 The Asian Review, I'm your host Bill Sharp. Our show today is a more assertive Japan, and our guest is Dr. David Fowles. Dr. Fowles has two PhD degrees, he's a real go-getter as you can see. One is in statistics and the other is in political science with a focus on Japan. So let's get right into it because time always flies by. You know, it seems to me that, as I recall, the first book I ever read about Japanese politics was called The Japanese Superstate, and it was written by that famous Todai professor, woman professor, the first woman professor ever appointed to that position in Todai. She ain't iconic, though I'm sure is way retired by now. And of course, in those days, Japan was really on the ride and everybody was beginning to look at Japan as a kind of a model, beginning to be a little envious of Japan. And then came the 1980s, and through the early part of the 80s, Japan was really going along, there was money everywhere, and Japanese were getting perhaps a little cocky about it. And then came 1989 with the recruits scandal, and that was the beginning of a 20-plus year fall from grace. But do we see Japan recovering its national confidence, the sort of stature it had in the 80s before the recruits scandal? What's your take? Well, thanks for having me here. Well, you're quite welcome. It's always great to have you. In fact, as you mentioned to our audience, this is your third visit to Asian Review, so we're always glad to have you. Yeah, thank you. As far as Japan getting its mojo back, that's a really good way to put it. I guess I believe there's a lot happening in Japan, and there's great strides being taken in terms of making Japan a more competitive player in the international arena, economically and in the security front as well. However, I'm not ready to say that they're back where they were in the 1980s. My feeling is those days are gone. Japan's economy, I don't think is ever going to be as strong and vital as it was at that time. Basically, because of the demographic problem that they have and the way that the lack of new workers coming into the economy is going to affect their GDP and so on. That's really interesting. Do you think Japan's rise to free eminence peaking in the 80s was artificial? Well, in some ways it was because the export model of growth that Japan grew on, I don't think was ever going to be sustainable because it wasn't always fair. Japan had huge trade surpluses with the United States and many other countries, and other countries were looking for more access to Japanese markets, and there was a lot of problems with the trade issues, as you may remember. The US has especially had a lot of tough talks with Japan about that. I don't think mature economies can continue to grow on this kind of export-led growth, but Japan has done a lot in terms of developing its consumer markets as well through the past 20 years, so not quite as export dependent as they used to be, but still a lot of their growth comes from export. You know, it seems to me that the model that you're talking about, it was all based on something, blocking out imports from other countries, coming up with real nonsense concerns and checklists and that kind of thing. Like, American skis won't work on Japanese snow, American beef can't be digested by Japanese intestines. Right, and it seemed that the US was quite willing to tolerate some of that nonsense if they could have X number of military bases in Japan, and Japan was some sort of a security partner. Yeah, I agree. That was kind of the basic deal that we would kind of supplement their economy, but Japan was going to be our aircraft carrier in the sea there, and I think it was Nakasone who called it that. Right, right. You know, it seems to me that while Japan's international image has suddenly dimmed since the 80s, there's been a lot of, what do we call it, quiet revolution that's gone on domestically within Japanese society, and Japanese civic society has really taken a few leaps forward. You were talking about consumerism and other features, which Japanese citizens seem to be all that concerned about in the boom, boom days of the 70s and the 80s. Yeah, I agree. And one of the areas that, you know, there's a lot of push for change now is the role of women. Something that the administration, the Obie administration has taken certain steps to try to address, primarily, I believe, because it affects that big issue of demographics, which I brought up earlier, because women haven't been willing to have babies. The demographics have continued to weaken, and if women are given, I think, a fair shake in, you know, the job, more equal pay, more women who become heads of corporations or board members and so on, this is going to, I believe it's going to strengthen women's will to participate in the workforce and maybe take on that burden of birth and raising kids and so on. Well, looking at the Japanese experience, the rise, the glory, the tumble, at least relative tumble, I mean, it still is what the third largest economy in the world. Does it have lessons for other countries in Asia, particularly like South Korea, China, Taiwan? Yeah, I think all those countries are watching Japan because Japan's not alone in having this problem of an aging population. It's kind of leading the pack, but South Korea, China, Taiwan to a lesser extent, but they're all having this issue of not being able to replace the people that are dying with the birth rate. And China's going to have a huge problem with this, I believe, but, you know, they have a much bigger population to start with. So what Japan does and how they're able to cope with this problem is going to be, I think, educational for a lot of countries in the region and other countries around the world that have aging population. They all seem to be hit, too, with this growing inequality of wealth, which seems to be a manifestation of globalization, as far as I can see. Maybe China hasn't been hit with it quite as bad with globalization, but definitely there is inequality of wealth as it's growing. It's interesting. Japan is the first to climb, the first to tumble. The other climbers, are they going to tumble? I guess those have to keep watching. Yeah, I don't think Japan's handled the demographic issues that well. Their culture kind of inhibits them from dealing appropriately with that issue. I mean, they're very closed in terms of wanting to see foreigners immigrating into the country and changing the role of women is something that a lot of especially people in the political elite are resistant to. You've seen this with the recent debate over passing a law for abdication of the emperor. They did recently pass a kind of one-off to allow the aging emperor to step down for his son Crown Prince Naruhito, but the Democratic Party wanted to get a resolution in there to make it so that the princesses were able to maintain their royal status after they marry a commoner because they're having fewer and fewer royals because the princesses are marrying out and there aren't that many males. Well, the Democratic Party had to really push hard against the ruling Liberal Democratic Party to get that resolution tacked on to that bill, that one-off bill. And so there's a lot of resistance in the current administration to changes that would allow a bigger change where maybe women would eventually be able to become the empress. Although, historically, there were numerous cases that happened. Right, right. In the old days, the old old days. I think that's symbolic of kind of the resistance to the changing roles of women in Japan. That's really interesting. Now, when you say one-off, I want to make sure I understand what you're saying here. Change the law so that the current emperor could advocate for the future. Would that opportunity still be open to future emperors or is it just this one time for the current emperor? Yeah, it's just this one time and any other emperor in the future will have to have the diet pass a similar resolution and so on. And this is basically because of the conservative positions of members of the administration and the Liberal Democratic Party. The public overwhelmingly supported a law that would make it permanent, that abdication would be okay in the future. But the traditionalists didn't really want to see that happen. Interesting. Well, let's talk specifically about the leadership of Mr. Abe. And I mean, part of Japan's problem has been revolving toward prime ministers. Prime ministers around eight months, ten months maybe, everybody's lucky and then it was gone. And we went through so much of that. And then Mr. Abe, who was part of the revolving toward the phenomenon at one time, came back. 2006, 2007. Yeah, got his act together and he's been a pretty strong leader at the same time. Oh yeah, he's accomplished a great deal, both economically and with his Abe-nomics program. Although it hasn't been as successful as he would have hoped, I'm sure. But also with kind of reasserting Japan's presence on the international stage and his moves in Asia, especially to reassure their countries in the region that Japan is going to remain a major player economically and in terms of security, I think have been remarkable. It's interesting though, as you were saying, just before the show started as we were chatting away, really Japan needs the United States and other countries in Asia do too. China's just too big. It's too big, it's increasingly powerful. The wealth of China always seems to be a question mark to me. Just how much money can China spend on this, that thing and the debt is rising. But it doesn't seem to faze anybody. And perhaps compared to other countries in Asia, it's deeper pocketed. So countries in Asia really do need an alliance with the U.S. or some other power. Now one of the most controversial things about Mr. Abe has been his push for constitutional reform, specifically Article 9. And could you bring us up to date on that? Well, they are looking to bring a draft proposal of a revision of the Constitution to the diet in the late this year sometime, possibly in the fall. That was the plan. And this revision is from reports that I read, is going to basically state that the self-defense forces are legitimate. The Constitution does allow for the self-defense forces to make them a military. Under Article 9 of the Constitution, Japan was to renounce war as a way of resolving differences, as well as not maintain military forces. And Japan does maintain military forces. It's got one of the strongest militaries in Asia. So to rectify this obvious inconsistency, Abe is focused on that as a reason to revise the Constitution. Some folks who are a little wary of this think that this might be, you know, just a reasonable way of opening the door to further changes. And so there's people that are still opposed to this. But I've seen polls that show the majority of Japanese believe it's okay to amend the Constitution to state that the SDF is legitimate. Well, this is a really good point, and this is also a really good place for us to take a break. So you're watching Asia in Review. I'm your host Bill Sharp. My guest today is Dr. David Fowles, our show, more assertive Japan. And we'll be right back so don't go away. Hello, everyone. I'm DeSoto Brown, the co-host of Human Humane Architecture, which is seen on Think Tech Hawaii every other Tuesday at 4 p.m. And with the show's host, Martin Despeng, we discuss architecture here in the Hawaiian Islands and how it not only affects the way we live, but other aspects of our life, not only here in Hawaii, but internationally as well. So join us for Human Humane Architecture every other Tuesday at 4 p.m. on Think Tech Hawaii. Welcome back to Asia in Review. I'm your host, Bill Sharp. My guest today is Dr. David Fowles. Our show today, I'm more assertive Japan. And just before the break, we were getting into the really interesting topic about human life. So just before we went to break, you were saying that according to polling that you've seen, the Japanese public is willing to accept. So I'm going to go ahead and show you a little bit of what I'm going to talk about today. So I'm going to go ahead and show you a little bit of what I'm going to talk about today. So according to polling that you've seen, the Japanese public is willing to accept some changes in the wording of Article 9 to effectively recognize the SDF as a legitimate military force. Yeah, I want to be very clear. What I believe I've read is that the first two paragraphs will stay as is. But in addition to that, you have recognition that the Japanese military forces are legitimate. What about the part of Article 9 that says, we the Japanese people renounce, what is it, the rate of war or war? Is that going to still be there? Yeah, my understanding is that would not change, nor the part that says that we won't maintain military forces, which doesn't really jibe as far as, you know, how do you say that the SDF is a legitimate military force if Japan isn't supposed to maintain those forces? Right. So in my view, something has to give there. Right. So the second paragraph I would think would have to change, but it's not really clear. Lots of different changes have been proposed by the Liberal Democratic Party in the past, and it's what they're going to end up doing is kind of open to question or whether or not they're going to get there given the recent thumping that the Prime Minister's party took in the election just this past weekend in Tokyo municipal metropolitan elections. Hmm, that's interesting. But he still has a solid majority in both the upper house and in the lower house. Yes, he's got the best situation anybody's had in many, many years to try to push through basically anything he wants. The problem is that recently he pushed through an anti-conspiracy law that really angered a lot of people. It was supposed to deal with terrorism, but it was so vague and broad that many people feel it's going to impinge on people's privacy rights. Even the UN Rapporteur for Privacy Rights wrote about this being they need to redo this. They need to rework this. And I saw reports that things like picking mushrooms in forests that are preserved will be considered conspiracy to commit terrorism under this law. Illegal bicycle racing. There was just all kinds of things thrown into this bill and the people, although they're split on whether they need it or not, the vast majority believes it was just rushed through. And that's the problem with having both houses and nobody really to block you. But yeah, he has the votes. If he gets to that point where he gets his constitutional revision on the table, it's possible that he could do this. However, Abbey is going to now, because of this thumping he took in this weekend's elections, is going to start facing challenges from inside his own party for leadership. And he was on his way to becoming the longest serving prime minister in post-war history. He may still get there, but with this anti-conspiracy law being very unpopular, he has a scandal of influence peddling that involves him and a bunch of his team members. His wife was even pulled into this. This is one of the reasons he took the thumping in this election. He's not been really open to investigating that scandal. So Abbey is a little bit, you know, he's a little bit weak right now. Vulnerable? He's vulnerable, yeah. Who would his number one contender be? It used to be said that also was really interested in being prime minister. But I haven't heard his name mentioned recently. Well, I think the guy that he ran against was Ishiba, who was a former defense minister. When he won in 2012, he would still be a top contender. Some people might think this governor of Tokyo, Yoriko Koike. She used to be a defense minister also, yeah. Yes, she was part of the LDP as well. And she left them and started this tomin first no-kai as Tokyo residents first. Okay. Sound familiar? Oh, no, no, no. She doesn't have links there, does she? She's pretty conservative, but she's very popular. And she is a kind of a populist. And people are talking about her possibly, you know, taking her popularity to the national level. She's somebody you would have to consider. But various people in the top levels of the LDP, I believe, will probably run. So what about also? Is he gone now? Has he faded away? I don't think he's a... Fallen from grace? Yeah, I don't think he's a top contender for the prime minister's office. That's my view. Oh, interesting, interesting, interesting. Well, Abe certainly really wanted the U.S. to stay with TPP. Yeah. And probably was pretty disappointed when Trump came out and said, well, we're pulling out a TPP. And now the story is that Japan seeks to lead TPP. Did Japan do that? That's a good question. I remember Abe saying shortly after Trump was elected that without the U.S. TPP would be meaningless. And it seems to have kind of changed his tune on that one a bit. And I have seen that he's thinking now that maybe Japan needs to assert leadership in pulling this off. I'm skeptical about that. Whether Japan could offer the type of incentives, the market incentives to some of the countries like Vietnam and Malaysia and so on, that the U.S. would offer to make this thing work. I know Japan's going to double its efforts in the regional comprehensive economic partnership, ReCEP, which China is the kind of the lead on that. And it's been kind of thought of as a competitor to the TPP. And Japan is probably going to try to look to counter them inside of ReCEP as well. But I don't think they have the weight. You said that will Japan join ReCEP or will it seek to counter it? I think they're already part of it. But they're going to probably double their efforts to try to counter China's leadership inside of ReCEP, as well as trying to revive the TPP. But there are going to be some obstacles, I think, to really getting a TPP to succeed now. Has Japan joined in on the China's big project at the moment, the One Belt, One Road? I think they're not as involved as many other countries. They're more waiting and watching. And most of the other countries in the region, including I think South Korea and others, are very interested in this. As far as I recall, Japan did not join the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank, along with the United States stayed off. Good ally. Well, we're sort of running down here on time. But let's just talk for a minute about the South China Sea, because it seems Japan wants to assert more influence on the South China Sea as well. Yeah, Southeast Asia and South China Sea in general has become, it seems, a major focus of Japan. Once again, both economically and in terms of security cooperation, I've seen Japan raising the amount of foreign direct investment that it's sending into some of the top ASEAN economies. And on the security front, they have this, I think it was last November, they announced this Vientian vision, this initiative that they have for security cooperation. Basically, nothing new coming forward, but a framework for what they're doing with ASEAN in terms of security cooperation, you know, all across the spectrum in terms of just having HADR or humanitarian assistance, disaster relief and peacekeeping operation training with each other, capacity building of various types. Then there's like Japan's new emphasis on providing technology transfers, which since 2014 they've been able to do because of changes in the law. And that I see as a major emphasis and something that the Southeast Asian countries are very interested in. They've been doing this a lot with the Philippines and Indonesia as well. You know, the patrol boats, Japan's focus is on the maritime domain and maintaining rule of law in that area. Well, I've just been told that the clock has caught up with us again, so I guess we're going to have to stop it here, but there's so much more we could talk about. That always seems to be the case, the quandary that we fall into. So I want to thank you very much for coming back and joining us for the third time. And I want to thank you for watching today and we'll see you next week.