In the days before the devastating earthquake and tsunami that has killed at least 10,000, left hundreds of thousands homeless, and had the world holding its breath as workers struggled to control a failing nuclear power plant, Japan faced a crisis of a different, more mundane sort. Naoto Kan, Japan's prime minister, appeared to be facing his final days in office. Four days before the earthquake, Seiji Maehara, his foreign minister, the most popular member of his cabinet, and the man many expected to succeed Kan sooner or later, resigned after reports surfaced that he had accepted donations from a long-term Korean resident of Japan in violation of campaign finance laws and the day before the earthquake, reports surfaced that Kan too had received donations from resident Koreans. The prime minister's political future was being measured in weeks, if not days.
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The crisis has changed all that. Kan himself has not been altogether inspiring during the crisis -- at least compared with Yukio Edano, the chief cabinet secretary, who became the face of the government as he worked tirelessly to keep the public informed (and inspired a campaign on Twitter encouraging him to get some sleep). But his government on the whole performed well given the sheer difficulties it faced after the initial disaster: the situation at the Fukushima Daichi nuclear power plant, still unresolved as of this writing; the humanitarian relief mission complicated by snowy conditions and hoarding by citizens in Tokyo alarmed by the uncertain nuclear situation; and a sharp increase in the value of the yen combined with a steep drop in share prices at the Tokyo Stock Exchange in the first days of trading after the disaster. Kan moved quickly on the humanitarian relief side, dispatching a 100,000-strong contingent of Japan's Self-Defense Forces (SDF) -- nearly half the country's military personnel -- to the stricken region to rescue citizens and deliver relief, and mobilizing the SDF's reserves for the first time. His government quickly accepted the assistance of the United States, which directed warships to Japanese waters and deployed troops stationed in Japan, including helicopters from the controversial Futenma Marine air station on Okinawa, to assist with humanitarian relief.
While its crisis management has been far from flawless -- critics have complained of everything from poor communication with the public to confusion regarding rolling blackouts to over-reliance on the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) to solve the nuclear crisis -- compared with Japan's poor performance in response to the 1995 earthquake in the city of Kobe, the Kan government's initial response was decisive. Its response was even more impressive given that in its first year and a half in power, the ruling Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) faced nothing even remotely close to a crisis of this magnitude, described by the prime minster as the most serious faced by Japan since World War II. While it is too early to render a final verdict, particularly as fears rise over contaminated food supplies, it has so far managed to juggle the many challenges of the first week after the earthquake without becoming wholly overwhelmed.
As for Kan's individual performance, the public is ambivalent. His pronouncements have struck the right tone, but they have been infrequent and the prime minister has been overshadowed by Edano, his spokesman. The Japanese people's reaction has been mixed: The first public opinion poll saw the government's approval rise by more than 10 points, but a slight majority also disapproved of the government's handling of the Fukushima crisis.
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