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By Feng Zhaokui

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe decided recently to delay the Upper House election, originally scheduled for July 22, till a week later on July 29. In the mean time, Abe, who once declared he would make "constitutional reform" the focal point of this election, will have to shift his focus to the "pension issue" instead because of intense public concern and worries over the government's mishandling of pension records.

Japan's social security system consists mainly of two systems - medical care and pension insurance, which are of close interest to the Japanese people.

The country's pension insurance system contains three elements: basic pension, employee's pension insurance, and mutual aid insurance. Basic pension, which covers farmers, self-employed people, housewives and students above 20 years of age, derives its funds from premium paid by participating individuals and the government fiscal budget; the employees' pension insurance cashes in on salaried workers' monthly pay, which is matched by their employers; mutual aid pension insurance, which serves national and local government employees and college teachers, is built on individual contributions and matching sums from the government.

The nation's pension management has long been a mess under the care of the Social Security Agency, particularly in 1997, when a lot of insurance payment records were misplaced during operations to switch the National Pension's numbering scheme to a unified Basic Pension Insurance number scheme to avoid multiple numbers for each individual.

As a result, many pensioners could not receive their monthly checks because the agency failed to locate their records. The problem caused widespread anger and anxiety among the public and some expressed their dismay with Abe's administration, saying they hoped Japan would first become a worry-free nation before turning into a "beautiful" one, apparently in a satirical reference to Abe's popular book Building a Beautiful Nation.

Against this backdrop, Japanese political parties, including the Liberal Democrats Party (LDP) and Democrats, are engaged in fierce debates over the problem of misplaced pension insurance records. And the issue has become the weapon of choice for opposition parties such as the Democrats against the ruling LDP.

As the Upper House election approaches, one of the most frequently used phrases people keep hearing politicians utter these days is "for the people". The LDP claims it is urgently rushing through the special act on the reform of the Social Security Agency "for the people", while the Democratic Party is demanding a thorough investigation into the issue of more than 60 million pension payment records that cannot be confirmed, albeit also "for the people".

In fact, when the LDP accused the Democrats of "fanning discontent" over the pension issue to advance the party's "own interest and strategy", people also found the LDP was doing the same in its bid to douse the flames and minimize the impact the pension issue has inflicted on the party's Upper House election prospects.

In July 2004, the LDP suffered a serious setback in the 20th Upper House election because of the pension issue (it failed to secure the 51-seat bottom line with only 49 seats, while the Democrats won 50 seats, 12 more than predicted, to emerge as the biggest victor). The memory of this defeat is still painfully fresh.

The pension system has been the most important issue in Japan's elections because of its vital significance to people's lives and well-being. The main reason the LDP lost in the 2004 Upper House election is that the voters were upset about the ruling party's strong-arm tactics to force its pension system reform bill (including such details as increasing the pension payment rate and lowering the amount per withdrawal) through Parliament just before the election.

In other words, the real motive behind Abe's decision to delay the Upper House election is to allow the LDP some breathing space and let the pension "hot potato" cool down as much as possible, while "for the people" is just a bumper sticker. It appears this catchy phrase does not mean what it says after all.

Compared to the LDP's "for the people" battle cry, the most frequently used word by Abe since taking office has to be "the country". Revising the pacifist Constitution and breaking away from the post-war state system, the ultimate aim of such moves is to realize the dream of becoming a "political major power" and "normal country". In other words, the constitutional reform is "for the country".

Whether "for the country" can be understood as "for the people" depends on whether the "country" in policy makers' minds truly serves the fundamental and long-term interests of the people.

The post-war pacifist Constitution brought the Japanese people a period of unprecedented peace and prosperity. That said, it is reasonable to revise or amend some of the articles to fit the changing situation after 60 years of implementation (which is exactly the reason for the New Komeito party to call for constitutional amendments instead of revision).

But, the ruling LDP has its mind firmly set on rewriting Article IX (especially its second provision) - the core of the post-war pacifist Constitution - so that Japan will continue to put up with United States occupation (some Japanese scholars believe Japan remains occupied as long as US military bases stay there) while building up "an army capable of fighting alongside its American ally." Just ask any ordinary Japanese citizen.

If then Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru succeeded in his attempt to rewrite the pacifist Constitution back in the 1950s, Japan would have been obliged as an ally to send troops to join US forces fighting the Vietnam War. Is that really what the Japanese people would have wanted?

From this point of view, the real significance of "for the country" could very well be the opposite of what "for the people" stands for, though the two phrases are different by just one word.

The author is a researcher from the Institute of Japanese Studies with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

(China Daily July 10, 2007)