Keizo Nabeshima - The Japan Times

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Keizo Nabeshima

For Keizo Nabeshima's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:

COMMENTARY

Sep 19, 2005

A mandate to finish the job

The Sept. 11 general election produced stunning results unprecedented in Japanese political history. Unaffiliated voters gave overwhelming support to the governing Liberal Democratic Party, handing the LDP-New Komeito coalition more than two-thirds of the 480-seat Lower House. Paradoxically, conservative forces campaigning for reform beat the opposition forces at their own game.

COMMENTARY

Sep 5, 2005

A historic scramble to rule

The Sept. 11 Lower House election will test Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's politics, giving voters a chance to choose the nation's leadership between the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and the opposition Democratic Party of Japan.

COMMENTARY

Aug 23, 2005

LDP again at the crossroads

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi views the forthcoming general election, set for Sept. 11, as a national referendum on his top-priority plan to privatize the postal system. "I would like to ask the people whether they are for or against postal privatization," he told a nationally televised press conference, adding that he will resign if the governing coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party and New Komeito fails to win a majority.

COMMENTARY

Aug 7, 2005

Legacy of tepid leadership

For Japanese, August is a gloomy month. In the Pacific War, which ended in August 60 years ago, more than 3 million Japanese troops died. In the final days of the war, U.S. forces dropped history's first atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki following indiscriminate carpet bombings of Japanese cities from B-29 superfortresses. About 100,000 people perished in just one night in a Tokyo air raid. Several million Japanese lost their homes in the war.

COMMENTARY

Jul 25, 2005

Threshold of a lower threat

The fourth round of six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear-arms programs opens Tuesday in Beijing. The question is whether the talks will succeed in convincing the North to halt its nuclear-arms development, which poses a serious security threat to Northeast Asia. For Japan, the United States, South Korea, China and Russia, the talks could be their final opportunity to remove the threat in the near future.

COMMENTARY

Jul 12, 2005

A skittish reform pendulum

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's postal privatization bills cleared the Lower House on July 5 by only five votes, demonstrating the strength of anti-Koizumi forces in the governing Liberal Democratic Party. The narrow margin reflected severe criticism of not only the legislation but also Koizumi's political style.

COMMENTARY

Jun 28, 2005

Pitching a Japan that can

A clash of interests among major U.N. member states is clouding the prospects for reform of the Security Council. While Japan, Brazil, Germany and India, known as the Group of Four (G4), seek permanent membership on the council, the Uniting for Consensus coalition, including Italy, South Korea and Pakistan, is pushing its own proposal. The United States favors minimal expansion of the council.

COMMENTARY

Jun 12, 2005

Harmful to Japan's interest

Should he continue his custom of making annual visits to Yasukuni Shrine, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi could seriously harm Japan's national interest. His persistence in visiting the Tokyo memorial to the nation's war dead has intensified the firestorm of anti-Japanese criticism in China and South Korea, undermining the Japanese position in Asian diplomacy.

COMMENTARY

May 31, 2005

Pyongyang eyes nuclear test

The issue of North Korea's nuclear-weapons development could reach a critical stage in June, one year after the suspension of six-party talks. U.S. intelligence says Pyongyang might conduct a nuclear test that month.

COMMENTARY

May 16, 2005

Braking an arms free-for-all

The 2005 review conference of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which opened May 2 at U.N. headquarters in New York, remains in limbo, although the agenda has finally been agreed.

COMMENTARY

May 2, 2005

Caldron of simmering views

In advance of Constitution Day, on Tuesday, research commissions on constitutional reform from both houses of the Diet last month adopted final reports summarizing five years of debate. The Lower House panel focused on amending the supreme law, including revision of the war-renouncing Article 9.

COMMENTARY

Apr 18, 2005

Japan, China wasting time

Recent mass anti-Japanese protests in Chinese cities have plunged Sino-Japanese relations to their lowest since diplomatic ties were normalized in 1972. Stones thrown by demonstrators damaged the Japanese Embassy in Beijing on April 9. Japanese-owned businesses in other cities were likewise attacked, and three Japanese students were hurt. Television news footage showed Chinese police doing nothing to stop the attack on the embassy.

COMMENTARY

Apr 4, 2005

Unstable bond unraveling

South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun's March 23 statement denouncing Japan for its colonial past is bound to seriously damage Tokyo-Seoul relations that have been improving in recent years. The statement reverses positive diplomacy Seoul has pursued on the basis of a 2003 agreement between Roh and Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to deepen bilateral relations.

COMMENTARY

Mar 21, 2005

A cow walk toward a crisis

The Japan-U.S. row over beef imports looms as a grave problem that could develop into serious bilateral friction. Until recently the two countries had enjoyed what many experts regarded as the best relations yet in the postwar years. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi supported U.S. President George W. Bush's wars in Afghanistan and Iraq after the 9/11 attacks, and dispatched Self-Defense Force troops to Iraq.

COMMENTARY

Mar 8, 2005

Deterrence for less in Asia

The Japan-U.S. alliance is evolving into one that "plays a vital role in enhancing regional and global peace and stability," according to a joint statement issued last month by the defense and foreign ministers of the two countries. The statement sets common strategic goals for dealing with the new security environment in the Asia-Pacific region and the rest of the world.

COMMENTARY

Feb 21, 2005

Pyongyang toeing 'red line'

North Korea shocked the world with its announcement Feb. 10 that it will "indefinitely" stay away from the six-party talks on its nuclear arms program and that it already has nuclear weapons.

COMMENTARY

Feb 8, 2005

LDP missing the big picture

How to privatize postal services is the biggest issue in the regular Diet session. The government plans to introduce a privatization package in mid-March, and Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has vowed to "get it through the current session at all costs." But with many members of the Liberal Democratic Party up in arms about it, a showdown looms between Koizumi and his own party.

COMMENTARY

Jan 24, 2005

A return to Northern basics

The Japan-Russia talks on the Northern Territories are deadlocked. Shortly after the end of World War II, the Soviet Union seized four islands or islet clusters northeast of Hokkaido -- Etorofu, Kunashiri, Shikotan and Habomai. In 1993, the two nations issued a joint statement calling for the conclusion of a peace treaty once the territorial claims involving the "northern four islands" were settled. The Tokyo Declaration, as the statement is known, provides the basis for the talks.

COMMENTARY

Jan 10, 2005

Improving Japan's leverage

To promote national interest in diplomacy, it is essential to set goals, establish basic policies to achieve them and work out overall strategies, while keeping in mind the links between individual goals and between those of nations and regions. However, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi lacks such strategies. He needs to restructure Japan's diplomacy toward Asia from a global perspective.

COMMENTARY

Dec 28, 2004

An updated stab at security

Japan's new National Defense Program Outline has three major objectives: dealing with "new threats" such as terrorism, introducing a missile defense system and participating in "international peace cooperation activities."

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