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…

Author: Tobias Harris, MIT

The Eurasia Group’s Ian Bremmer has an op-ed in the IHT in which he argues that despite widespread pessimism among Japanese regarding their country’s future, things may not be so bad. He suggests that the DPJ may well be learning to get along with business elites and bureaucrats, Japan and the US may be rebuilding their relationship after a remarkably bad year for the alliance, and, finally, the Japanese people have not taken to the streets in opposition to their government.

The first two arguments are more or less acceptable, although there is little to praise in how the Kan government prevaricated and ultimately failed to lead on the issue. Read more…

Author: Yoichi Funabashi, Asahi Shimbun

This month the Asia-Pacific region takes center stage in global diplomacy.

A Group of 20 summit meeting is being held in Seoul, followed by the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum summit meeting in Yokohama.

U.S. President Barack Obama is also scheduled to visit India, Indonesia, South Korea and Japan in November.

A number of pressing issues will need to be tackled at those forums. Delegates must figure out whether a new international order can be created that would move from the framework established after World War II in which the Group of Seven advanced economies managed the world economy, to one that includes newly emerging economies such as China, India, Brazil, Turkey and South Africa. Read more…

Author: Michael Cucek, MIT

On October 4, the Tokyo No. 5 Committee for the Inquest of Prosecution released its second determination, mandating that Ozawa Ichiro, the former leader and secretary-general of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), be indicted for crimes related to a land deal carried out by his political fundraising organisation, the Rikuzankai. In particular, the committee determined that there was sufficient evidence pointing to Ozawa having directed his subordinates to file misleading and incomplete financial reports with oversight officials.

The now inevitable indictment of Ozawa will not have an immediate impact on the surface. Ozawa will retain his Diet seat and will continue to serve as a full member with all the duties and privileges of office. Read more…

Author: Haruko Satoh, CSIS

Kan Naoto’s re-election as leader of the ruling DPJ has given him the mandate to continue as prime minister. Most Japanese welcomed this outcome. They are dismayed by the state of national politics and the country’s inability to produce stable leadership since Koizumi Junichiro left office in 2006. Kan is the fifth prime minister since then.

But the path of political renewal in Japan is not over yet. For Kan’s re-election to become truly meaningful and restore the public sense that the change of power last August was the right choice, Kan needs to cast off the legacies of the 1955-regime of left-right tension within his party.   Read more…

Author: Aurelia George Mulgan, ADFA@UNSW

The dispute over Japan’s temporary detention of a Chinese fishing boat captain accused of colliding with two Japanese coastguard vessels in the territorial waters of the Senkaku Islands reveals the very shallow level of goodwill between China and Japan.

China’s official response to Japan’s actions was initially confined to action in diplomatic, cultural and economic realms, but the Chinese also threatened additional retaliatory measures if the Chinese fishing boat captain was not released immediately and unconditionally. Now that the release has occurred, China’s next move is unclear. Read more…

Author: Sourabh Gupta, Samuels International

Ichiro Ozawa has been subject to a good deal of criticism over the past few days and for reasons not limited to his penchant for Kakuei Tanaka-style, traditionalist pork barrel politics. What Ozawa’s critics fail to understand though is that Japanese politics does not yet have a modernising centre that can hold.

Certainly, there are modernising reformers strewn across the political aisle. Yet neither party’s modernisers have the votes within their own party to guide reform policy through the Diet, and cross-aisle cooperation among modernisers is an idea whose time has not yet arrived. Read more…

Author: Andrew Levidis, Melbourne University and Kyoto University

There has always been an element of incongruity between Ozawa’s great political conception and his actual performance. His decision to challenge Prime Minister Kan Naoto for the presidency of the DPJ reflects the grimness that has crept into Japanese politics, disfiguring those who seek real reform, and an almost metaphysical need by Ozawa to defend his legacy and previous ambitions.

His challenge can be seen as a metaphor for what has gone wrong with the DPJ since its moment of triumph, and Ozawa’s last fateful chance to redeem himself and his party. Read more…

Author: Aurelia George Mulgan, UNSW@ADFA

Japanese politics is heading for a showdown on 14th September when the ruling Democratic Party of Japan decides its next leader and prime minister. The contenders are the present incumbent, Prime Minister Kan Naoto, and the secretary-general in the previous Hatoyama administration, Ozawa Ichirō. If Ozawa is successful, Japan will have had three prime ministers in a little over three months.

The media have been waiting breathlessly for Ozawa’s decision on whether or not he would run for the DPJ leadership. Read more…