Japanese Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda yesterday postponed a reported plan to announce a bid to replace Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan, saying he would focus on confronting global financial market turmoil.
Japanese media said Noda, who favors raising the sales tax to fund bulging social security costs, had intended to announce his candidacy for a party leadership race at a meeting of Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) allies yesterday.
The Sankei Shimbun also said he would quit his post in coming weeks to raise pressure on Kan to resign. Instead, Noda told reporters yesterday he would not declare his candidacy.
“Right now is a very important period and I will properly fulfil my duties,” he said.
Noda has been expected to run in the party election once the unpopular Kan resigns, but concerns about financial meltdown and worries about the impact of a strong yen on the world’s third-largest economy forced him to delay his move, a political source said.
“It would be politically difficult to announce his candidacy in this situation,” the source said, noting the original timing had been meant to precede publication of a policy statement in a monthly magazine due out today.
Kan, under fire for his handling of the nuclear crisis at a tsunami-crippled power plant and his voter ratings sagging at well below 20 percent, has said he will hand power over to the DPJ’s younger generation, but has not specified when, and rivals in his party appear to be growing frustrated.
Already Japan’s fifth prime minister in as many years, Kan has set three conditions for keeping his pledge to resign — and some wonder whether he will quit even once those are met.
One of those conditions, the enactment of an extra budget to help fund recovery from the massive March earthquake and tsunami, has already been met. But the outlook is cloudy for the other two — passage of a bill to allow the government to borrow more to fund this year’s US$1 trillion budget and approval of a law to promote renewable sources of energy such as solar power.
If Noda or other key Cabinet ministers were to resign, it would boost pressure on Kan to keep his promise even if the two bills are not enacted before parliament’s session ends on Aug. 31.
“The scenario is that Noda, [Minister of Trade, Economy and Industry Banri] Kaieda, and [Minister of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Akihiro] Ohata all resign together,” Futatsuki said. “Then they bring forward the party leadership vote.”
Not everyone was convinced the script would play out, especially in light of the global financial turmoil.
“It is August and the silly season in Japanese politics, but it probably won’t happen,” said Jeffrey Kingston, director of Asian studies at Temple University’s Japan campus.
Noda, 54, has played a key role in mapping out Japan’s reconstruction after the devastating earthquake and tsunami in March, and in coordinating policy with its G7 partners to tackle the latest global financial crunch.
Some analysts have expressed hope that replacing Kan, whose policy flipflops and abrasive personality have irked both ruling and opposition lawmakers, would allow smoother cooperation with opposition parties in parliament, where the opposition controls the upper house and can block legislation.
Others were pessimistic about any breakthroughs as Japan struggles with debt, a fast-aging population, rebuilding from the disasters and crafting a new energy policy in the wake of the nuclear crisis.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not