP before forming a government with other non-LDP parties. When asked last spring if his Japan New Party was a true consumers’ party, he answered yes, then paused and added: “Of course, producers are consumers, too.”
But when it counted, Hosokawa showed guts. “He made the move [14 months ago] before it became popular to jump off the sinking ship of the LDP,” says Columbia University professor Gerald Curtis, who has known Hosokawa for nearly 20 years. “He has this ability to be cool and detached but decisive when he needs to be.”
In May, Hosokawa said it would be “suicidal” to form a coalition with the corrupt faction led by Ozawa and Tsutomu Hata. Now that he has done so, the Machiavellian Ozawa may try to manipulate him. But Ozawa needed Hosokawa’s cooperation to put together a coalition that could drive the LDP out of power and Hosokawa knows it. Neither Ozawa nor the Socialist Party, which is hemorrhaging support, can afford to bolt the coalition or block serious efforts to clean up politics. The LDP’s new leader, Yohei Kono, is also a reformer, but not strong enough yet to unglue the coalition.
The new prime minister isn’t as charismatic as he’s cracked up to be; it’s his wife, Kayoko, who lights up the room. But he will be Japan’s first prime minister who is comfortable on TV, which will help him expand his base. His patrician bearing wears well, but he’ll need to be careful not to convey too much privilege. When he quit his job as a reporter for the Asahi Shirnbun in 1969, Hosokawa told one colleague that his long working hours were keeping his butler up too late.
Hosokawa has admitted to borrowing 100 million yen a decade ago from the founder of the Sagawa Kyubin parcel-delivery firm, since implicated in one of the biggest LDP scandals of all. But Hosokawa says he paid it back, and so far none of the rumors about him–including tabloid stories about alleged infidelity–have exploded in Ms face.
At the level of personal chemistry, relations with the United States will now improve. Even in their brief social chat last month in Tokyo, Clinton got along better with Hosokawa than he did with outgoing Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa. While Hosokawa’s coalition partners don’t want to allow cheap foreign rice into Japan–a key issue in trade talks–the new prime minister himself has supported lifting the ban. In fact, Hosokawa’s view of Japan’s structural problems actually parallels the American critique. As a governor, he complained loudly about meddling Tokyo bureaucrats–the same control freaks who anger American business. Instead of kowtowing to them, as most politicians do, Hosokawa says he is determined to confront their power.
If he truly undertakes that titanic struggle, the results could eventually be extremely positive, not just for the Japanese public (long under the thumb of the tight-money Ministry of Finance) but for Americans. Deregulation and decentralization are essential to American penetration of closed Japanese markets and eventual reduction of the swollen trade deficit.
Surprisingly, the new coalition announced last week that it would apologize to other Asian countries for Japan’s abuses during World War II. With his eye on Asian markets, Hosokawa may end up trying to lead his country away from its obsessive attitude toward the United States, a peculiar combination of superiority and inferiority complexes. That could eventually help put our relationship with the Japanese on a healthier, more equal footing.
