The Kishi (or is it Sato?) clan has an interesting relationship with the Japanese people, and with Prime Minister Abe digging in his heels despite a resounding vote of no-confidence on Sunday, it looks like the prime minister versus the people once again.Of course, in 1960, the stakes were serious, the issues being matters of …
Author: Tobias S. Harris
Tobias Harris is Japan analyst at Teneo Intelligence. He is the author of a forthcoming biography of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
Let the hyperbole begin
Congress has passed House Resolution 121, the "comfort women resolution," by unanimous consent — there were no nays voiced, and there was no roll call vote. According to one of my trusted correspondents, Congressman Tom Lantos, a Holocaust survivor, introduced the legislation by suggesting that there is no statute of limitations on apologies for these …
The emerging contours of post-7/29 politics
I am back from the lunchtime session with Professor Curtis, who gave a thorough and pessimistic account of the era in Japanese politics coming into being.I do not think it inappropriate to speak of a new era in Japanese politics; Professor Curtis is certainly convinced that Sunday's catastrophic electoral defeat for the LDP marks the …
Continue reading The emerging contours of post-7/29 politics
The morning after
The final breakdown: DPJ 60, LDP 37, Komeito 9, Independents 7, JCP 3, SDPJ 2, PNP 2, NPJ 1.That gives the opposition parties 137 seats to the government's 105, with the DPJ becoming the largest party with 109 seats, more than the government parties combined. With the thirty-two-seat differential between opposition and government parties, there …
The results are in…
UPDATE, 1:04am — The final five PR seats have yet to be assigned, but regardless of which party gets them, the impact of this election is hard to understate. The polls leading up to the election were correct: the LDP was abandoned by voters across the country. Urban voters, rural voters, all opted to oppose …
Desperate to the end
The last day of campaigning is done, and tomorrow, Sunday, the voters will decide whether to punish the LDP and Komeito for the Abe cabinet's corruption, lapses, and policy failures and hand control of the Upper House of the Diet to the DPJ and other opposition parties.(Find my predictions for the critical single-seat district campaigns …
Another sign of lingering Japanese war guilt
Following yesterday's finding that a plurality of respondents indicated that Japan still needs to apologize for its actions during the war, I have found, thanks to a tip from a trusted correspondent, a survey conducted by Fuji TV'sHodo 2001" program in April that suggests that the Japanese people are far from defiant when it comes …
Continue reading Another sign of lingering Japanese war guilt
Into the home stretch
The campaign is in its final days, the headlines continue to point to a disastrous loss for the LDP and suggest that even Komeito might lose a couple seats — and yet even if the DPJ wins, the outcome and consequences of the election are far from clear.First, though, just some thoughts about how many …
Don’t panic
Pollster Karlyn Bowman, writing at American.com, presents data on Japanese public opinion drawn from a variety of recent surveys (mostly old Pew Global Attitudes polls).The overall picture — Japanese are generally pleased with relations with the US, displeased about the rise of China — is not altogether surprising, although some findings were unexpected.First, in response …
F-22 as a totem for China hawks
The F-22 issue continues to smolder, it seems, as Japan eyes the next-generation stealth fighter hungrily.The US Congress, however, has just passed the 2008 defense budget, which retains the Obey Amendment's prohibition on the export of the F-22.Will this be the end of Tokyo's lobbying to get the prohibition lifted in time for Japan to …
Tobias S. Harris 