Political dynasties have always been a big part of human civilization and today is no exception.
In the United States, of course, the rise of Donald Trump (and Bernie Sanders) was at least partially a reaction to the dynastic, Clinton-versus-Bush election that only last year most Americans were expecting to get.
Among other things, Jeb Bush’s candidacy split the non-evangelical portion of the Republican establishment in two, preventing it from coalescing around Marco Rubio early on and thus leaving an opening for Trump to force his way into. Hillary Clinton’s candidacy, meanwhile, may even leave the door open for Trump to become president, however unlikely and unappealing that may be. (more…)
As Japanese go to the polls Sunday to vote in elections for the upper house of parliament, all eyes will really be on the margin of victory for Prime Minister Shinzō Abe’s ruling coalition. Judging from the latest polls, and from the results of municipal elections in Tokyo last month where Abe’s Liberal Democrats won handily, the premier can expect to gain control of the upper chamber and claim a mandate for his policies that could fundamentally change the world’s third largest economy and its role in the region.
After the elections, the real drama will start. Abe will be expected to move forward and provide greater details about his plans to restructure the Japanese economy, the so-called third arrow of “Abenomics.”
In addition, Abe could change Japan’s national-security strategy which would transform the role of the military for the first time since the end of World War II. (more…)
Shinzō Abe received a vote of confidence on Sunday when his party came out the big victor in local assembly elections in Tokyo. The victory could bode well for his Liberal Democratic Party’s chances in key national elections for the upper house of parliament next month.
Sunday’s election to the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly is viewed as an endorsement for Abe and his reform plan. His party gained twenty seats after the vote. In alliance with the conservative New Komeito, it now holds a comfortable majority. Both parties had all of their candidates elected.
The outcome is especially important in light of Abe’s legislative goals and the Liberal Democrats’ control of the lower house of parliament. If the party takes control of the upper house, the prime minister will be given a freer hand to pass structural economic reforms he believes are necessary to spur economic growth. He has also said he wants to revise Japan’s pacifist constitution to allow the military to participate in more overseas missions. (more…)
Since Shinzō Abe was an archery player in college, it is apt that his plan for turning the Japanese economy around is described as encompassing three arrows. Last December, when it became clear that the Liberal Democratic Party would emerge victorious in lower house elections and return Abe as prime minister, “Abenomics” sparked confidence in a public hungering for reforms.
Indeed by spring, there was growing belief that the economic reforms might just beat deflation and lift Japan out of its doldrums. The Nikkei 225 stock average had climbed some 80 percent by May from its November lows and the yen‘s value had greatly depreciated, encouraging exporters. In addition, there was evidence that inflation was starting to creep back into the economy.
But after five months in office, the market began to get nervous about the lack of details in a key part of Abe’s plans: the restructuring of the economy, the “third arrow.” This nervousness soon translated into volatility in the Japanese market, creating further uncertainty. The third arrow would always be the hardest to push through because it encroaches upon Japan’s vested interests. (more…)
Prime Minister Shinzō Abe of Japan, accompanied by more than one hundred business executives, is in the middle of a four nation trip intended to secure much needed energy resources and to bolster trade. His itinerary underlines the quandary Japan faces as it grapples with finding alternative energy sources while its nuclear plants remain idle since the 2011 Fukushima power plant disaster.
Abe’s first stop was Russia. The two countries acknowledged in a joint statement that relations remained “abnormal” in the face of an unsigned bilateral peace treaty officially ending World War II. Abe and Russian president Vladimir Putin instructed their foreign ministries to revisit the issue and also find ways to improve Japanese-Russian relations in general.
The major impediment preventing a treaty from being signed has been the status of the four islands situated north of Japan’s Hokkaido and south of Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula that the Soviet Union took in 1945 during the final days of the war. Japan refers to these islands as its Northern Territories while they are known in Russia as the Southern Kurils. The islands are surrounded by rich fishing grounds and believed to posses oil and natural gas deposits offshore.
The issue was left unresolved in the 1956 Japan-Soviet joint declaration which restored relations. At the time, Japan rejected an offer to return two of the four southernmost islands closest to it as inadequate by the Soviets. (more…)
Japanese prime minister Shinzō Abe met with President Barack Obama in Washington on Friday for the first time since his Liberal Democratic Party won the election in December.
Abe arrived in the United States with strong domestic support. Some polls put his cabinet’s approval rating as high as 70 percent. This largely stems from budding enthusiasm for his economic policies and his commitment to protect Japanese sovereignty over the Senkaku Islands which China lays claim to.
At the top of the summit agenda, according to Japanese officials, were North Korea’s ballistic missile and nuclear weapons program as well as the situation in East Asia, i.e., Japan’s island dispute with China. (more…)
Japanese prime minister Shinzō Abe answers questions from reporters in Tokyo, September 26 (Xinhua)
Japan’s conservative party won in convincing fashion on Sunday in parliamentary elections for the lower house, according exit polls. The elections took place against the backdrop of increasing tensions with China over disputed islands in the East China Sea, a stagnating economy unable to reinvigorate growth and a rancorous debate over the reliance on nuclear power after the 2011 Fukushima disaster.
The Liberal Democratic Party won between 275 and three hundred seats of the 480 seat lower chamber, according to preliminary polls conducted by the national public broadcaster NHK. If the results stand, it will prove to be a big increase from the 118 seats the party held before the elections. Along with the 27 to 35 seats expected to be won by their allies in the New Kōmeitō Party, the Liberal Democrats will have gained the two-thirds majority needed to override bills passed in the divided upper house.
The Liberal Democratic win means that former prime minister and right leaning Shinzō Abe is expected to get a second stint as premier. He would be the country’s eighth in the last seven years.
Until its surprise defeat in 2009, the Liberal Democratic Party was the dominant force in Japanese politics, having been in power for over fifty years.
The incumbent Democratic Party of Japan coalition is expected to win only 67 seats, down sharply from the three hundred odd seats it won in 2009 when it was swept into power in a landslide. Back then, a new era was said to be at hand in Japanese politics.
The results are a stinging rebuke to the ruling party and Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda’s government. Voters were upset with the party that doubled the consumption tax and failed to follow up on various campaign pledges from reforming government expenditures to relocating 8,000 United States Marines from the military base on Okinawa to Guam.
Abe is expected to push for a change in Japan’s pacifist constitution which forbids it from waging war. A big adjustment in Japan’s military posture is not seen as imminent, however, as the Japanese public has on previous occasions rejected radical changes to the Constitution that would have seen the military rearming. A more likely scenario, analysts say, would be for Abe to push for a closer alliance with the United States in the case of hostilities in East Asia.
Abe has talked of more public spending and called for a more activist policy from the Bank of Japan to simulate growth. His proposed monetary policy could result in a change to the traditional independence enjoyed by the central bank. Specifically, Abe would like to adjust the inflation target from 1 to 2 percent and increase the central bank’s interventions in the currency market to weaken the yen and stimulate exports.
The Bank of Japan has taken steps like increasing its asset purchases in recent months to reverse the deflation that has afflicted the Japanese economy since the early 1990s but its domestic critics, frustrated with the nation’s economic malaise, complain that it has not done enough.
Abe and the incoming Liberal Democrats have also talked about adopting a tougher tone with China as relations have grown rockier in the last year over disputed claims to sovereignty over the Senkaku or Diaoyu islands in the East China Sea.
China has gradually upped the ante by increasing the incursions by its maritime surveillance ships which many believe it is using to change the status quo of Japanese control over the islands. Recently, Japan scrambled fighter jets after a Chinese aircraft was detected entering Japanese airspace over the islands, widely seen as an escalation and the first time that aircraft were employed in the dispute. With Japanese business hurting on the Chinese mainland from anti-Japan protests, Abe will need to balance his tough talk with the need to maintain economic relations with China.
Finally, the Liberal Democrats are expected to embrace nuclear power more than the Democrats did to meet Japan’s domestic energy needs.
After the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident at Fukushima last year, the Democrats said that they would phase out nuclear power sometime in the 2030s. Abe has called that plan unrealistic. There remains deep ambivalence in Japanese society over nuclear power following Fukushima with many voters wanting Abe to adopt a policy like before the crisis and others in favor of what they see as safer sources of domestic power production.
Turning the economy around will be the new government’s top priority, in addition to strengthening the American alliance. Abe says he wants to improve relations with China too but it seems that the islands dispute will need to be resolved in order for that to happen.
Former prime minister Shinzō Abe was elected the new leader of Japan’s main opposition Liberal Democratic Party on Wednesday. Abe is now poised to become the next premier in elections widely expected to be called in the next few months.
Abe, who defeated his rival and former defense minister Shigeru Ishiba as party leader in a runoff, served in 2006 as Japan’s prime minister for a year before resigning for personal reasons.
Abe’s reputation as a nationalist could raise apprehension in the region. Specifically, Japan’s tense relations with China and South Korea over its competing claims to the the Senkaku and Takeshima Islands respectively could worsen. (more…)
