ISAS Briefs

The elections in Japan on 30 August 2009 are likely to take the country in an entirely different direction from the one it has pursued since the end of World War II. Then, it had allied itself closely with the United States, the country that gave it a new Constitution and promised it security against foreign aggression. It also gave an enormous amount of authority to the bureaucracy that wielded power much greater than that exercised by the elected representatives of the people. All that is set to change. When the opposition leader, Yukio Hatoyama, forms the government, he will set the country on a path that will begin to deviate significantly from the past. Change will come but it will arrive slowly. Since it is coming at a slow pace, it will perhaps endure over a long time. What the world may see is a significant restructuring of the global political and economic order, particularly in Asia. There will be changes in five areas, all of them significant for the world. Japan will begin to address the problem posed by a rapidly ageing population, it will redirect public money towards the less advantaged segments of the population, it will reduce the power of the bureaucracy, it will redefine its relations with the United States, and it will get closer to its Asian neighbours, in particular China.