#LDP--a
LightNews LightNews
jamesdjbrown.bsky.social
LDP to consider whether Japan should be allowed to export lethal weapons to countries that are victims of aggression & are currently in a state of conflict. A change, which is supported by Ishin, would allow supply of Patriot air-defence missiles to Ukraine. www.hokkaido-np.co.jp/article/1251...
【独自】被侵略国への輸出可否検討　殺傷武器、適正管理の見直しも：北海道新聞デジタル
自民党が検討する防衛装備品の輸出ルール緩和に関する論点整理案が判明した。「侵略を受けている国」や「現に戦闘が行われている国」に殺傷能力のある武器輸出を認めるかどうかを論点に盛り込んだ。第三国への流出...
www.hokkaido-np.co.jp
December 12, 2025 at 8:52 AM
unseenjapan.com
An apt comparison; Minobe was part of wave of Leftist mayors and governors elected during the 60s in Japan. Still hated by many on the far right today, Minobe's three terms as governor of Tokyo were successful enough that the LDP adopted many of his policies on a national level. youtu.be/v35H_7qcZos
December 8, 2025 at 2:00 PM
dfeds.bsky.social
This can be be strained, but the more I read up on the 1967 election of Minobe Ryokichi, a self-described "flexible utopian socialist" as Governor of Tokyo, the more I see 2025 Mamdani. It was an earthquake for the LDP, and looking at his agenda not hard to see why:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryokich...
Ryokichi Minobe - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
December 8, 2025 at 6:33 AM
tobiasharris.bsky.social
I think the thing that Hatoyama and now Takaichi benefited from is the reality that people are suckers for a good story and will give their support while the story is fresh. Grandson of the first LDP PM drives the LDP into opposition is a good story. First female PM is a good story.
tobiasharris.bsky.social Tobias Harris @tobiasharris.bsky.social · 9d
Found this today while doing some cleaning.
Tote bag for the Democratic Party of Japan from 2009, reading 政権交代 Reverse side on tote bag featuring a red bird and the words Democratic Party of Japan 2009
December 6, 2025 at 11:26 PM
shashj.bsky.social
An important step in Japan. 'Ms Takaichi now wants to create a stand-alone national intelligence agency to take over from intelligence-gathering by several ... ministries & agencies. On November 14th a new LDP council met to discuss the design.' www.economist.com/asia/2025/11...
How will Japan’s defences evolve under its hawkish new leader?
Takaichi Sanae wants bigger budgets, better spooks and a stronger arms industry
www.economist.com
December 3, 2025 at 3:50 PM
kavi.bsky.social
Tbh New York really has a 3 party system, the left, the right, and the weird centrist machine party that acts like the Japanese LDP, except being nominally center left rather than nominally center right. This is why NY politicians have been such a disaster federally
December 4, 2025 at 3:25 PM
jack-hoff.bsky.social
Closest we've had to this has been the LDP in Japan, and even their luck with this strategy has run out and now they're having to "experiment" with right-populism (read: let the electorate shoot itself in the nuts a little, as a treat.)
December 3, 2025 at 7:07 AM
japan-media-review.bsky.social
Japan’s immigration future: macro trends vs micro changes

Full post on Patreon for unpaid members
www.patreon.com/posts/japans...

Patreon post about potential limit on the “Engineer/Specialist in Humanities/International Service" visa
www.patreon.com/posts/japan-...

#japan
On Dec 3, the Nikkei published an article titled “Preparing for When Foreigners are 10% of Society” 「外国人1割社会」への備え. It discusses the economic and social considerations as Japan prepares for the inevitable near future when foreigners will constitute 10% of Japan’s population. https://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXZQO... If your reaction is “Wait, why is the Nikkei talking about foreigners being 10% of Japanese society? I thought Takaichi and the Sanseito are stopping immigration?!”, my advice for you is that you need to stop getting your information about Japan from fearmongering sources like Reddit. I understand that there is a lot of viral content about Takaichi cracking down immigration. While I agree that these immigration news should be discussed, I disagree with the fearmongering about “IMMIGRATION IS NO MORE”. The “foreigners as 10% of Japanese society” idea discussed by the Nikkei article is a well-recognized projection of population trends in Japan. The source of this projection is Japan’s National Institute of Population and Social Security Research, which is managed by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. This institute produces studies that directly inform the government’s policies on matters related to population, including immigration. The following is a projection of immigration by the Ministry of Justice’s Immigration Services Agency, which cites data produced by the institute: https://www.moj.go.jp/isa/content/001... The projection shows that foreigners as a percentage of Japanese society will grow from 2.2% in 2020 to 10.8% in 2070. This projection is based on the number of immigrants needed to keep the population decline at a manageable pace. Even as the percentage of the foreign population increases, the overall population of Japan is still projected to decline; increased immigration only alleviates the degree of the decline, but it doesn’t stop the decline. This “foreigners as 10% of Japanese society” projection has been commonly accepted as an established consensus among government personnel, academics, businesses and mainstream media. To address recent anxiety about immigration, the Ministry of Justice recently published a proposal regarding how to handle immigration. (In Japan, the Ministry of Justice controls immigration, so this is pretty important.) The proposal cites studies by the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research and recognizes “foreigners as 10% of Japanese society” as a likely near-future scenario. The proposal discusses a series of considerations and strategies to reduce the negative impacts of immigration as the percentage of foreigners reaches 10% and beyond. The proposal’s introduction contains the following key phrase: https://www.moj.go.jp/isa/content/001... 国民の安全・安心を死守すると同時に、外国人比率 10％時代を見据え、外国人との真の共生を実現しながら真に活力ある日本社会を実現するために、今後の外国人の受入れの基本的な在り方につき必要な検討を、政府として今こそ行うべきである。 “While we need to protect the safety of our citizens, we are looking ahead toward the future of ‘foreigners as 10% of Japanese society’. The government needs to reconsider its strategies for accepting foreigners in order to create a lively society where we coexist with foreigners.” The term "looking ahead toward" 見据え is used when you expect something to happen with a high degree of certainty. It's not usually used for discussing highly uncertain possibilities. The Ministry of Justice is expressing that "foreigners as 10% of Japanese society" is what it thinks will happen. Despite Takaichi’s micro adjustments to immigration policies, the government’s overall assumption remains that Japan is heading toward the era of “foreigners as 10% of Japanese society”. All the policy adjustments regarding immigration are still based on the premise that foreigners will drastically increase. The real underlying factor that controls the number and pace of immigration is population decline, which is well beyond the LDP’s control. The LDP fully understands that there’s not much it can do right now to significantly change population trends, and it isn’t even trying. For example, the LDP has recently made policy changes to push the average person to work for longer. This change alleviates labor shortages, but it of course worsens the low birth rate problem, but the LDP doesn’t care anymore. Takaichi, or any LDP leader, has no power nor intention to try to change these macro trends. If you are worried about the recent news about Takaichi capping the white collar visa category called “Engineer/Specialist in Humanities/International Service”, please read my Patreon explanation: https://www.patreon.com/posts/japan-l... P.S. My Patreon has all my writings AND many more videos than my YouTube channel! You can join for free! https://www.patreon.com/JapanMediaReview
December 4, 2025 at 5:53 AM
robfahey.net
Aside from the obvious populist scapegoating, a striking thing about the government’s stance here is how utterly incoherent it is with the past decade of LDP policy - including that of Takaichi’s icon Abe, who squarely aimed migration policy at shoring up the country’s dwindling workforce.
amoreno.bsky.social Alberto Moreno @amoreno.bsky.social · 17d
In Japan they are considering increasing the cost for applying for a permanent visa to around 1900 USD because "other countries charge more than Japan".

It costs 50 USD in Spain, just say clearly that you want all foreigners out of the country, Japanese government.
November 29, 2025 at 1:31 AM
japan-media-review.bsky.social
Is Japan’s youth turning right wing? Newest expert analysis!

Full post on Patreon for unpaid members
www.patreon.com/posts/144723...

#japan #news #politics
Japan’s new Prime Minister Takaichi is a hardcore conservative with a sky-high approval rate. The newest survey by the Nikkei reports that the national support rate for the Takaichi administration is 75%: https://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXZQO... Does this mean that Japan is turning hardcore conservative and right wing? The following talk show aired by Fuji TV offers some interesting insights about the reasons behind Takaichi’s shockingly high support rate. The show especially focuses on her exceptionally high support rate among the youth and whether the youth is turning conservative. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3klU... Main speakers in the show: Niimi Shohei (Member of the National Diet, Innovation Party) Fujii Yuta (Waseda University student, leader of a conservative student club) Suzuki Kunikazu (Chief editor of go2senkyo.com, one of Japan’s most prominent political analysis website) Niimi’s arguments: Takaichi appeals to young people because her policies are easy to understand. She is also seen as being fast and decisive when executing policies. This makes her the strongly preferred leader when young people need a fast solution to their economic crisis. Young people’s support of Takaichi is mostly based on the belief that she can solve urgent economic problems, not necessarily ideological agreement with her conservative ideals. Conservative parties and politicians are more responsive to young people’s economic anxiety, which is why it seems like conservatism is popular among the youth. Fujii’s arguments: Most young people who support Takaichi aren’t necessarily conservative; they are mainly motivated by economic concerns. Young people these days are unprecedentedly interested in politics because the recent high prices are hitting their wallets hard. Young people generally have limited income, so they pay close attention to price changes of everyday goods like a lunch box increasing 100 yen in price. Since young people are highly anxious about their low wages not keeping up with the rising prices, they strongly desire a politician who seems like she can solve the problem right away. Suzuki’s arguments: According to surveys about ideological divisions in Japan, about 20% of Japanese voters identify as liberals, about 30% identify as conservatives, and the rest identify as neither liberal nor conservative. Over the past decade, there has been a slight increase in the percentage of those who identify as conservatives and a slight decrease in the percentage of liberals. Takaichi’s popularity is not due to a drastic increase in the number of conservatives. Japanese people nowadays are mainly concerned about the economy, and their support of Takaichi is based on the perception that she will improve the economy. Right wing parties like the Sanseito getting more votes recently is not due to Japanese voters suddenly becoming more conservative en masse. The right wing parties surging in votes are likely due to taking conservative voters from the LDP rather than newly converting people who weren’t conservatives into conservatives. In other words, the rise of newly popular right wing parties is caused by pre-existing conservatives leaving the LDP rather than a drastic increase in the total number of conservatives in Japanese society. Takaichi’s surge in popularity has taken away significant attention from the Sanseito. According to the tracking of YouTube data, there has been a drastic increase in views of Takaichi videos and drastic decrease in views of Sanseito videos in the past few months. Even during the peak of Sanseito popularity this summer, the Sanseito video views were only a fraction of Takaichi video views in recent months. There are about 600,000 to more than 1 million dedicated viewers of Takaichi videos on YouTube right now. These viewers’ strong interest in Takaichi videos makes the YouTube algorithm push Takaichi videos to viewers who aren’t even interested in politics. P.S. My Patreon has all my writings AND many more videos than my YouTube channel! You can join for free! https://www.patreon.com/JapanMediaReview
November 30, 2025 at 1:40 PM
aliciahaddick.com
There's a question whether it goes that the ban is fully justified or the extent to under what process it deems it unconstitutional, details through the day should make that clear

The reality is most of Japan supports it as do most parties, but the LDP and especially its leader, the PM, don't
November 28, 2025 at 3:27 AM
sharonk.bsky.social
i wonder if we see the LDP ever manage to get constitutional revision through without Abe
Kishi Nobsuke, Abe’s maternal grandfather, climbed the ladder of Japanese central bureaucracy and exerted influence in running the Manchukuo, which Japan annexed. Also, Kishi was influential in mobilizing resources and soldiers for World War II and occupied ministerial positions in 1943–1944. He exerted his utmost influence in toppling Prime Minister Tojo Hideki’s Cabinet in 1944, opposing Tojo’s war policy. In 1945 he was sentenced as a Class A war criminal and served three and half years in jail. After jail in 1948, Kishi climbed the ladder of the newly established political parties, the Democratic Party and after its merger with the Liberal Party in 1955, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). In 1958, he became prime minister and was intent on executing revisions of the Japan-U.S. security treaty. After ratifying the revisions in the National Diet, he resigned as prime minister. Kishi’s unfinished task was constitutional revisions. Abe wants to complete Kishi’s unfinished task of constitutional revision. Abe was prime minister in 2006 for one year. He resigned disgraced, giving health reasons. For the next six years the LDP was out of power. The Democratic Party of Japan held power from 2009 until December 2012 when Abe returned to power for a second time. Abe’s resolve to carry out his grandfather’s unfinished task had intensified by 2012
November 26, 2025 at 8:42 PM
jamesdjbrown.bsky.social
Momentum is building towards introducing an anti-spy law in Japan. On 26 Nov, the DPP introduced a bill outlining their proposal for such a law. The LDP, Ishin, and Sansei-to also in favour. Takaichi says she wants to begin considering the issue before the year end. www.yomiuri.co.jp/politics/202...
「スパイ防止法」に高市首相「年内に検討開始」と前向き、国民民主党と参政党が法案…課題は山積み
【読売新聞】　国民民主、参政の両党が「スパイ防止法」制定を巡る議論の活発化を狙い、積極的な動きを見せている。２６日には国民民主が衆院に法案を提出し、参政は党首討論で高市首相に法整備に向けた連携を求め、年内に検討を始めるとの答弁を引き
www.yomiuri.co.jp
November 27, 2025 at 6:51 AM
sharonk.bsky.social
the LDP understander has logged on
America gets a woman to be National Branch Manager of USA Inc. Finland in time for the war in Ukraine so that it can join NATO America gets a woman to be Junior National Branch Manager of USA Inc. Germany in time for the war in Ukraine to bully Germany to destroy its own economy. America gets a woman to be National Branch Manager of USA Inc. Japan in time for.......
November 16, 2025 at 7:45 PM
sharonk.bsky.social
After she was elected president of the Liberal Democratic party (LDP) in early October – a victory that later saw her installed as prime minister – Takaichi said she would dispense with the idea of a “work-life balance for myself”, but also urged her LDP colleagues to “work like a horse”. Her heavy workload drew expressions of concern from political friends and foes alike. Ken Saito, a former LDP economy minister, said he was “honestly worried” about Takaichi’s health, while Katsuhito Nakajima, an opposition MP, urged her to get more sleep, eliciting a nod and a smile from the prime minister.
November 14, 2025 at 4:37 AM
japantimes.co.jp
The LDP and the Japan Innovation Party have agreed to reach an early conclusion on a proposed hike in patients’ out-of-pocket expenses for prescription medicines similar to over-the-counter drugs.
LDP and JIP eye out-of-pocket price hike for OTC-like drugs
The parties are looking to increase patients’ costs for prescription medicines whose ingredients and effects are similar to those of over-the-counter drugs.
ebx.sh
November 13, 2025 at 1:02 PM
nonfinality.com
One of the harder ones, I’d think, is “Person X deserves the death penalty.” If you have a strict “no wish to physically harm” policy, people couldn’t argue for the death penalty for anyone. If you want to allow some pro-lDP arguments, you need a line people can’t cross. Similar situation for wars.
November 12, 2025 at 9:19 PM
tobiasharris.bsky.social
In a new Japan Daily Briefing, I look at the deepening friction between Japan and China over PM Takaichi’s remarks on a Taiwan contigency and the LDP and Ishin no Kai’s efforts to manage expectations for a bill to reduce the number of lower house seats.

open.substack.com/pub/observin...
Deepening chill with China over Taiwan | Japan Daily Briefing
Beijing hits back at Takaichi's comments; meanwhile, the LDP and Ishin work through differences on Diet seat reduction plans
open.substack.com
November 12, 2025 at 9:21 AM
bskyviewerg3.bsky.social
1/6 21' トランプ大統領演説
疑惑で辞任を表明
内部メモのリークにより編集の誤導指摘

トランプ氏側BBCに番組撤回と謝罪を求め10億ドル訴訟警告
#Nazi #Hitler
#AsoTaro learn from #Nazis !
LDP
lol
#Aso
#Japan should be a country where rich Jews'd want to live #Israel
#Trump #ElonMusk #Epstein #Paletine #gaza

x.com/lightworkyuk...
youtube.com/shorts/vBq_X...
November 12, 2025 at 9:28 AM
calliope5431.bsky.social
However, what's important to note here is that these were not ultranationalist or right-wing. The LDP, for instance, rejected the extremist Nobusuke Kishi after just 3 years at the helm in favor of the more moderate Hayato Ikeda. The CDU was voted out of power in the 1960s following a Nazi scandal.
November 11, 2025 at 8:18 PM
suika.bsky.social
Support for the LDP under Takaichi's reign appears to have potentially already peaked--and at a lower percentage than when it peaked for Kishida and Ishiba.
November 10, 2025 at 11:27 AM
tobiasharris.bsky.social
To make up for this week’s absences, I have a special, extra-long Japan Daily Briefing available for all readers that looks at this week’s parliamentary debates, “responsible” fiscal policy, and some of the tensions between the LDP and Ishin no Kai.

open.substack.com/pub/observin...
Takaichi faces the Diet as coalition troubles brew | Japan Daily Briefing
Thank you for reading Observing Japan. This is a new feature for paid subscribers, Japan Daily Briefing, that will replace This Week in Japanese Politics.
open.substack.com
November 9, 2025 at 1:38 AM
abram-ambrose.bsky.social
Serious question. Abe revealed the whole LDP infiltration of the unification church. was that influence really purged? Isn’t the new PM and strain of ultra-nationalism precisely the kind of alt-right crazy trend we see elsewhere? Was Abe’s death really a watershed moment?
November 8, 2025 at 5:56 AM
stevec5150.bsky.social
Most tariffs get added into the LDP (landed duty paid) or cost of goods sold line

Then they are marked up

So not only do you pay the tariff, but the wholesaler marks that tariff up

And it compounds every time someone touches it

An item with a $1 dollar tariff quickly become $4 to consumer
November 5, 2025 at 10:56 PM
dcsneider.bsky.social
Tokyo Review has resurfaced as a source of smart analysis of Japanese politics, economy, foreign and security policy. EG this piece on the shaky LDP-Ishin arrangement.
www.tokyoreview.net/2025/11/boom...
The future of the LDP-Ishin partnership
Japanese politics has hit a major inflection point.  Takaichi Sanae has become the first woman to be named prime minister. The ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s (LDP) over two decades-long coalition w...
www.tokyoreview.net
November 5, 2025 at 7:38 PM