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Michael Macarthur BosackThe Japan Times |
This week, the Liberal Democratic Party formally punished 39 of its members. Those lawmakers were all implicated in a money scandal that has plagued...
This week, embattled Liberal Democratic Party faction head Toshihiro Nikai announced that he will not be running in the next Lower House election. His...
In Japan, there is a phrase tied to financial scandals that disrupt the political landscape: seiji to kane, or “politics and money.” Whenever a...
Earlier this month, Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa traveled to Samoa and Fiji to engage with Pacific island partners. There, she had bilateral...
Last week, the Japanese government participated in a ceremony commemorating Northern Territories Day. At this annual event, hundreds gather to call...
The Japanese government began 2024 by concluding a flurry of security deals with international partners, garnering much attention both because of the...
On Jan. 29, Foreign Minister Yōko Kamikawa presided over the launching of a new task force focused on women’s issues, including on matters of peace...
This month, Japan’s oldest opposition party underwent its first leadership change in 23 years. After a decade of steadily declining seat counts in...
Japan’s Ministry of Defense recently revealed some of the changes to rectify their increasingly dire recruitment problem for the Self-Defense...
A string of surprise announcements came on Friday. First, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said he was dissolving his faction within the Liberal...
It was a trip that caught most people off guard: Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa suddenly appeared in Kyiv on Jan. 7, her first visit to Ukraine since...
On Friday, U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel announced that the United States is preparing to provide military logistical support, food and other...
With polling numbers at historical lows and a Liberal Democratic Party presidential election scheduled for September 2024, there is little chance that...
A year ago this month, the Japanese government published three core documents for the country’s security designs: the National Security Strategy,...
This month, the Fumio Kishida administration purged senior members of the faction run by former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe from positions of influence...
The purge of over a dozen Cabinet ministers, vice ministers and party executives has begun. That Prime Minister Fumio Kishida decided to clean house...
Things have gone from bad to worse for Fumio Kishida. Already facing the lowest polling numbers of his tenure atop the government, the last thing the...
Economic Security Minister Sanae Takaichi has not been bashful about her ambitions to succeed Fumio Kishida as Japan’s prime minister. Following a...
When Hamas executed Operation Al-Aqsa Flood against Israeli population centers on Oct. 7, it triggered a major test for Japan’s policies toward...
It has been a miserable month for Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. Going into October, he was already facing downward trending public approval and a...
When Prime Minister Fumio Kishida pledged to double Japan’s defense spending within five years last December, most long-time observers of Japanese...
Japan's newly minted defense minister, Minoru Kihara, is already in hot water after just a month on the job. This past weekend, Kihara was in Sasebo,...
When Hamas forces executed rocket and ground attacks against Israeli population centers last week, all but one Group of Seven government immediately...
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has done his best to keep Japanese politics boring. He has avoided any seriously contentious legislation. He has stayed...
In his second Cabinet shake-up, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida brought in 11 first-time ministers, swapped out both the foreign and defense ministers...