The 2009 extraordinary Diet session, the first under the leadership of Prime Minister Hatoyama Yukio's cabinet, opened Monday with a speech by Hatoyama to a Diet populated by an overwhelming majority of parliamentarians from his Democratic Party of Japan. He declared Monday the first day of a "bloodless Heisei Restoration," a transformation without black ships …
Tag: Hatoyama cabinet
Gates rules out renegotiation
The DPJ has pushed on Futenma — and the Obama administration, in the guise of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, has pushed back.Gates, visiting Japan on a tour through Asia, delivered an unambiguous message to the Hatoyama government that the US government is not interested in renegotiating the bilateral agreement on the realignment of US …
The Hatoyama government will delay on defense policy
Busy with the hard work of introducing a new policymaking process, rewriting the 2010 budget from scratch so to make room for the programs promised in the DPJ's election manifesto, and finding a way to extract concessions from the Obama administration on the realignment of US forces in Japan, it is understandable that the Hatoyama …
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The Hatoyama government tackles the alliance early
With US President Barack Obama scheduled to visit Japan at the start of an East Asian swing in November — he will stop in Tokyo before going to Singapore for APEC and then concluding his trip with meetings in China and South Korea — the Hatoyama government is working hard to hammer out positions on …
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On the DPJ’s foreign policy
Newsweek International published an op-ed I wrote on the likely direction of DPJ foreign policy.You can find it here.
The DPJ’s quiet revolution
In a contribution to Foreign Policy's "Think Again" feature, Paul Scalise and Devin Stewart maintain that the DPJ victory will result in "the same old stagnation in Tokyo." While there are points worth considering in their piece — especially on foreign policy and the notion that the DPJ is "anti-capitalist" — on the whole Scalise …
Will the DPJ weather the global rebalancing?
David Brooks's latest column in the New York Times calls for a restoration of "economic values" in the United States, with the aim of making "the U.S. again a producer economy, not a consumer economy." Brooks sees a decline in traditional values of restraint behind the rise of consumer spending to ever greater portions of …
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Hatoyama stays above the fray, but his government resists Kamei
In his first two weeks as prime minister, Hatoyama Yukio ought to have learned an important lesson about governing: if you do not set the agenda, someone else will. With the LDP focused on electing a new leader, the policy agenda was clearly set by Kamei Shizuka, trying to make the best of the poor …
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An important week for the Hatoyama government
Prime Minister Hatoyama Yukio has returned to Japan after what appears to have been a successful introduction to the world in New York and Pittsburgh last week. The visit to the US may not have accomplished much in practical terms, but it did have symbolic importance, showing that the Hatoyama government will not shy away …
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Containing Kamei
While Okada Katsuya was securing his position as the undisputed leader in foreign policy making, Kamei Shizuka has made immediately clear that he was going to be a source of trouble for the Hatoyama government as minister of postal reform and financial services.I already noted Friday that Kamei had used a press conference following a …
Tobias S. Harris 