With the Diet’s June 2012 adoption of the project that doubled the consumption tax and passed other measures destined to reform Japan’s fiscal policy and social security system, the government of Noda Yoshihiko seems to have won a significant victory. However, the way in which delicate issues of domestic and foreign affairs have been dealt with by liberal elements of the DPJ underlines the fact that the majority is based on a more or less heterogeneous coalition, which carries a risk of implosion. The translations of two articles from Sekai and Voice that appear in this issue deal with the energy transition and the state of the relations between China and Japan.
Summary
– CLOSE UP ON THE NEWS –
Is the combined tax and social security reform project undertaken by the Noda’s government a real solution? (Nicolas Morishita)
Looking Back at the Split in the Democratic Party of Japan and the Creation of Ichirō Ozawa’s New Party (Arnaud Grivaud)
– POINTS OF NEWS–
Masakatsu Yamazaki, Kayoko Ikeda and Masakatsu Oita, “Reviewing the Basic Law on Nuclear Energy, a Change for the Worse?”, Sekai (translated by Adrienne Sala)