Japan's Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has just won a landslide election victory. During The MJ's visit to the country in January, alongside a host of UK local government executives on a tour facilitated by the Japan Local Government Centre, Japan was in the middle of the campaign for an election that had just been called.
With politics not generally considered to be polite conversation between strangers, mentions of the election were rare.
Tanaka Masaya, director general for policy co-ordination at Japan's Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIAC) – the equivalent of the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government – is more forthcoming than most.
Takaichi used to be Masaya's boss as internal affairs minister and he praises her as a ‘very decisive person' and, speaking on the day that she announced the snap poll, amid predictions she would win, he gushes: ‘That's wonderful for us.'
The future of local government in Japan is currently a hot topic for the ministry.
‘We think we need some other strong cities like Tokyo to drive the economy and provide resilience against natural disasters like earthquakes,' Masaya explains.
There is already a plan under deliberation by the ministry to give Osaka – a major metropolitan area in western Japan – extra powers.
The move comes after the Osaka Metropolis Plan – under which the city's local government structure would have been replaced with a model similar to the one governing Tokyo – was recently rejected by a narrow 51% in a referendum. Remarkably, the referendum had a turnout of 59% – higher than the 56% who voted in the General Election.
Now, the Japan Designated Cities Mayors Association has proposed a ‘special city plan' that would allow their members to become completely independent of prefectures, Japan's main regional level of government that is responsible for police, secondary schools and hospitals.
‘The residents showed a very keen interest,' Masaya says.
‘The prefecture is opposed to the special city plan. Whether we can reach a consensus or not, I think it will be quite difficult.'
The UK's history of local apathy and forcing things through without the inconvenience of referendums would probably have been lost in translation.
There is also a lot about Japan that would be alien to the UK, including a constitution that protects local government, a sector responsible for about 56% of all government expenditure and one that has access to the proceeds from 20 different taxes – including a local income tax, local VAT, local property tax, local car tax and even a bathing tax.
Indeed, local taxes make up 37% of Japan's total tax take – much higher than France's 20% or the UK's 10%-15%.
Many believe there is still not enough financial decentralisation in Japan, with the phrase ‘30% autonomy' used to express the financial weakness of local government.
Japanese local government is getting even more powers, with MIAC recently approving accommodation taxes designed to help the country cope with the 43 million foreign visitors it receives every year amid concerns about over-tourism, particularly in Tokyo and Kyoto.
Over-tourism is much less of a problem for the less known city of Sendai, which occupies a central spot in northern Japan and is just a 90-minute trip from Tokyo on the country's high-speed bullet train.
The smiley mayor of Sendai, Kazuko Kohri – a relatively rare female politician who used to be a TV presenter – wants to make it a much more global city, distinguished from the capital by its unique nature, history and events – including a jazz festival, winter illuminations and marathon.
Sendai's tourism strategy hopes to attract 6.8 million overnight visitors next year – up from about 4.8 million just four years ago – with efforts including the promotion of package tours, the renovation of a conference centre and the city asking airlines to run flights from specific destinations.
With Japan's current political conflict with China meaning some flights from the country have been suspended, Sendai will have to work even harder to hit its target of 700,000 foreign visitors by 2027.
The city is particularly targeting long-haul travellers from Europe and the US who tend to stay longer and therefore spend more money – but all while maintaining that characteristic Japanese politeness.
As Abe Masayuki, assistant director in the city's culture and tourism bureau, says: ‘Instead of competing with other regional cities, we try to learn from them because we are facing very similar challenges, being cities of very similar size.'
Known as the city of trees, Sendai's coastal area was devastated by the impact of the 2011 magnitude nine earthquake – the largest ever recorded in Japan.
The resulting massive tsunami, which hit land 69 minutes after the earthquake, left more than 900 people dead, destroyed communities, made some people scared of looking at the sea or anything blue and left behind debris equivalent to the amount of garbage produced by Sendai over seven years.
A road that happened to have been built raised above the ground was the only thing that stopped the tsunami.
As for Sendai itself, the city has suffered from persistent talent outflow to Tokyo, but in the wake of the disaster, is now trying to position itself as a hub for research, start-ups and social entrepreneurs, with better affordability and liveability than the capital, where as much as 30% of Japan's entire population is based.
Speaking at the Tsunami Memorial Centre built by the city council, 83-year-old survivor Midori Hanabuchi said: ‘Somehow people thought that a tsunami won't come. It was an abstract concept.
‘It ripped apart my community. We had aftershocks for two years.
‘I'm getting old, but I feel I have to tell everyone what I went through. Encouraging words from others have been my most valuable support.'
Some 15 years on, the city council still feels it is responsible for telling other councils their story to help them prepare for their own emergencies.
As for Sendai itself, the city has suffered from persistent talent outflow to Tokyo, but in the wake of the disaster, is now trying to position itself as a hub for research, start-ups and social entrepreneurs, with better affordability and liveability than the capital, where as much as 30% of Japan's entire population is based.
The population in Sendai's wider Tohoku region is expected to decline by 32% between 2020 and 2050, compared with a national rate of 17%.
Ministers and officials have talked about restoring vitality to the regions of Japan and rebalancing the population and economy away from Tokyo.
‘Sendai, which is the largest [city] in northern Japan, could play a key role', Masaya suggested.
Sendai now wants to build an ‘ecosystem that fosters and nurtures diverse kinds of entrepreneurs through support for the entrepreneurial spirit that has increased since the Great East Japan Earthquake'.
Already, the secretive NanoTerasu facility has been built, supporting academic and corporate research and development. It is one of the world's leading large-scale research facilities, capable of observing the nanoscale world as small as one-billionth of a meter, and often described as a giant microscope that uses light that is a billion times brighter than the sun to analyse materials.
Director of the start-up support section at the city of Sendai, Koji Sakai, says the earthquake and tsunami ‘fundamentally' changed the region's perspective on life and society.
He says the city wanted to support start-ups to reduce the trend of young people leaving for bigger cities like Tokyo, as well as to encourage overseas start-ups into Sendai.
Specialised local authority staff provide detailed support for the visa application process – though their job was recently made harder when the Japanese Government tightened requirements for foreign entrepreneurs.
Those who do make it through the visa system can be helped at the council-funded Sendai Multicultural Centre, which was opened to help the 1.6% of the city's population born abroad.
This proportion is growing, sparking some cohesion tensions and debates in the recent election campaign, when immigration was a key issue – although it is less dominant than in the UK.
Over a Japanese meal featuring a selection of small seasonal dishes at a traditional restaurant, our hosts sat quietly open-mouthed as they heard about immigration issues in Britain.
But with a declining and ageing population, the country may well have to move closer to UK immigration levels if it wants to raise its growth potential.
Dean of the Graduate School of Global Governance at Meiji University in Tokyo, Shunsuke Kimura – Japan's version of the UK's journalist and academic specialising in issues affecting local government, Tony Travers, said his country was interested in adopting the UK's strategic authority model, including mayors, to boost economic growth.
‘In school we learn that the United Kingdom is the motherland of local governance', Masaya recalls.
On the other side of the desk, the UK delegation was, at times, green with envy hearing about the powers held by Japanese local government.
The two countries clearly have lots to learn from each other.
Dan Peters visited Japan with a study tour facilitated by the Japan Local Government Centre
