Author: Aurelia George Mulgan, UNSW Canberra

In selecting his first cabinet and party executive line-up in September 2011, the most important motivation for Japan’s Prime Minister Noda was intra-party harmony.

His ministers were largely selected to appease political strongman Ichiro Ozawa, who maintains a well-deserved reputation for either running parties or destroying them. Read more…

Author: Aurelia George Mulgan, UNSW Canberra

The Japanese government’s new policy reform plan, Basic Policy and Action Plan for the Revitalisation of Our Country’s Food and Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, (published 25 October) does little to promote agricultural trade liberalisation.

While containing a number of reform proposals designed to expand the scale of farming and facilitate agricultural land transfers, the plan fails to address the most important issue of all: reducing direct income subsidies to small-scale farms. Read more…

Author: Aurelia George Mulgan, UNSW Canberra

One of the big questions hanging over the newly formed Noda administration is whether the prime minister will be able to restore harmony within the ruling DPJ after the internal party discord that characterised the Kan administration.

Noda appeared to take a step in the direction of party unity by making a number of DPJ executive and cabinet appointments from among close supporters of party kingpin Ichiro Ozawa. Read more…

Author: Aurelia George Mulgan, UNSW Canberra

Yoshihiko Noda’s victory in the race for the DPJ leadership this week greatly surprised the pundits and even many in the DPJ itself.

There was an audible gasp from the assembled DPJ Diet members when Noda’s high vote tally was read out after the first round of balloting. Read more…

Author: Aurelia George Mulgan, UNSW Canberra

The top two contenders for the presidency of the governing DPJ in Japan (and therefore Japan’s prime ministership) on 29 August are Banri Kaieda and Seiji Maehara. Kaieda represents the combined Ozawa-Hatoyama camps.

Not only is he a member of the Hatoyama group, but he has managed to secure the backing of Ichiro Ozawa. Read more…

Author: Aurelia George Mulgan, UNSW Canberra

Diet politicians in Japan’s ruling party are reverting to form: they are consumed with the politics of power and position rather than with policy.

The last thing Japan needs at this time is more jockeying for political advantage among a group of would-be prime ministers. But that is what is occurring as the process of replacing Prime Minister Kan reaches its expected climax on the 29th of this month. Read more…

Author: Aurelia G Mulgan, UNSW Canberra

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) issue is clarifying the lines of division between Japanese industrial and agricultural interests in a way not seen before.

The Great Eastern Earthquake is serving to solidify these lines even further because both sides are using the disaster to argue for and against trade liberalisation respectively. Read more…

Author: Aurelia George Mulgan, ADFA@UNSW

As the foremost maker and breaker of political parties in Japanese politics, Ozawa Ichiro has confounded observers with his limpet-like attachment to the ruling Democratic Party of Japan, a party he clearly despises and recently called a ‘failure’.

Doubly humiliating is that Ozawa has had to endure the provocation of Prime Minister Kan’s ‘breaking away from Ozawa’ (datsu Ozawa) line, including his exclusion from all party and government posts plus the suspension of his party membership. Read more…

Author: Aurelia George Mulgan, UNSW@ADFA

Given that Prime Minister Kan has survived the vote of no confidence in his government on Thursday, he may be in a position to make good on the commitment he made at the recent G8 summit to decide Japan’s possible participation in the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership (TPP) at an early date.

The subject came up in the conversation between Prime Minister Kan and President Obama. Read more…

Author: Aurelia George Mulgan

In recent talks with Australian Prime Minister Gillard, Prime Minister Kan reaffirmed his government’s commitment to concluding a bilateral free trade agreement (FTA) with Australia and to resuming talks at the earliest possible opportunity.

The Joint Statement by the Prime Ministers of Japan and Australia formally pledged that the ‘two countries would conduct further negotiations leading to a conclusion of a comprehensive and mutually beneficial bilateral FTA/EPA’. Read more…

Author: Aurelia George Mulgan, UNSW@ADFA

Japan’s triple earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster continue to have widespread ramifications for Japan’s agricultural sector and agricultural trade policy.

No doubt, the Australian Prime Minister’s advisors will be closely monitoring developments, or the lack thereof, as she heads off to Japan on 20 April. Read more…

Author: Aurelia George Mulgan, UNSW@ADFA

The DPJ is not the party of structural reform in the agricultural sector. It designed its agricultural policies to win farmers’ votes, including small-scale farmers who are in the majority.

Its policy of direct income subsidies provides incentives for small-scale farmers to stay in business. The policy was inserted into the party’s 2003, 2005, 2007 and 2009 manifestoes, and over time it became more expansive and generous in scope and even less reform-oriented than the LDP-Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) scheme which left out small farmers. Read more…

Author: Aurelia George Mulgan, UNSW@ADFA

In the week before Japan’s earthquake and tsunami, observers quipped that Prime Minister Kan needed a major disaster to rescue his administration. Well, he got one, at a terrible price to his nation, and it certainly took the immediate heat off his administration — coming from members of his own party as well as from the opposition.

The crisis will either sink or save the Kan government, which is now on the brink of a full-blown nuclear emergency. Read more…

Author: Aurelia George Mulgan, UNSW@ADFA

The Australia-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) negotiations are the first real test of the Kan government’s new trade policy of ‘opening up Japan’ and a chance for it to show that it means business when it comes to agricultural trade liberalisation and economic reform.

However, if progress — or lack of it — in the new round of Australia-Japan negotiations is any guide to how successfully Japan’s revamped trade policy is being implemented, then it is difficult to be optimistic about a major breakthrough on Japan’s agricultural market access issues any time soon. Read more…

Author: Aurelia George Mulgan, UNSW@ADFA

Prime Minister Kan Naoto has successfully eliminated one major obstacle to Japan’s participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) in his recent cabinet reshuffle. Kan has removed Trade Minister Ohata Akihiro and replaced him with Banri Kaieda. Not only is Kaieda’s vocal support for the TPP in line with Kan’s position, but also removed is Ohata’s opposition to opening up the Japanese agricultural sector, which was undercutting Kan’s leadership.

With Banri Kaieda at the helm of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), Prime Minister Kan’s government has more chance of a breakthrough on Japanese trade policy, particularly with respect to opening Japan’s agricultural markets. Read more…