Japan General Discussion

[politicus]

For discussion of Japanese politics and all things related to Japanese society and culture in general.

[Famous Mortimer]

I can't believe Abe is still in office.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I can't believe Abe is still in office.

Uh, okay. Feel free to elaborate on why not.

I was surprised when he initially won LDP leadership again, but since he did, it's far from surprising that he's still there.

[Famous Mortimer]

I'm surprised he hasn't resigned for no reason like the 17 guys who came before him.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I'm surprised he hasn't resigned for no reason like the 17 guys who came before him.

That's a shallow reading of recent Japanese political history. In fact, it's so shallow that other shallow readings suffer by comparison to it.

Noda resigned because he lost an election, Kan resigned because...there were a lot of reasons (which is, in case you hadn't noticed, the opposite of 'no reason'), Hatoyama resigned because he broke a major campaign promise and it caused a fracas, Asō resigned because he lost an election, Fukuda's resignation I'll grant you because it genuinely did kind of come out of nowhere, and Abe resigned the first time because his approval ratings tanked after two successive agriculture ministers left office in unfortunate circumstances (the first killed himself and the second was implicated in a financial scandal) and his health at the time was too poor for him to stick it out. Before that you have Koizumi, who was in power for five years, a long time by Japanese standards; Mori, who was a ridiculously flagrant, obvious, and prolific HP; Obuchi, who fell into a coma and died; Hashimoto, who lasted two and a half years before getting his ass kicked in a House of Councilors election; Murayama, whose shaky coalition couldn't hold together; Hata, whose shaky coalition couldn't hold together; Hosokawa, who got hit with a banking scandal; Miyazawa, who lost an election; Kaifu, whose faction within the LDP proved to be too small to pass his policies; Uno, who got hit with a sex scandal; and Takeshita, who got hit with an insider trading scandal.

That covers the 'seventeen guys who came before' Abe's current term. As you can see, Japanese politics is both a good deal more interesting and makes a lot more sense than you're making it out to sound. It can seem too arcane to pay attention to at times, but, much like Italian politics, it rewards looking behind the scenes and keeping in mind that who holds the office of Prime Minister and who is actually in power are not always and in all places the same.

[Famous Mortimer]

I'm surprised he's not been implicated in a minor scandal or had his popularity decline due to global economic factors out of his control.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Takako Doi died recently.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I'm surprised he's not been implicated in a minor scandal or had his popularity decline due to global economic factors out of his control.

It hasn't even been two years.

[Cubby]

LDP = Bad

DPJ = Good

I for one can't wait until the DPJ returns to power. Yes it might be another few decades but, whadya gonna do? I don't care how much Abe tries to "reform" Japan, his party has been in power too long (something like 65 out of the last 70 years!). The next Diet election can't come soon enough.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

LDP = Bad

There are a few good apples in a bad barrel, but the proverb doesn't work backwards, so yes, I agree.

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This doesn't follow.

[Cubby]

LDP = Bad

There are a few good apples in a bad barrel, but the proverb doesn't work backwards, so yes, I agree.

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This doesn't follow.

The DPJ was thrown out of office for no reason, unless the Tsunami and Fukushima were somehow their fault. It doesn't matter what the LDP does, I consider them a corrupt patronage club, not a party. 

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

LDP = Bad

There are a few good apples in a bad barrel, but the proverb doesn't work backwards, so yes, I agree.

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This doesn't follow.

The DPJ was thrown out of office for no reason, unless the Tsunami and Fukushima were somehow their fault.

Please read these articles; they explain (some facets of) what went wrong better than I can.

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That's an entirely fair assessment but the LDP's awfulness doesn't make the DPJ good.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I just found out that the JRP no longer exists, as of a few weeks ago. Apparently Ishihara wasn't on board with Hashimoto's proposed merger with a more centrist (and pacifist!) minor outfit called the Unity Party (which, in turn, had split from Your Party/Minna no Tō last year) and left over the summer with about a third of the JRP to form something called the 'Party for Future Generations'; in September the rump JRP merged with the Unity Party to form the 'Japan Innovation Party'.

Two thoughts:

1. The Japanese far right is as fractious as some countries' far lefts these days.
2. If I saw these as the names of political parties in a work of fiction, I'd decry them as hokey and unreal-sounding.

[Cubby]

Thanks for the article. That's pathetic that after 55 years out of power they were overwhelmed by the responsibility of governing.

Question 2: How are the Ainu doing?

They are like the Basques of East Asia. My favorite theory regarding their origin is that both are descended from Neanderthals, since they are so different than all their neighboring ethnic groups. I doubt the theory but its certainly intriguing.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I'm no expert on Ainu issues--I wish I knew more about them, really!--but as far as I know the answer is 'not too great'. There's been talk of attempted linguistic revival but I don't know what's come of that.

[Vega]

The Ainu are doing as well as most Native peoples are in their respective lands; which means not good, as Nathan said.

By the way, how is Prime Minister Abe's approval rating these days?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

As of July, it stood at 47%, with 38% disapproving, which only the second time it's been under fifty per cent since his election (a December 2013 poll put him at 49%-34%). It's since risen back into the fifties but is still well below where it was through most of 2013. Selectively reinterpreting Article 9 to allow for a defense buildup turned out to actually be pretty unpopular, among other things. The TPP also remains broadly hated.

The LDP is still far ahead in all polls on voting intentions for the next election, generally finding itself in the high thirties or low forties. Keep in mind that the DPJ, which has clawed its way back into place as the more-or-less undisputed second-most-popular party (the implosion-cum-schism, or schism-cum-implosion, of the odious JRP can't be hailed enough, in my opinion), is at between five and seven per cent in most of these, and the perennially popular 'shiji-nashi' (no/without-support/endorsement/approval) is neck-and-neck with the LDP. These surreally anemic numbers for essentially every party have been the way in Japanese opinion polling for a while now.

[Vega]

I'm surprised, but glad, the DPJ didn't split. Had they done so, I don't think the LDP would really have a clear "opposition".

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Could the large number of undecided voters be because Japanese polling firms don't prod the voters enough? Are they more likely to swing to the incumbents or the opposition?

Also lol at the sheer number of parties forming and folding

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Could the large number of undecided voters be because Japanese polling firms don't prod the voters enough?

Possibly. Technically the question that's asked isn't 'for which party will you vote?' but 'of which party do you most approve?' Shiji is the word used for both Cabinet approval ratings and party races.

Also of note: Japan doesn't really have any independent polling firms. Almost all polls are conducted by the country's major newspapers--which still enjoy broad circulation and robust relationships with their readership, in part because of the top-heavy population pyramid and in part because they've been much more on-the-ball about making digital incarnations of themselves available than newspapers in many other countries--or in some cases television news networks.

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You know, it's not really clear. In the 2012 general election the undecided voters eventually dispersed roughly evenly amongst all parties, whereas in the 2013 upper house election they mostly dispersed among the opposition parties, leaving the LDP-NKP coalition only slightly outperforming its polling average.

[Famous Mortimer]

Oh my God. What happened to the Green Breeze Party?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

It disbanded at the end of last year. I'm pretty sure Abe Tomoko (no relation to the Prime Minister) was its last remaining Diet member.

[Famous Mortimer]

What party is she a member of now? What parties did all their upper house members go to? Shizuka Kamei?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Abe is considered an independent now, although I've heard something to the effect that she still identifies herself with the otherwise-defunct Tomorrow Party. I'm not sure but I don't think any of their upper house members survived the 2013 election; if they did, they're independents too. Kamei is an independent.

[Vega]

Apparently Ichiro Ozawa's People's Life Party is still around, surprisingly.