The words and actions of Makiko Tanaka, who made a dashing entry onto center stage as foreign minister in the Cabinet of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, are attracting attention from various quarters for various reasons.
As a person who has viewed develop ments in Japan's foreign policy as my life work, I cannot remain aloof from the situation. While I believe that it is still too soon to pass final judgment on Tanaka's merits and faults as foreign minister, I would like to present my views with a mixture of both expectation and concern.
To begin, the relationship between a minister and bureaucrats in a democratic state is one where the former formulates the basic direction for policies based on the will of the people, while the latter draws up specifics of these policies and supports their implementation using expert knowledge and experience.