Admittedly, despite how much I pay attention to politics, this is one subject I'm not too familiar with. I suppose we'll just have to wait and see if the DPJ does anything dramatically different from their predecessors. The only part I know a bit about is that they want to be more independent and reduce their ties with the United States and focus on their ties with the rest of Asia.

Of course, this was said by them when the LDP was supporting the US, so it'd make sense to say the opposite of your political opponent. Only time will tell if they really meant what they said or if that was just a vehicle for gaining support against the LDP.

Interested in the idea of a more independent, strong Japan that they seem to be pushing, but only time will tell if its just counter-current politics or something more. Alot of these guys were ex-LDPers afterall...

Hey Japan, say hello 15% more income tax! You wanted it, you got it.

Interesting, though I'd like to see the promises made come true I have to wonder how they'll pull it off. It's too good to be true, reminds me a lot of the Obama situation, where everyone thought that by just chanting "change" everything would actually change. Best of lucks to the japanese people with their new leaders.

Good. I hope they finally pay for their own defense entirely and so that Americans can leave. I mean the Germans and Italians already pay for their own defense, so why shouldn't the Japanese?

I know that America still has bases in Germany and Italy, but they're not footing the bill for those countries' defense.

Hopefully the American taxpayers can receive a break by not having to foot the bill for Japanese defense anymore. It's time for the Japanese taxpayer to feel the tax burden of national defense spending.

Of course, it would also be a lucrative endeavor for the U.S., since the Japanese would probably look to America for all their arms purchases. They don't have much (if at all) military R&D of their own.

@Lubczyk- I wouldn't be too sure about that last statement. That giant beetle-tank-robot featured here a while ago sure looked like some serious stuff. :D

So.. what does the DPJ think about porn censorship? Just wondering...

FUN FACT: We aren't quite finished with Taro Aso yet, he managed to keep his seat in the lower house.

FUN FACT, REDUX: Hatoyama, the new prime minister, is part of what Japan thinks of as its "Kennedy family".

We'll have to see if the DPJ sticks first. The last time the LDP was voted out the new party in power did such a bad job that the LDP was voted back in a 11 months later.

There has been a lot of rhetoric about moving away from the US, but at least the NY Times seems to think that anything on this front will take a while. The bureaucracy in Japan is a bit screwing and a lot of the running of the country is handled by local bosses and civil servants. The system has proven to be corrupted and highly inefficient and has really caused problems for the government in Tokyo. It seems that the first goal of the DPJ will be to fight this and try to reform it, but you better believe that these bureaucrats are going to fight back.

Economically speaking Mr. Hatoyama has said that they need to move away from "American led 'market fundamentalism,'" but they are not expected to be particularly active on the economic front any time soon. That statement doesn't make a lot of sense anyways, Japan is not exactly the model of hands off capitalism. Japan has a long history of supporting failing firms by asking more successful companies to keep supporting their inefficient brethren. Japan has one of the lowest rates of bankruptcy in a highly developed economy, whereas the US has the highest. There are 8 cellphone manufacturers in Japan, and while the Japanese love cellphones, there simply isn't enough demand for the product to actually support that many firms.

It seems like the reality of Japanese politics is that they need to get their house in order first and that they'll have to focus on domestic reforms before they can lend any serious consideration to how they mix up their international policy.

BGUFSAB: They're really going to have to sell the idea that bureaucratic reform will take a while. Yeah, the Japanese bureaucracy can be pretty crappy, but bureaucracies, if nothing else, have more momentum than anything in the known universe. There just isn't going to BE any quick results on that front.

No matter how well-meaning, and no matter how successful (long-term) their reforms will be, the DPJ is going to be starving for political capital, and very soon, if they can't convince voters that they're just going to have to be patient.