Left Flank

I can't share Abiola Lapite's enthusiasm, but Japan will have a new prime minister: Yasuo Fûkûdá.

Japan has one huge challenge ahead, according to Tobias Harris: solving its rural problem.

The challenge of the present in Japan, the US, and throughout Europe is to build a new order for the post-industrial age. The problem is probably most acute for Japan, which has been slow to de-centralize, is more hierarchical than the other post-industrial democracies, and has had a relatively higher share of its population engaged in agriculture. Of course, in cultural terms, Japan is probably leading the way into the future as its cities grow and urban culture evolves (and influences the rest of the world).

The challenge for Mr. Fûkûdá, and for his successors for years to come, is to build political and economic institutions for an urban, post-industrial Japan: an education system that prepares children for work other than that in large, hierarchical organizations; trade policy, especially in agriculture, that acknowledges that Japan will not be self-sufficient and thus puts consumer interests ahead of producer interests; a pension system in which the burden for supporting retirees shifts from the private sector to the government. The list goes on and on. Japan is in dire need of institutions befitting an urban society.

But, a Fûkûdá administration has to do this while Japan is in the midst of an equally difficult shift in its foreign policy fortunes. The question of Japan's participation in Afghanistan is only the short-term manifestation of deeper questions, about its relations with ROK and Taiwan, China, the DPRK and Six-Party talks, and its relationship with the US.

(Both Seijigiri episodes with Tobias Harris demand future posts).

Yasuo Fûkûdá faces all these challenges, but he very well could be just a caretaker. Or, worse, he could be cannon fodder on the way to an opposition party victory in 2009. He might be, in Abiola Lapite's words, «...a safe and sensible choice; he's not a charismatic superstar like Koizumi, but at least he isn't prone to the offensive gaffes of Taro Aso or the Shinzo Abe's obsession with empty nationalist symbolism ordinary voters could care less about.»

But, Japan needs more now