With the campaign (unofficially) underway — thank you, public elections law — we are now in for a month of maneuvering and campaigning as government and opposition camps push for the seats necessary for an Upper House majority. Yomiuri's latest poll showed the DPJ enjoying a three-point edge over the LDP in proportional representation (25% …
Tag: Abe Shinzo
When in doubt, talk about how to make Japan great again
"Now the vote likely will pivot on scandal and mismanagement of the country's enormous pension system. This is a shame. The election really should be about Mr. Abe's vision for a more activist international role for Japan."So says Michael Auslin, AEI's newest Japan scholar, whom I previously discussed in this post, in which I discussed …
Continue reading When in doubt, talk about how to make Japan great again
No one benefits from the pensions scandal?
The Asahi Shimbun published a chart today that shows public opinion regarding responses to the the pensions crisis (sadly, it does not appear to be online).Asked if they appreciated the Abe Cabinet's response to the pensions scandal, 59% of respondents said they did not appreciate it to 24% who did.That's not so surprising, but the …
Giri giri election
The Japanese phrase giri giri means just barely — and so will go this election, either just barely for the government or just barely for the opposition.I see no other way to call it, especially after reading David Pilling's analysis of the election in the FT, which asks, "Is it over for Japan's Abe?" For …
Calling out the generalissimo
The DPJ has issued another campaign flier featuring a comic strip that tells the story of how the Abe government learned of disappearing pension payments in December 2006 and covered it up until questioned by DPJ Diet members in May.Here is the last panel:This panel asks, "For what purpose is the election postponed?" In the …
Kyuma who?
In a move so blindingly obvious it hurts, Koike Yuriko, Abe's highly touted "national security adviser," has been appointed as the new defense minister.With a new boss appointed to Ichigaya within hours of Kyuma's resignation, one wonders whether they will also be airbrushing Kyuma out of pictures from the past nine months.It will be curious …
That sinking feeling
It's a new month, the Diet session has wound down, and there is less than a month until the Upper House elections (and ten days to kouji, when candidates officially file, marking the beginning of the official campaign season).And to start the month off right, here's the result of a recent Mainichi poll showing that …
After the Yoshida Doctrine, what?
Over at Shisaku, MTC notes in a thoughtful post on the Yoshida Doctrine, "Yet even now, sixteen years down the line, the Yoshida tradeoff rules as the master narrative underpinning all discussion of Japan's security options."Yet I wonder if the Yoshida Doctrine lives on only as a function of the institutional and constitutional constraints that …
Learning to be self-reliant?
If I could draw, I would have drawn something exactly like this cartoon in today's Yomiuri:The caption on this cartoon reads, "Troubles at home, worries in America," Abe's dual American "worries" being the looming comfort women resolution and Christopher Hill's nuclear bargaining.It didn't need to be this way, did it? As I wrote last week, …
"No comment" — too little, too late?
The comfort women resolution has passed the House Committee on Foreign Affairs by a vote of 39 to 2. It now moves on to the full House, where Speaker Pelosi has suggested it will be considered in mid-July, conveniently before the Upper House elections.The Abe government's response: no comment. Adhering to the sensible position that …
Tobias S. Harris 