So old chums George and Shinzo have gotten together again, this time in Heiligendamm on the sidelines of the G8 summit, to chat about their mounting unpopularity abductions (surprise! Bush still supports Abe's position) and climate change.I wish, I wish, I wish I could rouse up some interest in what's happening in Germany, aside from …
Month: June 2007
Into the realm of the symbolic
While I obviously recognize that Asahi and Yomiuri approach public affairs from drastically different perspectives, I have never thought that they were living in different worlds.Until today.In Asahi, prominently featured on the front page, was an article on a Japanese Communist Party report suggesting that a special Japanese Ground Self-Defense Forces (JGSDF) unit conducted surveillance …
Australia plays the game
A day after reports that Australia is set to join the US and Japan in researching missile defense — an agreement reached at the first Australia-Japan 2 + 2 meeting — Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer has, in the words of The Australian, "defend[ed] China's military build-up."Readers can probably imagine that I have no problem …
How to make Japan more beautiful with just 155 promises
The LDP has released its platform for next month's Upper House elections, 155 promises to build a beautiful country, society, livelihood, and furusato (not to mention "beautifully vigorous regions living in symbiosis with nature" [no. 52]).As the puerile overuse of the word beautiful [Ed. — At least it's not kawaii (cute); hey, kawaii kuni e …
Continue reading How to make Japan more beautiful with just 155 promises
Blair looks forward while looking back
I think it goes without saying that outgoing British Prime Minister Tony Blair will be recalled as a tragic figure, full of potential but consumed by circumstances largely beyond his control. (Check out the debate hosted by PostGlobal on this question.)Nevertheless, Blair remains impressive as a world leader who has tried to look forward and …
Caption contest!
The following picture, in an advertisement in Asahi, made me laugh louder than is perhaps appropriate on a train:I immediately began to think of hilarious ways to caption this photo, but instead I thought I might turn it over to you, my readers. Over the next week, email your captions to observingjapan@gmail.com. I will post …
Aging China
Curzon at Coming Anarchy has an interesting post discussing a Daily Torygraph Telegraph article about the demographics and the global balance of power.He discusses the widely known graying of Japan, and then shifts his focus to the equally dramatic but less well-known graying of China, concluding, "...If you look at the demographic realities, China isn’t …
Reverting to form
The responses of both the LDP and the DPJ to the unfolding pensions scandal are illustrative, depressingly, of how little the Japanese political system has changed.The LDP's response has been nothing short of all-out panic. With Upper House elections little more than a month away, the LDP is trying to kill this issue as quickly …
Asking old questions anew
(This is the second post discussing George Packard's Protest in Tokyo; see the first here.)When I last discussed Packard, I spoke about how his exploration of Japanese thinking behind the first US-Japan security treaty revealed that independence was the dominant theme in Japanese foreign policy thinking throughout the 1950s. Independence has, of course, been a …
Are the wheels coming off?
On the same morning that Asahi reports that Abe's popularity has taken yet another blow, dropping to 30%, Yomiuri reports in an article that does not appear to be online that LDP Secretary General Nakagawa Hidenao gave a speech in Toyama in which he suggested that the "abduction problem" will become a point of contention …
Tobias S. Harris 