Following on the heels of an announcement last week of a plan to amend Japan's rules separating banks and brokerages, the Abe Cabinet has announced, in connection with its Asia Gateway Initiative, that Japan will revise its customs rules and standards to better comply with international standards and make Japan more competitive regionally and globally.Both …
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.
Collective self-defense offensive
In the past day, the Abe Cabinet has been on the offensive on the question of the review of the prohibition on the right of collective self-defense.Yesterday, Prime Minister Abe said at a press conference, "As the era changes, I want to have a debate about how the constitution should be interpreted."At the Diet, controversial …
Koizumi comparisons continue
Hanaoka Nobuaki, journalist and onetime gubernatorial candidate in Nagano, has an interesting op-ed in today's Sankei Shimbun looking at how Abe has yet to find his "Three Sacred Treasures," the equivalent of the three advisors to Koizumi who helped shape his reform agenda: Shiokawa Masajyuro, his finance minister; Takenaka Heizo, his reform guru; and Iijima …
The hint of a worldview
Barack Obama has delivered his own "major foreign policy speech," at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. (Full text available here; NY Times article here.)This speech is not worth reading for its policy proposals, which are more or less standard Democratic boilerplate proposals. Rather, as Scott Paul writes at The Washington Note, this kind of …
Criticize the media, but don’t let up on the pols
Ampotman directs another post against the media -- this time the Wall Street Journal -- for being unfair to Japanese prime ministers, this time Abe's august predecessors from the revolving-door nineties.Now, I don't disagree with his main point: the Western media's lack of attention to what happens in Japan is shockingly bad, with the possible …
Continue reading Criticize the media, but don’t let up on the pols
The beginning of a trend?
Yomiuri reported today that exit polling from Sunday's by-elections in Fukushima and Okinawa suggests showed a pronounced tendency among independents to vote for the DPJ candidates.In Okinawa, 55% of independents voted for Karimata Yoshimasa, the candidate backed by the DPJ and three other opposition parties, while 36% supported Shimajiri Aiko, backed by the LDP and …
Abe’s first six months
The FT's David Pilling provides a solid summary of Abe Shinzo's first six months in the Kantei.Being a summary, there is, of course, little new in this article, but it serves as a good reminder of the problems with the Abe Cabinet -- and of Abe's tendencies as a leader.I found this paragraph, though, particularly …
LDP and DPJ split in by-elections
In today's by-elections for Upper House seats in Okinawa and Fukushima, the results surprised no one, with the LDP winning in Okinawa -- Abe personally campaigned hard -- and the DPJ winning in Fukushima.As with the election results from two weeks ago, it's hard to make predictions for July based on these returns; as Jun …
Japan’s unchanging defense budget
Courtesy of Japan Probe, I came across this summary of Abe's interview with the Wall Street Journal, which seems to have focused more on defense matters than the Washington Post/Newsweek interview.Abe apparently told the WSJ that Japan does not plan to raise its defense spending to match China's growing defense expenditures, which, the article reports, …
Abe interviewed in the Washington Post
In advance of Abe's impending visit to Washington, DC, the Washington Post has published an interview of Abe by Lally Weymouth, journalist and daughter of the late Katherine Graham. It is unclear in which language the interview was conducted or whether Abe was speaking through an interpreter.But regardless of the language, Abe once again displays …
Tobias S. Harris 