Opposition camp leader Ichiro Ozawa is facing his first big challenge since his party marked a historic victory in July's Upper House election — a widening gap between public support for Japan's refueling mission in the Indian Ocean and his resistance to it.
While new Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda is calling on Ozawa for dialogue on the contentious diplomatic issue in the Diet, which reopened Monday, everyone is waiting to see how Ozawa can survive what critics are calling a "shrewd" trap set by the soft-spoken and more seasoned prime minister than his inexperienced predecessor, Shinzo Abe.
Ozawa, head of the Democratic Party of Japan, is against a government plan to continue the refueling mission by Maritime Self-Defense Force vessels to support antiterrorism operations in and around Afghanistan on the grounds that there is no U.N. authorization for the naval mission. The special temporary law authorizing the mission expires Nov. 1.