Japan Digest
Japan Digest · 2025/03/15
Ishiba’s Approval Rating Declined By 8 Points According to the results of an NHK poll conducted from March 7 to 9, support for the Ishiba Cabinet dropped by 8 points from the February survey to 36%, while those who responded that they "do not support" the cabinet rose by 10 points to 45%. Although the Cabinet received some level of recognition for negotiating with opposition parties as a minority ruling party to pass the revised 2025 budget bill through the House of Representatives and for...
Japan Digest · 2025/03/15
Meeting With President Trump Didn’t Help Push Up Ishiba’s Approval Ratings According to a public opinion poll conducted by the Yomiuri Shimbun from February 14 to 16, the approval rating of the Ishiba Cabinet was 39%, down by one point from last month’s survey. The disapproval rating was 43%, a three-point decrease from the previous poll. Regarding the summit meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump held on February 7, 51% of respondents said they "approve" of it, surpassing the 38% who...
Japan Digest · 2025/03/15
Ishiba Hopes To Push Up His Approval Ratings Through Foreign Visits Nikkei reported this week that the results of opinion polls conducted by various media outlets in January regarding support for the Ishiba Cabinet are seen in the table below: Survey Period Approval Rating Disapproval Rating Nikkei Jan 24 – 26 43% (+2 points) 50% (-1 point) Kyodo Jan 25 – 26 35.7 (-0.8) 49.2 (+6.1) Asahi Jan 18 – 19 33 (-3) 51 (+8) Sankei Jan 18 – 19 43.5 (-2.4) 48.7 (+1) Yomiuri Jan 17 – 19 40 (+1)...
Japan Digest · 2025/03/15
Japan To Strengthen Defense Cooperation With U.K. And Italy Defense Minister Nakatani, who is visiting the United Kingdom this week, held talks on the 15th with Defense Secretary Healy, discussing the joint development of the next-generation fighter jet by Japan, the UK, and Italy. It appears that the policy has been finalized for Japan to take charge of the aircraft design and other key areas. The next-generation fighter jet will succeed Japan's Air Self-Defense Force's "F-2" fighter and the...
Japan Digest · 2025/03/15
72% of Americans Support Strengthening Japan's Defense Capabilities From November 18 to 24, following the U.S. presidential election, a joint public opinion poll conducted by the Yomiuri Shimbun and Gallup via telephone revealed that 72% of Americans support strengthening Japan's defense capabilities, a 7-point increase from the previous survey in 2022. This is believed to be influenced by factors such as Russia's invasion of Ukraine and China's increased military activities. Regarding the...
Japan Digest · 2025/03/15
PM Ishiba Won Runoff Election To Be The 103rd Prime Minister As previously reported, the ruling parties—the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and Komeito—suffered a major defeat in the October 27 House of Representatives general election, losing the majority they had maintained in the House. On November 12, a special session of the Diet was convened, and a prime ministerial election was held, resulting in LDP President Shigeru Ishiba being elected as Japan’s 103rd Prime Minister. In the...
Japan Digest · 2025/03/15
PM Ishiba Won Runoff Election To Be The 103rd Prime Minister As previously reported, the ruling parties—the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and Komeito—suffered a major defeat in the October 27 House of Representatives general election, losing the majority they had maintained in the House. On November 12, a special session of the Diet was convened, and a prime ministerial election was held, resulting in LDP President Shigeru Ishiba being elected as Japan’s 103rd Prime Minister. In the...
Japan Digest · 2024/11/04
Ruling Parties Lost The Majority Of The House Of Representatives In the House of Representatives election on October 27, the ruling coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and Komeito suffered a major defeat, losing a combined total of 64 seats and forfeiting their majority. Meanwhile, the largest opposition party, the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDPJ), significantly expanded its power, increasing from 98 to 148 seats, and other opposition parties, except for the Japan...
Japan Digest · 2024/11/04
1. Ishiba Reversed LDP’s Downtrend But Not Strong Enough As reported last time, Ishiba as new President of LDP was elected as the 102nd PM in the extraordinary Diet session on October 1 and formed his first cabinet on the same day. And then, he dissolved the House of Representatives on October 9 and set a general election date as October 27. It is just 8 days from the formation of the cabinet up to the dissolution of the lower house, which is the shortest record ever since the end of the...
Japan Digest · 2024/11/04
1. Ishiba As New PM Made It Clear To Dissolve The House Of Representatives Ruling LDP’s presidential election was held on September 27 and no candidate was able to secure a majority share of the effective votes in the first round. In its succeeding runoff, Mr. Shigeru Ishiba, who received the second largest ballots in the first voting was able to come from behind Ms. Sanae Takaichi to win the party presidency. Although Ishiba had been against LDP’s mainstream groups like the Aso faction and...