As noted by Jun Okumura, the Fukuda government has thrown down the gauntlet in the debate over the extension of the temporary gasoline tax. The LDP and Komeito agreed Monday to submit a bill to the HR Tuesday (and pass by Wednesday) that will extend the tax for two months, giving the government time to …
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.
To a second-rate Japan
Continuing the theme of Japan's vanishing global presence discussed in this post (and this post by Gen Kanai last week), it's worth looking at what may be this year's hot foreign policy article-turned-book (cf. Paul Kennedy, Francis Fukuyama, Samuel Huntington, Robert Kagan), "Waving Goodbye to Hegemony" by Parag Khanna, a fellow at the New America …
The weakness of Fukuda’s (and Japan’s) carbon campaign
As the Fukuda government has insisted at every chance it has to remind Japanese citizens and foreign governments that the focus of this summer's G8 summit in Hokkaido will be climate change policy. Tokyo is eager to be at the forefront of the quest for a post-Kyoto climate change pact.This weekend Mr. Fukuda took this …
Continue reading The weakness of Fukuda’s (and Japan’s) carbon campaign
Recommended Book: The Coldest Winter, David Halberstam
As the six-party talks continue to dance around the question of the future of the Korean peninsula — and the major powers plan for the collapse of the DPRK — it is worthwhile to look back to the (unresolved) conflict that cemented the division of the peninsula and had untold consequences for US Asia policy.In …
Continue reading Recommended Book: The Coldest Winter, David Halberstam
The Machimura faction tries to untwist the Diet
The Machimura faction, which just gained a new member to solidify its position as the LDP's largest, has delivered a proposal to Prime Minister Fukuda that calls for the drafting of new rules for Diet management in light of the divided Diet. The proposal, according to Asahi, points to a "structural deficiency in the constitution," …
Continue reading The Machimura faction tries to untwist the Diet
The enduring weakness of the parties
Over at Shisaku, MTC writes about l'affaire Ōe — Ōe being Ōe Yasuhiro, one of the three DPJ HC members who attended the gathering of prefectural assembly members mentioned in this post.Kan Naoto has called for Mr. Ōe to resign his seat. That is unlikely to happen: MTC notes that since Mr. Ōe was elected …
Abdicating responsibility
The government has submitted its bill extending the temporary gasoline tax for ten years as part of its bill related to the revision of the tax system. It is not clear, however, whether the government will give up on finding a compromise with the opposition and push for passage before the end of the month, …
Another consequential decision for the government
Having just finished the process of using Article 59 to pass the new anti-terror law, the Fukuda government is once again debating whether to go through the process of rushing a desired bill (the extension of the temporary gasoline tax) through the House of Representatives in order to leave the government time to "re-pass" the …
Continue reading Another consequential decision for the government
Is the LDP doomed?
MTC makes the bold prediction that the LDP "faces annihilation" in the next general election.I'm inclined to agree, simply because it seems that the LDP has finally exhausted the patience of the Japanese people — and the members of the LDP seem more interested in dividing into warring ideological camps than in making good policy …
Who won the battle over postal reform?
On Saturday, Koga Makoto, the LDP's chief election strategist, announced that the party's candidate in Gifu-1 will be Noda Seiko, a former postal minister ousted from the party as a postal rebel in the summer of 2005 and readmitted to the party in December 2006. The dispute was over whether the party would give the …
Tobias S. Harris 