List of Talking Points

With excessive expectation to revitalization of economy, there is a few criticisms against Abe administration in Japan. The discussion over Prime Minister’s policy speech in the Diet would be a litmus test for healthiness of democracy. In that perspective, questions by the president of Democratic Party of Japan, Banri Kaieda, in the plenary session of the House of Representative on Tuesday were useful as a list of talking points against political handling of Shinzo Abe.

In his questions, Kaieda raised three risks in the future of politics in Japan led by Abe: economy heavily leaned on investing to building infrastructure, diplomacy ignoring jeopardy of further deterioration in Japan-China relationship, and domestic politics based on revisionism.

Citing enthusiasm on construction demand for Tokyo Olympic games in 2020 and price hike of building materials for reconstruction from the Great East Japan Earthquake, Kaieda criticized Abe’s economic policies as insufficient. He stressed that Abe’s expectation on higher wages in this sprig was baseless, because the policies had brought higher price of imported raw materials, pushing cost on manufacturers and families. Support for low-income families would be falling short of, Kaieda indicated, by inappropriate distribution of the income from higher consumption tax this spring.

On Abe’s resemblance of Japan-China relationship with Anglo-German rivalry in post-Great War period, DPJ president asked, “Why didn’t you say that there would never be military collision with China again?” He elaborated that Abe actually locked the door, making contradiction by saying that all doors were open for China and South Korea. “There are black area around Japan on your globe, when you say you promote ‘look down globe’ diplomacy,” Kaieda also told.

On Abe’s visit to Yasukuni Shrine, Kaieda recommended to build new memorial where everyone in and outside of Japan could go, bringing up the visit of U.S. Secretaries of State and Defense to Chidorigafuchi War Victim Memorial last October. On Abe’s “positive pacifism,” he downgraded it as nothing new, as seen in examples: emergency assistance to Philippine natural disaster, countermeasures against piracy in Aden Bay, or overseas development assistance to developing countries.

On revisionism, Kaieda challenged Abe’s determination to amend the constitution. He criticized reinterpretation of the constitution for exercising collective self-defense right, rather than changing provisions of the Constitution of Japan.

Although most of those points made sense, Japanese media was cool to his questions, mainly because DPJ has not recovered from the defeats in the election of both houses. So, what are you guys doing, if you are against unilateral leadership of Liberal Democrats?