Japan’s prime minister will give a fiscal hawk a key post when he revamps his Cabinet today, media reported, a move probably intended to show he is serious about tax reforms to rein in the country’s huge public debt.
Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan will appoint former administrative reform minister Yukio Edano as his de facto deputy and draft former finance minister Kaoru Yosano, a fiscal conservative, for a government post, Japanese media reported a day ahead of the reshuffle.
“I’m sure it is intended to send a message — that he is serious about fiscal reform — but it depends on who the other ministers are,” said Robert Feldman, chief economist at Morgan Stanley MUFG Securities in Tokyo, referring to Yosano.
Photo: AFP
Feldman added that Edano, mooted for the No. 2 Cabinet post, had done a good job in his previous government job, which focused on cutting wasteful spending, and had “very broad policy experience.”
Edano is currently deputy secretary general of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ).
Giving Edano the key post could, however, exacerbate a rift in the ruling party over scandal-tainted strategist Ichiro Ozawa, since Edano has been a critic of the veteran politician.
Yosano said he had not been approached about a post, but would consider what to do if he were.
“What Prime Minister Kan is saying about fiscal policy, tax reform and the welfare system are problems that can’t be avoided. Trade policy is also important,” he told a press conference.
“If I can help on these two issues, I would like to do so, even if it’s from the sidelines,” he said, adding that he would leave the small, conservative Sunrise Party he helped found last year.
Kan, whose support rates have halved from the 60 percent enjoyed when he took office last June as Japan’s fifth prime minister since 2006, this month again raised the touchy topic of boosting Japan’s 5 percent sales tax to fund the ballooning costs of providing social welfare for Japan’s fast-aging population.
“The question is whether we can face problems that have been ignored for 20 years,” Kan told a DPJ convention yesterday.
Kan is also pitching the need for trade liberalization keenly sought by businesses, but opposed by powerful farm lobbies.
Kan is reshuffling the Cabinet largely to replace Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshito Sengoku, a move aimed at smoothing the path for debate on the budget for the year from April when parliament opens this month.
The opposition-controlled upper house passed non-binding but embarrassing censure motions against Sengoku and Transport Minister Sumio Mabuchi in November over their handling of a territorial dispute with China.
Mabuchi will also be replaced, Japanese media said.
Opposition parties have threatened to boycott a debate on the 2011-2012 budget when parliament opens this month unless the two are sacked.
The government can enact the budget because the DPJ controls the powerful lower house, but the opposition can block enabling legislation in the upper chamber.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion