Economics, Politics and Public Policy in East Asia and the Pacific
Author: Tobias Harris, Cambridge, Massachusetts
With the yen falling to below JPY100/US$1 for the first time since 2009 and the Nikkei posting five-year highs, analysts have begun declaring victory for the Abe administration’s campaign against deflation and slow growth.
But it is far too early to draw conclusions about the success of Abenomics — given that deflation continues — and Read more…
Author: Aurelia George Mulgan, UNSW Canberra
Japan’s Prime Minister Abe and the ruling LDP are capitalising on their popularity and the deterioration in Japan’s regional security environment to launch a reinvigorated campaign to amend the Japanese Constitution. In April 2012, the LDP released new draft proposals for revising the document, the most important legacy of the US Occupation of Japan.
Despite the Abe cabinet’s 65 per cent approval rating, Read more…
Author: Dmitri Streltsov, MGIMO University
On 29–30 April 2013, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe paid a visit to Moscow.
It was the first official visit of a Japanese prime minister to Russia since Junichiro Koizumi’s trip to Moscow in January 2003. In many ways, the recent summit can be seen as not just an important meeting but even as a landmark event in the history of Russo–Japanese relations. Read more…
Author: Peter Drysdale, Editor, East Asia Forum.
The Abe administration in Japan swung quickly into action with policies aimed at lifting the economy out of its long lasting doldrums. Prime Minister Abe appointed Haruhiko Kuroda, after eight years distinguished service at the Asia Development Bank, to implement a strong reflationary program through the Bank of Japan (BOJ): the first arrow of his three arrow revival strategy. Read more…
Author: Kazuo Ueda, University of Tokyo
Japanese asset prices have responded in a surprising way to the announcement of a policy package by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and the Bank of Japan (BOJ) — they have gone up.
Read more…
Author: Joel Rheuben, University of Tokyo
In spite of Japan’s perpetual combination of economic, diplomatic and demographic challenges — not to mention the fact that the current House of Representatives faces potential invalidation by the Supreme Court — Prime Minister Shinzo Abe continues to focus an inordinate amount of political energy on his pet project of constitutional ‘revision’.
Together with the hard-right Japan Restoration Party (JRP), Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) is determined to first attack Article 96 of the Constitution, which sets out the mechanism by which the document can be amended. Read more…
Author: Atsushi Kondo, Meijo University
Japan is the only developed industrial democracy to have become rich without heavily relying on foreign workers during its period of advanced economic growth. The government has followed two basic immigration principles: it welcomed specialised and technical labour while examining carefully the admission of unskilled labour. In practice, this meant Japan welcomed relatively few immigrants. Read more…
Author: Aurelia George Mulgan, UNSW Canberra
Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzō Abe successfully stared down opposition from the domestic farm lobby and his own ruling party to take Japan into the TPP negotiations. The other half of the equation — gaining the consent of TPP negotiating countries to Japan’s entry — was sealed at the recent APEC ministerial meeting in Indonesia.
But what does Japan’s largest trading partner, China, think of these developments? Read more…
Author: Aurelia George Mulgan, UNSW, Canberra
The Abe government’s decision to participate in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations on 15 March was a shock to Japan’s domestic farm lobby led by the Japan Agriculture organisation (JA).
Even for the Abe government, the timing of the decision was more accidental than the result of careful planning. Read more…
Author: Hitoshi Tanaka, JCIE
Looking at East Asia through Japan’s eyes, there are a number of challenges that, if not managed carefully, risk spoiling the future stability and prosperity of Japan and the entire region.
Four challenges in particular stand out: the North Korean nuclear threat; Japan–China tensions surrounding the Senkaku Islands; Japan–South Korea relations, which further deteriorated after former South Korean President Lee Myung-bak’s visit to Takeshima; and the need to reinvigorate Japan’s politics and economy. Read more…
Author: Michael Cucek, MIT
On 14 November 2012, Japanese prime minister Yoshihiko Noda issued a challenge to his rival, Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) president Shinzo Abe.
In return for voting with the ruling Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) on a pair of pending bills and promising to cut the number of seats in the House of Representatives, Noda would call a national election. Read more…
Author: Toshiya Takahashi, ANU
Japan’s ‘right turn’ has been in the headlines since the end of 2012.
The victory of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in the December 2012 national election brought the hawkish Shinzo Abe into the prime ministership, and a new ‘nationalistic’ party, the Japan Restoration Party (JRP), led by Shintaro Ishihara and Toru Hashimoto, enjoyed a surge of popularity before the election campaign. Read more…
Author: Hitoshi Tanaka, JCIE
Strains in Japan–ROK relations, which seriously deteriorated after former South Korean President Lee Myung-bak’s Takeshima visit stirred tensions and reopened historical wounds, present a challenge not just for the bilateral relationship but also to regional stability. Read more…
Author: Hitoshi Tanaka, JCIE
Tension between Japan and China surrounding the Senkaku Islands presents a serious challenge to the stability of East Asia. The situation has become particularly dangerous as both sides are adopting increasingly stubborn postures. Read more…
Author: Vlado Vivoda, Griffith University
Before the nuclear disaster at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant on 11 March 2011, just two years ago yesterday, Asia was seen as the nuclear powerhouse of the future, but in the immediate aftermath of the nuclear catastrophe there was much uncertainty about the industry’s Asian, and global, future.