SNA Briefs (January 2017)
Briefs on Japanese politics and international relations for January 2017
Briefs on Japanese politics and international relations for January 2017
Former Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi explains why he radically changed his views on nuclear power.
Then-Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi set a goal of having women occupy 30% of leadership positions by 2020, but Japan will come nowhere close.
A policy begins when it is announced by its policymakers, but it can be a much trickier matter to judge when a policy ends. Still, we may now say with some degree of confidence that the era of Abenomics is coming to an end. This is not dependent on whether today’s market meltdown in China is just a blip on the screen or the signal for something much more significant.
The issue of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s fringe views on wartime history has become a global topic whenever contemporary Japanese diplomacy is discussed, but the problem of selective, self-serving narratives of the past has also infected his coalition partner, Komeito.
When Ross Caputi was sent to fight in the Second Battle of Fallujah, Iraq, with the US Marines in 2004, he believed unquestioningly in the mission that he was told his unit was fighting for: liberation and justice for the Iraqi people.
The script has all the right drama: Two former Japanese prime ministers, deeply disappointed by their bungling successors, rise from comfortable retirement to do political battle once more. And, yes, there is good cause too.
Senior members of the Shinzo Abe administration, from the prime minister on down, have already jumped into the Tokyo gubernatorial race to insist that candidates must not appeal to the public in terms of anti-nuclear policy, but instead according to what the government believes are the most “proper” subjects, namely preparations for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and health care policy.
For almost a year now after his thumping victory in December 2012 we have found ourselves surprised again and again by Shinzo Abe. We have asserted repeatedly that the Abe that we were witnessing was not the “real” Abe, and that the agenda he was pursuing was based on a tactical calculation about what was necessary to maintain public support, but not a reflection of his basic character.
Some of the shine has come off Abenomics in the last month or so, perhaps representing little more than a hiccup on the way to greater success, or perhaps representing the vast turning of the tide.