J Update

To improve chronic shortage of strength in the Japanese Self-defense Force (JSDF), Shigeru Ishiba administration   launched   a minister-level discussion for improving treatment of workers for JSDF. The government is considering extension of the age of retirement to guarantee the job for the veterans, as well as offering reemployments to the post of other organizations. As former Minister of Defense, Ishiba is further sympathetic toward JSDF personnel than other previous prime ministers. The strength of JSDF is by 20 thousand  smaller  than 247 thousand of whole capacity at the end of 2023. The JSDF employed 10 thousand of new members, although it had a plan of about 20 thousand of new employments in FY 2023. The ratio of sufficiency against planned recruitment fell down from 90 percent in 2019 to 50 percent in 2023, marking a new low since its foundation in 1954.   The first measure the government adopted for securing necessary personnel was to keep veterans in...

The Supreme Public Prosecutors Office and Shizuoka Prefectural Police Office released   the review   of Hakamada Case, in which Iwao Hakamada received sentence of death penalty and was proved innocent after the court found that the prosecutors and police fabricated evidences of crime. While the review does not dispute the court decision of innocence, the prosecutors and police refuse to conclude whether they fabricated the evidences. They accumulated excuses. Hakamada was arrested and indicted with charge of murder in 1966 and sentenced to death in 1968. After retrials, the court overturned its decision of death penalty and found in 2024 that Hakamada was innocent, acknowledging that the evidences submitted by the police were fake. The public prosecutors and police abandoned appealing to higher court, and Hakamada’s innocence was fixed.   It was unusual for the public prosecutors and police to be determined that they had fabricated evidences of crime. It caused broad crit...

The Bank of Japan (BOJ) released its analysis on economic activity, prices, financial conditions and monetary policy over the past 25 years. The document titled “ Review of Monetary Policy from a Broad Perspective ” concluded that the Bank’s large-scale monetary easing since 2013 was not effective as expected at the time when it had been introduced. Although the policy was considered as one of three pillars of economic policies taken by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the review did not applaud Abenomics. The review admitted that Japanese economy fell into deflation in the latter half of 1990s, in which commodity price consecutively declined. Except some temporary periods of price hike, the tendency of deflation in slow pace lasted until early 2010s. There were three major reasons for it, according to the assessment of BOJ.   Firstly, the Japanese economy faced a chronic shortage of demand, because conventional monetary policy measures were unable to sufficiently stimulate the economy d...

Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba entered the new year with hung parliament in the House of Representatives. The political event with the highest priority in 2025 is election of the House of Councillors currently scheduled on July 20 th . Ishiba very vaguely indicated possibility of double election with snap election of the Lower House on the same day. However, it is skeptical that Ishiba has sufficient political power to control the election.   The parties mostly agreed on convocation of an ordinary session of the Diet on January 24 th  with 150-day term ending on June 22 nd . The Public Offices Election Act determines that election of the House of Councillors must be held on a day after 24 to 30 days from the end of Diet session. It is usual that the session would not be extended in the year of Upper House election and the election is held on Sunday. So, it is supposed to be held on Sunday July 20 th  this year.   The Upper House has 248 seats. The leading coalition of...