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: 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: Peter M. Beck, CFR, Keio University
Korea-Japan relations have warmed considerably since President Lee Myung-bak took office, but new agreements have proven elusive.
After raising the idea with hundreds of Japanese, ranging from Diet members to Okinawa pineapple farmers, I have concluded that there is no time to waste for President Lee and Prime Minister Kan Naoto to pursue a formal alliance. 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, 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…
Author: Aurelia George Mulgan, UNSW@ADFA
Can we expect Japan to dump agricultural protection as it prepares to enter negotiations on a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and to host APEC? Only by dint of strong prime ministerial leadership capable of overcoming rising opposition from agricultural groups and pro-agriculture politicians within his own party and government.
In many respects the DPJ administration is still playing with the same deck of cards as previous LDP governments. Japan has had a change of party in power and now has the policy instruments in place to facilitate agricultural trade liberalisation with the introduction of direct income subsidies for farmers. However, the same old obstacles to progress are all too visibly in evidence. Read more…
Author: Tobias Harris, MIT
Japanese Prime Minister Kan Naoto and Wen Jiabao, his Chinese counterpart, have met briefly in Brussels on the sideline of the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) summit, marking an end to the bilateral standoff following the collision between a Chinese trawler and Japanese Coast Guard vessels in the vicinity of the disputed Senkakus.
As expected, Japan and China reiterated the importance of the strategic, reciprocal partnership initiative. High-level talks and cultural exchanges will resume. All in all, it is difficult to say what has changed strategically as a result of the dispute. That China will fiercely resist any perceived change to the status quo in its maritime disputes? 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…
Auhthor: Tobias Harris, MIT
Having successfully fended off Ozawa Ichirō’s challenge to his leadership of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan — indeed, having defeated Ozawa by an unexpectedly large margin, not only winning the vote among Diet members but also receiving the support of 249 of 300 district-level party chapters and sixty percent of the vote among local representatives — Prime Minister Kan Naoto finally has an opportunity to govern. After all, since succeeding Hatoyama Yukio in June Kan has spent much of his time focused on elections, first with the House of Councillors election in July and then the showdown with Ozawa.
Perhaps it should come as no surprise that within days of his victory Kan reshuffled his cabinet and the DPJ leadership. I am generally skeptical of the efficacy of cabinet reshuffles. Read more…
Author: Rikki Kersten, ANU
On September 14 the DPJ emerged from its leadership contest between Naoto Kan and Ichiro Ozawa a divided party. This means that Japan’s voters will not see resolution of or even progress on crucial policy problems, including resolving the Futenma base relocation issue, rejuvenating the US-Japan relationship, managing the China relationship and the North Korea wildcard, balancing economic stimulus with fiscal austerity, and discussing the tax reform that Japan has to have. If Ozawa escapes indictment for a funding scandal next month, we can expect the next disruptive phase of Japan’s political realignment to begin.
While Kan won 721 to Ozawa’s 491 voting points, this was due to a pro-Kan surge amongst the party rank and file across the nation. The parliamentary party was split right down the middle, with Kan garnering support from 209 party members and Ozawa winning votes from 200 members. Read more…
Author: Aurelia George Mulgan, UNSW@ADFA
On September 14, the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) faces a choice between two leaders from the same party who represent radically different ideals and policies. The repercussions of this choice will be felt throughout Japan in terms of the trajectory in which its political system develops and the course in which its economy tracks in the medium term.
The differences in the policies of the two candidates – Prime Minister Kan and former DPJ Secretary-General Ozawa Ichiro – are clear. Ozawa supports a continuation of the DPJ’s big spending policies under the slogan of ‘putting people’s lives first’ and is hammering the DPJ’s anti-bureaucracy and decentralisation themes. In this respect he is staying true to the DPJ’s original 2009 manifesto. 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: Michael Cucek, MIT
Japan is a parliamentary democracy, but somehow the country is suddenly in the midst of a presidential election. There are two candidates, each with a distinct ideological cant and consequent distinct set of policy prescriptions. Both have their core supporters leaving the pair battling, quite publicly, for the allegiance of undecided voters. Unlike battles of the old days, where intra-party clashes were solved with promises of Cabinet and party posts or even exchanges of cash, the successful candidate in this election will likely have to charm the voters capable of putting him over the 50 per cent line. To capture these hearts and minds, both candidates are taking to the airwaves and the streets.
On the one side of the ledger is Ozawa Ichiro. Read more…
Author: Tobias Harris, MIT
‘All political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure, because that is the nature of politics and of human affairs.’ — Enoch Powell
Returning to his familiar role as Ozawa Ichirō’s trusty factotum, former Prime Minister Hatoyama Yukio announced Thursday that he will be supporting Ozawa in a bid to unseat Prime Minister Kan Naoto in next month’s DPJ party leadership election. Read more…
