Asian editorial excerpts - KOIZUMI'S BATTLE WITH BUREAUCRATS

0 Comments | Asian Political News, July 22, 2002

TOKYO, July 17 Kyodo

Selected editorial excerpts from the Asia-Pacific press:

KOIZUMI'S BATTLE WITH BUREAUCRATS (Business Times, Singapore)

Japan's powerful bureaucracy -- the Finance Ministry, especially -- appears to be reasserting itself after attempts by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and his predecessors to cut it down to size.

And when Mr. Koizumi is not doing battle with scheming bureaucrats, he is having to confront obstinate old-guard politicians opposed to any change in the status quo.

This, at least, is the popular perception in Japan, where the Old Order is seen as representing all that is bad while the New Order promised by Mr. Koizumi is viewed as holding out the only hope for the future.

Yet, the relatively youthful prime minister, who seized the imagination and the hearts of the nation when he swept to power some 18 months ago, was from the start more of a Don Quixote -- a pursuer of lofty but impractical ideals -- than a dragon slayer.

He has tilted at various windmills without really toppling any of them because his strategy has not been well thought out, either in conceptual or strategic terms.

It is important this be understood by those looking at Japan from the outside, so that they do not lose hope at the sight of Mr. Koizumi being vanquished (though he is ever ready to declare victory) by what seem to be the forces of reaction.

But a greater indictment of Mr. Koizumi's stubbornness than any of these manifestations is his inability or refusal to come to grips with the problem of bad debt in the Japanese banking system, and even to sweep this problem cynically under the carpet until his government can slough off the burden of guarantees to bank depositors next April.

A real reformer would confront voters with the painful truth about the need for tackling the banking sector time bomb, rather than posturing with economic palliatives such as tax cuts.

Seen against this background, the obstinacy of the Japanese bureaucracy and the unyielding attitudes of old-guard LDP (Liberal Democratic Party) members seem almost benign. There is little merit in pushing blindly ahead with reform which is based upon largely discredited economic ideologies, as Mr. Koizumi insists on doing.

Japan does need change but it should not be change simply for change's sake. And it needs to start from a realistic appreciation of what's wrong with the system before quick and slick fixes are tried.

(July 17)