日本は何故、反省しないのか？

Mr. Koizumi considers more than the constitution to be outdated. One
of his first acts as prime minister was to sanction new history
textbooks celebrating Japan's pre-1945 imperial past; another was to
declare his intention to pay an official visit in August to Yasukuni
Shrine, where the spirits of several World War II Class-A war
criminals are enshrined ・something no prime minister has done
since 1985. Once an important site for rituals centered on the
emperor, Yasukuni symbolizes the nation's former fusion of politics
and religion.

In many respects, particularly in economic matters, Mr. Koizumi
continues the policies of his immediate Liberal Democratic Party
predecessors, who broke from the party's well-established tradition
(since the early 1960's) of state support for agriculture, strict
regulation of small business, and relatively low consumer taxes.
Further, he differs from earlier advocates of constitutional
revision, professing a desire to widen rather than contract the
framework of democratic freedoms.

Yet Mr. Koizumi also draws heavily on Japan's nationalist past.
Younger Japanese are by no means interested in a more military
national identity. Older people, who remember Hirohito with a mix of
respect and hatred, are dying off. Their dislike of Hirohito is more
for his military failures and post-surrender refusal to abdicate
than for Japanese militarism as such. Therefore Mr. Koizumi's visit
to Yasukuni Shrine seems to offer little clear political advantage,
but is sure to reignite old debates, passions and memories.

Looking forward and backward at the same time, and not yet openly
committed to any course, the somewhat mercurial prime minister is a
political enigma. While strengthening his ties with the far-right
nationalistic factions opposed to radical economic reform, he
espouses just such reform. Using a rhetoric of peace, he fosters and
promises deeper cooperation with the great powers. But the political
footprints Mr. Koizumi has already laid down do not inspire
confidence. As he bides time waiting for the July elections, he and
his L.D.P.-dominated coalition government are inevitably moving
Japan toward a period of heightened ideological conflict that can
only make economic reform more difficult.


* Herbert P. Bix is professor of history at Binghamton University
and author of ``Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan,'' which
won a Pulitzer Prize this year.