Revisionist Japan returns to Asia

Gathering right-wing storm in Tokyo shadows Seoul’s APEC moment

Takaichi April 2015

Takaichi-led Japan will be less inclined to confront historical issues, putting a potential brake on improving relations with S Korea

by Daniel Sneider, lecturer in East Asian studies at Stanford University, non-resident distinguished fellow at the Korea Economic Institute of America, and APP Member
First Published October 17, 2025 on the Peninsula Blog of the Korea Economic Institute.

The upcoming Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit was intended to showcase South Korea’s claim to leadership on a range of issues from free trade, digital and artificial intelligence, and democracy. Instead, the Lee Jae Myung administration finds itself beset by shifting geopolitical winds.

A potential meeting between US President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping, or perhaps a three-way session including North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, will likely overshadow anything else that occurs at APEC. Elsewhere, the unsteady Gaza armistice and a renewed attempt by Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin to forge a Ukraine deal continue to dominate headlines.

There is also the imminent shift in leadership in neighboring Japan. Despite efforts to maintain the momentum of improvement in South Korea-Japan relations, embraced by Lee and Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, South Korea faces the prospect of a new Japanese government less inclined to confront historical issues.

Japan’s unstable politics
Japan is experiencing a level of political instability and uncertainty not seen since the early 1990s, when the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) suffered electoral setbacks, splintering defections, and a loss of power.

Following the resignation of Prime Minister Ishiba, the LDP somewhat surprisingly elected hardline conservative Sanae Takaichi to lead the party and form a new government as prime minister.

But Takaichi’s path to power has been anything but smooth. A deep loyalist to the late Shinzo Abe, she is mistrusted within her own party and by most of the opposition. Her victory inspired the Buddhist party Komeito to end its quarter-century coalition with the LDP, citing Takaichi’s apparent alignment with anti-reformers and unrepentant views on Japan’s wartime and colonial history, symbolized by regular visits to the Yasukuni Shrine.

The LDP lacks a majority in either house of the legislature, so it had to form an alliance to garner enough seats to form a minority government. Ishiba governed this way for the last several months.

The backlash against Takaichi prompted the main opposition parties – the Constitutional Democratic Party, the Democratic Party For the People and Ishin no Kai, also known as the Japan Innovation Party – to consider forming a government. The three parties combined would have been able to name a prime minister. The Komeito might also have back such a coalition.

That was not to be. Instead, Takaichi and the LDP have lured one of those three, Nippon Ishin no Kai, the most conservative of the opposition parties, into a new coalition. Together, they are just two seats short of a majority in the lower house and five seats short in the upper house.

Takaichi also met separately with Sohei Kamiya, leader of the ultra-right-wing nationalist Sanseito party – which holds a small but significant number of seats – to discuss cooperation. A parliamentary vote is expected to occur on October 21.

A right-wing Japanese government
The prospect of Takaichi as Japan’s next prime minister alarmed observers in South Korea even ahead of the LDP intra-party vote.

“Takaichi is a disaster for Korea,” a former South Korean ambassador to Japan told this writer at that time. Former Ambassador to Japan Shin Kak-soo similarly warned against the “election of a hawkish PM who might derail the restoration process of Korea-Japan relations.”

Some have held out the hope that Takaichi would moderate her views for the sake of pragmatism, emulating the way Abe governed. There have been reports she will name Abe’s foreign minister, Toshimitsu Motegi, to the same post.

She has also been advised to stay away from Yasukuni. Abe was the last sitting prime minister to visit the shrine, twelve years ago.

“I will make a decision on how to pay my respects and pray for peace at an appropriate time and in an appropriate manner,” Takaichi told reporters after winning the LDP vote earlier this month.

But in the LDP race last year, Takaichi made it clear she would visit Yasukuni, which she has done regularly as a cabinet minister. “At an appropriate time, I want to visit properly, calmly and as I usually do,” she said.

In a defiant statement at a symposium in 2022 hosted by the shrine authorities, she declared: “Stopping visits midway or acting half-heartedly only emboldens the other side. No matter how much criticism I face, I will continue calmly and matter-of-factly.”

This is only a small window into Takaichi’s view of Japan’s wartime past and cynicism toward pacifism. In a recent book based on a series of dialogues with right-wing commentator Yoshiko Sakurai, she argued that, “If a nation succumbs to aggression and loses sovereignty, it loses its existence as a nation – language, culture, and territory will be all be taken away.” She also warned that, “Other nations will not come to the aid of a country that lacks the will and courage to defend itself.”

In this spirit, Takaichi is a vocal advocate of assertive patriotism, both in defense policy and historical memory. Japan’s problem, she argues, is not what it did in World War II but that it lost.

“If Japan had won the war, Japan probably wouldn’t be blamed by anyone now, and those who started the war would be heroes,” she said. “When victors judge the vanquished, it creates an enduring misery of defeat and hardship for future generations. Yet I believe it is wrong for Japanese people to apologize endlessly simply for being born Japanese.”

The alliance with Ishin no Kai is likely to be amenable to these views. The party is primarily focused on domestic issues – specifically, the interests of the Kansai region, centered on Osaka, where it is based. But to the extent it has dealt with these questions, the party leans revisionist.

More radical is Sanseito, which takes an extreme nationalist stance and frequently discusses Japan’s war period.

Ishiba’s farewell address
Prime Minister Ishiba has long opposed this wing of the LDP.  The triumph of Takaichi and the prospects of a conservative nationalist government clearly concern him. On October 10, Ishiba delivered a lengthy statement on the eightieth anniversary of the end of the war, which contained unmistakable warnings against the shift to the right seen not only in Japan but beyond.

Ishiba wrote that Japan’s defeat had been inevitable. He asked rhetorically, “Why did the leadership of the government and the military plunge headlong into a reckless war that resulted in the loss of so many innocent lives, both at home and abroad, and why were they not able to make decisions to avoid the war?”

The answer, he continued, was a failure of civilians to control the military, erosion of democracy, violent extremism, nationalism and a failure to understand the world outside Japan’s borders.

Ishiba drew lessons from this past for the present, lessons that are clearly aimed at the current shift to the right. “Healthy discourse, including mission-driven journalism is necessary. During the war, the media stirred up public opinion, ultimately leading the nation into a reckless war. We must not fall into excessive commercialism, or tolerate narrow-minded nationalism, discrimination or xenophobia.”

Japan, he cautioned, must learn from history. “What matters most are the courage and integrity to squarely face the past, classical liberalism that values the tolerance of listening humbly to the arguments of others, and a healthy and robust democracy.”

Ishiba’s successor will face a significant challenge in not undermining the progress made in South Korea-Japan relations and in addressing the geopolitical shifts that are unfolding. That same challenge faces President Lee, during and after the APEC gathering.

In the best of circumstances, the South Korean and Japanese leaders will join hands and lean on each other, as their predecessors have done over the last few years, and confront ongoing geopolitical challenges together.

The LDP Presidential Campaign Begins

The LDP Enters the Policy Discussion Phase of its Presidential Election

By Takuya Nishimura, APP Senior Fellow, Former Editorial Writer for The Hokkaido Shimbun.

The views expressed by the author are his own and are not associated with The Hokkaido Shimbun.
You can find his blog, J Update here.
Sept 22, 2025. Special to Asia Policy Point
 
Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) kicked off its presidential election campaign on September 22. Five lawmakers officially submitted their candidacies to the party on the 22nd with only a 15 minute window to file. The deadline for entries has now passed. All five were losers in the last election a year ago.
 
Having lost the majority in both Houses of the Diet under the leadership of Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, the presidential election should be about how to regain power through reforming the party. Yet the candidates are not talking much about reform.  They are instead focusing on their economic policies for households or maneuvers to attract support from the opposition parties.
 
One of the biggest reasons for the defeats in the 2024 Lower House election and the 2025 Upper House election was the LDP’s kickback fund scandal. It revealed LDP’s mismanagement of political funds without transparency. The opposition parties called for stricter regulation of donations from companies and organizations, which have been the financial lifeline for the LDP.  After receiving protests from LDP lawmakers, Ishiba did not reach a consensus with the opposition on the issue. Ishiba announced his resignation as the LDP president on September 7.
 
The LDP set the presidential election for October 4 and opened the starting gate for campaigns on September 22. Five people have entered the race. They are: former Minister on Economic Security Takayuki Kobayashi, former LDP Secretary General Toshimitsu Motegi, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi, former Minister on Economic Security Sanae Takaichi, and Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Shinjiro Koizumi. Each has his or her own platform.
 
Kobayashi is running on three key issues. First, he supports a temporary income tax cut with a fixed rate. The tax cut would provide greater benefits to high-income taxpayers than to low-income ones. Kobayashi would offset the cut with surplus tax revenue in the current year. Second, reflecting his hawkish perspective, Kobayashi supports an increase in the defense budget to more than 2 percent of GDP. Finally, he advocates greater regulation of foreign intervention in communications in Japan.
 
Announcing his candidacy immediately after Ishiba’s announcement, Motegi promises that he will pursue economic growth policies that will increase the annual income of each worker by 10 percent within three years. While other candidates prioritize policy talks with the opposition parties, Motegi aims to assemble a coalition to secure a majority in the Diet.
 
Hayashi would continue the policies of the Ishiba administration in the hope of attracting the votes of Ishiba and his allies. Setting a target of one percent growth in real wages each year, Hayashi would establish a Japanese version of “universal credit,” a social security payment which the United Kingdom has introduced. In addition, to reform the party, he would create a digital platform for real-time communications with the public. He would also amend the party constitution.
 
In her campaign speech at the LDP headquarters, Takaichi emphasized her conservative agenda. This includes greater regulation of foreigners in Japan, limiting the line of succession to the imperial throne to male offspring in the male line, and amendments to Japan’s Constitution. Unusually, however, she would pursue economic policies that include positions held by the opposition parties. These include a refundable tax credit system, a gasoline tax cut, and an increase in the income threshold for tax liability.
 
Finally, Koizumi has actually distanced himself from his platform a year ago. Party “reform” is no longer at the center of his campaign. He has also withdrawn his support for a different surname system and the deregulation of worker dismissals. Instead, Koizumi promises a one-million-yen increase in the annual average wage by FY2030 and domestic investment up to 135 trillion yen. These economic policies were already part of the Ishiba administration’s agenda.
 
Remarkably, none of the five candidates has offered a plan that would settle the dispute over regulation of (or prohibitions on) donations from companies and organizations. The opposition parties have proposed new regulations on and even the abolition of this kind of fundraising. If the LDP insists on this traditional form of fundraising, the party will retain its negative image as an old-line party.
 
In the polls by news organizations, Takaichi has the greatest popularity among general voters. However, among LDP supporters, Koizumi has the greatest support, and only LDP members will vote in the election. There is no certainty that the party election results will be consistent with the popularity of the candidates among the public voters.
 
Five is the largest number of candidates in the history of LDP presidential elections except for the 2024 election, which had nine. Since a candidate can win only with a majority vote, it is almost certain that the election will go to a run-off. Negotiations over policies among the candidates may determine the winner; there is no way to predict which of the five will emerge victoriously.

Inevitable transition

Ishiba Announces He Is Stepping Down

By Takuya Nishimura, APP Senior Fellow, Former Editorial Writer for The Hokkaido Shimbun. The views expressed by the author are his own and are not associated with The Hokkaido Shimbun.
You can find his blog, J Update here.
Sept 8, 2025. Special to Asia Policy Point

Acknowledging his responsibility for the serious defeat in the Upper House elections in July, Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba announced his resignation on September 7. Although he sought a way to stay in office after the election, backed by public opinion that he did not have to leave, the anti-Ishiba movement in the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) overwhelmed Ishiba’s continuity plan. The LDP presidential election, which is likely to name the next prime minister, will be held on October 4.

Ishiba announced his resignation at an abrupt press conference on Sunday evening. “I’ve been saying that I would not insist on my position, I would make a decision at a proper time, and I am responsible for the result of the election. Now is the proper time to open my position to a successor, because we could conclude tariff negotiations with the United States,” Ishiba said.

With the defeat in the Upper House elections on July 20, the leading coalition of the LDP and Komeito fell into minority positions in both Chambers of the Diet. Ishiba sought advice on how to continue the government from three former prime ministers, Taro Aso, Yoshihide Suga and Fumio Kishida, three days after the election. Although Ishiba denied that the meetings covered his possible resignation, it was reported that the three former premiers did not unequivocally support Ishiba staying in office.

Achievements in tariff negotiations with the U.S. and the expansion of rice production gave the Ishiba Cabinet a bump in its approval rating in August. In the polls, people considered the LDP’s defeat to be more a function of the LDP slush fund scandal than of Ishiba’s mishandling of the election campaign. Nevertheless, anti-Ishiba groups in the LDP called for Ishiba’s resignation and an early presidential election to replace him.

The LDP decided to conduct a count on September 8 of how many lawmakers and local branches would demand an early election. Ishiba made up his mind to step down a day before this showdown. “If we proceed to the process for an early presidential election, it will cause a division of our party. That was not what I want,” Ishiba explained about his decision. The LDP cancelled the count.

A day before the announcement, Ishiba had met with Suga and the Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Shinjiro Koizumi. After 30 minutes, Suga left, and Koizumi had a one-on-one meeting with Ishiba for 90 minutes. It was reported that Suga and Koizumi urged Ishiba to resign to avoid a division of the party. Now isolated, Ishiba decided to resign.

The argument of Suga and Koizumi that Ishiba would avoid disruption of the LDP by resigning did not in fact make good sense because the LDP has already been divided. Anti-Ishiba groups, notably the former Abe faction, have been frustrated with Ishiba’s leadership from the beginning. There has been a rivalry between Ishiba and former prime minister Shinzo Abe ever since Ishiba had rejected Abe’s offer to be his minister in charge of security legislation in 2014. This position oversaw the radical reinterpretation of Article 9 of the Constitution of Japan.

Ishiba’s and Abe’s antagonism stemmed from a political war in the 1970s between Kakuei Tanaka, Ishiba’s political mentor, and Takeo Fukuda, a founder of the Seiwa Policy Group which was the official name of the former Abe faction. Looking back further, the LDP originally was the result of a merger in 1955 of the conservative Democratic Party of Japan and the relatively dovish Liberal Party. From the beginning, no leader has been found in the LDP who could reconcile the fundamental difference between those two parties: the historical revisionists pushing for an immediate constitutional amendment and the moderates advocating domestic decentralization.

As prime minister, Ishiba was unusually adept at handling competing policies. Although he could not deliver an official statement on August 15 to recognize the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, Ishiba included, in his address at the memorial ceremony, the word “remorse” in reference to Japan’s invasion of neighboring countries. Abe, in contrast, refrained from expressing “remorse” in his annual addresses.

On another issue, however, campaign contributions from companies and organizations, Ishiba was unable to abolish them after protests from anti-Ishiba powers in the LDP. Ishiba regretted that he could not deliver the kind of political reform sought by the public.

After Ishiba’s resignation, the LDP decided to hold a presidential election on October 4 to elect a successor. The election will be held in “full spec version,” in which lawmakers and general party members have equivalent votes. In the full-spec version, each of 295 Diet members of LDP has one vote, and hundreds of thousands of votes by general LDP members are proportionally divided into 295 votes.

There is a speculation that the two leading contenders are Koizumi and former Minister for Economic Security Sanae Takaichi. Both have yet to announce their candidacies. Former LDP Secretary General Toshimitsu Motegi, who has allied himself with Aso’s faction. A young conservative, Takayuki Kobayashi, is another possible entrant in the race. Electioneering begins on September 22.

One significant difference between the October 4 election and previous LDP presidential elections is that the winner will not necessarily be elected prime minister in the Diet. The LDP and its junior coalition partner Komeito do not have a majority vote in either Chamber. That is, the opposition parties can elect their own prime minister if they can agree to back a single candidate.

But the opposition parties are too fragmented to do so. One possible consensus candidate is the leader of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan Yoshihiko Noda. Yet some opposition lawmakers may vote for an LDP candidate rather than for an opposition candidate from another party. For there to be smooth negotiations with the opposition parties to name a prime minister or to pass a budget bill, the next LDP president will be required to have an ability to talk convincingly and work closely with the opposition parties.

Ishiba Isolated

Going it alone, with the public

By Takuya Nishimura, APP Senior Fellow, Former Editorial Writer for The Hokkaido Shimbun. The views expressed by the author are his own and are not associated with The Hokkaido Shimbun.
You can find his blog, J Update here.
Sept 3, 2025. Special to Asia Policy Point

In a Joint Plenary Meeting (JPM) on September 2, Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) wrapped up its assessment of their disastrous July 20 Upper House elections. The party attributed the defeat to the slush fund scandal, and it did not explicitly refer to the responsibility of the party president and prime minister Shigeru Ishiba.

Ishiba announced his willingness to continue as the prime minister in the meeting and apologized for the loss of seats in the election. However, four LDP leaders, including Secretary General Hiroshi Moriyama, offered their resignations to Ishiba. Ishiba now appears to be isolated from the LDP leadership.

The political struggle in the LDP over replacing Ishiba has continued even after the mid-August commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the Asia-Pacific’s War’s end. Anti-Ishiba groups in the LDP have been trying to gather votes for an early presidential election, and LDP leaders have been trying to block that effort.

Following up on a decision of the JPM last month, on August 8, the LDP plans to hear from its lawmakers and local branches on whether the party should hold a presidential election before the end of Ishiba’s term, which expires in September 2027. The LDP constitution provides that an early election will take place when a majority of LDP lawmakers, which currently is 295, plus a majority of 47 local branches request one. Now, the majority consists of 172 votes or more.

The LDP Presidential Election Committee has decided that the requests for an early election will not be anonymous. The decision will make it difficult for party members to gather enough votes to request such an election -- that is, to demand Ishiba’s resignation – because they are afraid of retribution from Ishiba if the vote falls short.

In midst of this party struggle, another JPM was held on September 2. A special committee reviewing the Upper House election submitted a report to the JPM. It concluded that the LDP’s defeat was caused primarily by the secret fund scandal. The report also observed that voters had not accepted the LDP’s measures on price inflation and that a gaffe by an LDP member damaged the image of the party. The report did not place responsibility on Ishiba. The report concluded that the party needs to “restart from dissolution,” a phrase which has often been used in crises of the party in the past.

In the JPM on September 2, Ishiba announced that he would stay on as the LDP president and prime minister. “I could not meet the people’s demand for change,” said Ishiba, recognizing his role in the defeat in the Upper House election. He emphasized his willingness to advance his agenda, including tariff negotiations with the United States, agricultural policy, slowing price inflation, and disaster prevention. Recognizing his responsibility for the lost seats and not clinging to his position as prime minister, Ishiba said that he would make “a decision” on his presidency in a proper time.

His senior staff members took another way – four of them revealed their intention to resign. Secretary General Hiroshi Moriyama announced in the JPM that he would step down to take responsibility for the electoral defeat. Three other leaders, Itsunori Onodera, the chief of the policy council, Shunichi Suzuki, the chair of the general council, and Seiji Kihara, the chair of the election committee also submitted letters of resignation. “You too?” Ishiba reportedly murmured when he received them. He now must decide whether to accept them.

The LDP has entered the official process to consider whether to hold an early presidential election. LDP lawmakers and local branches who favor an early election must submit those requests by September 8. If the party receives 172 or more such requests, an early presidential election will be held. A heavyweight in the LDP, Taro Aso, announced that he would demand such an election.

According to Yomiuri Shimbun’s survey of the lawmakers and local branches, 128 will vote for an early election. Only 33 have formally taken the position that an election is unnecessary. The remaining 181 lawmakers or branches have not yet decided or are unwilling to communicate their decisions.

Polls show that Ishiba retains a material measure of popular support. In a poll taken by Yomiuri Shimbun in late August, 50 percent of respondents thought Ishiba did not have to resign, while 42 percent thought he should. When asked about the reason for the loss in the Upper House election, 81 percent placed responsibility on the LDP lawmakers who were involved in the political funds scandal. Fifty percent of all respondents thought Ishiba’s responsibility was great, but this percentage is much lower than the percentage that attributes the loss to the scandal.

Even more favorable to Ishiba is a gradual increase in his approval rating. In a poll taken by the Mainichi Shimbun, the approval rating for the Ishiba Cabinet was 33 percent, a four percentage point increase from July. According to the poll, Ishiba is the most suitable person as prime minister with the support of 21 percent of the respondents, followed by Sanae Takaichi with 14 percent and Shinjiro Koizumi with nine percent.

As anti-Ishiba movements spread in the LDP, the difference between anti-Ishiba powers in the party and public opinion widens. If the LDP replaces the president, there is no assurance that the party will be able to regain the power to lead an administration based on a minority government. The LDP lawmakers and local branches face a choice to oust Ishiba to attract public attention or rebuild the party under his leadership.

Japan's Continued War

Behind Japan's political battles, a war over history By Daniel Sneider, lecturer in East Asian Studies in Stanford University, the former co-director of the Divided Memories and Reconciliation project at the Asia-Pacific Research Center, and an APP member. First appeared on Observing Japan, August 5, 2025 Constitutional Democratic Party leader Noda Yoshihiko questions Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru in a 4 August meeting of the Budget Committee of the House of Representatives. During their exchange, Noda asked about Ishiba’s plans to mark the eightieth anniversary of the end of World War II; Ishiba said he intended to issue a personal statement, though not a formal cabinet statement. Source: CDP The political battles now raging in Japan in the aftermath of the July Upper House election are being waged across many fronts – tax policy, trade, corruption, and at base, a struggle for power. Largely hidden from sight is another, deeper and more long-standing conflict – the war over Japan’s wartime history and its national identity. This dimension of the political battles emerged into the open this past week when the embattled Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru seemed to back away from his plan to issue a potentially landmark statement to mark the eightieth anniversary of the end of the war on August 15. The Japanese media reported last week that Ishiba had changed his mind when faced with fierce resistance from the rightwing of the Liberal Democratic Party, mostly but not entirely followers of the late Prime Minister Abe Shinzō. For these conservatives, the last words on the meaning of the war were uttered by Abe in his seventieth anniversary statement. Fearing what Ishiba might say, they mounted a growing campaign to demand he back off from his plans. “I believe it is unnecessary and will cause unnecessary confusion,” argued Nishimura Yasutoshi, a former Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry and a former senior member of the Abe faction in the party. They are leading the charge to force Ishiba to step down after the election results led to the loss of the majority in the Upper House for the ruling LDP-Kōmeitō coalition. As the Asahi Shimbun put it: Having been dealt a devastating blow in the Upper House election July 20 and facing calls from within his Liberal Democratic Party to resign, Ishiba has chosen not to rankle conservative elements in the party that would take umbrage at a fresh interpretation of Japan’s role in the war. But in answer to a question from an opposition leader in the Budget Committee of the House of Representatives on Monday, August 4, Ishiba left open the possibility he may still issue some kind of eightieth anniversary statement as a personal message rather than a formal cabinet approved document which carries more weight. "We must not let history fade away,” Ishiba replied. “We need to make active and proactive efforts to prevent this from fading away. Regardless of the formality, it is necessary to issue a statement to ensure that war never happens again." The anniversary statement over time The wars over anniversary statements are not new – they are in fact one of the most significant battlegrounds in the fight over Japan’s past. The baseline for Japan’s official view of the war remains the statement issued in 1995 by Prime Minister Murayama Tomiichi, a Socialist who had joined an unusual coalition government with the LDP. For the first time, a Japanese leader not only marked the end of the war but apologized directly for Japan’s aggression and colonization in Asia. He expressed “deep remorse” and “heartfelt apology” for “tremendous damage and suffering to the peoples of many countries, particularly those of Asian nations” that Japan caused “through its colonial rule and aggression.” From the start this was a target of attack from those in the LDP who embraced revisionist views of the war, regarding it as a justified act of self-defense, of liberation of Asia from Western colonial rule, who focused on Japan’s victimization and condemned apologies as acts of “masochism.” Despite this opposition, which among other things blocked a Diet resolution echoing Murayama’s statement, his clear view remained as the official view. In 2005, when then Prime Minister Koizumi Junichirō issued his sixtieth anniversary statement, he very notably echoed Murayama’s language. When it was Abe’s turn in 2015, he issued a statement that carefully stepped around this challenge to rewrite the Murayama precedent. Under clear pressure from the Obama administration and from within Japan, Abe’s own statement does echo key words – “aggression” and “colonial rule” – while also trying to rewrite the narrative about the war. As I wrote at the time, based on my own expertise on the formation of historical memory about the war, in Nippon.com: Abe’s version of events can be read as a justification for Japan’s own imperialism (which he neglects to mention began in the late 1800s with the seizure of Taiwan) and a denial of historical responsibility. But he goes on to acknowledge Japan’s own decisions that led to war (my italics): ‘With the Manchurian Incident, followed by the withdrawal from the League of Nations, Japan gradually transformed itself into a challenger to the new international order that the international community sought to establish after tremendous sacrifices. Japan took the wrong course and advanced along the road to war.’ This version of history will not satisfy many people, including many historians, but it is a step away from the view held by Japanese revisionists, including Abe himself, that Japan waged a war of self-defense and not of aggression, or even more provocatively, that it was engaged in the noble cause of liberating Asia from colonial rule. Since that time, the backers of the revisionist right in Japanese politics have been eager to both protect the Abe legacy but also to correct even the concessions he made at the time. The most ardent advocates of this view of the past include the leader and members of the newly emergent darlings of the right in Japan – Sanseitō, a new party that made a significant showing in the recent election, now holding fifteen seats in the Upper House. Sanseitō* is now well known as a Japanese echo of Trumpian rhetoric – from its slogan of “Japanese People First” to its anti-immigrant rhetoric. But what is less well understood is its passionate advocacy for an ultra-nationalist view of Japanese history, articulated by its leader Kamiya Sōhei and distributed for many years now on his YouTube Channel, CGS or Channel Grand Strategy. The channel features so-called “history lessons” taught by prominent rightwing historians. “A fundamental reason for Sanseitō's rise, I believe, is rooted in the historical perspective shared by its candidates,” wrote historian Fujioka Nobukatsu in the rightwing daily Sankei Shimbun. “Building on the momentum of these study sessions, Sanseitō, established in 2020, has uniquely emphasized the importance of taking pride in Japanese history. It's an approach no other political party has adopted.” Fujioka is a historian and the vice president of the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform (Tsukurukai), the driving force for decades behind revision of Japanese middle and high school textbooks and opposition to what it views as a distorted view of Japan’s past. Sanseitō members have been active in promoting use of their alternative textbooks in Japanese schools. What would Ishiba say? If Ishiba were to deliver his own judgement on Japan’s wartime history in an anniversary statement, what would he say? There are some clear clues to this, clear enough to have fueled the fears of the revisionist rightwing in Japan. Ishiba has made numerous remarks that indicate he shares Murayama’s view of Japan’s aggressive and colonial past and saw the eightieth anniversary as a key moment to declare Japan’s intention not to repeat that past, despite his reputation as a defense hawk. Ishiba was among the most forthright of Japanese politicians in advocating close ties to South Korea based on a recognition of the illegality of Japan’s 1910 annexation of Korea. “There’s no need to flatter Korea or to lay out the logic of the past, but we should admit that what was a mistake was a mistake,” he said in a December 2023 interview touting his bid for leadership. “We must redouble our emphasis on the fact that it is vital for this region that Japan and South Korea understand one another and cooperate.” In unscripted remarks to the Global Dialogue organized by the Japan Institute for International Affairs, where this author was present, Ishiba spoke frankly about his desire to mark the eightieth anniversary as a moment for self-reflection about the disaster of the decision to go to war. “It is time for us to revisit and review the war experience,” he said. He called for Japan to understand “how to position itself in the world to create a world with more peace.” The idea that the mistakes that led to Japan’s war and its total defeat should not be repeated is a persistent obsession of Ishiba. As he told the Diet this week: What should we do to ensure that war never breaks out again? It is not simply a matter of expressing our thoughts, but rather of what went wrong. I have strong feelings about what our country will convey to the world this year. Tanzan Ishibashi Perhaps the most intriguing, and least known, clue as to what an unfettered Ishiba would say is his membership, since its beginning in 2023, in a study group dedicated to the life and work of former Prime Minister Ishibashi Tanzan. Ishibashi, also a former editor of the august Japanese weekly Tōyō Keizai, was a long time opponent going back to the prewar era of Japanese militarism and aggressive nationalism. In his brief tenure as PM in the 1950s, he sought to defy the United States and establish diplomatic relations with Communist China. According to Richard Dyck, a longtime resident of Japan and a businessman with a passion for Ishibashi and his work, Ishiba has been a regular attendent at these study sessions. Among the members are also two prominent members of his cabinet and close friends – Foreign Minister Iwaya Takeshi and Defense Minister Nakatani Gen. At the most recent meeting of the group, according to Dyck, Foreign Minister Iwaya gave introductory remarks along the lines of “the message we get from Ishibashi is that relations in Asia need to transcend nationalism, ideology and history.” From all this we can gain a glimpse into the largely hidden – at least to Western eyes – war over history that still is being fought in Japan and that lies behind, in part, the fate of Ishiba and his government. ### *According to Sanseito Senator Gen Yamanaka's [山中泉] X feed, he and Sanseito founder and leader Sohei Kamiya [神谷 宗幣] will be in Washington, DC in mid-August. Their visit will be arranged by their Washington lobbyist Matthew Martin Braynard who is an all-in MAGA loyalist and J6er. Love to hear from anyone who they visit or who knows how to get ahold of Mr. Braynard. [APC Editor]

But what is the alternative

Ishiba Fighting to Stay in Power

By Takuya Nishimura, APP Senior Fellow, Former Editorial Writer for The Hokkaido Shimbun.

The views expressed by the author are his own and are not associated with The Hokkaido Shimbun.
You can find his blog, J Update here.
August 4, 2025. Special to Asia Policy Point

Despite pressure from several lawmakers in the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba is resisting demands that he resign. He is trying to take the initiative in the LDP’s internal discussions on responsibility for the party’s defeat in Upper House election in July. He is also discussing legislation with opposition parties in the Diet. The struggle over LDP leadership is likely to continue into the fall.
 
The LDP convened an unofficial Joint Plenary Meeting (JPM) on July 28. A JPM is a forum for internal party discussions but has no authority to decide on behalf of the party. At the unofficial JPM, the LDP Secretary General Hiroshi Moriyama said that, after the party had reviewed its campaign strategy, he would make clear his responsibility for the setback. His statement was widely reported as an intent to step down as secretary general. His resignation would do almost fatal damage to the Ishiba administration.
 
Moriyama meanwhile out-maneuvered anti-Ishiba groups in the LDP. He agreed to convene an official JPM on August 8, which Ishiba’s opponents in the LDP had requested. These lawmakers had been collecting signatures in support of a JPM, but Moriyama’s decision supersedes this effort. The JPM will be held not at the request of anti-Ishiba members, but at the initiative of Moriyama.
 
This means that Moriyama can set the agenda for the JPM on August 8. The JPM is the second decision-making body, after the Party Convention. Article 33 of the LDP Constitution states that a JPM deliberates and decides particularly important issues of party management and Diet affairs. Moriyama has set the agenda of the JPM as “review of Upper House election and revitalization of the party,” excising “replacement of LDP leadership” as an agenda item.
 
The Party Constitution contains no rule for replacing the president at a JPM; instead, it simply says that, in an emergency, the JPM (rather than the Party Convention) can elect a president, when the current president vacates his or her seat. Ishiba has shown no intention to do so. It is unlikely for August 8 JPM to be a meeting for replacing the president.
 
There is another way to replace Ishiba. Article 6 of LDP Constitution provides that a presidential election will be held at the request of more than half of total party Diet members and a representative from each local branch of the party.
 
Anti-Ishiba groups have considered invoking Article 6 and garnering support from lawmakers and local branches. However, the provision has not been invoked since it was added to the constitution in 2002, when former Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori stepped down during a prolonged struggle in the party. A presidential election based on Article 6 could damage the party significantly.
 
If Ishiba shows no inclination to step down, it will be hard for LDP members to replace him. “The only way is to explain without escaping,” Ishiba said to reporters after the unofficial JPM on July 28. Ishiba earlier had told opposition leaders in a meeting on July 25 that he would not resign as prime minister.
 
Ishiba is now devoting himself to policies, expecting that implementation of his agenda will be sufficient cause for others to support him remaining in office. Debates in the Diet on August 4 reflected a consensus that Japan must have a written agreement with the United States to reduce tariffs on Japanese cars. Ishiba made it clear that he was willing to formalize such an agreement in Japan’s national interest.
 
A summit meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump to confirm the tariff agreement is Ishiba’s fondest wish. The opposition would favor a meeting too, knowing how difficult it would be to arrange. The Anti-Ishiba group in the LDP has a different reason: it would be Ishiba’s last act as prime minister. 
 
Ishiba may also be able to survive by working with opposition parties to find common ground on legislation. The leading coalition, the LDP and Komeito, has agreed with the four major opposition parties -- the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDPJ), the Democratic Party for the People (DPP), the Japan Innovation Party (Nippon Ishin-no Kai), and the Japan Communist Party (JCP) – on legislation to abolish the temporary gasoline surtax by the end of the year.
 
In 1974, the government placed a “temporary” gasoline surtax on top of the ordinary gasoline tax to finance the construction and repair of public roads. More than 50 years on, this temporary measure remains on the books. The opposition parties introduced a bill in the ordinary session of the Diet in June that would have abolished the surtax, but the LDP-Komeito coalition, with a majority in the Upper House, defeated it.  
 
The coalition has now lost that power. LDP and Komeito have joined with the four opposition parties to establish a task group to develop a proposal to eliminate the surtax.   With concessions like this from the LDP-Komeito coalition, the opposition parties spared Ishiba from a no-confidence resolution in the extraordinary session in August.
 
To avoid provoking conservatives in the LDP, Ishiba reportedly walked away from his planned release of a statement on August 15 marking the 80^th anniversary of the end of World War II. He has hinted that he may postpone a statement to September or later.
 
August is ordinarily the time for politicians to return home and pray on August 15 for Japan’s war victims. No rest for the weary this year, however. Both Ishiba and his opponents will use the time to rebuild their strategies to eliminate the other. The struggle will intensify in late August when the LDP wraps up its review of the Upper House election.

Prime Minister Ishiba Holds On

The Struggle to Bring Ishiba Down

By Takuya Nishimura, APP Senior Fellow, Former Editorial Writer for The Hokkaido Shimbun.

The views expressed by the author are his own and are not associated with The Hokkaido Shimbun.
You can find his blog, J Update here.
July 28, 2025. Special to Asia Policy Point
 
Despite reaching a deal on tariffs with the United States, Japan’s Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba faces difficulty in maintaining his government. Anti-Ishiba lawmakers in the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) are expanding their efforts to remove Ishiba from the leadership. Some newspapers reported that Ishiba has already decided to step down. However, since then, Ishiba has repeated that he would continue to fulfill his responsibilities as prime minister. It is not unusual that the LDP replaces its top leader to represent itself as a “new-born LDP” right after serious defeat in an election.
 
Ishiba announced to the press that he would stay on as prime minister after the polls closed on July 20 for the upper house elections. On July 23 in Japan, two newspapers, the Mainichi Shimbun and Yomiuri Shimbun, however, reported on the front page of their evening editions with huge headlines that Ishiba would step down soon.
 
Yomiuri reported that Ishiba had told one of his aides of his coming resignation on the night of July 22, just before the announcement of an agreement on tariffs between Japan and the United States. “Tariff negotiations are about the national interest. I bet on Akazawa (the top negotiator for Japan). I will explain my responsibility for the defeat in Upper House election soon after the tariff negotiations are settled, but I cannot say I’m resigning so far” Ishiba said, according to Yomiuri. The conversation with the aide seems to be the source of the news of Ishiba’s resignation.
 
The news of a Japan-U.S. tariff deal came in the morning of July 23 Tokyo time. In return for Japan’s pledges to invest $550 billion in the U.S. and to purchase $8 billion of U.S. products, including a 75 percent increase in purchases of U.S. rice, the U.S. reduced the “reciprocal tariff” on Japanese goods from 25 to 15 percent. The Tokyo Stock Market rallied on July 23, welcoming the deal.
 
On the same day, July 23, Ishiba met with three former prime ministers and LDP heavyweights: Taro Aso, Yoshihide Suga, and Fumio Kishida. Observers believe that Ishiba tried to explain his intention to stay on as the prime minister, but those ex-premiers did not support him.
 
According to news reports, Aso concluded that, under Ishiba’s leadership, the LDP cannot win an election, considering the defeats in the Lower House election last October and the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly election in June 2025. Kishida urged Ishiba to make clear whether he was staying or going. Suga insisted that Ishiba make sure that he does not divide the party. After the meeting, Ishiba said that there was no discussion of his possible resignation.
 
Internal opposition to Ishiba’s prime ministership has spread in the LDP. Some lawmakers formerly affiliated with the Motegi faction, one of the anti-Ishiba powers in the party, started collecting signatures of LDP lawmakers to request a Joint Plenary Meeting of Party Members of Both Houses of the Diet (JPM), an official meeting which can elect new president.
 
The LDP held an unofficial meeting of Diet members on July 28, rather than call a JPM. Ishiba asked for support to continue his presidency to implement the tariff deal with the U.S. While his appeal seemed to fall on deaf ears, many participants wanted the party to identify who was responsible for the disastrous results of the Upper House election. LDP Secretary General, Hiroshi Moriyama, stated that he would do so after the LDP’s review of the election finishes in August. There still is the possibility to hold a JPM, as there have been many requests to do so.
 
Anti-Ishiba groups in the LDP have redoubled their efforts to remove Ishiba. Four leaders of the former (now-disbanded) Abe faction -- Koichi Hagiuda, Yasutoshi Nishimura, Hirokazu Matsuno, and Hiroshige Seko – met at a faction reunion on July 23. One of the finalists in the election for president of the LDP last September, Sanae Takaichi, met with Aso and Nishimura to ask for their support.
 
Some local branches of the party, including the Tochigi Branch led by Toshimitsu Motegi and the Nara Branch, which is the home of Takaichi, submitted requests for the renewal of LDP leadership. After receiving complaints from some local organizations, the LDP Youth Division made the same request.
 
Reshuffling LDP leadership would not, however, address the policy issues behind the party’s recent losses. For example, the kickback scandal was one of the main reasons for those losses. “Who ruined the LDP?” Ishiba asked his colleagues, insisting on his authority to lead the country. Ishiba seems to think that he has at least three responsibilities in the coming weeks: 1) to conclude all the details in the tariff negotiations with the U.S. and related measures for Japanese business sectors; 2) to deliver his own message on August 15 at the 80^th anniversary of the end of World War II; and 3) to lead the Tokyo International Conference on African Development ((TICAD 9) in late August.
 ,jap
There is a speculation that Ishiba will step down after completing this agenda. The usual process of replacing an unpopular LDP prime minister is a growing demand for his resignation, a request for a presidential election, and the emergence of new leaders to replace the prime minister. If Ishiba steps down this fall, he will be added to the list of ordinary leaders who held a short term.
 
Once a new LDP president is elected, leaving the prime minister to declare his cabinet’s resignation en masse and both Houses elect new prime minister. If the Houses elect different people, the winner in the Lower House becomes the prime minister. Now, it is uncertain that a LDP candidate will win, given that there is no majority of the leading coalition in both Houses.
 
However, the opposition to Ishiba has some unusual elements. One is that the driving forces for his replacement are the very ones responsible for losing the election. Most lawmakers in the LDP, and not just the members of the former Abe faction, were reluctant to refuse donations from companies to guarantee the transparency of political fundraising. Another element is the absence of alternative contenders to replace Ishiba. The next leader must have the ability to manage negotiations with opposition parties in the Diet. Ishiba has proven his ability to do so; it is not apparent who else in the LDP could take this on.
 
On July 25, a large demonstration was held near the prime minister’s official residence to support the continuation of the Ishiba government. Participants shouted “Hang in there, Ishiba!” and “Don't resign!” Although there have been frequent protests against incumbent prime ministers, especially during Shinzo Abe’s administration, it is highly unusual that a crowd would gather to chant in favor of a prime minister retaining his position. Encouraged by these supporters, Ishiba must consider how to define his continuing “responsibility” as prime minister.

The No Change Change

Ishiba Government Loses Majority in Both Houses

By Takuya Nishimura, APP Senior Fellow, Former Editorial Writer for The Hokkaido Shimbun.

The views expressed by the author are his own and are not associated with The Hokkaido Shimbun.
You can find his blog, J Update here.
July 21, 2025. Special to Asia Policy Point

Japan’s July 20 Upper House elections resulted in a significant defeat for the coalition government led by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). The coalition of the LDP and Komeito lost its majority in the Upper House, as it did last October in the Lower House. Although Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba announced that he would stay in his position, his government will be in an extremely unstable condition that could break down in short order.
 
In the Upper House election, 125 members (including a supplement for one vacancy in Tokyo district) out of all 248 seats were elected. The rest of 123 members do not have an election this year. Among those 125, the LDP saw its seats reduced from 52 before the election to 39 after, while Komeito also lost six seats, from 14 to eight. The coalition secured only 47 seats in the election. The LDP and Komeito hold 75 seats without election this year. Thus, the total sum of their seats in the Upper House is 122, which is short of a simple majority by three seats.
 
The biggest opposition party, the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDPJ), had no change from its pre-election status. The CDPJ had 22 seats up for election and won 22 seats in the election. The Japan Innovation Party (Nippon Ishin-no Kai) added just two seats, from five to seven. The Democratic Party for the People (DPP) made a significant surge from four seats to 17, while the new populist party, Sanseito, expanded from one seat to 14.
 
It has been said that the LDP has its supporters, 60 percent of whom always vote for the party in every election. The other 40 percent are indecisive and go back and forth between the LDP and other parties. It is likely that those swing voters, disappointed with the lack of LDP leadership in the Diet, went for the DPP or Sanseito this time; there is speculation that most of these voters were conservatives.
 
The advance of Sanseito resembles the far-right movements in some European countries. Creating the slogan “The Japanese First,” the party received public support for its xenophobic agenda, such as blocking foreign workers and foreign investments. However, Sanseito is not yet a leading force in the national politics in Japan. Fiery and controversial anti-immigrant speeches of its leader and candidates have isolated the party from the others.
 
The LDP’s campaign strategy fared poorly. The party promised cash payments for children and low-income families to offset consumer price inflation. However, many voters viewed the handouts as temporary and less effective than lowering the consumption tax rate, a cut promoted by the opposition parties. Additionally, the LDP lost credibility with voters by failing to enact legislation dealing with political donations from companies, to introduce separate surname legislation, and to conclude tariff negotiations with the United States.
 
The opposition parties also reached a wider range of voters than the LDP did. The DPP’s slogan, “The summer of increasing take-home pay,” had broad appeal, as if the party could give all voters more cash in their pockets by the end of the summer. By contrast, the LDP presented long-term and conceptual policies, such as “1 million yen of additional salary in 2030” or a future target of “1,000 trillion yen of Japan’s GDP.”
 
The LDP also lagged in social media. At the beginning of the campaign season, immigration was not a major issue. But through advertisements and posts on social networking services, Sanseito turned anti-immigration measures into the top priority for many voters during the final week of the election campaign. The LDP could not reverse the trend, continuing to rely on traditional town meetings and chants of candidates’ names from campaign cars.
 
Prime Minister Ishiba, as the president of the LDP, declared that he would stay on as premier. “I will take responsibility as the leader of largest party (in the Diet),” Ishiba said in his press conference on July 21. There is no precedent since the establishment of the LDP in 1955 for a leading party or coalition to run the government without a majority in both Houses.
 
Although the Lower House has decisive power to choose the government, even an Upper House election can have a significant impact, as seen in the collapse of the Ryutaro Hashimoto Cabinet in 1998 and the first Shinzo Abe Cabinet in 2007.
 
Ishiba has chosen to stay because he believes that he can buck tradition and govern without the traditional majorities. Despite losing a majority of the seats in the Lower House last fall, he saw through the Lower House’s approval of the FY2025 annual budget by the end of March this year. He also headed off submission of a no-confidence resolution against Ishiba Cabinet by the opposition parties. It shows that Ishiba has remarkable political dexterity.
 
It is unlikely that the opposition parties, from the leftist Japan Communist Party to the far-right Sanseito, can form their own coalition and defeat the Ishiba administration. Another reason for Ishiba’s confidence in his staying power is the absence of any rival in his party so far.
 
Two days before the Upper House election, Sanae Takaichi, the finalist in the most recent LDP presidential election in 2024, expressed her willingness to run in the next presidential election. However, LDP Secretary General Hiroshi Moriyama has discouraged such moves, saying that it is not the time for a leadership struggle within the LDP. Other contenders in the last presidential election have not challenged Ishiba, nor are they able to do so.
 
It is likely that Ishiba will enter discussions with opposition parties on a policy-by-policy basis as he has done since losing the Lower House majority. He expects good opportunities to add opposition parties to his coalition and bolster his administration. However, the Ishiba administration will always be vulnerable to the collective efforts of opposition powers as well as to an upsurge of anti-Ishiba sentiment within the LDP.

Continued Diet Showdowns

The Struggle over Pension Reform

By Takuya Nishimura, APP Senior Fellow, Former Editorial Writer for The Hokkaido Shimbun

The views expressed by the author are his own and are not associated with The Hokkaido Shimbun
You can find his blog, J Update here.
May 19, 2025. Special to Asia Policy Point

On May 16, the Ishiba Cabinet submitted a pension reform bill to the Diet. After a long deliberation, the Ishiba government dropped a provision to use a reserve fund for salaried workers to offset any future decline in pension benefits. The ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) was afraid that including this provision would hurt them in the coming July Upper House elections.
 
The opposition parties are frustrated with the pension bill. It is likely that it will be the last major piece of legislation considered during the remainder of the current ordinary session of the Diet that ends June 22.
 
Japan has a universal pension system which covers mostly all the residents in Japan, irrespective of their nationality. Everyone between the ages of 20 and 59 must pay premiums into the National Pension System (NPS) and receive benefits at the age of 65. Salaried workers, who make up 70 percent of the workforce, must pay additional premiums for “employee’s pension insurance” (EPI), if they make more than 106 million yen annually. The premiums for both NPS and EPI are automatically deducted from their monthly salaries.
 
Business owners, including farmers and fishermen, receive NPS-only benefits. In 2023, the average NPS benefit was 57 thousand yen per month. Retired salaried workers, both employees of private companies and public workers, receive both NPS and EPI benefits in proportion to their past payments. In 2023, the average total benefit was 147 thousand yen per month.
 
Because Japanese demographics show that the population is aging rapidly, the government introduced the “Macro-economic Slide Formula,” which automatically adjusts pension benefits based on changes in the revenue of the NPS and EPI. With fewer people of working age, the pension revenues have fallen. The financial review for the pension system in 2024, conducted once every five years, found that the ratio of the average pension benefit against the average income of workers currently paying into the NPS and EPI would drop from 61.2 percent in 2024 to 56.9 percent in 2039, even if Japan’s economy achieves a high growth rate with 1.2 percent of real GDP growth and 2.0 percent of real wage hike. That is why pension reform is necessary in the current session of the Diet.
 
The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW) proposed to raise benefits under the NPS program because people who had paid a smaller premium in the past would receive a smaller benefit. The ministry looked at the EPI reserve fund, which has been growing, as a resource to support the added benefits.   
 
The LDP opposed that idea. Salaried workers who look to the EPI for most of their benefits and not the NPS would object to the MHLW proposal because it would erode the EPI fund. The first action they could take would, of course, be to vote against the LDP in the next election.
 
The LDP has had a traumatic experience with the pension system before. The first Abe administration collapsed following a pension mismanagement scandal, which resulted in a significant defeat for the LDP in the 2007 Upper House elections.
 
Accepting this reality and his party’s opposition, Ishiba submitted the pension bill without any measure for raising the NPS benefit. Instead, the bill would remove “the wall of 106 million yen.” In the current pension system, only a salaried worker with an annual income of 106 million yen or more must pay an EPI pension premium. The new bill would require all workers to pay the premium, regardless of the amount of their income. Even though low-income salaried workers would now be required to pay a premium, their benefits will not be reduced.
 
Also missing from the pension bill is any attempt to address another demographic issue: the “employment ice age.” There is a generation of workers who graduated from college in the 1990s and 2000s after the burst of the bubble economy and who had fewer job prospects. Since they did not pay premiums during their sometimes-lengthy periods of unemployment, it is likely that they will receive fewer pension benefits than the people who were able to keep working. A rule in the pension system significantly reduces benefits for those who have made premium payments for less than 25 years.
 
The opposition parties are critical of the bill’s failure to provide any relief for these participants in the NPS. These parties regard help to the employment ice agers as the core of pension reform. “This is red bean roll bread without red bean paste,” is how the leader of Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDPJ), Yoshihiko Noda, described the bill. In American terms, “hamburger helper without the hamburger.” The CDPJ plans to submit its own pension reform bill.
 
The LDP is in a quandary. If they help the employment ice agers by tapping into the EPI reserve fund, they will face anger from the salaried workers. If they do not help, the pension system will not work well for low benefit recipients. And if they fail to pass any bill, Ishiba’s government will be criticized as irresponsible. The future is murky: since the LDP is a minority government in the Lower House. It is unclear whether Ishiba’s bill will pass the Diet by the end of the session on June 22.