The BBC has released its annual survey of global attitudes, revealing once again that Japan is one of the most positively rated countries among those surveyed.Jun Okumura provides a good wrap-up of the report's findings on Japan here.As in years past, the survey found that Japan is viewed favorably in just about every country surveyed …
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 imperial guard coalesces
It's been less than a week since Prime Minister Fukuda made his eleventh hour appeal to the DPJ to cooperate in the gasoline tax/road construction dispute, discarding much of the road tribe's program in the process and leading Kono Taro to remark (noted here) that the young reformers had gone "from opposition forces to imperial …
Will the real Ozawa please stand up?
I will be the first to admit that I haven't been easy on Ozawa Ichiro in the months since the DPJ won the HC election, not least in published articles.But I just read Mr. Ozawa's poorly titled Ozawashugi — kokorozashi wo motte, nihonjin (Ozawaism: Have ambition, Japanese), in which Mr. Ozawa presents himself as the …
How "sympathetic" should Japan be?
As expected, the governing coalition passed a three-year extension of the sympathy budget in the House of Representatives Wednesday. The House of Councillors now has one month to deliberate on it before it comes into law automatically.And deliberate it will. In the lower house, the DPJ already questioned the use of the sympathy budget to …
April fools?
Today, April 1, the Japanese people have received an April Fool's Day gift in the form of a potentially temporary tax cut on gasoline and automobile purchases. There is, reports the media, chaos at the car dealerships and chaos at the petrol pumps. There is uncertainty regarding current road construction projects. And in a press …
Cry havoc
Painted into a corner over the gasoline tax issue, Prime Minister Fukuda attempted to undercut Ozawa Ichiro in an interview on NHK Sunday, suggesting that the impetus for a grand coalition came from Mr. Ozawa. The facts of the negotiations surrounding an LDP-DPJ grand coalition — especially Watanabe Tsuneo's role in it — may never …
Accountability comes to the alliance?
Chalk up another first for the Japanese political system.For the first time since it was created in 1978, the "sympathy budget" by which Japan subsidizes the presence of US forces in Japan will not be passed before the end of the fiscal year, due to demands from the DPJ for more thorough deliberation. The bill, …
Japan passing, Australian style
Tom Conley and Michael Heazle, writing in The Australian, look back to the 1990s to criticize Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's travel itinerary.In addition to haranguing Japan on whaling, they argueRudd has added insult to injury by snubbing Japan on his coming world tour. The Prime Minister seemingly can find the time to traverse the entire …
Fukuda resignation watch?
(Readers looking for my response to Fukuda Yasuo's resignation, see this post.)In a handful of days, Prime Minister Fukuda has gone from cool and collected, to angry, to shaken and desperate.On Friday, Mr. Fukuda called an emergency press conference to make one final plea to the DPJ to compromise on the gasoline tax, agreeing to …
Low posture to blame for Fukuda’s problems?
In Japanese postwar political history, the phrase "low posture" — 低姿勢, teishisei — is most associated with Prime Minister Ikeda Hayato (1960-1964). No mere slogan, the phrase signaled an end to the Kishi era, which ended in violence in the streets of Tokyo.The Ikeda era would be one of "tolerance and patience," of working with …
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Tobias S. Harris 