Japan’s new political crisis

[Hannah Bell]

The current contest for the post of Japanese prime minister is another sign of deep-seated political instability fuelled by the country’s economic stagnation and worsening social crisis as well as growing global rivalries and antagonisms, particularly between China and the United States.


If Ichiro Ozawa wins the top job in the ruling Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) on September 14, he will become the country’s third prime minister in just over a year. The Democrats ousted the conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in national elections in August 2009, ending its virtually unbroken half-century grip on power.


Ozawa is challenging Prime Minister Naoto Kan, who took over after Yukio Hatoyama stepped down in June. The immediate issue that sparked Hatoyama’s resignation—his unpopular decision to cave in to US demands to maintain a controversial US Marine Corps Airbase on the island of Okinawa—has again opened up. Kan stands by the agreement with the US, while Ozawa this week has called for new negotiations with Washington.


Behind the protracted dispute over the US base lies a more fundamental dilemma for Japan’s ruling elite: how to balance its growing economic dependence on China, its top export market, against its longstanding strategic reliance on the US as military ally and protector.


http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/sep2010/pers-s04.shtml

[David__77]

1. Another "center left" party that will pay the price for its betrayals.

The people of Japan demand that the US not remain its overlord. DPJ has pissed on them and will pay. JCP offers the only progressive alternative.