Due to a series of funding irregularities, Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) is mired in controversy. To save itself, the party is faced with two pivotal questions: whether to disband its internal factions and who should be the next president. The LDP president, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, apologized to the public and announced that he would disband his faction. On Friday and Saturday, Japanese media reported Kishida’s decision. Former LDP secretary-general Toshihiro Nikai announced that he would follow suit and disband his own. Another major faction, the Abe faction headed by Diet member Ryu Shionoya, will be disbanded as well.
The Kishida faction (known officially as Kochikai) was established in 1957 by former Japanese prime minister Hayato Ikeda, whose major goal was to foster Japan’s economic growth. Kochikai has produced five prime ministers. Today, active politicians affiliated with the faction include Kishida, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi and Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa.
Nikai, the head of the [former] Shisuikai faction, is known for his pro-China stance. The faction had 38 members, making it far from a major one.
The Abe faction (Seiwakai) is the largest, established in 1979 by former Japanese prime minister Takeo Fukuda. A pro-Taiwan politician, Fukuda founded Seiwakai to counteract Ikeda’s Kochikai. This faction has produced four prime ministers. After former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe died, the faction lacked a strong leader. Last year, due to fundraising scandals, five Seiwakai members known for their pro-Taiwan stance resigned. The situation has worsened, culminating in disbandment.
The Nikkei Shimbun reported that the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office started investigating those who failed to report having recieved more than ￥30 million (US$204,000) from fundraising parties. The amount that the Abe faction failed to list totaled about ￥600 million, the Nikai faction about ￥200 million and the Kishida faction about ￥30 million. The other two LDP factions, former Japanese prime minister Taro Aso’s faction (Shikokai) and the Motegi faction (Heisei Kenkyukai), are not indicted, as their unreported amounts have not reached ￥30 million.
For decades the LDP has functioned through factions. The people of Japan have long criticized this political system. Many have advocated disbanding the factions. However, before a new mechanism replaces it, the LDP would operate through factions.
Survey data released on Thursday by Jiji Press showed that support for the LDP dropped to a record 14.6 percent, and the approval rate for the Kishida Cabinet was only 18.6 percent. Kishida took the initiative and disbanded his own faction, hoping that other LDP faction leaders would do the same. However, Aso, whose faction is now the largest, did not comply.
Likewise, a potential candidate for the next LDP president, LDP Secretary General Toshimitsu Motegi, is likely to maintain his faction. A Japanese Diet member, Motegi has previously served as minister of foreign affairs, minister of economy, trade and industry and the LDP Policy Research Council’s chairman. Both Motegi and Aso are unaffected by the scandals, and given that Motegi is 15 years younger than Aso, he is likely to come out on top. A new organ aiming at political reform is to be established in the party, and we are likely to see how the internal competition plays out soon.
The approval rate for the Kishida Cabinet has fallen below 30 percent, the level at which a prime minister is considered to have entered the “danger zone.” Kishida is in danger. It is highly unlikely that he would be elected as the next LDP president.
Wang Hui-sheng is the chief director of the Kisei Ladies’ and Children’s Hospital in Japan.
Translated by Emma Liu
Jan. 1 marks a decade since China repealed its one-child policy. Just 10 days before, Peng Peiyun (彭珮雲), who long oversaw the often-brutal enforcement of China’s family-planning rules, died at the age of 96, having never been held accountable for her actions. Obituaries praised Peng for being “reform-minded,” even though, in practice, she only perpetuated an utterly inhumane policy, whose consequences have barely begun to materialize. It was Vice Premier Chen Muhua (陳慕華) who first proposed the one-child policy in 1979, with the endorsement of China’s then-top leaders, Chen Yun (陳雲) and Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平), as a means of avoiding the
In the US’ National Security Strategy (NSS) report released last month, US President Donald Trump offered his interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine. The “Trump Corollary,” presented on page 15, is a distinctly aggressive rebranding of the more than 200-year-old foreign policy position. Beyond reasserting the sovereignty of the western hemisphere against foreign intervention, the document centers on energy and strategic assets, and attempts to redraw the map of the geopolitical landscape more broadly. It is clear that Trump no longer sees the western hemisphere as a peaceful backyard, but rather as the frontier of a new Cold War. In particular,
As the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) races toward its 2027 modernization goals, most analysts fixate on ship counts, missile ranges and artificial intelligence. Those metrics matter — but they obscure a deeper vulnerability. The true future of the PLA, and by extension Taiwan’s security, might hinge less on hardware than on whether the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) can preserve ideological loyalty inside its own armed forces. Iran’s 1979 revolution demonstrated how even a technologically advanced military can collapse when the social environment surrounding it shifts. That lesson has renewed relevance as fresh unrest shakes Iran today — and it should
The last foreign delegation Nicolas Maduro met before he went to bed Friday night (January 2) was led by China’s top Latin America diplomat. “I had a pleasant meeting with Qiu Xiaoqi (邱小琪), Special Envoy of President Xi Jinping (習近平),” Venezuela’s soon-to-be ex-president tweeted on Telegram, “and we reaffirmed our commitment to the strategic relationship that is progressing and strengthening in various areas for building a multipolar world of development and peace.” Judging by how minutely the Central Intelligence Agency was monitoring Maduro’s every move on Friday, President Trump himself was certainly aware of Maduro’s felicitations to his Chinese guest. Just
RSS