As recently as a decade ago there was fairly active discussion in the Japanese government about moving certain central government functions out of Tokyo. The reasons were varied, but it mostly came down to their being too much power concentrated in the capital, be it administrative, economic, or cultural. Besides the most urgent issue of what this concentration means if a major disaster strikes Tokyo, there are the demographic considerations. As the city remains affordable to most workers and the center of government and commerce, the rest of the country is drained of manpower, resources, and capital, since young people still move to Tokyo and its suburbs in large numbers. On the most basic level, the job of moving millions of people twice a day to-and-from their jobs becomes an undertaking of enormous precision, and while Tokyo has managed to do it with miraculous agility, the cost to the country in terms of both money and individual well-being has never been properly gauged. As the pandemic recently proved, it seems most people would prefer working either at home or much closer to home. At the very least, twice daily 90-minute-plus-long commutes on crowded trains take their toll, and the main reason is that they have to work in Tokyo but prefer living in a place where they can own a home without risking their savings and raising a family in a comfortable environment. 

Nevertheless, the idea of moving government functions out of Tokyo as a means of encouraging decentralization has never received anything more than lip service. Some years ago a tourist-related government office was removed to Kanazawa or thereabouts, and there was talk about transferring culture-related bureaus to Kyoto, but Tokyo remains the overwhelming center of the Japanese universe. 

With this in mind, it’s interesting to observe how South Korea has addressed its own decentralization problem. Seoul is also a kind of black hole that sucks resources and people from other areas of the country, attracted by the concentration of corporate, administrative, and educational functions. But the government has actually tried to do something about it, and a recent interview in the Asahi Shimbun with the mayor of Sejong, which is located in the middle of the country, points up the differences in approach between Korea and Japan. In 2012, the central government of Korea designated Sejong, then just a patch of dirt about one hour south of Seoul, as an autonomous district and the future administrative capital of South Korea. Now, some 23 government entities have permanently moved their operations there, which is more than the number that remains in Seoul. In the end, the only ministries that will not move are those involved in foreign affairs and national security. They even plan to build a second presidential office and second parliament building in Sejong. 

The current mayor, Choi Min-ho of the People Power Party, who was elected last year, has been involved in the project since its beginning. Choi is an alumnus of Georgetown but, more significantly, studied local government administration at the University of Tokyo graduate school, thus giving him a unique insight into how the Japanese government’s approach to decentralization compares to Korea’s. As he notes during the interview, the main difference is “the speed of decision-making.” In South Korea, politicians have more power in this regard than do bureaucrats. The opposite is true in Japan, he says, where all matters are discussed thoroughly by civil servants and thus take a long time to reach any kind of realization. “And once a decision is made in Korea,” he says, “we take action.”

Of course, such a process has its own demerits in that decisions made in haste require ongoing repairs and improvements. He presents as an example the transfer of personnel along with the offices in which they work. “We had to think about housing them and their families, and if they already owned homes in Seoul, it might be difficult for them to sell them and move here. Some may decide not to move, preferring to commute, and then the problem is transportation.”

Though these problems were formidable, in time they became workable. A massive construction project to build collective housing was approved and carried out, and the government built a high-speed train between Seoul and Sejong that takes 50 minutes one-way. 

Another problem was decentralizing authority. When the capital was first being moved to Sejong, it was assumed that decentralization would take place as a matter of course, but with almost all the “business” in Sejong dependent on the central government, it was difficult for the city itself to enact its own regulations as a local government, especially in terms of city planning. The struggle to distinguish city functions from national functions is ongoing, says Choi, and he believes that, in the end, the Constitution will need to be revised if Sejong is to become a truly autonomous city, but that is the ultimate aim. “The Constitutional Court decided that moving the capital will require a change to the Constitution,” says Choi. “The capital of South Korea is still Seoul, but Sejong should be the administrative capital,” and that will take some legal manuevering. 

The Asahi reporter asks if the moves so far have had any noticeable effect on Seoul itself, and Choi admits that the population of Seoul has continued to grow even as more administrative functions are moved to Sejong. A substantial number of private “research organizations” that work with the government have also moved to Sejong, thus showing that when administrative functions are shifted, some private enterprises will follow. “If Sejong had not been built,” Choi adds, “the situation in Seoul would have become worse.” 

Though Choi doesn’t mention it, Seoul has become one of those notorious world capitals, unlike Tokyo, where it’s become almost impossible for the average worker to buy property without risking bankruptcy. But he does stress that Sejong has itself become a magnet. Ten years ago, the population was 100,000, and since then it’s increased fourfold. “Our goal is 500,000 by 2030,” he says, “so the pace of growth is actually too small. But Sejong is a brand new city. Facilities related to children are new and state-of-the-art. That’s why Sejong is so popular among young families.” The average age is 38.7 and, most significantly, the birth rate in Sejong is higher than the national average, the lowest in the world. “Many people think that if you subsidize families, the birth rate will go up,” says Choi, “but I disagree. It’s better to meet the needs of working women and make employment choices more flexible so that parents can continue to work while raising children.” The only problem he sees right now with Sejong’s approach to child-rearing is education: Once these children reach university age they still want to go to schools in Seoul. “That’s why we are trying to attract top universities to Sejong.”

Choi is diplomatic about Japan’s failure to move government functions out of Tokyo, implying that it is more difficult for a highly developed country like Japan to make such large-scale changes. “I used to be critical of Japan,” he says. “I even put up a Korean flag when I lived in Tokyo. But as I studied there I realized I was being close-minded. I began to understand the concept of the universal family of man outside of cultural affiliations. Ideally, I would like to make a sister city relationship with a local government in Japan.”