ANALYSIS
By Linda Sieg, Reuters
New Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso is keen to make his mark by crafting a bigger global security role for Tokyo, but a looming election, a faltering economy and political deadlock are dampening chances of success.
That will frustrate close ally Washington, which wants Tokyo to do its bit to back U.S.-led operations in Afghanistan, and distract Japanese policy-makers just as tensions rise over North Korea's plans to reactivate its plutonium-making nuclear plant.
"Aso is certainly interested in escalating Japan's political stature with some long-term strategy, such as further strengthening the U.S.-Japan alliance and strengthening Japan's virtual alliances with democratic countries like India, Australia and NATO nations," said Tomohiko Taniguchi, a former foreign ministry spokesman now an adjunct professor at Keio University.
"While pursuing these objectives, he will certainly concentrate his attention and capital on carrying the lower house election in favour of the ruling coalition."
Eager to demonstrate his diplomatic prowess, Aso, a former foreign minister, headed on Thursday for New York to address the United Nations, just one day after taking office to replace Yasuo Fukuda, who abruptly quit the leadership this month.
But the outspoken nationalist leader must fly back to Tokyo without even a night's sleep to face an extraordinary session of parliament that pundits and media widely expect him to cut short by calling a snap election for the powerful lower house.
With that in mind, Aso is putting top priority on spending and tax cuts to try to bolster an economy he says is in recession and on addressing voters' distress over inequities critics argue resulted from pro-market reforms during prime minister Junichiro Koizumi's 2001-2006 term.
The obsessive domestic manoeuvrings and stalemate in Japan's political arena stands in contrast to a push by Japanese financial firms overseas that is reshaping the global banking landscape at a time of turmoil.
"The private sector is getting dividends for reforms in the 1990s," said Jesper Koll, CEO of investment advisory firm Tantallon Research Japan. "The political sector doesn't know who will have a job in two months' time."
CONTAINING CHINA
Japanese leaders have been stretching the limits of the pacifist constitution since the 1990s, most strikingly with Koizumi's dispatch of non-combat troops to Iraq that ended in 2006, and Aso is among those who want Tokyo to stride more boldly on the world stage.
As foreign minister, Aso proposed the concept of an "Arc of Freedom and Prosperity" including like-minded democracies, an idea that some analysts said was aimed at containing China.
Despite his concerns about Chinese military spending, Aso also says he wants to keep improving oft-strained relations with Beijing, a stance pragmatists in both countries favour now because of the Asian neighbours deep economic ties.
Japan's long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) chose Aso to replace the unpopular Fukuda in hopes the manga-loving scion of a wealthy family could preserve its grip on power in the face of a challenge from a feisty opposition Democratic Party.
No election for the lower house need be held until next September, but many predict Aso will take the plunge soon if, as the party hopes, opinion polls show a boost for his new cabinet.
A snap election would scuttle hopes of quickly extending Japan's refueling mission in the Indian Ocean in support of U.S.-led operations in Afghanistan, enabling legislation for which expires in January, not to mention making it highly unlikely that Japan would offer any added logistical support.
Analysts expect the ruling bloc to lose in the next election the two-thirds lower house majority that currently allows it to override vetoes by an opposition-controlled upper chamber.
Some think the LDP, which has ruled for most of the past half-century, could even be ousted. Many predict, however, that a clear victory for either side will prove elusive, setting the stage for more policy paralysis and possibly a shake up of party allegiances.
None of those scenarios bode well for expanding Tokyo's global diplomatic role, especially since voters are most concerned with domestic matters, such as how to fund a pension system creaking under the weight of a fast-ageing population.
"Now is the time to restructure the domestic system, starting with pensions and welfare system and local governance," former Japanese diplomat Yukio Satoh said in a recent interview.
"The public is legitimately asking for that so … under a democracy, we have to face that fact, even at the cost of some of international relations."
