Published on September 19, 2019.
Based on an essay by Rui Abiru in the Sankei Shimbun, this chapter examines the differences among newspaper editorials ten years after the Democratic Party administration came to power.
While the Sankei and Yomiuri criticized the administration’s failures in diplomacy, security, and governance, the Asahi Shimbun gave it a certain degree of praise, revealing an underlying lack of national consciousness and an ideology of dismantling the state.

September 19, 2019.
The Democratic Party administration that attempted to dismantle the state…Asahi gave it a certain degree of praise…therefore Asahi’s view is hard to understand, but for Asahi it must have been a glorious age.
The following is from an essay by Rui Abiru titled “The Democratic Party Administration That Tried to Dismantle the State,” published in today’s Sankei Shimbun.
He is one of the few genuine reporters currently active.
The portions marked with ＊～＊ are mine.
The editorials of the three newspapers, the Sankei Shimbun, the Yomiuri Shimbun, and the Asahi Shimbun, in their morning editions of the 16th, took up the fact that ten years had passed since the Democratic Party administration was launched.
Reading them while feeling that so much time had already passed since then, I found that each had a different viewpoint.
The Sankei gave its editorial the title “Adopt a Realistic Security Policy,” and pointed out the lessons in diplomacy and security left by the Democratic Party administration as follows.
“The greatest failure was that it neglected diplomacy and security.”
“Another failure was that it mistakenly thought political leadership meant excluding bureaucrats.”
The Yomiuri, under the title “Will the Mistakes of the Democratic Party Be Repeated?”, pressed the current successor parties of the Democratic Party, such as the Constitutional Democratic Party and the Democratic Party for the People, asking whether they had any intention of making use of those reflections.
For example, it wrote as follows.
“Pledges that ignored feasibility were forced to be revised one after another.”
“It was only natural that a ‘motley coalition,’ ranging from conservatives to former Socialist Party elements, could not deal with difficult political issues.”
Asahi gave it a certain degree of praise.
The two papers read lessons and reflections from the Democratic Party administration and warned its successor parties, but Asahi was different.
Under the title “Make Use of Its ‘Legacy’ and Build an Axis of Opposition,” Asahi gave the Democratic Party administration a certain degree of praise and looked back on it with nostalgia, as follows.
“We must not forget the significance of a change of government itself.”
“Prime Minister Abe Shinzo’s repeated dismissal of it as a ‘nightmare’ is too one-sided. What it accomplished must be evaluated calmly and fairly.”
“The collapse of the administration does not mean that these ideals were mistaken.”
In this column dated February 15, the author listed the Democratic Party administration’s failure to fulfill its manifesto, or campaign pledges, the confusion of its political leadership, its lack of governing ability and internal party struggles, its failures in diplomacy and security, economic stagnation, and so on, and concluded, “There is no room for doubt that that age was a nightmare.”
Therefore, Asahi’s view is hard to understand, but for Asahi it must have been a glorious age.
Asahi highly evaluates the idea of a “new public,” in which not only the administration but also local citizens and companies support one another, which then Prime Minister Hatoyama Yukio presented in his first policy speech.
But what does that mean?
A fatal lack of national consciousness.
Hirata Oriza, a playwright who was regarded as one of Hatoyama’s brains and also served as a special adviser to the Cabinet Secretariat, said the following at a symposium in February 2010.
＊It is chilling just to remember that such a thing was reality.＊
“What I have also been discussing with Mr. Hatoyama is that the twenty-first century will be a hundred years in which we consider how to dismantle the modern state.”
This is connected to Hatoyama’s assertions such as, “I do not really understand what a nation is,” and “The Japanese archipelago is not the possession of the Japanese alone.”
Also, his successor, Prime Minister Kan Naoto, was deeply devoted to political scientist Matsushita Keiichi, and wrote in his book that he would “put Matsushita’s theory into practice in the political arena.”
But what is that theory?
To put it plainly, it is the idea of collapsing national governance and shifting power to citizens and local governments.
＊It was to such a party and such people that the Asahi Shimbun helped give power.＊
In other words, what the Democratic Party administration attempted to put into practice, and what Asahi still praises today, may rightly be called the ideology of dismantling the state.
However, what became clear in the Great East Japan Earthquake that occurred during the Kan Cabinet, and also in the large-scale power outage damage caused by Typhoon No. 15 this time, was surely the importance of the framework of the community called the state, and the importance of making it function properly.
At present, the Constitutional Democratic Party and the Democratic Party for the People are holding talks to form a unified parliamentary group in both houses of the Diet.
But as long as their national views remain inconsistent or absent, the steering of the nation cannot possibly be entrusted to them.
Editorial writer and political department editorial committee member.