L’Agenda dei cambiamenti del Giappone
Neo-eletto – Yukio Hatoyama è il nuovo capo del governo giapponese
– Il nuovo primo ministro giapponese, Hatoyama, (62 anni, partito Democratico, DPJ), proviene a un’antica ricca e potente famiglia; la sua famiglia ha fondato il gruppo Bridgestone, gomme.
– alla Camera bassa dispone di una forte maggioranza che gli permette di portare avanti più facilmente il suo programma di cambiamenti.
– Il suo governo sta riducendo l’accisa sulla benzina, una delle molte promesse populiste fatte dal DPJ in campagna elettorale.
– Fondamentalmente Hatoyama da l’impressione di essere molto conservatore, promette di respingere le forze della globalizzazione e di difendere il Giappone dei piccoli negozi.
– Il suo maestro filosofo sembra il metà austriaco e metà giapponese Conte Richard Nikolaus von Coudenhoven Kalergi (1894-1972), pioniere dell’integrazione europea e dello spirito di fratellanza nella prima metà del ‘900; il nonno di Hatoyama ne tradusse l’opera in giapponese.
– Hatoyama l’ha rievocato in un articolo sul NYT, prima della sua elezione, come ispiratore di un’integrazione est asiatica, che dovrebbe proteggere il Giappone e altri paesi asiatici sia dagli eccessi politici ed economici degli USA che dalla minaccia militare della Cina.
– «É anche la via giusta per proteggere l’indipendenza politica ed economica del Giappone e per perseguire i nostri interessi nella nostra posizione tra USA e Cina».
– Hatoyama ha ribadito durante la sua ascesa che le relazioni USA-Giappone sono le basi della politica estera giapponese; il suo progetto di integrazione est asiatica da spazio all’inclusione sia di USA che di Cina.
– Avanza come interessante proposta lo sviluppo congiunto del petrolio nel Mar cinese orientale, tra Giappone e Cina.
– Avendo la sua coalizione di governo posizioni differenti, ne può derivare una certa incongruenza e ambivalenza politica.
– Hatoyama è giunto tardi alla politica, dopo una carriera accademica (ingegneria presso l’università di elite di Tokio e la americana Stanford, ha insegnato a lungo ingegneria; nel 1986 è entrato nel LDP, da cui è uscito con altri riformatori nel 1993, anno in cui l’LPD ha perso per la prima volta le elezioni.
1998, da piccoli partiti di opposizione è nato il DPJ, suo capo e cofondatore – con il sostegno finanziario della sua famiglia – lo zio del fondatore di Bridgestone
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– Just as the health-care debate was showing how hard it is to translate the slogan of change into reality, newly inaugurated Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama swept into New York, branding himself as the Barack Obama of Japan.
By voting for change, Hatoyama told me during an interview last week, "each individual in the United States has gained vitality within themselves. We too, by changing our closed politics, have been able to generate vitality within each individual in Japan."
– Personally the two leaders could not be more different: Hatoyama is oddly affectless rather than charismatic, and born into a family of long-standing wealth and power.
– Yet to Japan watchers, his ascent is, in its way, as path-breaking as Obama’s. By leading his left-leaning Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) to a smashing victory last month, he broke a half-century of virtually uninterrupted rule by the right-leaning Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). And with an overwhelming majority in the lower house of the Diet, Hatoyama may have an easier time enacting his change agenda than Obama is finding in the Senate Finance Committee.
– But is there a coherent agenda? To the United Nations last week, Hatoyama brought a promise to reduce Japan’s greenhouse gas emissions by far more than his predecessors had pledged. At home, meanwhile, his government is reducing the gasoline tax, fulfilling one of many populist promises his party made to win election.
When I asked about this apparent contradiction, Hatoyama insisted, against considerable evidence, that the price of gasoline doesn’t have much effect on demand — and that, in any case, policies that send emissions in a "negative direction" will be "overcome with technological progress."
– In his essence, Hatoyama comes across as deeply conservative. He promises to hold back the forces of globalization and preserve the communitarian Japan of small shops, face-to-face and humane decency.
– His guiding philosopher seems to be the half-Austrian, half-Japanese Count Richard Nikolaus von Coudenhove-Kalergi (1894-1972). Coudenhove-Kalergi (in case you’ve forgotten) was a pioneering proponent of European integration in the first half of the last century, and also of a spirit of "fraternity" that he thought could take the world beyond socialism and capitalism.
"If we look at Japan today, I feel that this spirit of fraternity is lacking," Hatoyama told me. "That is why I am advocating the change we need to revive fraternity."
– That change, he explained, involves the "need to apply brakes" when market forces become excessive. "Politics should play a greater role on behalf of humanity or the weak," he said.
– In an article he published online in the New York Times just before the election, Hatoyama cited Coudenhove-Kalergi (whose work Hatoyama’s grandfather translated into Japanese) as an inspiration also for his foreign policy, advocating a kind of East Asian integration that would protect Japan and other Asian nations from both "U.S. political and economic excesses" and "the military threat posed by our neighbor China."
– In what would be a radical departure from Japan’s reliance on its alliance with the United States, he added: "It is also the appropriate path for protecting Japan’s political and economic independence and pursuing our interests in our position between the United States and China."
– Since his ascension, though, Hatoyama has stressed that he views the U.S.-Japan relationship as the foundation of Japan’s foreign policy. He told me that his concept of East Asian integration has room both for "the eventual inclusion of the United States" and for China, too. "A very attractive idea would be to start with joint development of oil in the East China Sea between Japan and China," he said.
– Given the diverse views within his ruling coalition, a degree of inconsistency should come as no surprise. It may reflect, too, the ambivalence many Japanese feel: resentment of U.S. high-handedness, but nervousness about expanding Chinese power and North Korean nuclear weapons; pride in their pacifist postwar constitution, but a desire for greater global leadership and respect.
– Such inconsistencies helped end Japan’s only other experiment in non-LDP leadership, in 1994, after less than a year. This time, the DPJ’s huge majority may give it a larger cushion — which Hatoyama acknowledged he may need.
"I think there will be various trials and errors," Hatoyama warned as he took office. "I think there will be failures." He might have added: Barack Obama would understand. Change is never easy.
16. September 2009, 08:55 Uhr
– Nach dem Erdrutschsieg seiner Partei im August ist Yukio Hatoyama vom japanischen Unterhaus zum neuen Regierungschef bestimmt worden. Der 62-Jährige muss sich vor allem um die Wirtschaft des Landes kümmern. Sein politisches Motto lautet "Brüderlichkeit" – und er trägt einen seltsamen Spitznamen.
– Das japanische Unterhaus im Parlament hat Yukio Hatoyama zum neuen Ministerpräsidenten gewählt. Wichtigste Aufgabe des 62-Jährigen wird es sein, die Wirtschaft des Landes wieder in Gang zu bringen. Hatoyamas Demokratische Partei hatte bei den Unterhauswahlen im August einen Erdrutschsieg gegen die seit beinahe fünf Jahrzehnten ununterbrochen regierende Liberaldemokratische Partei eingefahren.
– Der neue Ministerpräsident stammt aus einer alten Politiker- und Industriellendynastie. Bereits sein Großvater war Ministerpräsident gewesen, sein Vater diente als Außenminister, sein jüngerer Bruder amtierte unter der bei der Wahl nun unterlegenen langjährigen Regierungspartei LDP als Innenminister.
– Reich wurde die Familie durch den von ihr gegründeten Reifenkonzern Bridgestone.
Der heute 62-Jährige kam selbst erst recht spät in die Politik. Nach einer akademischen Karriere – der studierte Ingenieur trägt Titel der Elite-Uni Tokio und der US-Universität Stanford und lehrte jahrelang Ingenieurwissenschaften – folgte er schließlich der Familientradition und trat 1986 der LDP bei. Mit anderen Reformern spaltete er sich 1993 ab, wodurch die LDP erstmals ihre Macht verlor.
In der Freizeit erforscht er Schmetterlinge
– Hatoyama war daraufhin Vizesprecher der neuen Regierung, die aber nach nur zehn Monaten im Streit der acht Koalitionsparteien wieder zerbrach.
– 1998 formierte sich aus kleinen Oppositionsparteien die heutige DPJ, die der Enkel des Bridgestone-Gründers mit finanzieller Unterstützung seiner Familie mitgründete und führte.
Hatoyama stellt seine Politik unter das Motto „yuai“, das sich mit „Brüderlichkeit“ übersetzen lässt. Manchen galt er früher als zu weich für den harten Machtkampf in Tokio. Davon ist keine Rede mehr. Er will die Macht der Bürokratie brechen und Verschwendung von Steuergeldern bekämpfen. Außenpolitisch versucht Hatoyama, der in Amerika studiert hat, Abstand zur Schutzmacht USA zu halten.
Wegen seiner Art, manchmal unvorbereitet Ansichten kundzutun, aber auch wegen seines Aussehens – seiner weit auseinanderliegenden Augen – trägt der auf manche etwas aristokratisch wirkende Hatoyama den Spitznamen „Außerirdischer“. In seiner Freizeit erforscht er zusammen mit seinem Bruder Schmetterlinge und hört wie seine Frau Yukie gerne koreanische Popmusik. Ihr gemeinsamer Sohn Kiichiro (33) folgte der akademischen Laufbahn des Vaters und lehrt an der Staatsuniversität Moskau ebenfalls Ingenieurwissenschaften.
[8] "Die Gefahr der politischen Instabilität wächst"; Das Parlament 30/31, 2006