J Update

The House of Representatives   passed  bills for regulating postings to social networking services during election campaign. The regulation is aimed at avoiding distribution of wrong information or preventing defamation through SNS to maintain fairness of elections. The related bills are expected to pass the Upper House and be enacted before the end of current session of the Diet. They will be applied to nationwide local elections next April.   Regulation on election campaign has long been focused on political fund, which would be distorting result of election by buying votes. However, current elections have proved that SNS has great influence on voters by providing with information which is preferrable for a candidate or has negative impact on contenders. Some distribute politically sensational video to attract watchers and earn a number of views. This activity is called “attention economy.”   Regardless the leading or opposition, most parties can agree on necessity...

Sanae Takaichi government is further accelerating the policy for economic growth through military businesses. It considers launching a new organization that encourages production of military equipment and promotes exporting weapons. Under the name of “strong and prosperous Japan,” the government looks like marching on a road toward merchant of death, as it once strode in pre-war era.   The government releases Basic Policy on Economic and Fiscal Management, which is nicknamed as “Large-boned (Honebuto) Plan,” to navigate economic and fiscal policies with consultation to economic experts every July. It will be the first Honebuto Plan for Prime Minister Takaichi, who took the seat last October. Considering, to publicize a plan later this month. Considering Takaichi’s basic standpoint for economic growth through investment in crisis management, the experts are discussing introduction of public production of military equipment.   One of the options for reinforcing productivity of m...

The court refused again acknowledging indigenous right for fishing salmon in a river. Sapporo High Court   dismissed   a lawsuit filed by Raporo Ainu Nation, a group of indigenous people in Urahoro town located eastern region of Hokkaido Island. While it recognized Ainu’s right to take part in cultural life, the court denied their right to catch salmon as their business. It did not consider history that Japanese people colonized the land dominated by Ainu people and deprived them of critical resources.   The plaintiffs, the descendants of Ainu people, argued that they had exclusive right on fishing salmon in Tokachi River before the government of Japan governed Hokkaido Island without consensus of the indigenous people just after Meiji Restoration in 1867. They appealed to the high court, pursuing confirmation of their right to catch salmon, after the first court dismissed their argument in 2024.   The high court found that Ainu people has their right to enjoy their ...

Sanae Takaichi government released a plan of investment by public and private sectors through fiscal year 2040. The government assumed total amount of investment in this period to be 370 trillion yen. Although it expects that active public investment will invigorate economic activities of private sectors, there still remains a concern that further spendings may exacerbate fiscal balance of the government.   Prime Minister Takaichi  launched  Headquarters of Japan Growth Strategy in her government last November. It was aimed at promoting public and private investments to contribute to global issues by providing with goods, services and infrastructure. Takaichi believes that active investment of the government strengthens Japanese economy by inducing action of private sectors.   The headquarters designated  seventeen categories  of economy for intensive investment, which included artificial intelligence (AI) and semiconductor, medical treatment and medicines ...

The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) pushes some agenda in the Diet, taking advantage of supermajority power in the Lower House. Those issues are basically upheld by its coalition partner, Japan Innovation Party. The LDP promote them to attract JIP to stay in the leading coalition, but has no big interest in them. The opposition parties are frustrated with unilateral procedure by the leading parties, making passage of other bills difficult.   When forming the leading coalition with the LDP, JIP allocated reduction of Lower House seats by ten percent at the top issue to achieve. Although JIP had raised regulation of political fund as one of the most important agenda of the coalition, it dropped the issue receiving firm opposition from the LDP. Then, JIP picked the seat reduction as the cause for them to form a leading coalition with the LDP which had been long-time political rival.   Both leading parties  failed  in enacting the law to reduce ten percent of Lower House ...

The Diet is now run only by the leading parties. The opposition parties do not participate in the voting on highly controversial bills. The bill of National Flag Vandalism Punishing Act passed the Lower House with majority votes of the Liberal Democratic Party and Japan Innovation Party, while the opposition parties abstained the plenary sittings. The leading parties also unilaterally began discussion of reducing the seats of Lower House and the bill for Backup Capital without consensus with the oppositions. This is not something called a democracy.   Discussion over the bill for punishing damaging the national flag  started  in Committee on Cabinet of the Lower House on June 24 th . The bill was also sponsored by Democratic Party for the People (DPP) and Sanseito. The Sponsors answered questions of the opposition parties in the meeting on June 25 th  and the committee had a hearing from experts on June 26 th .   Discussion on the bill was finished then. The bil...

After the Speakers of both chambers of the Diet submitted “unanimous opinion” on maintaining members of the Imperial Family to Sanae Takaichi government, the conservative lawmakers insist on imperial succession by male members in male line. One of the lawmakers with Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) made a speech that Princess Aiko, the daughter of Emperor Naruhito, cannot succeed to the throne. It is conservative people who are complicating discussion over the Imperial Family. The chairman of LDP headquarters for constitutional amendment, Hirofumi Nakasone,  made  a speech in a meeting at Takaoka city, Toyama, that ruled out Aiko’s succession to the throne, saying that it would be “impossible.” Moreover, Nakasone said that Aiko cannot be married, if she succeeds to the throne. “No one would want to be married with her, if she is the Emperor,” he said.   Nakasone made that comment based on a notion that only male members in the male line should succeed to the throne. He refe...

The bill of revising National Referendum Act (NRA) for constitutional amendment   passed  the Lower House and was sent to the Upper House. It is expected to pass the Upper House in current session of the Diet. As discussion for constitutional amendment is slowed down in the Diet, it is possible for Sanae Takaichi government hoped to have a minor achievement for paving a way to the amendment. The revision of NRA is to ease condition of selecting observers of counting of votes, to select observers in isolated islands when they cannot send votes to the mainland, and  い increasing radio stations for publicity. Although they have already been added to the elections of public offices, including both Houses of the Diet, NRA has not been coordinated, because national referendum for constitutional amendment would be made on a different law.   When NRA was revised last time in 2021, there were raised some points which needed to be considered. They were regulation of ads throug...

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is still caught in her own scandal of slandering her contenders in presidential election of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) last October. Takaichi changed her understandings on the details of relationship with her secretary and a creator of video footages, and she refused her answer in the Diet when she faced questions of the opposition parties. The opposition powers accuse Takaichi’s attitude as ignoring prime minister’s responsibility.   Weekly Bunshun  magazine  reported  in April that Takaichi launched a negative campaign against Shinjiro Koizumi and Yoshimasa Hayashi in LDP presidential election by posting video on social networking services. Takaichi dismissed the report, arguing that she had never defamed other campaign with posting massages with video in the SNS.   But she has not given sufficient evidence that her campaign had nothing to do with the scandal. Bunshun reported that Takaichi’s secretary had consulted with a...

A member of the Diet was found guilty on receiving kickback fund from a faction in the Liberal Democratic Party for the first time. Tokyo District Court   sentenced   on June 23 rd  600 thousand yen of fine to former member of the House of Councillors, Yasumasa Ono, for his failure in reporting political fund from former Abe faction. The court found Ono guilty for the fund in 2022 and evidence of the rest of kickback fund was regarded as insufficient. The whole structure of kickback fund scandal has not illuminated.   The LDP found that 85 of its lawmakers, who were affiliated with factions of Abe or Nikai, received 579 million yen of kickback fund, which was the sales of ticket for fundraising parties, from their factions between 2018 and 2022. The party punished 39 lawmakers who received large amount of fund. Ono, with other two lawmakers, left the party before he would be punished. He reportedly received 51.54 million yen from Abe faction and failed to report it. ...

The leading coalition of Liberal Democratic Party and Japan Innovation Party, with support some opposition parties,   submitted   a bill for punishing flag-vandalism to the Diet on June 16 th . The law will penalize act of damaging national flag “in a way that causes public feeling uncomfortable or disgusted.” It is still unclear what kind of action will be punished by the law. Although most opposition parties do not understand what kind of interest will be protected by the law, the bill was   approved   by the Committee on Cabinet in the House of Representatives on June 26 th . Some conservative lawmakers, including Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, have been wondering why Japan does not have a law to punish damaging the flag of Japan, while there is a law to punish damaging foreign country’s flag. When the LDP formed leading coalition with JIP last October, conservative JIP proposed Takaichi to legislate punishing flag-vandalism. Takaichi accepted it and the LDP discu...

The Third Petty Bench of the Supreme Court   supported  a decision of Tokyo High Court that ordered dissolution of the Family Federation of World Peace and Unification (FFWPU: former Unification Church), recognizing its activity of collecting donations from its followers as illegal. The court decision of dissolving the FFWPU was finally fixed. Eighty thousand of FFWPU believers lost its organization and facilities, but they can continue their religious activities.   The suspect of assassination of former prime minister Shinzo Abe, Tatsuya Yamagami, was a son of FFWPU followers and had been suffering from poverty caused by his mother’s excessive donation seduced by the organization. Tokyo High Court found that that kind of illegal damage amounted at least 7.4 billion yen of 506 followers for forty years from 1973, and recognized it as a tort provided in Article 709 of the  Civil Code.   The Supreme Court entirely supported the decision. It made the third example ...

On June 23 rd , Okinawa had the memorial day of the end of Battle of Okinawa in 1945. In the memorial ceremony at Mabuni, where an intensive battle was taken place, the Governor of Okinawa hoped Okinawa to be the basis to build a peaceful world. Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi pledged to continue tireless effort for every Japanese to live in peace. However, Takaichi received a heckling of “No war” during her speech, reflecting deep skepticisms of Okinawa against the prime minister. Okinawa is known as the place where ground battle was taken place in the World War II. In the Battle of Okinawa, 200 thousand were dead on both sides of America and Japan. It is recognized that one out of four people in Okinawa died in the battle. Some people killed themselves in the cave, forced by soldiers of Japanese Imperial Army. Okinawa has a fundamental resentment against the government of Japan.   Governor Tamaki represented that resentment in his  Declaration for Peace  to the memorial c...

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi (president of the Liberal Democratic Party: LDP) had a   meeting  with Governor of Osaka Hirofumi Yoshimura (leader of Japan Innovation Party: JIP) at the prime minister’s official residence on June 22 nd . Receiving frustration of some LDP members, Takaichi requested revision of draft of the bill for creating “backup capital,” on which representatives of both parties had once agreed. Takaichi did not like that the bill would enable the people in a local city can intervene in a decision of another city. Japan has forty-seven prefectures which are broken down as one capital (Tokyo), one province (Hokkaido), two seats (Osaka and Kyoto) and forty-three ordinary prefectures. Project of building a backup capital is to make another capital alternative to Tokyo, for a possibility that Tokyo suffers from a major natural disaster which nobody knows when it will occur.   Before the Tokugawa Shogunate was built in Edo (currently Tokyo) in early 17 th ...

The polls conducted by news organizations showed no big change in approval rate for Sanae Takaichi Cabinet. However, they indicated sharp division in some issues which needed overwhelming approval from the people. Although Prime Minister Takaichi is ambitious to conclude “divisive issues,” the polls revealed Takaichi’s weakness in making a broad consensus in important issues. On maintaining members of Imperial Family, the parties in the Diet have been discussing two options. One is keeping female members in the family after marriage and another is to adopt male members in male line of former Imperial Families. The Speakers of both Houses recommended both options as “unanimous opinion of the legislative branch” to Takaichi government. The Diet has been demanded to conclude a unanimous opinion. Emperor Naruhito made an unusual comment that he hopes the measures to achieve understandings of the people.   The poll of  Mainichi Shimbun   showed  60 percent of approval for...

Japan Innovation Party (JIP) approved its proposal to Sanae Takaichi government on revision of three security documents, which are scheduled to be revised by the end of this year. The proposal demanded “realistic discussion” on one of the three non-nuclear principles: not permitting the introduction. The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) did not propose revision of the three non-nuclear principles. Both leading parties were separated on this issue.   Former prime minister Eisaku Sato, a laureate of 1974 Nobel Peace Prize,  raised  not possessing, not producing and not permitting the introduction of nuclear weapons as his responsibility in 1967. Those three principles have since been embraced as Japan’s basic policy for international peace by Sato’s successors.   It was Shizo Abe who changed that course. He  approved  discussing over nuclear weapons from the viewpoint of deterrence of Japan in his first term as the prime minister 2006. For the first time as the...

The chairman of interparty conference on consumption tax cut made a   presentation  for introducing 1 percent of new tax rate on foods. Although Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi promised in campaign of Lower House election that the rate should be zero percent, the leading parties are pushing 1 percent for a quick start of new rate. The opposition parties argue that the proposal was not a consensus beyond the party lines.   To counter opposition parties’ policy for eliminating consumption tax on foods, Takaichi, as the president of Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), proposed zero percent consumption tax on foods for two years in the Lower House election in February. After the election, Takaichi explained that two-year moratorium of consumption tax on foods would be an interim measure until the government introduces refundable tax credit.   The details of the system were discussed in National Council on Social Security, a discussion body by representatives of parties that ap...

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi finished her schedule for Group of Seven summit meeting in Evian-les-Bains, France. In her   press conference  after the meeting, Takaichi stressed her achievements in discussing issues on China and North Korea with other leaders. Although she might have reminded the leaders of some agenda in Asia-Pacific region, the main topic in G7 was the deal of the United States and Iran over ending their war, on which Takaichi had no strong leverage. Through  the memorandum of understandings (MOU) , the U.S. President Donald Trump achieved termination of blockade in the Strait of Hormuz. Instead, Iran was successful in including Lebanon in termination of military operations. Iran also received assurance of 300 billion dollars of reconstruction plan, waivers for export of Iranian crude oil and availability of frozen or restricted funds and assets of Iran.   On nuclear issue, Iran promised not to develop nuclear weapons as it had been arguing that it...