"President Bush will welcome Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori to Washington for a working visit March 19. In addition to their important shared security objectives in the Asia-Pacific region, the United States and Japan have common interests on a broad range of global issues. The President looks forward to exchanging views with Prime Minister Mori on …
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.
The long and short of it (Noah Smith)
Gerald Curtis's article in the Financial Times deserves a response from me as well. The short version of my response is that I agree with Tobias: the fact that the DPJ will not be able to avert a depression is not sufficient reason to write them off.The longer version is this: Curtis is right when …
And there you have it
Nakagawa Shoichi has indicated that he will resign following the passage of the 2009 budget and budget-related bills.As MTC notes, "Provided that the Asō Cabinet is still existence then, I would have to add."I would add that with Nakagawa Shoichi's self-destruction, the power of the LDP's ideological conservatives appears to be in freefall.Consider the HANA …
A pox on both their houses?
Writing in the Financial Times, Columbia's Gerald Curtis laments the impotence of politicians from both the LDP and the DPJ in the midst of a historic economic crisis.The LDP, he writes, is "like the proverbial deer staring into the headlights...paralysed by fear rather than energized by it." But the DPJ is little better, as he …
Nakagawa will not survive
Nakagawa Shoichi's behavior at the G7 meeting in Rome — the slurred speech heard around the world — has quickly become a full-blown scandal.With the rallying cry of "exposing disgraceful behavior," the DPJ, the SDPJ, the JCP, and the PNP are preparing to submit a (non-binding) censure motion in the upper house.Mr. Nakagawa will go …
A future for values diplomacy?
Daniel Twining, currently a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund and formerly an Asia policy staffer at the State Department's policy planning staff and an adviser to John McCain, offers his recommendations to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at Shadow Government, a new blog at Foreign Policy featuring the writing of conservative and Republican …
Nakagawa Shoichi is now Aso’s problem
As the above video illustrates, Nakagawa Shoichi, finance minister, financial services minister, and Aso ally appeared at the G7 meeting in Rome, where he stumbled and slurred his way through his remarks to the press and fell asleep during the plenary session.Hatoyama Yukio, DPJ secretary-general, has already called for Mr. Nakagawa to be fired for …
The can kicks back (Noah Smith)
In my earlier post, I stated that Japan's current-account surplus can vanish in one of two ways: either Japan can consume more (which it won't because of debt and demographics), or it can (over)produce less. That is true. But when the adjustment happens is not set in stone.A casual observer might think that Nakagawa Shoichi's …
The Clinton-Ozawa meeting
After some waffling, Ozawa Ichiro has agreed to accept visiting US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's request to meet. They will meet on Tuesday.Jun Okumura wonders how Mr. Ozawa will handle the range of issues on which he has criticized the alliance, leading some American Japan hands to dismiss Mr. Ozawa as an unreliable friend …
Aso falls below ten percent
NTV has just released a new opinion poll conducted over the weekend that shows that Aso Taro's approval rating has fallen below 10%, clocking in at 9.7% compared with 17.4% the previous month. His disapproval rating in the same poll rose seven points to 76.2%.Among the 55 respondents who said they support the Aso government, …
Tobias S. Harris 