Economics, Politics and Public Policy in East Asia and the Pacific
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: Aurelia George Mulgan, UNSW, Canberra
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has clearly disclosed his intention to take Japan into the TPP negotiations. All that awaits is his announcement to do so.
Author: Kazuhiko Togo, Kyoto Sangyo University
It has been two weeks since Shinzo Abe formed his new cabinet.
Although it is much too early to give a full account of his foreign policy, the following five points indicate a promising start. Read more…
Author: Yukinobu Kitamura, Hitotsubashi University
Japan’s population is shrinking and ageing. This demographic transformation has set in motion a series of unprecedented policy actions and political reactions.
Author: Richard Katz, The Oriental Economist
When it comes to the Democratic Party of Japan’s nuclear policy, only one explanation makes sense: Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda is determined to prove that his party is the bunch of bungling amateurs that the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) claims it is.
How else to explain the reversals, and then the reversals of the reversals, of the ‘no nukes’ policy? Read more…
Author: Aurelia George Mulgan, UNSW Canberra
A recent report in the Wall Street Journal by Mitsuru Obe suggests that Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda will announce a decision to participate in the TPP after a cabinet reshuffle (scheduled for early October).
While a decision to participate in the TPP is highly unlikely, a decision to participate in the TPP talks is certainly possible. Read more…
Author: Michael Cucek, Shisaku, Tokyo
This last 2 July, Kenji Yamaoka, the right hand man of Ichiro Ozawa strode into the offices of Azuma Koshiishi, the secretary general of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ).
Tucked underneath Yamaoka’s arm was a large envelope containing letters from himself, Ozawa and an unknown number of other members of the DPJ, requesting leave from the party. The break-up of the DPJ — long prophesied, much discussed and expected to be ugly — had begun. Read more…
Author: Aurelia George Mulgan, UNSW Canberra
Having failed to block passage of the Noda government consumption tax legislation in the Lower House, Ozawa has now made good on his threat to leave the ruling DPJ.
Ozawa wants to reprise his political triumph of 1993 when he departed from the ruling LDP and founded the Renewal Party with 40 or so loyalists, and then helped to form the Hosokawa coalition government, knocking the LDP from power for the first time in 38 years. Read more…
Author: Aurelia George Mulgan, UNSW, Canberra
The political trench warfare in Japan over increasing the consumption tax has taken on the appearance of a ‘final battle’ between Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda and party strongman Ichiro Ozawa.
Noda and Ozawa are said to be playing a game of ‘Russian roulette’, but the reality is much more akin to brinksmanship, where only one victor can emerge. Read more…
Authors: Sisira Jayasuriya and Nobuaki Yamashita, La Trobe University
Japan was hit by a massive earthquake and huge tsunami on 11 March 2011 that killed nearly 20,000 people and threatened the country — and it neighbours — with a Chernobyl-type nuclear catastrophe.
A year later Japan continues to grapple with the impact and after-effects of the triple disaster. Read more…
Author: Michael Cucek, MIT
As Yoshihiko Noda, Japan’s sixth prime minister in five years, settles into office, much speculation surrounds the various internal party appointments taking place inside the troubled ruling Democratic Party of Japan.
In particular, the purported return to influence of Ichiro Ozawa, via Noda’s appointment to prominent positions of numerous Ozawa allies, is attracting much attention. 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: Peter Drysdale, Editor, EAF
Looked at from the outside, it’s a little difficult to understand why the political leadership in Japan is now under such intense pressure about its handling of the Tohoku earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster.
The approval ratings of Prime Minister Kan’s DPJ government plummeted after an initial lift and created an opportunity for enemies within his own party to challenge his leadership — a challenge he managed to fend off by declaring that the time was not right for him to resign but that he would do so later. Read more…
Author: Gerald Curtis, Columbia University
The Japanese Earthquake and tsunami left more than 25,000 people dead or missing. It damaged or destroyed 125,000 buildings, and spread an estimated 27 million tons of debris over a wide expanse of the northeast Pacific coast.
The media and the political opposition have been unrelenting in their criticism of Prime Minister Kan. Less than 20 per cent of the public now support the prime minister. More than 70 per cent disapprove of the way he has dealt with the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake Disaster, and would like to see him resign before the end of August. But the public entertains no illusions that the political situation will improve with Kan’s resignation. With no political leader having captured the public’s imagination, support for the DPJ, LDP and other parties is in free-fall. Read more…
Author: Sheila A Smith, CFR
The Kan cabinet is facing a defining moment in Japan’s postwar nuclear debate.
With the bulk of nuclear reactors now offline, the country is holding its breath over how Prime Minister Naoto Kan will proceed. Read more…