Iokibe Makoto, President of the Hyogo Earthquake Memorial 21st Century Research Institute, former Chairman of the Reconstruction Design Council following the Great East Japan Earthquake ――It’s been 10 years since the Great East Japan Earthquake. You served as chairman of the Reconstruction Design Council following the Great East Japan Earthquake. Iokibe Makoto: I guess I was nominated as Chairman of the Reconstruction Design Council because of my experience from the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake in 1995, which marked a major turning point in Japan’s disaster response and reconstruction policy approach. At the same time, I was also a victim myself. My house in Nishinomiya City, Hyogo Prefecture was completely destroyed, and, at Kobe University where I worked, 39 students, including my seminar student, and two members of staff lost their lives. All in all, the earthquake caused the deaths of 6,343 people.  Having unexpectedly become a victim myself, ... ... [Read more]

  The Japan-U.S. alliance is founded on the notion of “bases in exchange for security” and Japan’s base issue is a domestic problem. However, the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty is ambiguous on the question of where the burden of the alliance’s costs lies, making Okinawa’s base problem difficult to resolve solely from the standpoint of a domestic dichotomy. Kawana Shinji, Associate Professor, Tokyo Institute of Technology   This year marks the 50th anniversary of Okinawa’s reversion to Japanese administration. In this landmark year, Japan will hold House of Councillors elections, mayoral elections, local government elections in 7 cities and 11 towns and villages, and 30 municipal assembly elections. The major point of contention in the elections is likely to be the issue of relocating the Marine Corps Air Station Futenma (Futenma air base) to Henoko. In the face-off between the All Okinawa group, the Liberal ... ... [Read more]

Kishida Fumio, Prime Minister of Japan   We need to upgrade capitalism now My proposal for a “new form of capitalism” has received considerable feedback, including some requests that I clarify its aims. In response to these comments, in this article I will discuss the grand design of my proposal for this new form of capitalism. We live in a capitalist society. Capitalism—a creation of the human race—has continually evolved by repeatedly rebalancing efficient resource allocation through the market mechanism and external diseconomies, such as pollution, a result of market failure. For a long time, capitalism has also been the driving force of growth in the world economy. The expansion of welfare state initiatives in the second half of the twentieth century and the subsequent neoliberalist policies are all part of this process of correcting capitalism and the evolution of capitalism. According to neoliberalism, ... ... [Read more]

(Discuss Japan note: The text in square brackets was added by the author for this reprint.)   Takenaka Harukata, Professor, National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies   “Some have pointed out that neoliberal policies have had the harmful effect of creating a deep rift between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots.’” During his policy speech to the lower and upper houses on October 8, Prime Minister Kishida Fumio expressed a negative view of neoliberal policies. The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and Komeito secured a majority of seats in the October 31 Lower House election and intend to continue their administration. This article takes as its premise that Prime Minister Kishida will continue in his post following the leadership election. In it, I discuss future challenges for the Prime Minister. Due to restrictions on space, I will focus on the policy areas of COVID-19 measures ... ... [Read more]

Sakaiya Shiro, Professor, Faculty of Law and Graduate Schools for Law and Politics, University of Tokyo Going beyond “constitutional revision vs constitution protection” When categorizing the two sides of Japanese ideas about the Constitution, the long-lived postwar standard has been kaikenha (constitutional revisionists) or gokenha (constitutional protectors). This categorization almost perfectly corresponds to the ideological right wing and left wing or what was termed “conservatives” and “progressives” in the terminology of postwar politics.[1] It goes without saying that this opposition is about the legitimacy of the “imposed constitution” that was enacted under the strong influence of the Allied Occupation [1945-52] GHQ (General Headquarters of the Allied Forces) and how to appraise its contents (especially Article 9). However, I suspect the constitution views of the Japanese today have a fundamental aspect that needs to be addressed before we talk about the merits and demerits of ... ... [Read more]

Takeuchi Sumiko, Member of the Board of Directors, Senior Fellow, International Environment and Economy Institute   The “decarbonization” trend is accelerating around the world. It has been reported that countries will discuss global warming countermeasures based on the Paris Agreement adopted in 2015 at the 26th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention on Climate Change (COP 26), planned to be held in the UK in November 2021, with new Prime Minister Kishida Fumio and the leaders of other countries expected to be in attendance (as of the end of October of 2021). The host country UK is fairly actively calling on countries to participate, but no Chinese and Russian leaders are planning to participate.   Former Prime Minister Suga Yoshihide announced “carbon-neutrality” and a “decarbonized society” by 2050 in 2020. Further, in April 2021, he stated that Japan would ... ... [Read more]

  Nakakita Koji, Professor, Hitotsubashi University Many policies formulated and the biggest “what if” in the history of the Suga administration Former Prime Minister Suga Yoshihide decided not to run in the Presidential election of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in September 2021, bringing the curtain down on more than a year of the Suga government. While the main focus of the Suga administration was the fight against COVID-19, the formulation and implementation of many policies in line with the trends of the times based on popular sentiment is a highly commendable accomplishment of Suga’s government. Such policies include setting decarbonization goals, directing the realization of a digital society, lowering cell phone charges, and expanding national health insurance for fertility treatments. Lagging digitalization in particular was a major issue by anyone’s standards. The fact that Suga was able to set up the Digital Agency ... ... [Read more]

Ever since the novel coronavirus COVID-19 first appeared in Japan, Dr. Omi Shigeru has been leading the battle against this infectious disease. At times he has received criticism such as, “scientists are too forward-leaning with their comments,” and he’s given advice to the government that is painful to hear. We asked Dr. Omi about tribulations so far and prospects for the future. (Interview 20 February with subsequent revision.)   Omi Shigeru, Chairman of the New Coronavirus Infectious Diseases Control Subcommittee Interviewed by Makihara Izuru, Professor, Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology (RCAST), University of Tokyo   Pressing on with a forward-leaning attitude Professor Makihara Izuru: It is now about one year since the first state of emergency declaration was issued (April 7, 2020). Looking back over this period, what are your thoughts?   Dr. Omi Shigeru: When the first state of emergency was ... ... [Read more]

Kuroishi Keita, Research Fellow, Japan Municipal Research Center   Like peninsulas and mountainous areas, islands are not subject of any institutions or policies that make up a framework that is uniform for Japan as a whole. I would like to discuss the future autonomy and administration of island municipalities by dividing them into four types. Introduction Japan, as an “island country,” has more than 6,800 islands, of which about 400 are inhabited. These inhabited islands are sites of “autonomy” that supports the lives of the residents living there. Moreover, to these residents, the municipalities are the closest administrative body. In this paper, I define municipalities with inhabited islands within the relevant geographical area as “island municipalities,” to which I would like to draw attention. The environment surrounding island municipalities today is not necessarily so calm. It goes without saying that the arrival of the ... ... [Read more]

Annaka Susumu, Assistant Professor, Waseda Institute for Advanced Study, Waseda University   COVID-19 is raging across the world. With the development and dissemination of vaccines, there are some signs that the spread of the virus is being contained in countries with advanced vaccination programs, but there is still no prospect of a complete exit. In this unprecedented crisis, some are pessimistic that democracies are unable to respond to a large-scale pandemic in an active and functional way, and that a large number of deaths is inevitable. Indeed, a number of experts assert that authoritarian countries are better at dealing with COVID-19 than democratic countries because they can coercively restrict private rights swiftly. However, there remain deep-rooted doubts about the credibility of data on the number of positive cases and number of deaths published by governments of authoritarian countries. China in particular, believed to be ... ... [Read more]