Foreign Policy's website has an essay I've written regarding the role of Ozawa Ichiro in a DPJ government here. For the record, I did not pick the detail.MTC has some excellent thoughts on the Ozawa dilemma here.
Tag: DPJ
The LDP on the brink of disaster
The general election campaign is heading into its final days. Despite another two days of campaigning, the LDP and DPJ are mostly battling for seats on the margins — the LDP to keep from falling below 100 seats, the DPJ to reach the magic number of 320, the number required for a supermajority. As the …
Hatoyama in the New York Times
There isn't much I can add to MTC's comments on the New York Times's publication of the translation of Hatoyama Yukio's essay in Voice (which originally appeared in the Christian Science Monitor). I am stunned that no one at DPJ HQ thought better of having Hatoyama's provocative essay appear — again — in an American …
The DPJ contemplates its opening moves with the US
In a survey of candidates' political attitudes, Mainichi found that DPJ and Komeito candidates overlapped more than Komeito and LDP or LDP and DPJ candidates. Whether the policy affinities between DPJ and Komeito candidates presages cooperation between the two parties after the election will depend on other factors, but what interested me about this survey …
Continue reading The DPJ contemplates its opening moves with the US
The election will be cathartic, but catharsis is short-lived
The general election is still six days away, but despite pernicious negative campaigning across Japan, the LDP seems to be incapable of reversing what the DPJ has taken to calling — switching from a meteorological metaphor to a geological metaphor — a "tectonic shift."The LDP's heavyweights are pinned down defending their own districts...Koizumi says once …
Continue reading The election will be cathartic, but catharsis is short-lived
Hatoyama is a problem for the DPJ
In the current issue of the Economist, the news magazine calls particular attention to comments by Hatoyama Yukio in an article in the September issue of Voice called "My Political Philosophy." (I've gotten so accustomed to Japanese magazines not putting content online that I did not even bother to check whether it was.) Hatoyama, the …
A reply to Jun Okumura from Naomi Fink
Jun Okumura raised some questions regarding the op-ed in the Wall Street Journal Asia that I co-wrote with Naomi Fink. Naomi has penned the following reply to Jun.I contest the points on fiscal policy as follows:If you do not count the Y6trn stimulus portion of the FY09 budget (which Jun Okumura has not) then you …
A DPJ government takes shape?
Apropos my comments on the probability of Fujii Hirohisa's being named finance minister in a Hatoyama government, Sankei has a long article speculating that to the three important posts of finance minister, foreign minister, and chief cabinet secretary, Hatoyama Yukio will appoint Fujii, Okada Katsuya, and Kan Naoto respectively. Okada, mentioned as a possible finance …
What I saw in Kagawa and Okayama
With less than a week until the Japanese people select a new House of Representatives and with it a new government, the only question under discussion by the media seems to be whether or not the DPJ will break the 300-seat threshold. Mainichi, for example, cited the possibility that the DPJ will reach 320 seats, …
Op-ed on the DPJ and growth
The Wall Street Journal Asia has published an op-ed version of the paper I wrote with Naomi Fink.It's available here.
Tobias S. Harris 