Despite achieving his prized policy goal of raising the sales tax, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda is facing a diplomatic double whammy of territorial disputes with China and South Korea that could deal a fatal blow to his party's three-year rule.
While South Korean President Lee Myung Bak has made provocative remarks against Japan and controversially visited a group of islets in the Sea of Japan claimed by both Tokyo and Seoul, China has also rekindled the dispute over the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea.
Behind their hardline stance is that Noda, who heads the Democratic Party of Japan, had been too preoccupied with the consumption tax issue since taking office last September and failed to devise detailed diplomatic strategies, in particular regarding Japan-U.S. relations, according to analysts and leading politicians.