The US State Department is reportedly sounding out the DPJ on the possibility of a meeting between Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and DPJ President Ozawa Ichiro when Secretary Clinton visits Japan next week.Sankei reports that it would be the first ever meeting between a US secretary of state and the leader of a Japanese …
Tag: Japanese politics
The accounting reaper cometh (Noah Smith)
A specter is haunting East Asia. Consumption is falling in the world's "deficit" countries, as American and British consumers rebuild their balance sheets. The global current-account and capital-account imbalances are thus coming under immense strain. An accounting identity states that for the imbalances to vanish, one of two things must happen in the "surplus" countries: …
Just a flesh wound
Speaking in the lower house's budget committee on Monday, Aso Taro said, "If you compare our economic conditions to other countries, our wounds are shallow."Naturally I immediately thought of nothing so much as this:I think Jun Okumura is on to something when he writes that the prime minister isn't a "total nincompoop," just in his …
A twenty years’ crisis
"Japan is an economy that is almost certainly producing well below its productive capacity - that is, the immediate problem facing Japan is one of demand, not supply. And it gives every appearance of being in a liquidity trap - that is, conventional monetary policy appears to have been pushed to its limits, yet the …
The LDP fiddles while its kingdom burns
As LDP members increasingly come to terms with what looks to be certain defeat in this year's general election — described in graphic terms by MTC as the LDP's "thrashing about and coughing up blood" — the party's leaders continue to struggle in vain for some way to avoid destruction.As I mentioned in a discussion …
Can the LDP — or anyone — eradicate amakudari?
The Aso government, looking to hasten the passage of the FY2009 budget (the third stage of Prime Minister Aso's plan to overcome the recession), has promised to accelerate the timetable for introducing the ban on the practice of amakudari and the related practice of watari, whereby a retired bureaucrat wanders to other employers who might …
Continue reading Can the LDP — or anyone — eradicate amakudari?
The elusive Nakagawa Hidenao
Will the Machimura faction live to fight the next election after all?Nakagawa Hidenao, a member of the triumvirate that leads the faction and a leading critic of Mr. Aso, was defiant in the face of criticism from Mori Yoshiro, don of the faction, seeing no reason for stepping down from the triumvirate. He denied claims …
Aso calls for a new Japan
Prime Minister Aso Taro, having had his second stimulus package pass the Diet Tuesday, appeared before the Diet on Wednesday to deliver his latest policy address.Rhetorically, the address contains few surprises. In the opening sections, in which Mr. Aso addressed the principles behind his policies. He spoke of the "once in a century economic crisis" …
Appearance on Seijigiri
I recently recorded an episode of Transpacific Radio's podcast Seijigiri, hosted by Garrett DeOrio and Ken Worsley.You can listen to it here.
An open letter to Ambassador-designate Nye
Dear Professor Nye:Congratulations on your appointment to the position of United States Ambassador to Japan.Your arrival comes at an auspicious time. It appears exceedingly likely that during your ambassadorship the Liberal Democratic Party will be bounced from power and replaced most likely by the Democratic Party of Japan, although possibly a ragtag coalition as in …
Tobias S. Harris 