Aside from the highly controversial education reform bill, the special session of the Diet now concluding -- it was extended an extra four days -- also passed a bill elevating Japan's Defense Agency from an agency subordinate to the Cabinet to a ministry with full status equivalent to other government ministries.This reform has been in …
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.
Bush, Sr. meets Abe
Former US President George H.W. Bush visited Japan on Saturday and met with Prime Minister Abe Shinzo (and, incidentally, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who was in Tokyo for meetings with Abe).I can't help but laugh at the symbolism of Abe meeting with George H.W. Bush, with whom I compared Abe in this post. Abe …
The government comes clean
One story that I've neglected to follow here is the ongoing scandal regarding allegations that the Abe and Koizumi governments had arranged "plants" to ask friendly questions at town hall meetings that were inaugurated in 2001. I held off on commenting because it was unclear how the 「やらせ問題」(yarase mondai, the "fake" problem) fit with the …
Matsuzaka is signed
So at the last minute, the Red Sox reached a deal with Seibu Lions pitcher Matsuzaka Daisuke (or rather, Scott Boras, his agent).Total price tag, including the posting fee? $103.11 million.There's no question that Matsuzaka is a phenomenal pitcher, but then you read an article such as this from the IHT, which includes the following …
Paulson’s long-anticipated journey
US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is in Beijing this week at the head of a mission that includes Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke.Will these talks achieve concrete results?I have my doubts, because I don't think talks of this nature can "resolve" long-term structural changes in the global economy. As noted in this article in the International …
The 総理 (souri) goes slowly, and pays for it
I spoke earlier today about Abe Shinzo running into trouble with LDP members of the Upper House; now the FT reports that a number of surveys by Japanese newspapers have shown substantial drops in Abe's popularity. Even Yomiuri -- the leading conservative daily -- registered a major fall in his public support.The article notes, "Survey …
Continue reading The 総理 (souri) goes slowly, and pays for it
Abe stumbles into more trouble
Fresh off a bruising battle over the readmission of a dozen LDP postal rebels, Mr. Abe has apparently caused an uproar among the party's caucus in the Upper House of the Diet in suggesting that as the party's executive nominates candidates for the summer 2007 elections, some sitting LDP members could potentially find themselves replaced …
Japan’s comparative advantage?
Reuters has a story today on Japan's booming "elderly services" industry. As I've written before in this space -- and noted in a number of conversations -- Japan may be poised to reap an enormous economic windfall not only from its own "greying," but from the greying of the world, include its soon-to-be-considerably-older neighbor, China.As …
The annual foreign policy survey, pt. 1
Nikkei reports today on the results of the Japanese government's annual survey of public opinion on Japan's foreign relations. The results are not particularly surprising. Nikkei leads by reporting that the ratio of respondents (57%) who thought that Japanese-South Korean relations were bad was the highest since the survey began in 1986 -- this likely …
Jeane Kirkpatrick, Realist? Hardly
Jeane Kirkpatrick, US ambassador to the UN during Reagan's first term and AEI senior fellow before and after her service, died last week at the age of eighty.Having spoken with her at length on one occasion and seen her speak on a number of occasions (and having helped her down the stairs once when a …
Tobias S. Harris 