Japan’s stunning political shift last summer is a reflection of deep-rooted angst within the Japanese people, a top diplomat of that country said.

Yasumasa Nagamine, the San Francisco-based consul general of Japan, told a campus audience Jan. 28 that he expects big adjustments ahead as a result of the Democratic Party of Japan’s landslide election in August 2009.

“A very dramatic change has taken place,” said Nagamine, who has worked as a Japanese diplomat for 33 years.

“The Japanese people feel a loss of direction and frustration about future planning and job security.”

The election was an indication of such frustration in Japan, he said. Another round of elections set for June will further define the country once known for its post-World War II economic miracle.

Critical elections ahead

Nagamine described the Democratic Party as more activist than the Liberal Democrat Party, which held the reins of power throughout the entire post-war era. Both the faltering economy and key electoral reforms in the 1990s helped pave the way for the 2009 outcome, he said.

In the past couple of years, the Japanese engaged in a national debate on key issues, often watching spirited discussions among cabinet officials on TV, he said.

“That’s kind of a drama that everyone enjoys watching,” Nagamine told the East Asian Studies-sponsored forum audience.

An Oxford scholar, Nagamine’s overseas assignments have included the embassies of Japan in Washington, D.C., New Delhi and London. He began his tenure as the consul general in San Francisco in 2007.

Demographic concerns

He said that Japan is confronting serious demographic issues that affect its economic performance — the population is aging and the birth rate is very low in the country of 127 million.

In a crowded country only about the size of California, this could result in fewer younger workers working to pay for older people with rising medical costs. On top of this, he said, Japan’s income gap between the rich and poor is widening.

“The fundamental situation for growth is unfavorable,” said Nagamine, adding that in 2008 Japan suffered the worst GDP growth rate among all major industrial countries. His country once enjoyed double-digit growth rates from the 1960s to the 1980s. Today, Japan’s neighbor, China, is the only major power experiencing that kind of boom.

All of this factored into the DPJ’s proposed subsidy for young families to encourage them to have more children. Japan needs more young workers.

While many in the U.S. bemoan the country’s escalating public debt, Japan’s debt circumstance is worse, described as “enormous” by Nagamine. Japan has more public debt than the U.S., Great Britain, Germany or France, as measured by the percent of debt to GDP.

Special U.S. relationship

Nagamine expects the new party will be more cabinet-driven and in favor of redistributing power to local governments, middle-class-oriented policies and so-called green technology.

He said Japan seeks to “deepen” its special and longstanding alliance with the U.S., but wants a stronger “voice” in that relationship, which has areas of tension, such as the American military base situation in Okinawa.

In a historical sense, Japan is somewhat new to international politics, Nagamine maintained.

“Our relationship with the outside world only started about 160 years ago,” he said,. Then, the island nation of Japan signed trade treaties with Western powers that forever changed its destiny.

“We opened up to the United States first,” Nagamine said.