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The Asahi Shimbun
Opinion
Editorial
article
January 2, 2025 at 11:49 JST
Donald Trump takes the stage to address supporters at his rally at the Palm Beach County Convention Center in West Palm Beach, Florida, on Nov. 6. (REUTERS)
We feel uneasy. We have a premonition of turbulence, but we can’t quite put our finger on it. An unusually unpredictable new year has dawned.
The most obvious source of uncertainty is Donald Trump’s imminent return as the 47th president of the United States this month.
The president-elect intends to slap huge tariffs on goods from China, is threatening to retake control of the Panama Canal, and has vowed to deploy the U.S. military for the mass deportation of undocumented migrants.
Is Trump dead serious, or is this all just a bluff? Or is he trying to see if he can rattle the world?
Uncertainty is being felt in Japan, too. The Lower House election last autumn diminished the Liberal Democratic Party into the first minority ruling party in 30 years.
During his year-end news conference, Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba congratulated himself on making the just-ended extraordinary Diet session a veritable “deliberative Diet” session.
Has Japanese politics—or the LDP, for that matter—really changed? And will this be an enduring change? Or is it just an illusion the party is projecting for the time being?
With the Upper House election coming up in summer, we definitely expect opposition parties to become more adversarial in the Diet.
Moving forward in this year of unpredictability, what should we rely on to better comprehend the world?
Let us think about this with some hints from Turkish-American economist Daron Acemoglu, a co-winner of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences.
‘NARROW CORRIDOR’ TOWARD PROSPERITY
Acemoglu posits that the realization of a free and prosperous nation is contingent on the growth of both “State,” which is the power structure, and “Society” that is formed by the people, in a competitive relationship.
If left alone, State will start to oppress the people, which means Society must monitor State and keep it in check, according to Acemoglu. But the “corridor” of balance is said to be very narrow.
Let us apply this to the world in recent years.
Russia, for instance, has become an extremely bloated nation and an oppressive society where people have no freedom to criticize a war. Even if the war in Ukraine should end, Russia’s Society will not recover easily.
A reverse move took place last summer in Bangladesh, where the administration of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina collapsed. Under her authoritarian regime, no student could hope to secure a job unless they personally knew some powerful politician in the ruling party. The collective anger of such students and others evolved into widespread protests.
The nation is currently at a crossroads under a provisional government, in which student leaders are represented. Whether true political stability can be restored awaits to be seen.
Five years ago, Acemoglu told The Asahi Shimbun that Japan needs to work on some of its own issues, which he summed up as follows: “When it comes to promoting social change from within, the effort that the Japanese people put into is feeble at best,” and, “It is surprising that even after roughly 25 years of stagnation, no counter-movement has arisen.”
CAN’T RELY ON GOVERNMENT
In retrospect, Japan began its steady economic ascent during the onset of the Korean War in 1950, which limited instances of outright confrontation between State and Society.
Since the birth of the LDP in 1955, there have been times when the Diet building was surrounded by citizens alarmed by the possibility of politicians running amok. Still, it is safe to say that overall, the Japanese public has remained relatively “apolitical” except perhaps on election days.
After the 1990s, however, stagnation began to set in.
Economic growth came to a grinding halt, the population began to age inexorably, and natural disasters became rampant.
The Great Hanshin Earthquake of 1995 became the cue for Japanese people to switch their thinking—that nothing good will come of remaining fully dependent on State, and that it was time for themselves to try to build a stronger and better society.
Walt Whitman (1819-1892), one of the most influential poets in American literature, warned against leaving everything to politicians and government personnel and preached political engagement through his poems and essays.
He lamented that although Americans had cast aside monarchy by declaring independence from Britain, American politics was still being controlled by “professional politicians.”
And he insisted that America was still the only country in the world where common laborers and farmers could become members of Congress and government personnel and practice politics by commuting from their places of work to the Capitol or government offices.
What Whitman stressed was the importance of “scrutinizing” politics. In his writings, he kept reminding readers in simple language that only the people themselves can make democracy function.
He exhorted them to the effect, “If you are a sensible citizen, engage more firmly in politics,” and, “Never miss an election, always remain abreast of developments.”
ASCERTAIN ROOTS OF DISTRUST
Following Whitman’s precept, there are two things we wish to scrutinize.
One is the will of the American people who re-elected Trump. For them to have voted for him despite the political chaos he caused during his previous term, they must have felt some insurmountable distrust in the current administration.
The United States today is no longer able to single-handedly protect the global order, and gone now is the American middle class that supported the nation’s prosperity back then. The 2024 presidential election had ceased to be a platform for choosing the desired administration and became, instead, an occasion for voters to vent their dissatisfaction, anger and other strong emotions.
That, actually, is precisely why it is more important to examine and understand the roots of popular distrust and frustration, rather than the election outcome per se. And we certainly think the process is of relevance to Japanese, too.
Another thing we need to scrutinize is Japanese politics.
The seeming instability of having a minority ruling party could actually present an opportunity for Japan’s transformation.
The LDP’s single-party supremacy that continued until last autumn came with too many “black boxes” that literally kept the public in the dark. Even the most fundamental government policies on national security and energy were rewritten with next to no knowledge of the voting public.
We would love the tide to change this year and allow us better visibility of the government-opposition policy bargaining process.
We want this year to be one in which Japanese voters will not take their eyes off any political anomalies or deviations, so that they will speak out when necessary and strive to build a better, tougher society.
–The Asahi Shimbun, Jan. 1
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