Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi replaced former Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori on the grounds that he was a reformist and Mori was not. Yet Koizumi's first move was to cancel one of Mori's sensible reforms -- the bid to settle Japan's Northern Territories dispute with Moscow by first accepting the two territories to which Japan has some basis of a legal claim, Shikotan and Habomai.
Instead, Koizumi has sided with the conservatives and nationalists who want to force Japan to retain its weak, Cold War demand for all four territories in dispute, a demand originally intended to keep Japan-Soviet ties in permanent deadlock and which is bound to do the same for Tokyo-Moscow ties well into the future. So who is the real reformist?
Japan loves the word "reform." Tack it on to any proposal, no matter how wacky, and those in favor automatically get to wear shining armor. Those opposed have horns and a tail. In 1993, one of Japan's better prime ministers, Kiichi Miyazawa, was bundled out of office because he had doubts about something called "political reform" -- the plan to force the bipolarization of Japanese politics by replacing multiseat electorates with single-seat electorates.