Roy Berman calls attention to conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer's call for the US to negotiate with Japan over the acquisition of nuclear weapons.Arming with Japan satisfies Krauthammer's desire for action, which he believes as superior to the multilateral efforts he considers a "humiliation." The target of a nuclear Japan, Krauthammer admits, would not be North …
Category: Observing Japan Blog
A study in powerlessness
With its second nuclear test in three years, North Korea continues to illustrate the limits of the power of the US, China, and the international community as a whole.The underground test, conducted on Monday, appears to have been more successful than the October 2006 test — although it is unclear just how much of a …
Roos to Japan
While the White House has not made the announcement official, the Nelson Report said that the Obama administration will be sending John Roos, Silicon Valley lawyer and major Obama fundraiser, to Tokyo as U.S. ambassador.(Click here to read this post in Japanese.)As Armchair Asia notes, this is a sign that Japan has indeed become normal: …
The DPJ bets on Hatoyama
As became clear in the days before the DPJ's Diet members met Saturday to elect a party leader to replace Ozawa Ichiro, Hatoyama Yukio, one of the founders of the Democratic Party of Japan, has once again been selected to serve as party president. He received 124 votes to Okada Katsuya's 95 votes, with, as …
The DPJ rattles markets
How much longer can the US count on Japan to buy Treasuries?Nakagawa Masaharu, since 2007 shadow finance minster in the DPJ's Next Cabinet, has raised the specter of DPJ government's forgoing US government bonds (at least those dominated in dollars instead of yen). In a story that originated with the BBC, according to Jiji, Nakagawa …
The short race to pick Ozawa’s replacement
The campaign to replace Ozawa Ichiro as DPJ president quickly turned into a race between Okada Katsuya and Hatoyama Yukio, who have until Sunday to convince the DPJ's upper and lower house members of their merits to serve as the face of the party in the forthcoming general election.Uesugi Takashi, writing in Shukan Daiyamondo, argues …
How severe is the fallout from Ozawa’s fall?
Despite widespread expectations that he would not survive to lead the DPJ into this year's general election, Ozawa Ichiro's resignation is reverberating around the Japanese political system.Aso Taro, commenting on the Ozawa's resignation, claimed that he could not understand why Ozawa would resign now, two days before the debate scheduled between the party leaders. It …
Continue reading How severe is the fallout from Ozawa’s fall?
News and an apology
First, thank you all for bearing with me. I apologize for the gaps between posts of late — end of the semester and all that. Normal coverage will resume as soon as my time allows (and I will try to sneak a post or two in over the next couple of days on the Ozawa …
Now the Ozawa era is over
It appears that Ozawa Ichiro is finally tired of fighting for his political life.After weeks of circling the drain, of calls from members of his own party to resign or clarify his explanation of why his aide was wrongfully accused, Ozawa has decided to call it quits. He will not be resigning from the Diet, …
The LDP’s reformists continue to battle family politics
Surprisingly, given the howls of protest from within the LDP that greeted Suga Yoshihide's proposal to include a ban on hereditary candidates in the party's election manifesto, the LDP appears ready to include restrictions on political inheritances in the manifesto after Suga met with Koga Makoto, the LDP's chief elections strategist, and Ibuki Bunmei, former …
Continue reading The LDP’s reformists continue to battle family politics
Tobias S. Harris 