Ozawa Ichiro indicated, in a tearful press conference Tuesday evening, that he will stay on as DPJ president despite the indictment of his chief public secretary — but Ozawa's statement may have only been the end of the beginning of the final act of Ozawa's long career.The press conference itself was a masterpiece of defiance. …
Tag: 2007 special session of the Diet
Goodbye to all that
After 128 days, the resignation of one prime minister, the selection of another, the aborted resignation of the leader of the largest opposition party, and the "re-passage" of a major bill in the House of Representatives over the rejection of the House of Councillors, the 2007 special session of the Diet — Japan's latest experiment …
Use of force
"Japan PM forces navy bill through" — BBC."Japan's ruling party steamrolled a new anti-terrorism law through parliament." — Morning Brief, Foreign Policy Passport."Japan's ruling coalition forced a bill through parliament today..." — LA Times (AP)"Fukuda forces through law on Japanese naval deployment" — International Herald Tribune (NYT)"Japan forces through terror law" — Financial TimesAnyone else …
Censure motion on hold for now
As the close of the Diet session approaches — and with it, the presumed re-passage of the new anti-terror bill in the HR — the DPJ has announced that it is reconsidering submitting an HC censure motion this session in response to the government's use of its supermajority. It will instead save this motion for …
2007: The Year That Was In Japanese Politics
A recent article in the Yomiuri Shimbun surveying the Japanese political situation as 2007 gives way to 2008 included a sidebar that compared the present day with the bakumatsu, the last days of the Tokugawa.Looking back over the events in political Japan over 2007, that comparison does not seem inappropriate. The picture that emerges is …
Continue reading 2007: The Year That Was In Japanese Politics
One more month
As anticipated, the Fukuda cabinet has decided to extend the extraordinary (and extraordinarily long) Diet session thirty-one days, to 15 January, ensuring that the sixty-day rule will take effect and allow the House of Representatives to pass the new anti-terror special measures law.As noted by MTC, the extension means that the Diet will recess for …
Fukuda answers some questions
After weeks of uncertainty, Prime Minister Fukuda has moved to answer definitively the six unanswered questions of the current Diet session, answering at least two of them by announcing that he will use the government's supermajority in the House of Representatives to pass the new anti-terror law, and he will extend the Diet session into …
Ozawa, posturing
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 …
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 …
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 