J Update

Ministry for Foreign Affairs (MOFA) delivered a response to the recommendation of a United Nations body on discrimination of women in October, 2024, which demanded Japan to guarantee equality of women and men in succession to the throne. The ministry explained that the system of imperial succession in Japan had nothing to do with discrimination. However, it is unclear whether the world can understand what the ministry is talking about. United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Woman (CEDAW) issued concluding observation on  the 9 th  periodic reports of Japan , which considered “allowing only male offspring from the male line of the imperial lineage to succeed to the throne is incompatible with articles of the Convention.” The “ Convention ” of 1979 determines that any distinction made on the basis of sex is discrimination. The committee recommended Japan to amend the Imperial House Law.   MOFA press secretary, Toshihiro Kitamura, revealed in h...

The Diet had Q&A session between party leaders and Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba in plenary meetings of both Houses. Given a hung parliament in the House of Representatives, the opposition leaders grilled Ishiba with requests for stricter ruling of political funds or for taking action on diplomatic and domestic issues. Ishiba did not give the opposition powers any clear answer on controversial issues which he was facing.   “Question of the Party Representatives” is made about the policies the prime minister included in his policy speech at the beginning of the session. The leaders of leading parties and opposition parties asked their own questions toward Ishiba for three days, between January 28th and 30th, in both Houses. It is usual that the Q&A is made on whole first day and the afternoon of second day in the Lower House, and in the morning of second day and whole third day in the Upper House.   Intensive questions were made by the leader of largest opposition ...

Without a simple majority in the House of Representatives, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) struggles against the opposition parties on inviting former accounting manager of Abe faction to the Committee on Budget. While the oppositions hope to keep the issue alive until the Upper House election this summer, the LDP wants to terminate the prolonged discussion over the slush fund scandal. The committee still cannot determine the date to begin discussion on FY 2025 budget.   The public prosecutors indicted former accounting manager of Abe faction, Jun-ichiro Matsumoto, with charge of wrong reporting about kickback fund of the faction. Tokyo District Court  sentenced  Matsumoto last September three years of imprisonment with suspension of five years. Matsumoto requested the LDP not to invite him to the Diet, because he had already told about the scandal in the court and had no further information to reveal.   The opposition parties have been demanding a hearing ...

Fuji Television, one of the major five private key broadcasting stations in Tokyo, held   a press conference  on January 27 th and announced that its chairman and president resigned. After a weekly magazine reported a sex scandal between a pop star and female employee of Fuji, the broadcasting firm has been criticized of its handlings of the scandal. The press conference lasted for ten hours with endless questions hurled to the managers of Fuji. Weekly Bunshun  and other magazines  reported  in December that the female employee of Fuji had a trouble with a pop star, Masahiro Nakai, in a one-on-one dinner meeting, which had once been planned with multiple participants. Fuji has been criticized as not properly dealing with the complaint of the woman and as kept on using Nakai for its program.   Although  Bunshun  indicated that the woman was introduced to the dinner meeting by her superior in Fuji, it corrected the report that the woman was invited ...

The government of Japan   decided  not to participate in the conference of parties of Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, scheduled to be held in the United States in March. Although the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Nihon Hidankyo, firmly demanded Japan to join the conference at least as an observer, Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba dismissed the request. Japan looks like shackled with nuclear deterrence offered by the United States.   The treaty was resolved in a conference of the United Nations in 2017 and was enacted in 2021. It prohibits member countries development, possession and using of any nuclear weapons. However, some countries with nuclear weapons, including the US, Russia and China, and others relying their security on umbrella of nuclear powers have not signed or ratified.   Some European countries, including Germany, Norway and Belgium, have participated in past conferences of parties as observers, regardless they were relying on nuclear pow...

The Bank of Japan (BOJ) decided to raise its short-term policy rate to 0.5 percent in their Monetary Policy Meeting (MPM) in January 23 and 24. The bank estimated that certain volume of workers’ wage hike of companies can be expected in annual labor negotiations in this spring and that the impact of Trump 2.0 administration on the market was not great. It hopes to get a chance to raise the interest rate later this year. The BOJ  issued a statement  that it would “encourage the uncollateralized overnight call rate to remain at around 0.5 percent.” It was the third rate hike since the bank terminated ultra-easy interest rate policy with application of short-term interest rate of 0 to 0.1 percent in March, 2024, followed by the second rate hike with 0.25 percent in July. The new rate of 0.5 percent became the highest one since October 2008.   In the previous MPM in December, 2024, the BOJ was skeptical about the interest rate hike. While acknowledging improvement of corporat...

Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba gave an annual policy speech to the Diet on the first day of ordinary session on January 24 th . Having difficulty in exercising policies of his own without majority in the House of Representatives, Ishiba gave priority on decentralization in Japan, calling his initiative “Remodeling the Japanese Archipelago in Reiwa.” It is a set of policies, as he said, to achieve “pleasant Japan” with hope of revitalization of the country. “Pleasant Japan” is a concept suggested by a novelist in the time of high economic growth in post-war period of Japan, Taichi Sakaiya. Ishiba interpreted it as a nation in which everyone can realize better tomorrow embracing one’s own dream and feeling security and safety, or in which diverse individuals respect each other and are capable of self-fulfillment. Sakaiya was Minister in charge of Economic Planning Agency in the Cabinet of Keizo Obuchi who was one of the followers of Kakuei Tanaka. Ishiba’s remodeling initiative occupi...

The 217 th Diet was convoked on January 24 th . It is an ordinary session with term of 150 days, expecting to close on June 22 nd . While the biggest issue in the first half of the session is, as always, annual budget for FY 2025, the leading coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito does not have a simple majority in the House of Representatives. It is focused that how the leading parties include one or some of the opposition parties on their side to pass the budget. Shigeru Ishiba Cabinet approved the draft of FY 2025 budget, made by the Minister of Finance, which total spendings amounted to a record high of 115 trillion yen. Among the spendings, cost for social security exceeded the highest amount in the past. Defense budget would be swollen to implement Japan’s pledge to raise it to 2 percent of GDP, and payment for Japanese government bonds issued in the past increases as interest rate is expected to rise. It was submitted to the Diet on January 24 th as a bill. ...

Private TV stations in Japan began internal investigations on whether their staffs have been involved in sexual assaults by TV stars. Fuji Television, one of the leaders of national broadcasting networks stationed in Tokyo, is facing hardships by departures of clients from the commercial massage of its programs, caused by a doubt that its staffs had been involved in scandal of a personality who formerly was affiliated to Johnny’s Entertainment. It may reveal a long-time unrevealed practice inside show business. Masahiro Nakai, former leader of SMAP which was one of the most successful groups of Johnny’s and was dissolved in 2016, was reported in December that he had a trouble with a woman. He admitted it and the trouble was solved with his payment of 90 million yen to her. Sensitive to the ad sponsors’ claim on scandal of personalities in TV program, TV stations decided to close regular programs to which Nakai was appearing. It was Fuji Television which was reported that a staff w...

As predicted, Donald Trump signed a bunch of executive orders on the Day 1 as the 47 th   President of the United States. Although they were accustomed to radical delivery of his America First policies, the leaders of Japanese politics and economy were appalled with a reality of the US going wild. Japan is considering how to deal with the US administration with uncertainty.   Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, who hoped to meet with Trump soon after the victory in the presidential election last November, but not fulfilled, is preparing for one-on-one meeting with Trump in Washington early February. “I hope to make a sincere discussion and build a relationship based on trust to develop the bilateral relations between Japan and US for seeking our national interests,”  said  Ishiba. On Trump’s inauguration address, Ishiba had an impression that it was something which Mr. Trump had been saying in the presidential campaign.   Minister for Foreign Affairs, Takeshi Iwaya, ...

News media reported that former member of Hyogo Prefectural Assembly, Hideaki Takeuchi, was   found dead  at his home on January 18 th . The local police recognize it as a suicide. Takeuchi was one of the members of investigation committee for measures against whistleblowing in Hyogo Prefectural Government by Governor Motohiko Saito. Takeuchi has been suffering from defamation in the social networking service (SNS) mainly from supporters of Saito.   Saito was accused of his measures against former officer of Hyogo government who revealed Saito’s harassment on his staffs. The officer was found dead in July 2024. He left a message to his family that he would protest the governor by the death of himself, convincing the police that it had been a suicide. Later in the same month, another staff related to the scandal of Saito  appeared to have died  in April 2024. Takeuchi is designated as the third victim of the scandal of Saito.   Hyogo Prefectural Assembly lau...

Three-month-old Shigeru Ishiba Cabinet seems to have entered a dangerous zone. According to the polls of major newspapers, the approval rate for Ishiba Cabinet continues to decline in January. The   poll   conducted by   Mainichi Shimbun   showed 28 percent of approval for Ishiba, below the red line of 30 percent. The biggest reason was that the responders did not see any exercise of leadership by Prime Minister Ishiba. In the poll of Mainichi, the approval rate declined by 2 percentage points from previous poll in mid-December. The rate of disapproval was 53 percent, the same number as the previous one. Another major reason of disapproval was disappointment on Ishiba’s handling of policies.   In these three months, Ishiba has not marked a period on the slush fund scandal, leaving behind the discussion over abolishment of donation from companies and organizations. In the discussion over tax reform, Ishiba administration dismissed the request from the Democratic ...

The Unites States President-elect Donald Trump decided to appoint former Ambassador to Portugal, George Glass, to new Ambassador to Japan. Glass is known as a major financial contributor to Trump campaign in US presidential election in 2024. While it is unknown how he would work as an ambassador to Japan, most people in Japan recognize that Glass was appointed as a reward of the victory in the election.   Glass was a businessman who ran an investment bank in Portland, Oregon, and founded a real estate development firm. As the Ambassador to Portugal in the first Trump administration, Glass was known as taking hard-lining position against China, stressing concern about Huawei’s involvement in 5G networks in Portugal. Glass also accused China of its propaganda to shift responsibility of COVID-19 pandemic top US.   Although Glass’s connection with Japan is not known well, except his  reference  to his son who was living in Japan, Trump seemed to pick Glass expecting his ...

The Special Investigation Division of Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office   made   summery indictment against an accounting manager of Liberal Democratic Party in Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly with charge of failing in reporting its 35 million yen of political fund which was raised through fundraising parties. That local branch of the leading party has reportedly been committed illegal management of political fund as same as the lawmakers with former Abe faction were involved in. The organization decided to dissolve itself. The management done by LDP Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly, a group of the assembly members who are affiliated to the LDP, had exactly the same structure as what the national party did. The organization set a quota of ticket sales for each member, which was selling fifty tickets worth one million yen. If a member sold more than fifty tickets, the surplus brought by the sales will effectively be income of the member. The member did not report the amount of th...

Former mayor of small city in western Japan called Akitakata, Shinji Ishimaru,   announced   on January 15 th   that he launched a new local political party named Path to Rebirth, or Saisei no Michi in Japanese. Ishimaru hopes to field candidates in all the districts in the election of Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly scheduled in this summer. Having said that the party would not embrace any policy for the election, the party appears to be a highly unusual entity in Japanese politics. Ishimaru was elected the mayor of Akitakata when he was 37 years old in 2020, criticizing a scandal in which his predecessor had received money from a lawmaker of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) who was sentenced guilty for distributing bribes to local politicians. Ishimaru’s name was nationally known when he uttered “Shame on you” to the city assembly members during his speech in a session.   Not seeking reelection as the mayor of Akitakata, Ishimaru ran for the governor of Tokyo in 2024...

The government of Japan released the result of its survey on foreign travelers visiting Japan in 2024. The visitors increased by half from the previous year, marking a record high. They spent their money in purchasing goods and services in Japan, which went beyond 8 trillion yen for the first time. While Japanese economy became dependent on inbound travelers, it gets unignorable that the activities of foreign visitors affect ordinary life of the Japanese people.   According to  the press release  of Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO), foreign travelers came to Japan last year were 36.8 million, increasing by 47.1 percent from 2023. It marked the biggest record exceeding the number in 2019, just before prevalence of COVID-19. While the government set a goal of catching up the pre-COVID level in 2025, it achieved that one year earlier.   Japan accepted more travelers than the previous years in the season of cherry blossoms and autumn leaves. Each area well know...

Shigeru Ishiba administration promotes diplomacy with neighbor countries, namely China and the Republic of Korea. The delegation of the leading coalition, Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito, visited Beijing and had   meetings   with high-level officials of Chinese Communist Party. Minister for Foreign Affairs of Japan, Takeshi Iwaya, made a trip to Seoul to   meet   with ROK foreign minister. Preparation for incoming President of the United States, Donald Trump, and political turmoil in ROK urged Japan to stabilize diplomatic relationship with those countries. The leading parties of Japan and China started consultative meeting in 2006, when Ameirca-leaning Jun-ichiro Koizumi administration exacerbated bilateral relationship of them. The meeting in Beijing on January 14th marked the ninth meeting. It was the first time for the leading parties to have the meeting since 2018 when they had their eighth meeting in Tokyo.   The delegation of Japan’s leading parties,...