J Update

Former Minister for Foreign Affairs, Takeshi Iwaya, made a visit to China and   had meetings  with high-level leaders of Xi Jinping administration. While affiliating to the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), Iwaya is known as taking distance from Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi over some major issues. China welcomed Iwaya as the representative of a private organization for promoting Japan-China trade, expecting improvement of economic relations of both nations.   Iwaya visited Beijing as the president of the Association for the Promotion of International Trade, Japan (JAPIT) which members consists of political and business leaders. Established in 1954, years before Japan normalized diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China, the JAPIT has been promoting Japan-China trade through researching markets and companies in China. Iwaya succeeded the president of JAPIT from former LDP president, Yohei Kono, who deceased last June.   As the chief of delegation sent by...

Recognizing Japan as being a safe haven for international spy agents, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi launched an experts’ council to discuss enhancement for the government to deal with intelligence. The council examines necessity of laws and organizations to protect sensitive intelligence from leakage to foreign agents. The biggest concern is whether the government of Japan can manage intelligence without violating privacy of the people. While the 20 th  century is defined as the century of oil, the 21 st  century is sometimes called the century of data. Competition over information has been accelerated across the borders. It is thus crucial for a government to protect its sensitive information from spy activities. Not only the United States, which has Foreign Agent Registration Act since 1938, European countries including the United Kingdom and France recently established system for registration of foreign agents.   Takaichi administration of Japan has been willing to bui...

Tokyo District Court   found  that a provision of Public Offices Election Act (POEA), which prohibits election campaign by the people under age of eighteen, would violate the Constitution of Japan that guarantees freedom of expression. Although the defendants, the government of Japan, argued that the provision was necessary for protecting young students from exploitation, the court dismissed necessity of the indiscriminative regulation on the young people.   The POEA provides that the age of eligible voter is eighteen or older. Article 137 of POEA  prohibits  people younger than age of eighteen to participate in election campaign and anyone to use those young people for election campaign. A violation causes up to one year of detention or up to 300 thousand yen of fine. This provision was added to the act in 1952 to avoid political exploitation of young people or immature participation in election of public officers.   However, development of information tec...

One of the major issues at the United Nations in the week of debate by world leaders was how to control artificial intelligence (AI). While a number of countries recognize necessity to regulate AI, the United States insists on maintaining its advantage as the frontrunner in developing AI technology. As always in any international discussions, Japan keeps its unique position on this issue. The U.N. Security Council  held  a meeting, with initiative of France, to discuss the impact of AI on humanity on September 23 rd . The leaders of AI developers, including Anthropic and OpenAI, warned that AI can be a major risk for humanity as a whole. They called on world leaders to take action to control the technology, referring to a possibility that human beings cannot handle AI.   Australian Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese,  held  on September 24 th  a press conference in New York, where he visited for General Debate of the U.N. General Assembly, and  revealed ...

In the second summit of this year between the United States and China, the leaders, Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping, focused on coordination of those two big powers on some issues. To be a regret of Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi who had had a meeting with Trump two days before, Trump and Xi shared notion that the U.S. and China had fought against Japan in the World War II. Takaichi insisted that Japan and the U.S. still were allies, regardless of historical antagonism.   Two leaders showed some differences in crucial issues. On Taiwan, Xi  demanded  the U.S. to “adhere to the correct position of opposing ‘Taiwan independence.’” It is unclear how Trump responded to that. The U.S. has been taking a position that it approves one China, but maintain status quo and do not support independence of Taiwan. With request of China not to export weapons to Taiwan, Trump has not approved the export this year.   The leaders also discussed artificial intelligence, o...

In the backdrop of annual General Debate of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi had a meeting with the President of the United States Donald Trump in the U.N. Headquarters on September 22 nd . For Takaichi, the meeting was to remind Trump of Japan before he would have a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping. It is unclear whether Trump told Takaichi that he would not make any excessive compromise to Xi on Taiwan issue.   In the last meeting at the White House in March, Takaichi  approved  Trump by saying that he would be the only person to bring peace and prosperity in the world. This time, Trump  praised  Takaichi saying that she had done a tremendous job and was going to go down in history. Takaichi  attracted  Trump by escorting to their discussion closed to the press, with which Trump had trouble over purging some of them from the White House.   As same as in March, the meeting between Takaichi and Tru...

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi gave   a speech   at annual General Debate of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on September 22 nd . Takaichi insisted that Japan would contribute to maintain international order based on rule of law. However, she intensively ignored unilateral sanction on the International Criminal Court (ICC) or toppling the leadership with military operation in Venezuela and Iran by the United States. Rule of law is not applied to the U.S., led by Donald Trump, in the world according to Takaichi.   In her speech to the UNGA, Takaichi introduced that Japan maintained a basic concept of Japan’s diplomacy called Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP), which  was proposed  by former prime minister (and Takaichi’s political mentor) Shinzo Abe in 2016. The FOIP was presented as a framework for freedom, rule of law and market economy in Africa, based on a success in Asian region.   Strange enough, there is no reference to China in the concept o...

The United States is taking additional action against the International Criminal Court (ICC) by laying out new sanction on the organization. The U.S. President Donald Trump recommended countries in the world to withdraw from the ICC in his speech to General Assembly of the United Nations (UNGA). The argument of the U.S. is inevitably incompatible with the standpoint of Japan which firmly upholds rule of law. One of the pro-Trump leaders in the world, Sanae Takaichi, is caught in the middle between Trump and domestic voices that support the organization led by a Japanese lady.   The U.S. has been critical about the ICC with concern of indictment of U.S. military personnel at wars. The Secretary of State, Marco Rubio,  announced  in July that the ICC posed an intolerable threat to U.S. sovereignty, launching a campaign to dismantle the ICC. It is supposed that ICC’s issuance of arrest warrant to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was against U.S. interest.   Tru...

Embracing serious concern on abnormal economic relationship between Japan and China, some lawmakers in the Diet are making attempts for a breakthrough with their own diplomacy. Some lawmakers made their visit to China and had a meeting with Chinese officials in August. Anyway, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has made no meaningful effort to improve bilateral relations between Japan and China, which was exacerbated by her own comment in the Diet last November.   After Takaichi said in the Diet that use of force around Taiwan would consist of survival threatening situation in which Japan would be able to use force, China recommended its citizens not to visit Japan. Chinese visitors to Japan  declined  by 60 percent in August 2026, compared to the same month in the previous year. China also effectively resumed banning sea products from Japan and embargoed rare earths after Takaichi’s comment.   While Takaichi insisted that she would never say that again and that Japan wou...

The government of Japan   revealed  that the United States Force in Japan (USFJ) had admitted in December 2023 that poisonous Per-and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) detected in Okinawa was originated in U.S. Force’s bases in Okinawa. The Ministry of Defense (MOD) did not disclose this admission of the USFJ at the time. It is likely that the government of Japan has been dismissing the argument of Okinawan government that the detected PFAS was caused by foam concentrate used for drills of extinction.   PFAS is a general term of over ten thousand chemical substances, some of which are harmful for human health or inhabitancy of animals and plants. PFAS includes perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) or perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) which are designated as persistent organic pollutants in  Stockholm Convention in 2004 . The member countries of the convention are obliged to take measures to restrict production or import of those materials.   The prefectural governmen...

The Bank of Japan   decided   to raise its policy rate from 1.0 percent to 1.25 in the Monetary Policy Meeting held on September 17 th   and 18 th . The BOJ Governor, Kazuo Ueda, announced that the bank recognized change of policy phase from targeting price inflation toward 2 percent to stabilizing it at 2 percent, considering a risk of upward pressure. However, he did not make future moves clear, causing some disappointments of the markets.   Since it started raising its policy interest rate in March 2024, the BOJ kept on adding by 0.25 percent approximately every half year. This time, however, the bank decided policy interest hike after three months from previous one. It can be regarded as an acceleration of interest hike. The rate reached the highest level since 1995. The decision was made with majority approval of seven members out of the nine.   The bank stresses importance of stabilizing price inflation at the level of 2 percent. The BOJ’s “ outlook ” on e...

A new opposition party, named the Democratic Reform Association (DRA), was established on September 17 th  by lawmakers who left the Centrist Reform Alliance (CRA), which was separated between former Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDPJ) and former Komeito. While the DRA is expected to integrate lawmakers of former CDPJ, it is unclear whether they can completely include them.   After the CRA, with 49 Lower House members, decided to dissolve itself, 28 ex-Komeito members left the party and returned to Komeito which had been remaining in the Upper House. Then 20 ex-CDPJ members left the party and only one ex-CDPJ member stayed in the CRA to keep the status of a party. The CRA remains as a party with one lawmaker to receive political fund from the government.   The DRA was registered as a party with five members: Jun-ya Ogawa, Takeshi Shina, Kazuhiko Shigetoku, Akira Nagatsuma and Takayuki Ochiai. The leader of DRA is Ogawa and the secretary general is Shina. Those...

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi reshuffled her  cabinet  on September 17 th . Takaichi reappointed most important ministers to maintain the posture of her administration, which promotes large fiscal spendings and security policy heavily relying on the United States. What she most cared was how she can make her reelection sure in the presidential election of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) next year.   A cabinet reshuffle is always made simultaneously with renewing board members of the LDP. The LDP introduced new rule in 2022 that the term of its board members is one year and any board member cannot stay in the same position beyond three years, to avoid concentration of political power. Former LDP secretary general Toshihiro Nikai continued his position for five years, inviting criticisms on his long assignment.   Main purpose of reshuffling cabinet for previous prime ministers has been to regain public support for ailing administration, replacing ministers who are i...

The President of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and the Prime Minister, Sanae Takiachi,   reappointed   most board members of her party on September 16 th . As she keeps relatively high approval rate so far, Takaichi focused on maintaining her power in the party, refraining from rather making a big change of her team. Another point was early removal of possible troubles for her reelection as the president net year. The LDP has ten board members, each of whose term is a year. Takaichi reappointed eight of those ten again. Having weak basis on her own party, she relies her grip of the party on Vice-President Taro Aso, a heavyweight who presides the only faction in the party that survived slush fund scandal in 2023. Takaichi not only reappointed Aso as the Vice-President but decided to keep Secretary General Shun-ichi Suzuki, who is Aso’s brother-in-law, at the same position. Reappointment of Chairman of Policy Research Council, Takayuki Kobayashi, is also Aso’s choice. ...

The Chubu Electric Power (CEP) released   a report   on its safety data fabrication in Hamaoka Nuclear Power Plant on September 11 th . The report made by a third-party committee found that there was “extremely strange way of thinking” to justify the fabrication in the CEP for making the data to meet its schedule to resume nuclear reactors in Hamaoka. It is unclear whether the CEP can regain confidence of the government or people as an owner of nuclear reactors.   After severe accident in Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in 2011, the government of Japan ordered all the electric power companies to stop operation of nuclear reactors and demanded safety measures against natural disaster. The CEP submitted request of resumption for reactors #4 in Hamaoka in 2014 and #3 in 2015. As the lifetime of a reactor was determined as 40 years, the reactor #3 established in 1987 was close to the end.   Hamaoka plant is said as standing at the most dangerous place in the world,...

Former deputy mayor of Naha city, Genta Koja, achieved   a landslide victory   in gubernatorial election of Okinawa voted on September 13 th . Koja won against incumbent governor, Denny Tamaki, with a wide margin. While Tamaki maintained his governorship with firm protest against building military base in Henoko, voters in Okinawa chose reconciliation with the national government. The election changed structure of politics in Okinawa.   Koja, 42, is going to assume the governor as the first person born after return of governance of Okinawa from the United States to Japan in 1972. As a young politician who experienced staff of Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication, Koja appealed voters to change the course of Okinawa, which had been opposing to national government, with economic agenda. With support from the Liberal Democratic Party, Japan Innovation Party and Democratic party for the People, he promised the voters doubling income of each family in Okinawa.  ...

The Emperor Emeritus, Akihito, reportedly   hopes  that his funeral will be taken place in a minimum way, considering its impact on the people. Acknowledging that the funeral of the Emperor of Showa, Hirohito, was held very long and affected ordinary life of the Japanese people, Akihito has been wishing simple funeral for the happiness of the people. Since the Emperor Emeritus constitutionally does not have power to government, the government of Japan will consider how the funeral should be held while he is living.   The funeral of Hirohito, who died in 1989, was magnificent. The morning ceremonies lasted over two months and ten thousand people visited the funeral. The government constructed a building for the funeral in Shinjuku National Garden and traffics are restricted around the garden. A huge mausoleum was built in the imperial house’s graveyard located in the suburb of Tokyo. The government spent about 10 billion yen for the funeral and the interment.   Akihit...