J Update

The Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA)   approved  extending, from forty years to sixty years, life of the reactors #3 and #4 in Takahama Nuclear Power plant owned by Kansai Electric Power Company (KEPCO). This made the seventh and eighth examples that old reactors would extend their life beyond the limit legally determined. Regulation on nuclear power plant, which was established with a bitter lesson in the Great Northeastern Japan Earthquake. It was Yoshihiko Noda administration that established a rule on length of reactors’ life as for forty years at the longest. The rule was added in the Reactors Regulation Act which was revised a year after the great earthquake, but it had an exception of extending the limit for twenty years. The exception was made with  proposal  by the bureaucrats. In a discussion over the bill in the Diet, Noda explained that the extension would be “extremely exceptional.”   After twelve years have passed, the exceptional rule was mutila...

Mainichi Shimbun   reported  that a member of House of Representatives affiliated to the Liberal Democratic Party had received tax breaks, using the “kickbacks” from Abe faction, by donating the fund to a branch of the party headed by himself. The lawmaker admitted the story was true and he returned the tax break to the government. Some other LDP lawmakers are doubted as doing the same management. LDP included some measures to regulate that kind of tax break in the draft of amendment for political reform discussed in the Diet.   The lawmaker is former State Minister for Reconstruction, Ichiro Kanke, who was elected from Tohoku bloc of the proportional district. In the general election in 2021, Kanke was defeated by a candidate with the Constitutional Democratic Party in the Fukushima 4 th  district, but, instead, elected from the Tohoku proportional district, because he was on the list of LDP candidates.   LDP has its branches in every district in Japan, which h...

A member of the House of Councillors affiliated with the Constitutional Democratic Party, Renho, announced that she would run for Tokyo metropolitan gubernatorial election scheduled to be voted on July 6 th . Although incumbent governor, Yuriko Koike, is supposed to run for her third term, Renho contends against Koike, criticizing her as approaching scandal-soaked Liberal Democratic Party. Consecutive defeats of LDP in some elections brought unexpected candidate in the election of the capital of Japan.   Renho held  a press conference  at the headquarters of CDP, the main opposition party in the Diet. “There is major anger against the nature of LDP dealing with political funds. We need to finish it. Koike, as a renegade facing back to LDP, cannot be able to lead the reform of politics,” said Renho. She criticized Koike’s current support for LDP candidates in recent elections.   Koike is reported as running for the election in July, although she has not officially ann...

Three leaders of Japan, China and Republic of Korea had a meeting in Seoul, ROK, for the first time in these four and a half years. As international order is shaken by Russian aggression in Ukraine and Israel-Hamas war, the three leaders reconfirmed their commitment to economic cooperation However, very short description on regional security issues in   the joint declaration   indicated how the difference was wide among them.   The framework of trilateral summit was established in 1999, with initiative of former Prime Minister, Keizo Obuchi. Although the summit was interrupted by COVID-19 since December 2019, the leaders convened in Seoul at least to show their willingness to maintain the trilateral framework. With chairmanship of ROK President Yoon Suk Yeol, Prime Ministers of Japan, Fumio Kishida, and China, Li Qiang, sat at a table. They agreed at least on institutionalization of the trilateral cooperation.   “We will keep discussions for speeding up negotiations ...

Former mayor of Hamamatsu city, Yasutomo Suzuki,   won   the Shizuoka gubernatorial election voted on Sunday, May 26. With recommendation from the Constitutional Democratic Party and the Democratic Party for the People, Suzuki defeated a former officer of Ministry for Internal Affairs and Communications, Shin-ichi Omura. The result may affect handlings of politics by Prime Minister, Fumio Kishida, who suffers from low popularity caused by poor handlings of the slush fund scandal. Suzuki made a clear victory with 728,500 votes, with about 70,000 of margin against Omura. It is notable that a candidate with Japan Communist Party obtained over 100,000 votes. The result means the margin must have been wider, if CDP and JCP had held an integrated candidate against LDP candidate.   Main issue for the election was about high-speed maglev train line between Tokyo and Nagoya, passing a northern part of Shizuoka prefecture. Former governor, Heita Kawakatsu, firmly opposed the plan o...

Long-term interest rate in Japan has been showing gradual hike, since the Bank of Japan reduced purchase of Japanese government bonds (JGB) earlier this month. The yield on Japan’s 10-year government bond   hit 1 percent   on May 22, for the first time in these eleven years, with speculation that BOJ would further revise its monetary policy. The trend may affect economic activities of households and companies.   In the bond market in Tokyo, newly issued 10-year JGB, which is the benchmark of long-term interest rate, marked 1.000 percent, 0.020 percent higher than the closing price of the previous day. It was the first time to mark 1 percent, since May 2013 when BOJ started large scale monetary easing policy. BOJ announced that it would terminate its ultra-easy monetary policy in this March. The hiking of long-term bond’s interest symbolizes the resumption of the economy with interest rate.   BOJ ended its yield curb control, which was a pillar of ultra-easy monetary ...

The government of Japan embarked on legislating a law regulating development of artificial intelligence (AI). While the government has been reluctant to introduce regulation on AI, expecting momentum for economic growth, the developed countries are promoting the regulation, as if leaving Japan behind. Japan’s measure for controlling Al, however, is a mixture of measures for protecting individuals and supporting technological development. AI Strategy Conference, a discussion body of the Cabinet Office, raised some points for discussing how to deal with AI. According to “ Thoughts on System for Dealing with AI ,” a document submitted to the conference, the government recognizes that the opportunity and availability of AI have been expanding with development of generative AI. AI has been a tool for economic growth.   However, the risks that AI embraces became unignorable in modern society. Malfunction of AI in medical devices or vehicle for transportation directly affects human life. ...

Shizuioka District Court concluded hearings on Hakanada case, a retrial in which a man, Iwao Hakamada, had once been sentenced death penalty for murder of four people. While the prosecutors insisted on death penalty on Hakamada, the lawyers of defendant argued that Hakamada was innocent, denying the evidence as fabricated. The court will pass over the sentence on September 26 th .   It was 1966 when the executive director of a miso factory and his family were killed, and one of the employees, Hakamada, was arrested with suspect of murder. The prosecutors submitted some clothes stained with blood as evidence of murder to the court and Shizuoka District Court found Hakamada guilty in 1968 and the penalty was fixed by the Supreme Court in 1980.   In the process of demanding retrial, the defendant lawyers submitted new evidence with a result of DNA survey on the clothes, indicating that the prosecutors could have fabricated the evidence. The Supreme Court remanded the case to the ...

It has been twenty years, since the Prime Minister of Japan last visited Pyongyang, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. In spite of continuous efforts of the Japanese government to return the abductees in North Korea, no progress has been made in these two decades.   Prime Minister, Fumio Kishida, shows his willingness to meet the supreme leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-un, with no strategic hope for success. Former Prime Minister, Jun-ichiro Koizumi, visited Pyongyang twice, in September 2002 and May 2004. In the first visit, North Korea admitted abduction of Japanese citizens. When five abductees visited Japan in October 2002, Japan rejected to return them to North Korea. That was how those abductees returned to home. Although North Korea promised further investigation on the rest of abductees in the second visit, no result has been reported to Japan.   Since the second visit of Koizumi, no remarkable progress was made in the negotiation over the abduction issue. Know...

The House of Representatives passed a bill of revised Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act, which introduced new category of residence permission called “workers in training.” While new system allows a foreign worker in training changing the employer in the same kind of job, the revised law will cancel permanent residence permission in case of failing in tax payment. There is a concern that the human rights of foreign workers are left behind. The government of Japan introduced a job training system for foreign workers in 1993, as a measure for transferring technologies and job skills to the developing countries. Against the purpose of training the workers, there appeared examples in which employers forced excessively long working, delay of wage payment or other harassments.   The Immigration Services Agency established in 2019 two kinds of category of foreign worker: Specified Skilled Worker #1 and #2. Those workers are designated to sixteen kinds of job, including hotel...

The Economic and Social Institute of the Cabinet Office released   the quarterly estimates of GDP   for the first quarter (January to March) of 2024. The real GDP, excluding the influence of price fluctuation, marked 0.5 percent of decline from the previous quarter, which would be equivalent with 2.0 percent of annual decline. Decline in personal consumption and corporate capital investment indicates slow progress of Japanese economy on its way to get rid of deflation.   It was the consecutive decline of real GDP for two quarters. In the first quarter of 2024, there was a major decline in car production, caused by stopping of shipment by Daihatsu Motors which revealed irregularities in the certification of its cars. The major earthquake in Noto Peninsula on new year’s day may also have caused the decline of economic activities.   Personal consumption, which occupies over a half of GDP, declined by 0.7 percent, marking consecutive decline of four quarters. It was the ...

The Metropolitan Police Department arrested three members of the Party of Tsubasa with a suspect of disturbing freedom of election. The three members including a candidate are suspected as having interrupted the campaign of other candidates in by-election in Tokyo 15 th   district of the House of Representatives in April. It is unusual that a candidate of an election is arrested with disturbance of campaign of others.   The arrested members include the head of the party and the secretary general who ran for the election. Those three members are reported to have disturbed campaign speech of other candidates. It is witnessed that they approached to other candidates very closely and separated the candidates from the audience. They are also suspected as chanting words of denouncing using loud speaker or honking at other’s speech.   The police recognized that their activities made the audience hard to listen to the speech. Although the police warned them based on the Public Of...

A bill for revisioning the Civil Code, which enable divorced parents to share joint child custody, passed the Diet. While the revision is aimed at urging divorced parents responsible for raising their child, it is still concerned that one of the parents may continue domestic violence by keeping family relationship. Family court will decide to apply single child custody in such a case. Thus, right decision of family courts will be essential for protecting a child with divorced parents.   It was 1898 when the Civil Code under the Meiji government determined single child custody for father. Authority of father in a family was extremely strong in paternal society in the Meiji era. The Civil Code was revised after the World War II when the Constitution of Japan was established, and parents became to share joint child custody as long as they keep their marriage.   However, once the parents divorced, the custody belongs to one of the parents. The revised law changes that system with ...

Concerning public criticisms against the slush fund scandal, the Liberal Democratic Party submitted a bill for revising the Political Funds Control Act to the Diet. The ruling party failed in reaching an agreement with its coalition partner, Komeito, to co-sponsor the bill, because they differed each other over the details of regulation. Komeito’s reluctancy for cooperation with LDP may have stemmed from public denial against LDP shown in the by-elections in April.   LDP and Komeito has reached a rough deal on the amendment last week. However, they could not agree on some details over how to regulate the sales of ticket for fundraising parties or disclosure of funds disseminated to party leaders. Although two parties continued negotiation for co-sponsoring the bill this week.   The LDP gave up its effort to persuade Komeito, considering the schedule of the Diet. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced that he would make his best to pass the amendment by the end of this session ...

The Board of Audit (BOA) of Japan released the result of its   survey   on how the local governments use My Number system, the digital system of identification number provided for each individual by the national government. The survey found an unexpected fact that only a few kinds of information was used for enhancing administrative efficiency. It proved that My Number system can not necessarily make the relationship between the people and public office smooth.   BOA recognizes that the government of Japan upheld the basic plan of reform for digital society in 2020, which aimed at achieving simplification, efficiency and transparency in introducing digital system in administration. Especially, it focused on the My Number system which should be fair and just for the people. Since the system was introduced with subsidy for the local government, BOA has an interest on how it is working for the users.   According to the survey, the My Number system has 1,258 kinds of fun...

Despite Prime Minister Fumio Kishida hopes the people to realize the gift from economic growth, real wage in Japan does not show obvious rise. The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare released   the Monthly Labor Survey for March 2024 , which marked new record of decline in real wage for twenty-four consecutive months. It is skeptical that Kishida will reach his goal of achieving a rise of real wage within this year. According to the survey, the total cash earnings in March was ¥301,193, which showed 0.6% of increase from the same month of the previous year. The ministry estimated, however, that the consumer price index (CPI) rose by 3.1% in March. Thus, the real wage in March was concluded as 2.5% of decline.   The real wage showed 1.8% of decrease in February. It is sure that the decline of real wage is accelerated. The total cash earnings marked high growth in March 2023. Therefore, the real wage in this March significantly declined, when it was compared to the result in ...

The Committee on Internal Affairs and Communications of the House of Representatives began discussion over amendment of the Local Autonomy Act, which would vest the national government an authority of issuing “directions” to the local governments in the time of emergency. The opposition parties oppose the amendment, arguing it would fundamentally break up the parity between the national and the local governments.   The discussion for the amendment started last December, when the Local Government System Research Council, an advisory organization for the Prime Minister, submitted a report on Japanese society in post-COVID era.   Referring to the measures for infected passengers on a major cruising ship, the Diamond Princess, in which the national and local government were required integrated actions beyond the border of governments, the report concluded that the Local Autonomy Act should be amended to deal with that kind of events.   “To ensure that necessary measures can a...