Japan 2016 - July 10

[jaichind]

I'm surprised that Maehara is in the DP, he seems to be (or was) rather ambitious, and the LDP would fit a personality like his rather well.

On a completely superficial note, though, he's 54 and looks 34, so he has that on his side. He always seemed really unique in that way.

Maehara started his career in LDP splinter JNP and then hopped to another LDP splinter NPS back in the 1990s.    There are many with this sort of background that ended up in LDP by the early 2000s so he could have easily have ended up in LDP.

As for looks.  Orientals, especially Oriental politicians,  I guess age better.  My DW and I are in our early to mid 40s but most of the time we get mistaken for someone in their early to mid 30s.  Another extreme example which I pointed out before is 三原 じゅん子 (Mihara Junko) who was the LDP MP who just got re-elected from 神奈川(Kanagawa) this election.  She is in her early 50s but looks like someone, using more Western lens, like someone in her 30s



Of course she was a model so she must have invested a lot into her looks over the years. 

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

The ORA contention was that Osaka in ORA, especially when it is written in Hiragana and not Kanji does not stand for Osaka the city but Osaka the sprite of change and reform.

ayy lmao

[jaichind]

DP MP 玉木雄一郎 (Tamaki Yuichiro) also entered the fray for DP leadership with some support in the ex-JIP faction.  That makes it a 3 way race.

 

With Renho starting with a clear lead.

[jaichind]

Latest media estimates has Renho with a plurality if not a majority.  She seems fairly weak in the MP and  shadow MP vote but much stronger in the prefecture MLA and party member vote.

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

Latest media estimates has Renho with a plurality if not a majority.  She seems fairly weak in the MP and  shadow MP vote but much stronger in the prefecture MLA and party member vote.

Makes sense as the ex-JIP faction seems stronger inside the Diet than outside it--less in terms of votes than in terms of membership, activist base, et cetera; the JIP always struck me as a flashy media creation.

[jaichind]

蓮舫 (Renho) elected leader of DP with 503 out of 849 points.  The electorate are MPs, MLAs, shadow MPs, and party members each having a different weight.  It came out a couple of days before the elections that Renho never completed the process of giving up ROC citizenship.  It appears that when this took place when she was 17, her father spoke to the ROC representative in Japan in the MinNan dialect and she only understood Mandrain so she did not understand what actually transpired.  This had the prospect of derailing her victory but it seems it did not.

She has a steep hill to climb as DP  Abe's approval rating his shooting up after his appearance at the G20 summit in Hangzhou. 

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Half-Taiwanese dual citizen? I can see that developing into some sort of birther/Fifth column/JFKThePapist style kerfuffle.

Apparently she's quite close to the DPP. Which would be ... interesting if she ever becomes PM.

Also I note she's a member of the upper house, not the Diet. Is that considered OK for a potential PM?

[jaichind]

Half-Taiwanese dual citizen? I can see that developing into some sort of birther/Fifth column/JFKThePapist style kerfuffle.

Apparently she's quite close to the DPP. Which would be ... interesting if she ever becomes PM.

Also I note she's a member of the upper house, not the Diet. Is that considered OK for a potential PM?

Yes, she is actually relatives of some ROC DPP heavyweights which makes me negative on her in the ROC context.  Of course I am so negative on Abe that within the Japanese context I have a somewhat positive view of her.  

Of course to get out of her mess she already heavily offended the DPP pro-Taiwan independence branch.   Her response to the dual citizenship issue is the following:  ROC allows for dual citizenship while Japan does not.  So when she became a Japanese citizen when she was 17, she did not lose ROC citizenship automatically.  Her dad had to get the ROC regime to remove her citizenship which it looks like in retrospect was not done.  But no worries.  Japan does not recognize ROC and, wait for it, "Taiwan is not a real country"  !! and given that Japan recognizes PRC as the one and only China then, wait for it,  "Taiwan is part of PRC" !! under Japanese law.   Since PRC does not allow for dual citizenship so when she became a Japanese citizen she automatically lost her PRC citizenship-by-proxy when that took place. Ergo from Japanese law as per its diplomatic pronouncements she never had dual citizenship.

Of course the DPP on ROC is furious and after years of hold her up as an example of "Taiwanese doing well in Japan" is now calling her out as a traitor.   I am just laughing my head off in the meantime.

Another real issue is that DP as a whole are mostly pro-Beijing relative to pro-Taipei.  LDP has pro-Beijing and pro-Taipei factions.  So one way or another Renho will need to stay away from this ROC connection as much as possible and just take a pure legalist approach.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

When you say LDP has pro-Taipei factions, do you mean they are sympathetic with the KMT and the pan blues or the DPP and the separatists?

[jaichind]

When you say LDP has pro-Taipei factions, do you mean they are sympathetic with the KMT and the pan blues or the DPP and the separatists?

Pro-DPP.  LDP used to have pro-KMT and anti-DPP factions.  This position no longer exists.  There are just pro-DPP factions which also does not mind KMT.

[jaichind]

There are rumors of a snap Lower House Election in Jan 2017.  The signs/evidance/drivers

1) Abe-Putin summit in Dec might mean diplomatic breakthrough which will add to Abe's approval rating
2) LDP annual convention moved from Jan to March which implies a Jan election
3) Fear that Renho would start to consolidate power and capture floating voters so it is best to do the election before she is ready
4) Abe want to change LDP rules so he can lead the LDP for a third consecutive term and an election victory before 2018 when his term is up is necessary to do this. 
5) July 2017 is Tokyo Assembly elections when KP will throw in all their resources so election cannot be in July 2017 and anytime later would be too late as a solution for issue 4)

The main risk is that JCP seems to become more moderate recently after they blew a chance at a good election in July 2016 which in turn means DP-JCP alliance will most likely continue, especially under Renho.  If Renho manages to capture some of the center group then this election might not be a cakewalk for LDP.

[Cape Verde]

The LDP-supported candidate lost the governor's race in Niigata prefecture.
Media says that the reoperation of nuclear power plant in Niigata was the main issue.

[jaichind]

The LDP-supported candidate lost the governor's race in Niigata prefecture.
Media says that the reoperation of nuclear power plant in Niigata was the main issue.

Yep.  I wrote about it in the Japan thread in Intl politics

With all of the vote counted it is DP-LP-SDP-GP-NSP-JCP 52.2% LDP-KP 45.9%

Exit polls were off by 1% in favor of LDP-KP