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Excerpt - Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi announced a plan on Tuesday to withdraw Japanese ground troops from the southern Iraq city of Samawah, ending their aid and reconstruction mission that started with the dispatch order issued in January 2004. At a meeting of executives of his ruling Liberal Democratic Party before making the announcement, Koizumi said of the Iraq mission, ''A chapter has been finished. I will announce the withdrawal today.'' Koizumi held a news conference on the withdrawal of the Ground Self-Defense Force troops after meeting with leader of the LDP's ruling coalition partner, New Komeito, as well as...

U.S. Lawmaker Blasts Yasukuni Visits MAY 15, 2006 03:10 by Young-A Soh (sya@donga.com) U.S. political leaders voiced strong concerns over the Japanese prime ministerfs paying respects at the Yasukuni Shrine. Thus, it is expected that the controversies over the Yasukuni Shrine will heat up in Japan with its election of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) president slated for this September. Stop Paying Visits to the Shrine If to Give an Address at the U.S. Congress – The Asahi Shimbun reported on May 13 that the U.S. House International Relations Committee Chairman Henry Hyde (Republican, picture) demanded that Japanese Prime...

Almost four-fifths of respondents to a government survey said Japan must improve its relations with neighboring China, which have been strained over a spate of disputes, the Foreign Ministry announced Wednesday. The study, which polled 1,314 Japanese voters last month, found that 67 percent of respondents said relations with China weren't good and 77.9 percent said ties needed to be improved. Asked what specific problems were contributing to deteriorating relations with Beijing, nearly 59 percent of respondents raised differences over interpretations of wartime history, including Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visits to a war shrine critics say glorifies Japan's militaristic past....

Japan and China need to establish a “strategic partnership based on equality”, according to the policy chief of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic party, acknowledging that Tokyo could no longer afford to treat China as an upstart power. Hidenao Nakagawa, who is expected to be an important figure in any future cabinet led by Shinzo Abe, the frontrunner to replace Junichiro Koizumi as prime minister in September, told the Financial Times: “There is no precedent in Asia for two big countries to have a strategic partnership based on equality. We want to establish such a strategic partnership with China. That’s what...

Japanese hope the good times are back to stay By Colin Joyce in Tokyo (Filed: 06/01/2006) When millions watched the final episode of the phenomenally popular Project X series last week, this piece of television history was widely hailed as a sign that Japan was emerging from a 15-year recession. On its launch in 2000, 187 episodes ago, the documentary was cited as evidence that the country's gloom would last for years. Dwelling on the glorious era of post-war growth, it looked like a show made for a nation with a brighter past than future. Japanese executives pray for success...

KYOTO: In the latest sign of their chummy ties, US President George W Bush gave Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi a surprise gift of a Segway electric scooter and urged him to take a spin. Bush, who often refers to his warm friendship with Koizumi, gave the Japanese leader the upright two-wheeler ahead of a summit at which they reaffirmed their close diplomatic ties. Bush was riding the vehicle when he met Koizumi outside the Kyoto State Guest House in the ancient Japanese capital, a Japanese pool report said. Urged by Bush to give it a whirl, Koizumi took a...

Tokyo's governor, Shintaro Ishihara, has tempered his political ambitions. (By Tsugufumi Matsumoto -- Associated Press) Tokyo Maverick Just One of the Crowd NowFiery Nationalist Governor Sees His Once-Provocative Views Go Mainstream By Anthony Faiola Washington Post Foreign Service Sunday, November 13, 2005; Page A20 TOKYO -- Shintaro Ishihara, governor of one of the world's most populous cities, sat comfortably in a white leather armchair in his private meeting room, the endless steel and neon of Greater Tokyo visible behind him through wall-length windows. Despite the grandeur of his surroundings, Ishihara, 73, no longer seems the threat he once was,...

Over the past five years, much has been made of the personal rapport between Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and U.S. President George W. Bush. Their friendship is said to have set the tone for smooth diplomatic relations between Japan and the United States--further reinforced by the relatively high popularity both leaders have enjoyed throughout much of their tenure in office. Now, though, the Bush presidency is in a dramatic tailspin, with its credibility in question over policies from homeland security to the war in Iraq. The political damage to the Bush administration is obvious, but given the "special" relationship that...

Now that Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has a clear mandate for economic reform, he has wasted no time in transforming his electoral capital into practical results. Japan’s stock market – indeed, its entire economy – is poised for years of sustained growth. This growth will help to bouy the world economy, too. Last Friday, Japan’s Diet (Parliament) approved legislation that will privatize the $3 trillion held by Japan’s postal service. The postal service? In Japan, the “Yubin” is more than just mailing letters. For the last 130 years, post offices have also served as local savings banks for conservative...

Political and business attention in the U.S. is focused on China's rapid and spectacular emergence as a global economic player. But the unfolding political drama surrounding Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's attempt to reform his country's antiquated financial system also contains some important lessons for the global economy.It's easy to see why interest in Japan has been eclipsed by that in China. With its economy growing by about 9% over the past year, China is galloping relative to Japan's slower growth of less than 2.5%. And many economists believe China's annual growth in gross domestic product could be 8% for...

The Japanese prime minister's recent election victory will permit him to wield considerable influence abroad, with the backing of the nation's voters The stunning electoral victory engineered by Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi last week ought to make leaders in Washington, Beijing, Taipei, Pyongyang, Seoul and at the UN sit up and take note because it marks a great leap forward in Japan's emergence from the passive and pacifist cocoon in which it had wrapped itself since the end of World War II 60 years ago. Foreign policy didn't figure much in the election campaign, but the consequences of the...

SEPT. 12: Japan’s economy grew at a 3.3% pace in the second quarter, triple the initial estimate, adding to investor confidence in the recovery after Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi won a landslide election victory. The estimate, released by the Cabinet Office on Monday in Tokyo, compares with an August 12 estimate for a 1.1% annualised pace of expansion. Spending by businesses increased 3.6% from the 2.2% initially estimated. Growth in the world’s second-largest economy averaged 4.6% in the first half, the fastest in 15 years. Japanese stocks gained as an accelerating economy and the election victory increased optimism that Koizumi...

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi scored a political triumph Sunday...headed for a landslide win in an election touted as a referendum on his push to privatize Japan's cash-swollen postal system. ...LDP won 296 seats in parliament's 480-seat lawmaking lower house, far more than the 241 needed for a majority... Optimism about the results sent Tokyo's benchmark Nikkei stock index surging 1.8 percent to 12,915.53 points. The win would keep a staunch ally of President Bush in power...in the effort to disarm North Korea...Iraq... ...Championed for breaking up and privatizing Japan Post. He kept the campaign focused on his plan, overshadowing the...

WASHINGTON - The State Department on Sunday congratulated Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party on its apparent landslide victory in elections for the lower house of Parliament. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's party, which was seeking a mandate for sweeping government reforms, strengthened its majority in the powerful lower house, Japanese media exit polls showed. The State Department looks forward to continuing to work closely with the Japanese government, said spokeswoman Darla Jordan, and "to move ahead in our close cooperation on a broad range of global, regional and bilateral issues."

On the surface, most elections are about personalities, false promises and special interests. But Japan's general election Sept. 11 is about a deeper historical reconciliation -- the effort to resolve differences between the country's cultural and behavioral preferences, and the organizational practices put in place by the Occupation forces after 1945. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has dispatched his loyal followers into the provinces of Japan to crush once and for all the postwar dominance of the Japanese bureaucracy. As everything indicates, this is a highly personalized effort by the Koizumi family of politicians to resolve the leadership struggle between politicians...

Early TV exit polls suggest Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi is headed for an overwhelming victory in Japan's general election. Mr Koizumi called the snap ballot after parliament blocked plans to privatise Japan's post office - the centrepiece of his economic reform proposals. Exit polls suggest his party may be set to rule without a coalition partner for the first time in 15 years. Turnout is expected to surpass the 60% of the last general elections in 2003. 'Assassins' deployed An exit poll for public broadcaster NHK predicted Mr Koizumi's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) could win somewhere between 285 and 325...

TOKYO - It sounds like mission impossible: Take the developed world's longest-ruling political party, one weighed down by a history of corruption, waste and patronage, and turn it into a symbol of dynamic change. Japanese voters were deciding Sunday whether Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has accomplished that task for his Liberal Democratic Party during elections for the 480 seats in the powerful lower house of Parliament. "I think we need reform to adjust to changing times," said Michitoshi Koroki, a 68-year-old voter outside a polling station in Tokyo. "But it's a matter of how to change, so it's not easy...

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's party is likely to be returned to power with an increased majority in next weekend's election. His Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) is likely to win over 250 seats in the 480-member House of Representatives in the September 11 vote, according to the poll of 118,616 voters carried out by the Asahi Shimbun for four days to Saturday. The Asahi telephone poll forecast the LDP would garner between 234 and 276 seats -- with the median figure standing at 255. The figure would mark a significant increase on the party's 212 seats going into the election and...

03/09/2005 The Japanese are going wild for a certain type of French cheese after a leading politician complained the food was “hard and dry” when it was served up to him during a high level meeting The former Japanese prime minister complained to the media that the country’s current premier Junichiro Koizumi had served up only beer and “dried out cheese” when the pair met to discuss Koizumi ‘s reported desire to dissolve parliament and call snap elections. "He gave me foreign beer and some dried out cheese, so hard you couldn't bite into it," complained Mori. The politician was...

By strange coincidence, the leaders of both Japan and Germany have been moved by separate crises to face the judgment of voters next month. If opinion polls are a reliable indicator, Junichiro Koizumi will win his Sept. 11 gamble and Gerhard Schröder will lose a week later. Both events would be cause for celebration. Japan and Germany have the second- and third-largest economies in the world so there's a great deal riding on whether the elections bear out the opinion polls. Both countries badly need economic reform. Sixty years after their utter defeat in World War II, they should be...