Reuters released an interesting summary of a policy document they intercepted that was meant for DPJ candidates in anticipation of the upcoming general election. It's particularly interesting given the usually frustratingly insubstantive politics of Japan which produces slogans like "a fraternal society, to realise a politics of love" (-Yukio Hatoyama, head of the DPJ, and probably soon to be prime minister).
Well it turns out that Japanese politicians do actually talk business, if only among themselves. Some of the highlights of the policy document:
-Transfer more state power from the traditionally powerful bureaucracy to politicians themselves.
-Make high schools free of charge, scrap most highway tolls and raise minimum pensions.
-Halve corporate tax and eliminate fuel surcharges, costing over 2.7 trillion yen a year.
-Review 70 trillion yen out of the 207 trillion yen budget to try to cut spending to pay for all this junk.
-Review government-affiliated organisations on charges that they serve no real purpose other than to act as sinecure retirement posts for long-serving bureaucrats.
Two things jumped out at me from looking at this policy statement. Firstly, there is no way in hell they're going to be able to pay for all the things they've listed without making seriously big increases in taxes and/or decreases in public service. Since they seem to be intent on both increasing the domain of welfare (by making high school free), and on being business friendly (by cutting corporate tax), Either one side gives or Japan finds itself in a financial hole bigger than the opening shot of Akira. But this is sort of reminiscent of all political promises.
The second, and more interesting thing is that the DPJ appears to be tentatively trying to dismantle the traditional lifetime employment system that characterised Japanese postwar development. Both in their recognition that too many of the state's functions are dominated by a strong, technocratic bureaucracy, and in their attack on pointless golden-handshake retirement positions, the DPJ seem to be making an attack on the "establishment" of bureaucracy and lifetime employment part of their policy identity.
Of course, extremely old, wealthy, faceless bureaucrats doing nothing in offices make relatively easy targets, especially for a party that bases itself on being just about as anti-mainstream as the political mainstream will allow in Japan.
I honestly doubt the DPJ will actually try to make a serious dent into either government-affiliated retirement offices or bureaucratic control of politics. DPJ political careerists like Ichiro Ozawa have no doubt made a cushy 70+ job part of their life-plans, and Hatoyama himself is neither new (grandson of former PM and son of former Foreign Minister), nor idealistic (he started in the LDP before forming the DPJ with his brother, Kunio, who later went back to the LDP). It's safe to say that Hatoyama is no Obama. The DPJ is also unlikely to win such a comfortable majority that it will be strong enough to wrest control from the bureaucracy, dominant even during Koizumi's government.
And that's not even counting the funding scandals concerning both Ozawa and Hatoyama, both of whom have blamed the entire thing on their respective state-funded aides. Not knowing where politicians and their parties get donations from, and by corollary to whom they're beholden, is really quite serious.
So at first I was excited about the end of "half a century of nearly unbroken LDP rule", as the newspapers have been bleating incessantly to try to interest people in Japanese politics. But now it just seems like the same old whores, with different customers.
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You note the traditional strength of the bureaucracy and the envy of certain politicians with respect to this situation. I would contend that this is demonstrably the product of the post-war Japanese psyche: a distrust of strong governments (cf. Italy, but, surprisingly, this seems to be less the case in Germany) and a tradition of transient administrations, which tends to leave the bureaucracy as the 'caretaker' of most quotidian affairs. This is true in Italy, too, but unlike Italy, the Japanese bureaucracy has historically enjoyed a high level of public confidence (possibly a Confucian substratum helps this along), though, as you quite rightly indicated, this may be waning.
Also, you are unlikely to ever get a yellow Obama. Mr. Obama's theatrical and, I would argue, rather superficial eloquence, combined with the soulful negritude of his speaking voice may resonate with the American public, but it does so for cultural and socio-historical reasons. The extent to which Obama is in any way new (Columbia and Harvard Law graduate; networked with all major left-wing intellectuals and politicians in Chicago) or idealistic (he hasn't actually done much, has he? Nor has he, to my knowledge, proposed anything groundbreaking, save for the health reform bill, which is not doing nearly as well as most envisioned - see the recent Economist article on this matter) has yet to be shown.
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