英国ファイナンシャルタイムズの日本の新政権に対するコメント（示唆）

A steady start for Tokyo’s new rulers➠　ファイナンシャルタイムズ
Published: September 17 2009 20:13 | Last updated: September 17 2009 20:13

Yukio Hatoyama’s Democrats have barely been in office 24 hours. Yet already they have been painted by some as madcap socialists and by others as merely more of the same. Neither is true.

Mr Hatoyama’s essay on “market fundamentalism” has caused consternation in some Washington circles, where it has been received as evidence of Japan’s sharp turn to the left. But that essay was primarily for a domestic audience. It articulated many of the concerns about globalisation’s side effects that helped sweep the DPJ into power. José Manuel Barroso, European Commission president, found nothing in it that did not tally with European views on properly regulated markets.

Mr Hatoyama’s remarks on US-Japan ties have more potential to cause tension. His new foreign minister has declared that revising plans for relocating a US base in Okinawa is a high priority. Still, this is an issue that the two countries should be able to manage.

Nor is the DPJ merely the Liberal Democratic party in disguise. Many of the party’s heavyweights are LDP defectors, but behind them at least two-thirds of MPs are fresh-faced, some elected for the first time, with a more modern social agenda. True, the DPJ has not coalesced around a coherent ideology. Yet, as Mr Hatoyama says, taking over after half a century of one-party rule is bound to involve trial and error.

His cabinet appointments are mostly reassuring. Making Hirohisa Fujii, 77, finance minister is a sign his new government will be fiscally restrained. The party’s promise to tilt the economic playing field from big exporters to domestic consumers is correct, but extremely difficult to execute. Foreign minister Katsuya Okada, a former party head, is a safe pair of hands. Appointing Shizuka Kamei, enemy of postal reform, as minister for financial services, is more daring. Yet Mr Kamei’s call for socially responsible banks is not so far removed from his US and UK counterparts who are also pushing banks to lend to small business.

There is a third hypothesis about the new government: that it will sweep away the postwar consensus and unleash faster growth. That is probably the most deluded of all given Japan’s structural problems. If the DPJ has a coherent philosophy it is to better reconcile market forces with social cohesiveness in the context of China’s rise and Japan’s gradual decline. If it pursues that agenda, many foreign commentators will consider it a failure. But many Japanese would count it a success.

　諸外国が、一体何を日本に期待しているというのだろうか？そこの文脈が読めれば、日本が中国との折衝において、諸外国の評価と日本人の評価が１８０度違うという意味が、どのように日本の政治に影響するかが見えてきそうなものだ。対外的な評価を気にするという意味ではなく、自国の不利益は避けたいと思うし。
　ここの文脈が見えない理由は、諸外国の中国に対する評価と日本の評価にズレがあるからだとは思う。それは何？

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