This is the thirtieth weekly thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or IR history. I usually start off with coverage of some current events from a mix of countries I follow personally and countries I think the forum lives in or might be interested in. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.
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Notes -
Japan
Japan’s longtime dominant Liberal Democratic Party has been caught in a scandal where politicians were receiving kickbacks from fundraisers. Some of this was already known and the party responded by updating their previously unreported funds, but recently it was revealed that Shinzo Abe’s faction1 has been doing this for years. The size of this scandal is apparently enormous; the LDP’s popularity is at a staggering 17%, remarkable considering they have basically run the country with few interruptions since World War 2.
Prime Minister Kishida is apparently considering replacing “all” of the Abe faction who currently enjoy ministerial posts. This would include “Matsuno, the top government spokesman [Chief Cabinet Secretary], and Nishimura [he Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry,]...two other ministers, five senior vice ministers and six parliamentary vice ministers from Abe's faction…Tsuyoshi Takagi, who is currently the LDP's chief of Diet affairs…LDP policy chief Koichi Hagiuda and Hiroshige Seko, secretary general of the party in the House of Councillors”
It sounds like a lot, but it might not be enough - quite a few people have called for Kishida himself to step down (for his responsibility as the Executive; Kishida is not in the Abe faction). Formally he doesn’t have to call an election till 2025 but he could be voted out by his own party if the public mood is bad enough. Japan is notorious for sacking PMs at the drop of the hat (I think only Italy has them beat for most leaders since WW2) but Kishida has proven prickly and survived several scandals that would have ousted other PMs.
1The LDP is made up of five (arguably six) different “factions,” or cliques, that are somewhat tied together on policy and somewhat by the personality and influence of the leaders of those cliques. During the Abe era his own faction was a mix of nationalists and people who thought (often correctly) they could ride his coattails to influence. Kishida’s is the same for the more liberal/pacifist wing of the party.
This was all over the news last night. Japan seems to me to be quite different from the US in that although this is "big news," it's also shameful and embarrassing and I think you'd have to really press to get people to talk about it. My Twitter is mostly filled by Japanese and it reminds me of the old days of 2012ish Twitter where people would just tweet some joke about the humidity. The long, Kulak-like screeds of dubious reasoning calling for whatever revolution (or even political change) just don't seem very common at all in Japanese, even in matters such as this where the scandal is clear and no one is denying it (also unlike the US). Of course my Twitter feed may not be very representative.
You have any impression on the ground how things will shake out from all this?
Too early (for me) to tell, but after damage control does its thing, a few heads will undoubtedly roll (figuratively) if only for the sake of show. Admitting and taking responsibility even for fairly heinous crimes is seen as honorable. Most of this will occur in the elite political realm, and the general populace will probably carry on without taking too many notes. I'm a permanent resident (legal status) and pay taxes but cannot vote, so I'm largely a spectator. The biggest non-natural disaster scandal here was a bit over a year ago when the assassination occurred (and I was, as it happens, out of country for that). The National Police Agency chief resigned , then you heard some people whingeing about the cost of Abe's funeral, but then not much. The assassination itself is little remarked upon these days, and the pipe bomb tossed near PM Kishida in April still didn't stir much debate on homemade weapons. Oddly. At least not to the rabid degree such things would back home.
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