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- [00:00]
A
I'm going to the opening season game of the Giants versus The. No, I'm losing it. What's the Osaka team?
- [00:11]
B
Hanshin Tigers. That's awesome. And it's in Tokyo Dome, right? So you're going to the.
- [00:15]
A
It's in Tokyo Dome. Do you have any advice?
- [00:17]
B
It will be loud. Now I'll give you an important advice I got perhaps is what not to joke about if you're joking with people that you've never met. So, you know, in the US it's like, you know, don't really talk about religion and you know, there are certain themes that can be complicated but certainly don't make fun of specific religions. But in Japan, and certainly in Tokyo, I was told never make fun of the Hanshin Tigers if you're in a bar that you've never been to because they are quite passionate.
- [00:55]
C
Hello and welcome to the GD Politics Podcast.
- [00:57]
A
I am Galen Groot.
- [00:58]
C
At the time of this recording, it's Friday, March 27th, and it's my final full day in Japan after two weeks here. I'm currently in Tokyo and have also spent time in Kyoto, Osaka, Nara and Hakone. It's my first time here and I've learned a lot and enjoyed the step away from the news cycle hamster wheel of American politics. While here, though, I wanted to take the opportunity to get to know the politics of Japan better, especially given how dynamic things have been lately. The stereotype of Japanese politics is that they're staid and steady, conservative in both the capital c and lowercase c meanings of the word. The Conservative party, the Liberal Democratic Party, has governed Japan for 66 of the 70 years the party has existed, and even with a seeming political consensus, a bias for the status quo has made it difficult at times to tackle big questions.
- [01:48]
B
Questions?
- [01:49]
C
Well, the LDP is still in power, but things have not been stayed and steady lately. Just last month, Sanae Takeichi, the country's first female prime minister, secured the largest majority in Japan's post war history, a two thirds supermajority in the lower house. This is less than two years after scandal cost the same party 28% of its seats, forcing them to govern with a minority. The challenges Takaichi has pledged to take on are formidable. Japan has finally managed to end its decades of deflation, but although prices are rising, wages largely aren't.
- [02:22]
A
Stop me if you've heard this one
- [02:23]
C
before, but that has led to a cost of living crisis. Also, Japan's pacifist constitution has been the subject of debate for years, while occupied
- [02:31]
A
by the United States.
- [02:32]
C
After World War II, Japan renounced its
- [02:34]
A
right to declare war.
- [02:35]
C
During the Constitution's 80 year history, it has never been amended, making it the world's longest lived, unamended national constitution. Takeichi is vowing to change that. Japan also famously faces a rapidly aging population. In that context, Takeichi has promised to produce economic growth while embracing tough limits
- [02:55]
A
on immigration and not ballooning the national debt.
- [02:58]
C
And that's all before we even get into debates about whether women should be allowed to become reigning empresses and whether married couples can have different last names. The answer to both of those questions is currently no, and Takechi would like
- [03:09]
A
to keep it that way.
- [03:11]
C
It's a lot to cover for just
- [03:12]
A
one podcast, but I've got just the guest to guide us. Here with me is Kenneth Mori McIlwain. He's a professor of comparative politics at
- [03:19]
C
the University of Tokyo, focusing on constitutional design and public opinion. Very fittingly for this conversation, he's also
- [03:25]
A
the editor in chief of the Social Science Japan Journal. Welcome to the podcast, Kenneth.
- [03:29]
B
Galen, thank you so much for having me.
- [03:31]
A
It's my pleasure. It's a beautiful day here in Tokyo, so I both am tempted to ask you a ton of questions and also want to get outside and enjoy the cherry blossoms that are very much in bloom right now. So I think, first of all, listeners might be wondering why I've traveled 7,000 miles to talk to somebody with such an Irish name.
- [03:50]
C
So can you share a little bit
- [03:51]
A
about your background first off?
- [03:53]
B
Yes, of course. So I'm Irish by nationality. My father's from Ireland. My mother is from Aomoi prefecture in Northern Japan. And growing up, I grew up primarily in Japan, partially in Ireland, but I went to international school in Tokyo for most of my childhood. And then I went to America for 20 years. University, graduate school. I taught in America. So I think I've developed a very American accent. Non identifiable American accent.
- [04:18]
A
Perhaps you have one of those unplaceable international school kids accents. I'm plenty familiar with them.
- [04:25]
B
Galen. Someday we'll go out and get a pint of Guinness, because apparently when I drink Guinness, I sound more Irish.
- [04:30]
A
Well, you know, I actually, I'm going to Dublin for a friend's wedding in two months. So when I have to do the Irish Politics podcast version of the GD Politics podcast, I'll call you back up and we can talk about Irish politics.
- [04:42]
B
Perfect. Perfect.
- [04:43]
A
I do want to talk a little bit about immigration and assimilation, especially from your perspective later on in the show.
- [04:50]
C
But as I mentioned, it's been a
- [04:52]
A
dynamic time in Japanese politics for all
- [04:54]
C
the reasons that I mentioned, but also
- [04:56]
A
just during the couple weeks that I've been here. You know, last week gas prices hit an all time high in the country at 190 yen a liter. That's 450 a gallon, which to Americans might not sound like a record breaking high, but compare that to, you know, the median annual income in Japan is 30,000 versus say 63,000 in the U.S. the Iran War has been a particular shock to the Japanese economy, given that it imports basically all of its oil from the Middle East. Also last week, the Prime Minister of Japan met with President Trump in the Oval Office.
- [05:28]
C
They made some news which we can get into.
- [05:30]
A
So take in that and also everything else I mentioned in the intro. How would you describe the moment that Japanese politics is in?
- [05:38]
B
Well, a month ago I would have said cautious optimism. I think there was a lot of excitement with the new Prime Minister, Takaichi. In many ways, she represents a break from Japanese politics while also a continuity. So on the one hand, she's the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party, the ldp, which as you said, has been in power for most of the last 70 years. But on the other hand, our first woman prime minister, somebody who is not a hereditary politician. So she doesn't come from a particular political dynasty, which is quite common in Japan. And in a way, she exudes optimism as well, you know, promising a break from the past, new policies. Now this has changed a little bit with the situation in the Middle east, particularly with Iran. And to the extent that, you know, for most of the last 30 years, inflation was not an issue in Japan. The bigger worry was deflation, the decline in the value of assets like property and housing in particular. But Japan's facing inflation for the first time. I think this is the main thing she needs to handle. And I think she had varying plans for it, including subsidies, some tax cuts, but I think it's been derailed by the rising energy costs, which, you know, as you know, has massive downstream effects on all aspects of the economy. So on the one hand, I think there was a dynamism or at least an expectation that things might change, but very rapid cooling of the optimism because of global trends.
- [07:00]
A
And how has that shaped her relationship or the country's relationship with the United States, because she came into office sort of touting, and Trump touting as well, this very close relationship between the two leaders. There's an awkward moment, I think, in the Oval Office when Trump compared the surprise attack on Iran to Japan's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. First of all, how did that comment go over here? Second of all, have US Relationships with Japan strained at all because of the war in Iran?
- [07:29]
B
Not a strain per se, although I think it's forcing Japan to reconsider its relationships with its regional neighbors, particularly Korea, and even more so with China. So the Pearl harbor comment I think did get some airplay here, but I think it was less central than the question of whether or not Takaichi would commit or show sympathy towards sending the Self Defense Forces, the maritime SDF ships to the Strait of Hormuz or to the Indian Ocean generally. And she didn't seem to promise it. So I think it's seen as a win in that she didn't give away or commit to something that's likely to be unconstitutional or at least would raise deep constitutional questions in Japan. Now I'll also say that general public attitude towards America has always been like reasonably favorable. It goes up and down during different administrations and at least in surveys that I've seen, President Trump himself isn't all that popular with the public. But if we separate out do you like America? Question from do you think it's important for Japan to have close relationships with America? I think that level remains very, very high. And I think to Japan, America is the linchpin of security, but also economic ties.
- [08:43]
A
I want to get into some of that because those are live debates in Japanese politics right now. But first let's lay some of the foundation. So Japan has experienced something close to one party democracy in the post war era. It's never amended its constitution. I think for most listeners in democratic countries that probably sounds incredibly stable. Is that how you would describe Japanese politics as incredibly stable, stable or static?
- [09:12]
B
I guess it depends on the way that you look at it. Now, unlike what we would consider to be autocratic countries with one party in power for extended periods of time, in Japan, 1, the LDP has been out of power twice. So they lost elections twice. And a lot of its victories have been on very close margins. Not the most recent one, but in the past has always been on very close margins. And I think that closeness has forced accountability on the ldp. Now why is the LDP so strong? There are a lot of different reasons for it. Some of it relates to the electoral system. Some of it relates to a legacy of policy competence of having guided Japan through high economic growth in the post war era, really until the late 1980s. So I think there's still some legacy of that and a trust that even if we don't agree with the LDP on everything. We should leave governance in its hands because it won't screw up rather than giving it to untested hands. So it's a little bit of a self fulfilling prophecy.
- [10:11]
A
I've read some analysis that suggests that there's more competition and massaging of even like the constitution than unamended constitution. You know, near single party rule might suggest in that there's a lot of inter party conflict. You can get basically both somewhat liberal or progressive and somewhat more conservative prime ministers, both from the Liberal Democratic Party, although it's the Conservative Party.
- [10:38]
C
And then at the same time, because
- [10:40]
A
the constitution is relatively short and therefore doesn't flesh out so many of its ideas, it just gets reinterpreted. Kind of like what might be happening in the United States today. And so instead of amending the constitution,
- [10:52]
C
oh well, you know, it says that
- [10:54]
A
we can't have a military, but when Shinzo Abe says that well we basically can have a military, they just assert that it is constitutional. So how would you analyze those two pieces that like there's inter party conflict, that means there is a kind of left and right even within that single party and that the constitution, although it hasn't been amended, has just been reinterpreted to suit sort of modern times.
- [11:19]
B
Right. So in a way that something that's distinct from the stability of electoral outcomes is Japan historically has had one of the highest number of prime ministers or Prime Minister turnover over time. And the this often happens outside of elections. So the LDP internally decides to replace its party president who then becomes Prime Minister as long as the party has a majority. And this often happens on two dimensions. One of them is there is some big political scandal involving the cabinet, prime minister steps down. The other is a foreign policy mess. So this often happens with Japan versus China, Japan versus Korea, I mean also with America if things go awry. But oftentimes when there is a very hawkish prime minister who worsens ties with China and Korea in a way that is deeply damaging, especially in the economy, then the LDP will replace it with somebody who's a little bit more dovish. So the course correction within the party is really well orchestrated. You don't stay in power for that long without being good at reading the tea leaves and figuring out who should be in charge. Just on the constitution, as you noted, it is a short constitution. In English it's less than 5,000 words. So it's the fifth shortest constitution in the world. And many details, particularly relating to political institutions can be changed by Law. So it's not a constitutional matter, it's a legislative issue. So whether it's the degree of centralization versus decentralization or the electoral system that's used for national or local elections, these can be done by law. So the structural need for amendment is much less. And that's also opened the room for incremental adaptation by law and to some degree by interpretation. And I can go on Article 9 a little bit more.
- [13:02]
A
Oh, we'll get there. We'll get there.
- [13:03]
B
Okay.
- [13:04]
A
I also wanted to just add, because I looked this number up, that Japan has had 35 prime ministers since World War II. And that compares with 14 presidents for the United States and 16 prime ministers for the UK. So Japan has, you know, established something of a reputation for that revolving door of prime ministers, notwithstanding Shinzo Abe, I think having an eight year old term as Prime Minister. And we will see how the current Prime Minister does. I want to talk though a little bit about the cleavages in Japan's politics because it's a strikingly homogenous country for being, you know, an advanced economy, advanced democracy. And as we mentioned, it's had a very dominant political party. So what are the dividing lines? Like what do people campaign over? And do people line up for one party or another based on things that we see in the west like race and ethnicity, education, income, class, geography, gender, age?
- [14:03]
B
So let's talk about kind of the public opinion partisan cleavages first. Now these aren't always active in that. That's not what every campaign is fought on. But the dominant cleavage is a Foreign Security Policy 1. And it's really encapsulated in whether or not you support Article 9 or not. The division between left and right, much of it can be explained by responses to that question.
- [14:26]
A
And Article nine, just for folks, means that Japan cannot declare war and it cannot keep a, you know, offensive military. Yes.
- [14:36]
B
So Article 9 is often called the peace clause. It forbids Japan from, as you said, declaring war and from possessing war potential. And the debate is often what is war potential? But the offensive versus defensive is an important issue, just like you raised. So Article 9 is kind of the left versus right. There are cleavages within the left in particular that are particularly salient these days. And a really big one is about whether or not to restart nuclear reactors. As you know, Japan was hit by this triple disaster of an earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown in 2011, and most nuclear reactors were shut down. And there's a question of whether or not Japan should restart these, of course, after some Proper tests and making sure that they're operating properly. So on the left, there's a more centrist or pro business left, kind of epitomized by a party called the Democratic Party for the People that is in favor of restarting it, and then parties further on the left that are more opposed to it. And that's true with voters as well. So article 9. Nuclear reactors are kind of the ideological cleavage now. Elections are fought on slightly different topics. I'd say the dominant issue in Japan is the urban rural divide. So it's horizontal inequality, you could say. So you've been to Tokyo, you've been to Osaka, you were in Nara, I think you said. Right. And Hakone.
- [16:02]
A
I've seen a lot of the countryside by train, but, you know, not. I haven't spent. I was in Hakone, but I haven't spent a lot of time in the real countryside.
- [16:10]
B
Right. So Tokyo is a vibrant metropolis. It's the center of business, center of politics too. It is the only prefecture. So Japan is divided up into 47 prefectures, similar to states in America. It's the only prefecture where the population is consistently increasing. But Tokyo has one of the lowest fertility rates or birth rates in the country. There's a sense within Japan that Tokyo is sucking up all financial capital as well as human capital, and to the detriment of rural development. And the LDP has helped stayed in power in part because it's very good about redistributing income from the vibrant Tokyo to rural areas. And you know, that's in the form of subsidies and grants ensuring that healthcare levels are more or less par across the country, but also a whole lot of public works, pork barrel, so bridges to nowhere, you know, repaving the road five times a year type of thing.
- [17:10]
A
Oh, the pavement here is incredible. The asphalt industry must be doing very well again.
- [17:16]
B
Construction is a big employer, so that's definitely there as well.
- [17:20]
A
So it sounds like geography is one of the main dividers. That is not uncommon. And it's probably become increasingly the case across the West. Does that match also with education, income, class as well? I think when we talk about class, it can mean different things to different people. In politics today, in the US at least, it's taken on more of sort of like an implication of education as opposed to income. Because education, whether or not you have a college degree, seems to be the bigger dividing line at the moment. You know, folks who make over a hundred thousand dollars with no college degree are much more likely to be voting for Republicans than people who make over $100,000 with a college degree, for example. Do we see any of that in Japan?
- [18:05]
B
Not quite yet, I would say so. Sociologists often ask questions about whether or not you think that current, you know, how bad do you think current socioeconomic inequality is? And do you think it's structural or not, Meaning it's kind of baked into the system. If you're born poor, you're likely to be poor, and the same for the wealthy. And about 30 years ago, most people felt that any inequality was temporary. It's a business cycle issue. I think that attitude is changing very quickly. My sense is that it doesn't manifest necessarily on class lines per se. And Japan doesn't have class in the way that the British do, for example. Structural wealth differentials are there, but not as pronounced. I think I talked about horizontal inequality, geographical inequality. I think there's a lot of concern that there's growing fear of vertical inequality, by which I mean generational differences. So younger people feeling that they won't be as wealthy or can't live the same kind of lives as their parents, much less their grandparents did. I think this is probably true in America, like housing costs, who can afford to buy a house? And these choices have downstream effects on things like whether or not you want to get married, how many children you want to have. And this feeds into the demographic decline, the declining population or the aging population and the declining birth rates.
- [19:28]
A
One of the significant pieces of Takeichi's victory or the LDPs, you know, super majority victory was regaining some support from young voters that the LDP had lost to the more populist left and right parties. Is it fair to say that the LDP has support across young, middle aged, old Japanese people? Or does it mostly derive its support from the older part of the Japanese population, like conservative parties in other parts of the world?
- [19:59]
B
Right, so quick backdrop. So one thing that's very different about America and Japan is party identification. People who feel a very strong, almost tribal loyalty to parties is much lower. I'd say about 50, 60% of voters identify or have a long term affinity with a party. 30 to 40% are independents. And so these are true independents in that these are people who actually change who they vote for. The reason I mention this is LDP support is concentrated among generally older men and particularly in rural areas. So that's their vote base. All their fiscal redistribution, the pork barreling paid off and the strong reliance of rural areas on those fund transfers. And so that's a party space. I think what was Distinctive about the most recent election is the LDP's popularity didn't actually increase all that much leading up to the election or even after it. It's that Takaichi herself is immensely popular across categories. Not just the older men who would normally support the ldp, but also women, including young women. And now whether or not these voters then become long term LDP supporters I have some doubts about, simply because we haven't seen movement like that in Japan in 30 years. But her success is in getting kind of national level support across generations.
- [21:24]
A
Yeah, I saw some polling suggesting that her favorability levels are around 70% of Japanese people, at least at the beginning of the year.
- [21:35]
C
Has she been able to sustain that?
- [21:37]
A
And maybe more to the point, why is she so popular?
- [21:41]
B
Tell me. I really don't know. And this isn't out of like a personal judgment, of course. It's I talk to my colleagues, other people who work on election polls and we haven't been able to figure out why concretely she's popular in a measurable way. And so on the one hand, the LDP suffered a big loss in the lower house, the House of representatives election in 24. It lost a lot last summer in 2025 in the upper house election and it was due to some such fund scandals as well as ties between the LDP and the Unification Church, kind of a controversial church based out of Korea. None of those issues have been resolved. Prime Minister Ishiba steps down fall last year, replaced by Prime Minister Takaichi. She doesn't have that much time in office and then she calls for snap elections and she wins. Right. But nothing that much has changed in the last six to eight months. There haven't been major domestic legislation passed. She hasn't had enough time to show what she can do beyond what she's promising. And so while I don't want to say it's all vibes, I think a lot of her popularity is people projecting their hopes and what they imagine her to be. And it hasn't really been tested yet. So we'll see what happens to her popularity going forward. She sustained about 60 to 70% support, depending on the poll in cabinet approval rating, which is, you know, incredible.
- [23:10]
A
But I mean, is that surprising for Japan? I mean that is, that would be extraordinary for the United States. It would be extra extraordinary for the uk. Is that strange for Japan having a level of support at 70%?
- [23:26]
B
I think so. I mean one, you know, there's always this dead cat balance, right? You replace somebody unpopular, your popularity goes up very Quickly, you have about a three month honeymoon where popularity is high, but it starts to inch lower, particularly when you start having to make choices. Right. About the budget, who you're going to tax, what you're going to spend money on. This is all going to start happening today or not today today, but in the coming weeks. There's also the summit with Donald Trump that happened last week, but she's somehow kept that aura still around her.
- [24:00]
A
Did the election that took place in February answer any of the sort of burning questions in Japanese Politics around Article 9, around charting a path forward for the economy, around immigration, Some of the cultural questions? Right. Sometimes when there's an overwhelming victory for one party, it feels like some of the country's questions have been answered. Is that the case?
- [24:27]
B
No. So one question is answered, which is voters are deeply dissatisfied with their choices. On the left, the Constitutional Democratic Party, CDP and the LDP's former coalition partner Komeito, decided to form a new party earlier this year called the Centrist Reform alliance. That proved to be disastrously unpopular. And so I think Takaichi won partially by default. You know, it's like when somebody hits a home run, is it the batter that's great or the pitcher that sucks? Right. And I think in this case she benefited from the fact that the left was disorganized and unpopular. But there's another thing I should say that's distinctive about American versus Japanese elections, which is, you know, I think American elections are perennial. Right. Everybody's always raising funds and their primary is happening all the time. In Japan, by law, for the lower house, you can only campaign for 12 days. So until 12 days before the election, there are no commercials that you can run, the kind of speeches you can do. You can't ask people to vote for you until 12 days before the election.
- [25:29]
A
Sounds glorious. Although I don't know that I would have a job if I was living in Japan.
- [25:33]
B
Yeah, there's probably some happy medium that might be closer to the Japanese end, right?
- [25:38]
A
Yeah.
- [25:39]
B
Now, in the immediate post war period, it used to be 30 days, but effectively over time, as the LDP's popularity started going down over the post war period, the LDP made the campaign period shorter and shorter as well. You know, in a way, when you, when There are only 12 days to campaign now, you can't really have serious debates at the candidate level in districts, like maybe at the national level with party leaders, but not at the candidate level. And so a lot of it becomes like, remember my name. It's about impressions, social media and so on to kind of create this surge in the short term. And I think that prompts voters to one, there's limited time to update information from whatever biases you may have had before the election. And the second is there's a better the devil you know than the devil you don't. So I think there's a risk aversion that comes into it and I think because of dissatisfaction with the left and Takaichi is this new image. Certainly a person to be a leader, first woman, among other things. I think people hope that she's going to do well, but I'm not sure that that vote reflected an answer to which direction Japan necessarily needs to go on.
- [26:50]
C
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- [27:14]
A
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- [27:15]
C
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- [27:36]
A
From a polling perspective, do Japanese people trust their government? Trust the institutions? Like I know that Takechi is herself popular. Are Japanese institutions popular?
- [27:48]
B
So I do surveys on this annually and what we generally find is there's high degree of trust in non elected institutions. So a lot of trust in the Imperial Family, the Self Defense Forces and the Supreme Court. Trust in the parliament. Trust in the cabinet is lower and it varies bipartisanship in the way that you might expect. Trust in mass media is not that high either, certainly below 50%. Trust in academics is also not that high, but that's a separate story. So there is trust in institutions, but depends on which one. I think there is disgruntlement with political institutions. One thing that I think was very different between Japan and many other countries during COVID is trust in fellow citizens increased a lot during COVID It was a belief that the government is slow distributing masks. Japan didn't get vaccines until like six months, 12 months after they were available in America and Europe. But everybody did their part right? They vaccinated they, you know, kept social distance, they wore masks. And so we all contributed to a better outcome than expected. So I think society is less fractured than it may be in America and
- [29:01]
A
many parts of Europe, at least culturally. Japan is somewhat famous for its subcultures, whatever it may be, like harajuku or things that become almost memes, like hermit young men. Does any of that get expressed through politics? Or is that mainly in culture? Like, are there subcultures within politics in a system that has been so dominated by the ldp?
- [29:25]
B
That's a really interesting question, and I haven't really thought about it in those terms. So one thing is Japan has largely not had a huge spike in populism, either on the far left as we see in Latin America, or on the far right as we see in Europe. That's changing a little bit. There's a new party called Sanseto. Their English name is the party of do it yourself. They didn't consult me about their branding choices. Maybe it works well also it gets
- [29:55]
A
translated as participating party. Right? I think I've seen their posters as I've been out and around. You tell me if I saw if this was a Sanse Ito poster that I saw. Right now our country is facing a critical situation. 30 years of economic downturn, the life of the people is becoming painful. Conflicts continue in the world. Declining food, self sufficiency, energy problems, low fertility and immigration problems. The issues related to the survival of the country remain untouched. In a social situation where a bright future is not visible. Children are struggling and suffering from the exam war and the Japanese identity of family view and marriage view is about to be destroyed. The only way to solve this situation is for each Japanese to stand up instead of leaving it to politicians, television and newspapers. It's time for each person to realize that Japan is itself and is themselves and think and act. Each AI quote unquote is Japan. It is your determination and thoughts to change the future. Japan is still in time. Now that's a Google Translate mechanism. But was that a Sensei Ito poster?
- [30:55]
B
Yeah, no, that's. That sounds exactly on point. So, you know, there are different ways to define populism. I think generically we say it's a dualism, right? It's like good and evil, corrupt versus, you know, the real soul of the country. And I think Sanseito is very much a pro people party. So we can't trust the elites, the media, political institutions. We can't trust the bureaucracy. We all need to stand up to fight for the soul of Japan, which is Very Japanese. So Japanese traditions, to some degree, attitudes on same sex marriage tend to be more opposed, although there's some variation within the party. So these parties are arising. And I think two years ago I would have said this is like a subculture within politics that's not expressed in the mainstream. That's been changing very quickly with what's often called the foreigner problem, gaikokuji mondai in Japanese, which is a combination of both what to do about immigration into Japan and also how to deal with the large number of tourists coming into the country.
- [31:59]
A
I know I think I might have eaten more than once while walking. And so I think I've probably created a cultural faux pas during my time in Japan. But I know that that's a serious question as well. And I, you know, on one hand, Japan is asking itself a lot of the questions that other advanced economies are asking themselves, but it's from a very different starting point. Right. Like according to the Japanese census, 98% of Japanese people are Japanese. But that's according to nationality or citizenship, not necessarily according to, you know, race or ethnicity. But when you get into some of those polling questions, it's still above 90% of Japanese people in private surveys, from what I understand, identify as yamato, which is what the Japanese ethnicity would be considered. And so it starts this conversation from a very homogenous position and asking itself, does it want to change that? From what I understand, you have the business lobby saying, like, hey, we have a demographic crisis. We've got to get some workers into the country to do more jobs. There's, of course, a very emotional aspect of this conversation. Do we want to keep our unfractured society as homogenous as it is? Keep Japan Japanese? This isn't just a question of today, but it's been a question that's centuries, if not millennia old for the country. What's the word for island nation? I learned shimaguni. Shimaguny. It's like it's a sort of. When you ask questions about Japanese, oh, why do you do it this way? Why do you do it that way? Why is Japan unique? It's like the answer is just island nation sometimes. And so where are those lines today? Like, on one hand, you might think the business lobby probably has Takechi's ear and can maybe try to get access to more foreign labor as a result. But she seems to have campaigned on a pretty isolationist position when it comes to immigration.
- [33:57]
B
So I think the dimensions you've laid out are exactly right. So on the one Hand.
- [34:02]
A
I got it right. Yes.
- [34:03]
C
I've been doing my research.
- [34:04]
A
Well, okay.
- [34:05]
B
You know, there just needs to be more workers in the labor force. There's a massive labor shortage and generative AI can do a little bit. Maybe robots will do some more later. Japan has one of the highest rates of women's participation in the labor force. It used to be quite low and it's gone up very high. But at a certain point you just don't have enough hands, like in convenience stores in 711 or working in baseball stadiums or what have you. Now this is also an urban, rural dimension.
- [34:33]
A
Right.
- [34:34]
B
So if you're in Tokyo, you go to a convenience store almost always there'll be at least one, if not all workers there. We'll have non native Japanese names, mostly from Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia and so on. But when you go to rural areas, it's a little bit harder one because rural areas, the economy is less vibrant and so there's less incentive for foreign workers to go to rural areas. So on the labor front, there's again, the winner wins more. Tokyo's doing well. Rural areas don't get the benefits as much. But there's also the changing composition of the Japanese ethnic pool, let's say. So this is international marriages, so I should say international marriages, as well as children for whom at least one parent is not native born Japanese. So this can include second generation immigrant children as well. Those numbers are going up. And I think what's important is that these numbers are going up while the regular Japanese population is going down. So Japan doesn't have a lot of foreign workers. But if that keeps steady and the domestic population comes down, so the mix begins to change much more quickly than people expect. And for international marriages, it's common in Tokyo, but it's actually also common in rural parts of Japan. There are the single sons of farmers. I mean, they might have a nice farm somewhere in rural Japan, but they might have a hard time convincing a working Japanese woman to marry and move back to the countryside with them. So there are a lot of Japanese and Filipina marriages in particular, but a lot of mixing that's going on. So I think faster than people expect, things are going to look quite different.
- [36:12]
A
And how do people feel about that?
- [36:16]
B
Yeah. So when we do surveys about, and you know, other people have done tons of surveys about what make you Japanese or what make you more willing to accept a foreigner in your neighborhood, let's say, or you know, their children going to the same kindergarten as yours, language ability is generally seen as a Prime thing. So being able to speak Japanese, affinity for Japanese culture is often raised as a second trait that makes some foreign workers easier to assimilate. In some ways, Koreans, Chinese, Taiwanese, the language are sufficiently similar that it's easier to adapt. I think it'll be harder when we have more Middle Eastern and some South Asian, South American for that matter. Immigrants coming in. I think it's a fact of life. Again, when you live in a city, I think when you're in a rural area, I think there's hesitance. And actually, Galen, you would know this better than I do. Right. So in American politics, opposition to immigration is often high away from the border regions, is that correct?
- [37:19]
A
Yeah. Although, I mean, the border crisis changed that a little bit in the sense that South Texas saw significant opposition to the major influx of South American migrants during the Biden administration. Parts of the state that were had been very democratic for a long time changed.
- [37:37]
C
And so I think it's like there's
- [37:39]
A
both people sort of set positions on immigration and then there's a willingness to sort of change your mind according to what the circumstances are. So when it felt out of control under the Biden administration, a lot of people became more hawkish on immigration. And now that people feel like it's gone out of control in the other direction in terms of enforcement, there's sort of a shift back. And so you've actually seen public opinion fluctuate a lot on immigration over the past ten years or so.
- [38:05]
B
So I think in Japan, again, it's hard to tell how people feel about immigrants per se. There's hesitance towards increasing immigration numbers more. But I think what people experience more on a day to day basis is really the over tourism. The number of inbound visitors to Japan has I think quadrupled over the last 10, 15 years. You said you went to Kyoto. I think Kyoto is like Barcelona at this point or like Florence or Venice. It's not a city that was built to accommodate that many people coming at the same time. And it's hard to build infrastructure in Kyoto because if you dig deep enough, you're going to hit some UNESCO World Heritage sooner or later. So there's a constraint there that makes it hard that I think make people wish. On the one hand, we're glad for all the money people drop, but fewer.
- [38:51]
A
What's the answer though, in politics though? Because from what I understand, the consensus position in Japan seems to be more immigration restrictivism, which was part of Takaichi's support. She saw the rising populist right she is more conservative than the previous two LDP prime ministers triangulated a little bit to try to stem the rise of the populist. Right. Part of that is immigration. She herself is popular. Like, does that mean that despite labor shortages, despite the demographic problem, basically that Japan has settled on a. We understand and also we still just don't want much immigration.
- [39:32]
B
So I don't think they're going to try to cut the number of foreign workers coming into Japan. I think simply put, the economy won't run and you know, with the business federation backing the ldp, I don't think they're going to make any significant changes to it. What they ran fairly hard on and the concrete policies they're advocating have more to do with reducing the number of visa overstays, basically illegal immigrants who are in Japan. And you know, that's, that's a hard thing to argue against in some ways. There aren't that many of them. But let's ensure that the laws of immigration are being abided by is really her strongest push. And it is something that the far right was saying is like, you know, there are all these foreigners running amok in Japan. They shouldn't be here. LDP said, right, we'll put in more money and make sure that they leave the country as they should.
- [40:18]
A
Yeah, okay. I want to, this gets us into the economy, which we're going to talk about, but I want to make sure that we have ample time to talk about the constitution. Given that this is one of your main areas of expertise and is truly fascinating from an outside perspective. One of the main arguments for amending the constitution, as far as I understand it, is to make it so that Japan can constitutionally have its own military declare war if it wants to whatnot. Ultimately, one of the arguments is this pacifist constitution was imposed on Japan by a Western colonial power being the United States. And Japan ought to write its own constitution. But this gets tricky quickly. And this is, this argument is coming to a head now. Is this about China in this specific moment? Because I think that's how it's getting sold. Or is this just a long term goal of the Conservative Party to amend the constitution?
- [41:11]
B
The LDP in its founding kind of charter says that the Constitution was forced upon Japan as a defeated nation and we need a new constitution. So this is a conservative mission and certainly something that the right is currently pushing for, you know, including the far right outside of the ldp. Because the LDP has so many seats, it seems like this should be the moment to do It Right. And it's something Takaichi is in favor of. So there's a historical basis to this. There are also concerns about whether or not due to the lack of amendment, the Constitution is outdated and not fit for its time. And the constraint on militarism or having a military in Article 9 is a big part of it. And the LDP has floated different ideas about how to amend the Constitution, including a wholesale rewrite of Article 9 to get rid of the constraints on having a military. But that proposal has never polled well. And what Takaichi and what the LDP is saying now is we'll just add a clause that says that Article 9 promises pacifism, but this doesn't preclude us from having self defense forces. That is symbolically meaningful, but it is also not something that the public is opposed to anyway. Support for the SDF is very high. Trust is very high. As I mentioned earlier, courts haven't ruled against it and they probably won't. And just writing the SDF into the Constitution won't allow Japan to do more against China or any other country for that matter.
- [42:46]
A
This used to be a more live debate, right? When Shinzo Abe was considering building out the Defense Force, he wanted to amend the Constitution so that he could do that. Ultimately he just did it and the Constitution was taken to mean that he could do that. So I guess is there anything that Tagaichi could want to do militarily that the Constitution doesn't currently allow her to do?
- [43:12]
B
There are two parts of the Constitution that matter. So One is Article 9, of course it says Japan renounces a right to declare war. I mean, by international law standards, no country has a right to declare war per se, but then it won't possess war potential. And the war potential part is always a part that's in debate. But also Article 13 of the Constitution promises that people have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. You can see the American influence there. So I think most constitutional scholars would say that Article 9 isn't a suicide pact, right? It's not saying we must roll over and not have any defense because the government also affirmatively has to protect the lives and liberty and happiness of its people. So the standard interpretation is that means that Japan can have defensive capacity to protect itself, but it doesn't extend into offensive capabilities that are not necessary for the life, liberty and happiness of the Japanese people. What Shinzo Abe did is legislation to say that Japan now has limited collective self defense, meaning if an ally is attacked and the attack happens in waters that are not Japanese waters, but adjacent enough that it threatens Japan's own existence, then the Self Defense Forces can deploy overseas. I'm not sure how much more the LDP wants to push this because it's actually kind of convenient. This means that if Japan really is under attack or its allies are under attack in the region, the SDF goes out. It also gives the government a reason not to do things it doesn't want to do. And we could say that what's happening in the Strait of Hormuz now, it gives Takaichi an out to Donald Trump to say, look, we can't do it. I mean, we really can't do it. And so, you know, it's a constraint, but it also binds your hands in a way that can be effective during negotiations.
- [45:16]
A
So to amend the Constitution, the Amendment would need 2/3 support in the lower and upper chamber and then a simple majority as a referendum as voted on by the public. Do you think they try this?
- [45:29]
B
I don't think they'll push it now, if only because they lack 2/3 in the upper house. The upper house has a more proportional electoral system. It also happens on a different cycle than the lower house. So the next upper house election is until summer of 2028. And I think trying to push this beforehand would just invite a lot of controversy without actually advancing the agenda. But should they win at least a majority or close enough and they can form deals with other parties to at least vote along on Article 9amendment? I think Takaichi might have to, assuming she's still in power. I think there's no excuse not to do it. And so regardless of what she personally wants, and I think she would want to do it, I think it'll move forward.
- [46:17]
A
And would this become a wholesale rewrite of the Constitution? I mean, the main focus is Article nine. That's one of the ideological cleavages you mentioned early on. But along with that, do other kinds of rights and amendments get added in?
- [46:32]
B
The LDP has proposed four changes. One of them is including self defense forces in Article 9. The second is creating a new chapter on national emergency, so during states of emergency, the government should have more authority. A third relates to guaranteeing access to public education. It's basically making all education, including possibly university level education, free. And the fourth is about how upper house electoral districts are apportioned. And I can go into a lot of detail about this, but the short version is the LDP has a lot of things they want to change, but you can only change one thing at a Time. So every amendment has to be on one issue, so you can't do a package vote. And. But the LDP is promising different things, like for example the free public tertiary education is something that the Ishin Nokai, the Japan Innovation Party, that's their English name now, right, is pushing for and it's the LDP's coalition partner. So I think legislatively they're imagining a little bit of a horse trade where there are separate votes, but we'll log roll. You vote on my thing, I'll vote on your thing. Not clear if voters are going to go along with that, but that's the plan.
- [47:49]
A
I want to talk a little bit about the economy because like with immigration on one hand Japan is dealing with the same question that everybody else is, but on the other hand it's starting from a very different position. So Japan has experienced about two decades of deflation heading into Covid, which sparked inflation globally and got Japan's inflation numbers up to around 2% or so, which for the rest of the world is like, oh, that would be perfect. But for Japan is a pretty big disruption after two decades of stagnation or deflation. The Japanese stock market. So the Nikkei 225 only surpassed its former all time peak February of 2024 and its peak was in 1989. So basically my entire life the Nikkei 225 had been below its 1998 peak. How much has being jolted out of that 30 plus years of low stock market performance, stagnation or deflation to all of a sudden be experiencing a cost of living crisis? Like what has that done to Japanese politics?
- [49:06]
B
It's jarring because I think you noted in your introduction, Galen, that real wages haven't increased steadily even as inflation has gone up. So people's individual purchasing power hasn't improved. And it feeds into kind of a fundamental problem with the Japanese economy over the last three decades, which is consumption is low. Like the consumption share of GDP relative to investments or government spending is much less than it is in other advanced industrialized economies. And there have been all sorts of different arguments about how to increase consumption, but obviously people need more wages, they need to be paid more to do it. And so Takaichi, I mean successive LDP governments have promised and tried to browbeat companies to increase wages over time. It is happening at the larger corporations, but not necessarily at the smaller, particularly more rural companies because they're not generating that much more in revenue. So inflation is problematic because people aren't used to the sticker price changing but it's also increasing a sense of greater relative poverty over time. Energy prices are going up, food costs a little bit more. You need to scrape by with the same amount of money that you had before. These are all things. It is a primary thing that Takaichi has to deal with.
- [50:28]
A
Yeah. And I mean, her solution for it is suspending the food tax of 8% for two years while also not funding that with new government debt. How does she pull that one off?
- [50:43]
B
So a separate backdrop is how much should Japan be worried about its debt, the government debt? Government debt is 260, 270% of GDP at the moment. It's the highest among, again, advanced economies. It's been very high for decades. It doesn't seem like investors are freaked out by the addition of more debt, but I think these are things that can cascade very quickly. It's also aided by the fact that the value of the yen is very low, so it's easier to put money into Japan. There are things about the carry trade relating to investments in Japan as well. So Takaichi can't say we're going to add this onto the debt, but it's hard to imagine that there's any medium or long term thing that simply doesn't increase debt. When you're cutting revenue. The number of old people isn't going to magically decline immediately. Healthcare costs are going to keep on going up. Defense spending is basically going to double compared to 10 years ago. So these are all things that require more revenue that I'm not entirely sure that the government can play around with.
- [51:50]
A
Where do you see this all heading? Taijiji starts with a lot of optimism, a lot of support. The challenges are quickly adding up and the promises seem to be, in some cases contradictory. It's an incredibly challenging needle to thread. How do you foresee the next, you know, six to 12 months of Japanese politics going?
- [52:15]
B
The big thing is going to be how to deal with government finances. So Takaichi had hoped to pass a budget for the upcoming fiscal year by the end of this month. It's not clear it's going to be done in time. So there'll be a provisional budget that'll be put in place and she's going to have to. Every election adds to the number of promises that politicians make and everything adds to fiscal expenditures. So making all secondary education free, I mean, that's a big thing that she's pushed. It's less expensive in Japan because there are fewer kids than in America, let's say. But this is another public debt I think she wants to also increase CO pay on healthcare. So that's the other end of it. Like, increase the amount that Japanese people pay for healthcare to kind of balance things out a little bit. So on the one hand, if you raise children, things look great. If you have medical costs, things look worse. And how these different voter blocs will respond, like, will they give her the benefit of the doubt, or will they accept that this is a structural thing that needs to be? Nobody wants it, but this is just the way it's going to have to be or not, I think, is certainly what I'm looking for and how that affects her support level.
- [53:28]
A
All right. Well, it's been a fascinating conversation. I've learned a lot, both from the past two weeks and from the past hour or so. I really appreciate it. I guess, lastly, I'll just ask, like, I've asked a lot of questions here, but they're in many ways shaped by my experience of American politics. Is there anything that I haven't asked that I ought to be asking like that I ought to be curious about? When it comes to Japanese politics or
- [53:53]
B
society more broadly, it's something we've touched on, but I think this generational divide, kind of the deep. I think pessimism that young people have towards the future is something that is going to drive Japanese politics going forward. If there is a sense that the established answers, the established political parties are not going to solve this problem, younger voters are going to look elsewhere, and I think that's where new populist waves could come in. Now, you know, you've been in Tokyo and you've been in Osaka. You've been in big cities. I don't know if Japan looks pessimistic to you. When I talk to my students, they feel pessimistic, and I'm not sure where I am. But where are you at?
- [54:32]
A
Because I'm experiencing the public displays of Japanese society, which is like people riding public transportation, people walking to work, people being out at restaurants, hanging out with friends, being in parks. What I'm seeing is, like, the many, many people who have visited Japan before me a pretty orderly society that makes what you see on a regular day in New York City shocking. Like, the levels of trash, homelessness, people having, like, mental health crises. It's just you sort of don't see any of that in at least the urban areas that I've been in. Like, the most chaotic scenes I've seen are definitely just tourists in Kyoto. So it seems like there's a lot of stability and orderliness but I haven't had the opportunity to like sit around somebody's kitchen table and hear about their financial circumstances or their worries. And I don't think you get a good sense of the mood of a country without doing that. I mean, from a numeric perspective as well. I've been looking at a lot of the numbers. Like, things don't add up. Like, it looks like at a certain point the music has to stop when it comes to the public debt or demographics or what have you. You know, we didn't even talk that much about the challenges of a rising China, for example, and how Japan sees its itself in East Asia in that sort of context, or Taiwan or whatever other territorial disputes there are. I understand where there would be pessimism in looking at the numbers, but when you just go out in Japanese society, it doesn't feel like there's a lot of reasons to be pessimistic.
- [56:17]
B
Yeah, no, I agree. Like, it's easy to live in Japan. Day to day in Tokyo is easy. Trains run on time. Amazon actually delivers in their delivery window. Like, you know, all these things work. But, you know, whether this is a facade and there's more things roiling underneath it, I think is something I certainly worry about and I try to study. And it's great to have the opportunity to discuss it with you as well.
- [56:40]
A
Yeah. All right, well, thank you so much. I really appreciate your time.
- [56:42]
B
Take care, Galen. Thank you so much.
- [56:44]
C
My name is Galen Druke. Remember to become a subscriber to this podcast@gdpolitics.com and wherever you listen to podcasts. Paid subscribers get about twice the number of episodes and can join in our paid subscriber chats and pass along questions
- [56:59]
A
for us to discuss on the show.
- [57:01]
C
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- [57:06]
A
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- [57:08]
C
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- [57:15]
A
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