As Prime Minister Aso Taro prepares to travel to Washington to meet with President Barack Obama, he leaves behind a political situation that is nothing short of chaos.Asahi has published a snap poll that found that 71% of respondents — and 76% of self-described independents among the respondents — believe that Aso should resign immediately, …
Tag: Japanese public opinion
Aso follows Mori’s path
"President Bush will welcome Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori to Washington for a working visit March 19. In addition to their important shared security objectives in the Asia-Pacific region, the United States and Japan have common interests on a broad range of global issues. The President looks forward to exchanging views with Prime Minister Mori on …
Aso falls below ten percent
NTV has just released a new opinion poll conducted over the weekend that shows that Aso Taro's approval rating has fallen below 10%, clocking in at 9.7% compared with 17.4% the previous month. His disapproval rating in the same poll rose seven points to 76.2%.Among the 55 respondents who said they support the Aso government, …
Aso the impervious?
The bad news keeps coming for Prime Minister Aso Taro.He has been hit with another wave of negative poll results. In Yomiuri, his approval rating is a hair over 20%, while his disapproval has broken 70%, rising to 72.3%. In the same poll, Ozawa Ichiro remains gained another three points in the question of who …
The alliance is dead, long live the alliance
Barack Obama's inauguration is just about a month away. His transition team is gradually filling in cabinet-level positions. His Asia and Japan policy teams are as of yet unknown, however, leaving Japanese elites to continue to fret about Japan's place on the Obama administration's agenda.They have good reason to worry.The reasons to worry have nothing …
Continue reading The alliance is dead, long live the alliance
The fall
The Aso cabinet is in free fall.The Yomiuri Shimbun has released its December public opinion poll, which found that not only has the Aso cabinet's approval rating fallen by half since the beginning of November (from 40.5% to 20.9%), but the cabinet's disapproval rating rose by twenty-five points to 66.7% during the same span of …
The center cannot hold
A new Nikkei-TV Tokyo poll conducted at the end of November found that Prime Minister Aso Taro's approval rating is in free fall.According to the poll, Mr. Aso's approval rating fell seventeen points to 31%, while his disapproval rating rose nineteen points to 62%. Twice as many respondents oppose the government's plan for a new …
Japan sinks?
Aso Taro has arrived in Washington for the G20 summit on the global economic crisis.He leaves behind a country tottering on the brink of ruin. The OECD has announced that, like the reappearance of cancer after remission, Japan may once again experience deflation in 2009. Consumer confidence is at a record low. The question on …
Aso continues to stumble
Another month has come, and with it more bad news for Prime Minister Aso.Yomiuri has published its latest tracking poll and found that just over a month into the Aso cabinet the prime minister's unfavorable rating has surpassed his favorable rating. His disapproval rating rose 3.3% to 41.9%, edging past his approval rating, which fell …
Plus ça change…
There appears to be little doubt that on Thursday Aso Taro will announce a new set of economic measures — and will also announce that he will not schedule an election for the later part of November. Yomiuri reports that Oshima Tadanori, the LDP's parliamentary affairs chairman, has voiced his disagreement with the prime minister's …
Tobias S. Harris 