The HR passed the road construction bill a second time on Tuesday afternoon, as scheduled. Despite rumors to the contrary, there was no rebellion. Kono Taro and his comrades voted with the government, in the process illustrating why the much-anticipated political realignment has yet to occur: for all the discontent voiced by backbenchers about the …
Month: May 2008
Realignment scenarios
After months of talking about forming a new party, Hiranuma Takeo, a leading LDP postal rebel who spurned LDP efforts to bring him back into the party during the Abe era, may finally be taking steps to create a new conservative party that may yet be a fly in the LDP's ointment.Mr. Hiranuma has reportedly …
The second override
The House of Councillors voted yesterday to reject the ten-year road construction plan passed by the House of Representatives in March. The bill was defeated 108 to 126, with DPJ (proportional representation) members Oe Yasuhiro and Watanabe Hideo rebelling against the party leadership to support the bill, and Kimata Yoshitake (Aichi) and Hironaka Wakako (Chiba) …
Erratum?
A reader informs me that the pictures mentioned in this post are most likely not pictures of the aftermath of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, but are instead pictures of the aftermath of the Great Kanto earthquake of 1923.No less moving, in light of today's news.
Fear and loathing in the wake of Hu’s visit
As Jun Okumura notes, a poll by Fuji TV's Hodo 2001 program found that Fukuda Yasuo gained nothing from Chinese President Hu Jintao's visit to Japan last week.The poll recorded that nearly sixty percent of respondents disapprove of Mr. Fukuda's China policy.Beyond public doubts, Mr. Fukuda's action (or inaction) during Mr. Hu's visit have driven …
Continue reading Fear and loathing in the wake of Hu’s visit
Boldly going where Japan has never gone before
Thanks to an agreement between the LDP, the DPJ, and Komeito, on Friday the HR's Cabinet committee passed a bill that revises Japanese space policy, lifting the 1969 ban on the military use of space. The bill, expected to pass the HR on Tuesday, will create a NASA-style agency attached to the cabinet as a …
Continue reading Boldly going where Japan has never gone before
May contribution to FEER Forum
You can find my latest contribution to FEER Forum here, discussing the impending demise of the Fukuda government.
Mr. Hu’s relentlessly upbeat visit
Chinese President Hu Jintao will leave Japan Saturday after a five-day visit, a visit that the Chinese Communist Party's external relations bureau has described as a "great success."(Photo from the Office of the Prime Minister)It is hard to dispute that, as far as symbolism goes, the visit was indeed a success. Mr. Hu and Prime …
The US in Asia and the world
Princeton's G. John Ikenberry has a long guest post at the Washington Note addressing Kishore Mahbubani's arguments in The New Asian Hemisphere: The Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East. Not having read Mr. Mahbubani's book yet, I can't speak directly to his argument, but I do want to address the points raised by …
The LDP’s dilemmas
Yamamoto Ichita, taking a break from rocking out, writes of the divide between LDP veterans and youngsters in the debate over Prime Minister Fukuda's plan to shift the special road construction fund into the general fund from 2009.The question is how the prime minister should proceed. At present, the HR will be voting next week …
Tobias S. Harris 