The Japan Times on Sunday ran a long profile of the American-born wife of a local politician in Kyoto, which provides an excellent account of Japanese local electoral politics.It pretty much confirms what I've seen over the past month. Electoral politics at all levels are low-tech affairs, for the most part lacking TV or internet …
Tag: Japan
Abe heads south, bloodied but unbowed
Following in the wake of last month's APEC summit in Hanoi, Asian leaders are gathering in Manila for the second annual East Asian Summit.Prime Minister Abe has departed, but he leaves behind a sticky political situation at home. He is facing declining popularity (his cabinet is polling below fifty percent for the first time since …
Nikkei sends a warning shot across the bow
Nikkei's lead editorial today discusses a meeting this week between Prime Minister Abe and BOJ President Fukui.The meeting itself was uneventful, but Nikkei uses the occasion to warn of undue political pressure by the government on the BOJ in advance of the 2007 elections. It concludes with a call for the government to respect the …
Democracy (and Democrats) in Japan
I have been absent for a few days, in part because I've been busy with the unusual task of translating an interview Mr. Asao did earlier this year in the Swiss St. Galler Tagblatt -- which has required using not only my German skills, which have gone unused for some time now, but also translating …
Japan considers its own NSC
This past weekend saw Prime Minister Abe move into the Kantei, meaning that he will now be on the job twenty-four hours a day. It is hard to believe that the head of government of a major developed democracy could spend the first month of his term living away from the Official Residence.Abe's move comes …
Quality control for "Cool Japan"
The Washington Post has an interesting article about the corrosion of Japanese cuisine abroad. Of all the "products" that signify the export of "Cool Japan," Japanese cuisine might be the most significant, having grown to occupy a significant place in haute cuisine throughout the Western world.The version of Japanese cuisine presented to Western diners, however, …
Asia changes — will Japan change with it?
Chinese President Hu Jintao's visit to India this week supposedly signifies a shift in Asia, as Hu's visit indicates that the region's two emerging giants are drawing closer to one another. This conventional wisdom perhaps contains not a small amount of wishful thinking, because, as this article in the FT suggests, major differences remain between …
Another take on the abductions issue
The Japan Times reported yesterday on comments by Columbia's Gerald Curtis at a forum at the Korea Society in New York, in which he suggested that the abduction issue -- the dispute that has followed upon North Korea's 2002 admission to having abducted Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s -- has isolated Japan.It's worth …
Morning in Japan
In my Cambridge M.Phil dissertation, I wrote the following:Koizumi, a self-described ‘henjin’ (literally ‘odd person’), was elected on a platform calling for extensive political and economic reforms, in a sense similar to Ronald Reagan’s conservative, reform-minded campaign in 1980. Like Reagan, Koizumi was elected as Japan confronted debilitating economic turmoil and a profound crisis of …
Setting the record straight
On the sidelines of the APEC summit in Hanoi, Japanese Foreign Minister Aso Taro and Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhao Xing discussed plans to convene a joint Sino-Japanese committee to review Sino-Japanese history. The committee is expected to meet before the end of the year, consist of ten members, and have subcommittees that discuss both …
Tobias S. Harris 