How can the LDP govern Japan when it can barely govern itself?The war of attrition that has been waged between the Koizumian remnant in the LDP and the rest of the party since Koizumi stepped down as prime minister in 2006 has entered a particularly bloody phase as the Koizumians have decided to launch a …
Category: Observing Japan Blog
Asō makes a pun
Speaking before the Upper House Budget Committee on Monday, Prime Minister Asō Tarō reached a new low for an LDP leader attacking the opposition DPJ.Asō was addressing the debate regarding the DPJ's plans to finance new spending by cutting wasteful spending and tapping the so-called "buried treasure" of Kasumigaseki, surpluses in the government's numerous special …
Circling the drain
The dissolution of the House of Representatives, Prime Minister Asō Tarō tells us, is not far off.It cannot come soon enough. Each day brings more news of Asō's loosening grasp on his own party. Yomiuri reports that from Monday, the effort to replace the prime minister will take on a new urgency. The movement to …
The vision thing
On Tuesday the Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy (CEFP) released the 2009 Basic Plan for Economic and Fiscal Reform (known colloquially as the honebuto), available here along with other documents from the Tuesday meeting.The plan is controversial because the Asō government appears to have sidestepped an existing agreement — originating in the 2006 honebuto …
The DPJ faces the bureaucracy
With the DPJ's prospects on the rise and the LDP mired in what may be terminal disarray, the DPJ is receiving greater scrutiny when it comes to how the party will govern should it take power.That, after all, is what this election is about: if seiken kotai [regime change], the DPJ's longtime mantra is to …
From crisis to crisis
For a government that has at various times tried to distinguish itself as putting policy before politics, the Asō government now closely resembles an immunocompromised patient desperately trying to fend off opportunistic infections, with the infections being political disorder within the LDP. It bears noting that the DPJ has played little or no role in …
Protesting too much?
In a short span of time, Prime Minister Asō Tarō, Chief Cabinet Secretary Kawamura Takeo, and LDP Secretary-General Hosoda Hiroyuki rejected the attempt by Asō's opponents to link the LDP's performance in the July 12 Tokyo assembly election to Asō's future as LDP leader.At a press conference Wednesday, Kawamura echoed Hosoda in insisting that there …
Koike versus the "soft liners"
On Tuesday, Koike Yuriko, former defense minister and aspirant to the LDP presidency, announced her resignation as chair of the LDP's special committee on base countermeasures.She told the media that her resignation was intended as a protest against the decision to soften the language on preemption in the LDP Policy Research Council's defense division in …
A reply to Randy Waterhouse on balancing
Randy Waterhouse graciously addressed some points I raised in response to his discussion of Japanese balancing behavior, and I would like to respond in turn.Although before I do, I must add that I like the Stephensonian moniker.1 and 2) I think what we're dealing with here is the difference between balancing as a description of …
Time for a mercy killing
After a brief period of buoyancy, the bottom has finally fallen out of the Asō government.In addition to the drops below twenty percent approval in the Mainichi and Kyodo polls, the government's approval rating dropped 8.7% to 17.5% in the Sankei poll, with its disapproval rating rising ten points to 70.6%, a poll in which …
Tobias S. Harris 