The French say “Liberty, Equality and Fraternity”.
Enough is talked about liberty and equality in Japan. He wants to talk about the third element of democracy.

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The painting was painted by former movie poster artist Abe Masayoshi, to be donated to the local festival on 10/4 in Oinaoshi Harbor in Muroran, Hokkaido, Hatoyama’s hometown.

http://www.hokkaido-np.co.jp/news/donai/191339.html

The site linked to from here has the caption “Regime of Terror （恐怖政治）” next to the picture, probably because large painted portraits of smiling leaders with some catchy slogans speaking of high values easily resemble the propaganda posters of totalitarian regimes (i.e. NK, CCP, Iran, etc.).

The “terror” is mentioned because the Hatoyama (and the DPJ) has been labeled as being a sell-out especially to China, such as taking a stance that Tibet and Uighurs are a strictly internal matter for China (thereby pledging not to take any action), proposing a communal currency for East Asia, and mentioning as an ideal an Asian analogue of the EU with China implied as being at the helm — all of which are certainly “nice” in the spirit of this “yuai” but has no perceivable benefit to Japan.

http://www.jiji.com/jc/zc?k=200908/2009080600951
http://www.nikkei.co.jp/news/seiji/20090922AT3S2201222092009.html

And since Hatoyama has thrown around the “Yuai” phrase way too much, or at least it’s been mentioned in the media so much, that people critical of Hatoyama have been using “yuai” as the joking euphemism for a lot of things, anywhere from selling out to foreign nations to assassination of undesirables.
When the former Finance Minister Nakagawa Shoichi unexpectedly died the other day, the joke going around the internet was that “oh noes, he’s been yuai-ed!”. Before being destroyed by the incessant attacks for his public drunkenness, his record includes spearheading efforts to deepen ties with India and Australia to counter China, being one of the people involved early on with the North Korean abduction issue, and declining requests from South Korea for direct loans from Japan bypassing the IMF … all of which run counter to Hatoyama’s version of “yuai”.

So while “Yuai” at face value is certainly an admirable guiding principle, I feel like Hatoyama is disregarding everything else that should be considered in his decisions.

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Hatoyama brings a much needed breath of fresh air into Japanese politics. He is not one of those old dirty men in the LDP club. He wants more transparency in the government, a more independent stance from US, and closer ties with its Asian neighbour. So far, I think this man is spot on. A good start indeed.

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