I was apparently mistaken to think that Mr. Ozawa might use the occasion of a visit to China to find some common ground with Mr. Fukuda by staking out a shared position on Japanese China policy.Mainichi reports that Mr. Ozawa plans to use the trip as an opportunity to criticize the Fukuda cabinet's approach 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.
Surmounting decay
MTC, in a post on Japanese democracy that references this recent post, argues, "Right now Japan's democracy is just sitting down, frazzled and panting."There's not much I can add to this excellent post, other than that if this era is, as some (Mr. Ozawa especially) have suggested, the third paradigm shift for modern Japan following …
Vaarwel and au revoir to Belgium?
The FT's Gideon Rachman weighs in on the Belgian "crisis" in a piece called "For Nations, Small is Beautiful."(I realize that this has little or nothing to do with Japan, a country Edwin Reischauer once suggested "may be the world’s most perfect nation-state," although with Okinawa as a prefecture, Japan is not nearly as perfect …
Finessing China
In the midst of rising tensions between the US and China, Japan and China held a ministerial-level strategic economic dialogue akin to those held between the US and China and the US and Australia, a timely reminder of what's at stake.The summit did not produce much in the way of concrete results, much to Amaki …
The usual suspect
Readers will note that I have declined to comment on the widening scandal involving Moriya Takemasa, former administrative vice minister of the Japan Defense Agency, and related corruption at the Defense Ministry.Frankly, I think the entire issue is a distraction, and I'm pleased that the DPJ has desisted from calling upon Nukaga Fukushiro, the finance …
Perilous weeks ahead
Prime Minister Fukuda, as I expected when he was chosen as prime minister in late September, has shown himself to be far more adept than most commentators expected. (And one hears fewer complaints about Mr. Fukuda's being a government of factions — I have no doubt that this is Mr. Fukuda's government.)But while he has …
Ozawa to China
Despite the extension of the Diet session, Ozawa Ichiro, DPJ president, will still be going to China with nearly fifty DPJ members of the Diet from 6 to 8 December. Mr. Ozawa will meet with Hu Jintao and mark the thirty-fifth anniversary of the normalization of Sino-Japanese relations.Mr. Ozawa's visit comes just as turbulence in …
A necessary revision
In light of the ongoing speculation about the probability and timing of a snap election, it is worthwhile to step back and consider structural flaws in how Japanese governments are formed.Why, after all, should Mr. Fukuda's government function on the basis of a parliamentary majority secured more than two years ago under his predecessor before …
Hold steady on China
Following the ASAT test conducted in January of this year, the behavior of the PLA is once again providing China hawks in the US with reason to bang the war drums (or perhaps just the containment cymbals, not that those are any less distressing). The latest incident, of course, involves China's last-minute rejection of a …
Expanding options
I am increasingly led to think that there is one principle common among both states in the international system and politicians within a domestic political system (especially democracies), it is that power is rooted in flexibility. The more options an actor has, the better able he is to outmaneuver rivals and secure other interests.A classic …
Tobias S. Harris 