Political developments

The LDP continued its dominance of Japanese politics until 1993. Its success in steering Japan through the difficult years of the OPEC oil crisis and the economic transition that substituted high-technology enterprises for smokestack industries in the 1970s and ’80s, thereby restoring Japan’s international economic confidence, was not lost on the Japanese public. The emerging prosperity that accompanied this transition and the declining influence of the opposition parties, particularly the socialists and communists, served as further popular endorsements of the government-business alliance that the LDP represented. By the late 1980s and early ’90s, however, as economic growth slowed and income disparities heightened public sensitivity to political corruption, this bargain between the people and their government changed.

Yet, there were also earlier signs of a political transition. While LDP rule appeared to be strengthening, the party’s share of the popular vote was declining—from three-fifths in 1969 to barely half in 1983 and to less than a third in the House of Councillors election of 1989. And, while the premiership remained firmly under LDP control, all governments but that of Nakasone Yasuhiro (1982–87) were short-lived. In 1989 the LDP lost control of the House of Councillors to a coalition of opposition parties headed by the socialists, who proposed Doi Takako, the first woman to head a major party in Japan, to be prime minister—a nomination rejected by the lower house.

The era had begun in 1972 with considerable hope for political change, as Tanaka Kakuei, a self-made politician who defied the usual LDP bureaucratic model, sought to address the problems of pollution and urban crowding by calling for a redistribution of industry throughout the Japanese islands. Tanaka’s grand plans soon encountered the reality of the OPEC oil crisis. His era ended in 1974 with little change and with him mired in a major influence-peddling scandal. Indeed, Tanaka came to symbolize the rise of “money politics,” as election campaigns became increasingly expensive and faction leaders—expected to provide campaign funds to their followers—became heavily entangled in questionable financial relationships. At the same time, aggressive businesses needed the cooperation of politicians and bureaucrats to expand within Japan’s highly regulated economic system. As the bubble economy inflated in the 1980s, money flowed freely into political coffers. Although there were early calls for reform, few in the LDP were prepared to make changes. To some degree Tanaka, who was arrested in 1976 and convicted of bribery charges in 1983, underscored this reluctance on the part of the LDP to undertake serious reforms. Despite the guilty verdict, he served no jail time and remained a political force into the late 1980s. By that time, political corruption had become almost endemic, and the LDP was racked by a succession of scandals.

Political turmoil was muted for some months during Emperor Hirohito’s illness in 1988. His death, in January 1989, ended the Shōwa era, the longest recorded reign in Japanese history—some 62 years. He was succeeded by his son, Akihito, who took the reign name Heisei (“Achieving Peace”).

But “peace” was difficult to preserve on both the domestic and foreign fronts. Later in 1989 Prime Minister Takeshita Noboru was forced out of office for involvement in a scandal involving manipulation of the stock market. Takeshita’s successor Uno Sōsuke almost instantly found himself embroiled in a sex scandal, and he resigned after only 68 days in office. Uno was replaced by the “clean” Kaifu Toshiki, who lacked firm support in the party. This became apparent in the lead-up to the Persian Gulf War (1990–91), when Kaifu found himself labeled “reluctant” and “indecisive” in handling Japan’s response to U.S. requests for assistance. Kaifu was forced from office in late 1991 when his efforts to secure legislation for Japanese noncombat participation in UN peacekeeping efforts—which was passed in 1992—and anticorruption measures failed to gain Diet support.

Miyazawa Kiichi, who succeeded Kaifu in 1991, had been a powerful figure within the LDP for several decades. Another damaging political scandal emerged, and Miyazawa, sensing the public outcry, tried to introduce reform legislation in the Diet. This cost him the support of key LDP members, and a no-confidence motion in June 1993, supported by many LDP members, toppled his government. In elections held the following month, the LDP lost its Diet majority to a coalition of opposition parties, ending its 38-year rule.

The July 1993 election ushered in a period of political transition. Several new parties emerged that were essentially splinter groups off the LDP, including the Japan New Party (JNP) and the Japan Renewal Party. These joined several former opposition parties to form a coalition government with Hosokawa Morihiro, leader of the JNP, as prime minister.

Hosokawa initiated political reform, including limitations on campaign contributions and a change in the Japanese electoral system. He achieved some success in limiting contributions and managed to pass a modified elections package that included the creation of 300 single-member constituencies (the remainder of the House of Representatives was to be elected by proportional representation in 11 regional blocs). Opposition within his coalition to tax reform and accusations of his own involvement in the Miyazawa-era scandal forced his resignation in April 1994. Hosokawa’s successor, Hata Tsutomu, lasted a mere two months. In the ensuing power vacuum, socialists and remaining LDP members formed an unlikely coalition, and Murayama Tomiichi became Japan’s first socialist premier since 1948.

During Murayama’s short tenure (1994–96), Japan experienced a devastating earthquake in Kōbe that killed more than 5,000 people and a terrorist attack on the Tokyo subway system by AUM Shinrikyo, a small religious sect, that killed 12 people and injured thousands of others. In 1995 the House of Representatives passed a resolution expressing “deep remorse” for past “acts of aggression,” particularly in Asia, and pledging adherence to the no-war clause in the postwar constitution. Murayama followed the resolution by becoming the first Japanese prime minister to use the word owabi (unambiguously, “apology”). That year, however, Murayama’s Social Democratic Party of Japan (the former Japan Socialist Party) suffered a string of election defeats, and in early 1996 Murayama resigned as prime minister.

Murayama was succeeded by LDP president Hashimoto Ryūtarō, who retained the support of the socialists and the smaller New Harbinger Party (Sakigake). In October the LDP won 239 of 500 seats in the House of Representatives, but with no party willing to join a coalition with the LDP, Hashimoto oversaw a minority administration. By the following year, however, the LDP was able to recruit enough independents to command a majority in the House. Nevertheless, the economic recession reduced the government’s popularity and led in 1998 to legislative losses for the LDP and Hashimoto’s resignation. Obuchi Keizo, who led the largest of the LDP’s factions, was elected LDP president and prime minister. In April 2000 Obuchi suffered a stroke that left him comatose (he died six weeks later), and the LDP secretary-general, Mori Yoshiro, was quickly confirmed as prime minister. In elections that June, the LDP lost its majority and was forced into an awkward alliance with two smaller parties. Mori’s many missteps—for example, he referred to Japan as a “divine country,” a phrase that evoked Japan’s militaristic past—reduced his approval rating to an all-time low for a Japanese prime minister. In April 2001 Mori announced his intention to resign.

Koizumi Jun’ichirō, who urged economic reform and fiscal restraint and criticized the party’s factions, defeated several rivals to win the presidency of the LDP and was confirmed as prime minister. Koizumi enjoyed widespread popularity, but some of his reforms were resisted by the LDP’s conservative factions. In addition, his support for allowing Japan’s military forces to exercise a full-fledged (rather than only defensive) security policy and his visits to the Yasukuni Shrine elicited outrage from some segments of the Japanese population and protests from Japan’s neighbors in Asia, particularly South Korea and China. Despite the controversies, the LDP’s resurgence continued, and in 2003 the party won a clear majority in the House of Representatives, securing Koizumi a second term as prime minister.

Koizumi, after serving his full term, stepped down in September 2006 and was succeeded over the next two years by a string of three prime ministers—all from politically well-connected families. Abe Shinzo, the grandson of Kishi Nobusuke and great nephew of Satō Eisaku (both former prime ministers), served in 2006–07 but resigned amid party scandals and concerns about his health and after the LDP had lost its majority in the upper house of the Diet. His replacement, Fukuda Yasuo—whose father, Fukuda Takeo, was prime minister in 1976–78—also stepped down after a year in office (2007–08), following a nonbinding censure vote by the upper house (the first under the 1947 constitution) and continued frustration over his political agenda. Succeeding Fukuda in September 2008 was Asō Tarō, grandson of Yoshida Shigeru and son-in-law of Suzuki Zenkō, both also former prime ministers. However, Asō could not stem the downward spiral of the LDP’s popularity with voters, who were increasingly dissatisfied with what they saw as the party’s ineffectiveness, mismanagement, and corruption. A particular focus of voter anger was the apparent bureaucratic mishandling of some 50 million pension records that was revealed in 2007. Voters were also unhappy that the LDP had changed prime ministers three times in three years without an electoral mandate. In the August 2009 lower-house elections, scores of LDP candidates were soundly defeated, and the party was swept out of office.

Replacing the LDP was the centrist Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), which had been founded in 1996 to challenge the LDP. Soon after its formation, the DPJ emerged as the main opposition party. However, it endured several years of mixed electoral results before its first major success in the 2007 House of Councillors elections, when with its allies it became the dominant force in that chamber. The DPJ’s victory was a landslide in the August 2009 elections, winning 308 seats in the lower house. The party subsequently formed a ruling coalition with the Social Democratic Party of Japan and the People’s New Party, and on September 16 DPJ leader Hatoyama Yukio was elected prime minister. However, Hatoyama’s tenure was ineffectual and brief, cut short after he reneged on a campaign promise to close an unpopular U.S. military base on Okinawa (it was to be moved to a different part of the island instead). He stepped down as prime minister and as head of the party on June 4, 2010, and was succeeded in both offices by Kan Naoto, another high-ranking member of the DPJ.

Kan’s government faced its greatest crisis in early 2011, when on March 11 a massive underwater earthquake in the Pacific Ocean east of the northern Honshu city of Sendai triggered a series of devastating tsunami waves that inundated and largely destroyed low-lying areas along the Pacific coast. The quake—magnitude 9.0, the strongest ever recorded in Japan—also was highly destructive, spawning fires in a number of cities, leveling thousands of buildings in the region, and causing damage as far away as Chiba prefecture near Tokyo. In addition, the tsunami precipitated a serious nuclear accident at the Fukushima Daiichi power station along the coast of Fukushima prefecture that forced the evacuation of residents in a wide area around the plant.

In all, some 20,000 people were either killed by or listed as missing after the earthquake and tsunami, and tens of thousands more were left homeless. The national government quickly organized a massive relief effort, aided by a number of foreign countries. Tens of thousands of people sought refuge in schools and other hastily set-up shelters in the hardest-hit areas, and over the next several months some 50,000 temporary housing units were built in Sendai and other cities in the region to accommodate many of these people. However, Kan’s government was criticized for its handling of the disaster, especially the nuclear emergency in Fukushima. Kan survived a no-confidence vote in June but, with his popularity plummeting, he resigned as prime minister and as president of the DPJ in late August. He was replaced in both capacities by Noda Yoshihiko, who had served as finance minister in Kan’s cabinet.

Noda lasted little more than 15 months in office as his government became increasingly unpopular, especially after it had engineered the passage of a rise in the national consumption (sales) tax in the summer of 2012. Noda also faced opposition for his decision to restart nuclear power plants shut down after the Fukushima disaster and for his willingness to consider negotiating a pan-Pacific trade pact. By mid-November 2012, LDP pressure in the lower house had forced him to dissolve that body and call for parliamentary elections. The polls, on December 16, resulted in a landslide victory for the LDP, while the DPJ’s number of seats fell to 57. Noda immediately resigned as head of the party. On December 26 Abe Shinzo—who had become head of the LDP in September 2012—was selected to be the next prime minister by the LDP-dominated lower house.

Another development was the rise to national political prominence of Ishihara Shintarō, who was governor of Tokyo from 1999 until he resigned in October 2012 to run for the lower house. In the December 16 election he and his newly formed Japan Restoration Party (Nippon Ishin no Kai) won a total of 54 seats in the chamber.

Abe and the LDP had partnered with the New Kōmeitō (New Clean Government Party) for the 2012 election, and that coalition produced a supermajority of more than two-thirds of the seats in the lower house. The two parties continued their success in the 2013 upper-house elections, where they won a simple majority of seats. The Abe government had early success in improving Japan’s economy, but the implementation of the second of three rises in the consumption tax in April 2014 was a major factor in a sharp economic downturn that led to recession by that autumn. Abe decided to dissolve parliament and call snap elections, which were held on December 14. The coalition was able to retain its supermajority in the chamber, but voter apathy was high and the turnout was at a record low.

Social change

Japan has continued its transformation into a high-technology, urban, industrial society. The migration from countryside to city largely has been completed; some four-fifths of Japan’s people now live in urban areas, and few families live on farms. Urbanization has resulted in further demographic change, including an accelerating decline in the birth rate that by the mid-1980s was less than the level needed to replace the population. Urban congestion, confined housing space, the cost of raising children, a trend toward delaying marriage, a growing reluctance by women to get married, and effective birth-control measures have all contributed to this phenomenon. By 2000 the proportion of Japanese age 65 or older had surpassed those 15 or younger. Thus, Japanese society faces serious demographic challenges, the most urgent being a rapidly aging population and concomitant declining active workforce.

Living standards have risen dramatically since the early 1970s, supporting a strong consumer market. But the excessive crowding and congestion in major cities has been exacerbated by the high cost of real estate, making home ownership difficult for many Japanese families. Hours spent commuting also increased as people moved ever farther from city centers. By the 1990s many Japanese citizens felt confined to an urban environment designed to serve the needs of corporate Japan and not its people and were less willing to support the entrenched government-business alliance that assured majorities for the LDP.

Japanese values also have been changing as generations born and raised in the city mature and replace those brought up in the villages. While Japanese society remains formally hierarchical and social distinctions based on education and family background persist, the degree of conformity and the acceptance of consensus appear to be lessening. As the agriculture-induced submission of the individual to the group fades and as corporations, which previously served as pseudo-villages in the urban environment, lose their paternalistic overtones, greater individuation is apparent. In marketing, for example, it has been found that the former consumer habit of buying the same, familiar brand-name items is not being continued by Japanese who reached adult age from the mid-1980s. Many of those individuals have become disenchanted with the shops and goods their parents favored and have opted for diversity and competitive pricing. Such phrases as “my car,” “my home,” and “my leisure” further underscore the growing emphasis on the individual and individual choice and on the more assertive attitude of the ordinary Japanese.

Gender relations also have undergone a gradual transition—though not at the speed hoped for by many women. Important role models, such as the socialist leader Doi Takako, Tanaka Makiko (who was chosen in 2001 as Japan’s first woman foreign minister), and Princess Masako (the Harvard-educated diplomat who married Crown Prince Naruhito in 1993), have helped make the place of professional women more acceptable. Women now account for about two-fifths of the workforce, but many occupy temporary or part-time positions, and full-time women employees often find it difficult to advance to management positions. Despite growing dissatisfaction with traditional gender roles, Japanese perceptions of the family and the position of the wife and mother in it have been slow to change. Women, particularly those married to white-collar workers, are still expected to carry much of the responsibility of household management and child rearing, while the males devote themselves to their office culture. Japanese divorce rates, though rising, remain low by Western standards, and the stability of the Japanese family continues to undergird the social system.

Globalization has been another important theme since the early 1970s, as large numbers of Japanese have traveled abroad and an increasing number of foreign students and foreign workers have come to Japan. In the last two decades of the 20th century, the number of foreign residents in Japan roughly doubled to more than 1.3 million. A majority of the foreign residents were Chinese or Korean, but foreign laborers from the Middle East and Southeast Asia, drawn by higher wages, also relocated to Japan to perform many of the less desirable jobs. The absorption of such residents has not always been easy for a society that sees itself as ethnically distinct and homogeneous. Discrimination against minorities, however—including Koreans, the former outcast group now called burakumin, and the Ainu—which has persisted for centuries, appears less acceptable today in a society that is not only more educated but also increasingly subject to international scrutiny and criticism. The internationalization of Japan also has resulted in a reassertion of Japanese nationalism, particularly among the older members of society who see Japan losing its identity amid the influx of foreign culture. And yet, as even a brief visit to Tokyo confirms, American cultural symbols—from fast-food restaurants to blue jeans and motorcycles—are now as much at home in the Harajuku district as on Venice Beach in Los Angeles.

International relations

Japan has continued its close cooperation with the United States, but it also has sought to rebuild relations with its Asian neighbors. Despite the rapid political transformation of the world after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, ties between the United States and Japan have been little altered in their fundamental tenets. Both countries officially remained committed to the Mutual Security Treaty, which keeps Japan under the U.S. nuclear weapons “umbrella” and permits thousands of U.S. troops to be stationed there, particularly on Okinawa; however, many Japanese favor redefining the relationship between the two countries and reducing the number of U.S. troops.

Economic issues have often strained U.S.-Japanese relations, as Japan’s resurgence in the early postwar decades transformed the country from a client to a competitor of the United States. Such a change has not been easy. Trade issues sometimes have been particularly acrimonious, intensified by essential misunderstandings on solutions proposed by each side. While friction on economic issues has removed some of the harmony that once typified the relationship between the two countries, there nevertheless remains substantial goodwill, both countries realizing that, as the dominant economic and military powers of the Asian Pacific region, their bilateral relationship is the most important in East Asia.

The end of the Cold War provided Japan with the opportunity to pursue an independent China policy. Following Prime Minister Tanaka Kakuei’s trip to China in 1972, which began the process of normalizing relations between the two countries, Japan vigorously pursued trade opportunities with China, and in 1978 a peace treaty and the first of a series of economic pacts were concluded. Both trade and cultural contacts between Japan and China expanded dramatically, and by the early 1990s China was Japan’s second largest trading partner, surpassed only by the United States. Tensions occasionally have arisen between the two countries over issues such as Chinese objections to the Japanese attitude toward its wartime conduct and its colonial rule of China and to visits by Japanese officials to the Yasukuni Shrine or to Japanese protests of the Chinese repression of demonstrators in 1989. The visit to China by Emperor Akihito in 1992, however, which included a tacit apology for the “severe suffering” that the Japanese had inflicted on the Chinese during the war, demonstrated that Japan was determined not just to build economic ties with China but also to transcend the gap that stemmed from the war and to restore cultural ties. Nevertheless, the political relationship between the two countries remained uneasy into the 21st century.

Although Japan’s formal relationship with Taiwan was discontinued after 1978, Taiwan continued to play an important role for Japan, particularly since the late 1980s, when Japan sought to strengthen its ties with the so-called newly industrialized countries of Asia (South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore, as well as Hong Kong when it was a British colony). These were all seen as areas capable of providing high-quality goods for the Japanese market and consequently as sites for direct investment by Japanese firms. Earlier Japanese concerns that these countries would become competitors with Japan for the U.S. market faded as economic interaction between them created a highly dynamic economic region.

Efforts to solidify relations with Southeast Asia advanced in the late 20th century. Lingering resentment over the war and the insensitive attitudes of Japanese businessmen toward local populations in the 1960s produced anti-Japanese riots when Prime Minister Tanaka toured the region in 1974. Anger against Japan and feelings of Japanese exploitation in the region continued into the 1980s, when efforts were made to improve the situation. Southeast Asian nations—particularly Indonesia—became recipients of extensive Japanese development aid. Japan also made efforts to work with Vietnam and Cambodia. Japan’s interests in Vietnam have been largely economic, but in Cambodia Japan played an important role in working out the 1991 UN Security Council “peace plan” and helped with its implementation the following year; through passage of the International Peace Cooperation Law by the Diet, unarmed troops from Japan’s Self-Defense Forces participated in a UN peacekeeping operation, the first time since the World War II that Japanese forces had ventured overseas.

The Japanese government also sought to address lingering animosities that existed toward Japan on the Korean peninsula. Formal statements of apology to Korea for Japan’s colonial rule were issued (most notably by Prime Minister Murayama Tomiichi in 1995), visits were made by the leaders of Japan and South Korea to each other’s countries, and bilateral trade agreements were negotiated. However, such positive steps tended to be offset by events that often angered South Korea: occasional statements by Japanese government officials that seemed to defend Japan’s colonial and wartime actions (including the forced prostitution of Korean women during the war), continued periodic prime ministerial visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, and revelations that Japan’s colonial rule was positively depicted in Japanese textbooks. A further issue for South Korea was the status of Koreans living in Japan, many of whom were third- or fourth-generation Japanese-born. Despite these differences, in 2002 Japan and South Korea cohosted the association football (soccer) World Cup finals, the first time the event was held in Asia or staged jointly by two countries.

Relations with Russia have remained decidedly cool. A formal peace treaty was never concluded with the Soviet Union before its dissolution. The major sticking point for the Japanese has been the disposition of the “northern territories,” the four small islands in the southern Kuril chain that the Russians seized following World War II. The Japanese have sought the return of these islands and have been reluctant to grant Russia development aid without an agreement. Negotiations with Russia to resolve the issue continued throughout the 1990s and into the early 21st century.

Japan’s larger role in the world has changed dramatically since the 1970s. As its economy matured, Japan became a leading advanced industrial country. The macroeconomic changes of the 1980s—slower growth, financial deregulation, technological success, tighter labor markets, and currency appreciation—all helped to transform Japan into an important creditor nation, swelling the country’s direct foreign investments. While Japan long has been concerned with the outside world as a source of raw materials and a market for its goods, the Japanese ownership of extensive manufacturing plants, financial institutions, and real estate overseas has required Japan to be more directly involved in world affairs. Accordingly, economic bodies, such as OECD, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization, have received increasing Japanese attention and participation. Japan has also sought to wield more influence within the United Nations, launching a bid in the 1990s for a permanent seat on the Security Council. However, a more “activist” foreign policy role—particularly one hinting at military participation—is not coveted by all Japanese, which is why the dispatch of troops by Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro in 2003 to support the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq was such a watershed in Japan’s postwar history. Representing the first deployment of Japanese military units into a war zone since the end of World War II, the decision elicited opposition by Japanese who believed that it violated the no-war clause of the Japanese constitution, but it also garnered support from those who believed that Japan needed to take a more active role in its defense and to break free from the constraints imposed on the country after 1945.