Nipponica

The Japanese government is ramping up efforts to combat foreign election interference after the spread of misinformation by bots on social media became a problem in the recent upper house vote.

"Foreign interference in elections is commonplace around the world, and other countries are responding in various ways," said Masaaki Taira, minister for digital transformation, at a press conference on Tuesday. "Japan is not immune to this issue."

One thing I never really realized is that Japan lacks a CIA-like organization in the central government to collect and centrally distribute intelligence. The new National Cybersecurity Office will take on this work but relying on such a new office to take a lead on a new initiative might not lead to quick fixes to this.

The page displaying the passport holder's photo now uses plastic instead of laminated paper, and incorporates technologies such as holographic cherry blossoms and watermark cranes. Special processing has also been applied to raise the photo and date of birth above the surface.

Passports are one of my special interests and I always find it interesting on how they are produced. As the article mentions, previously they were made locally but no longer.

Support is growing within the Japan Innovation Party for the prospect of forming a coalition with the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito.

Support for joining the coalition is largely emerging from Osaka, the party’s home turf. JIP leader Hirofumi Yoshimura, who is also the governor of Osaka Prefecture, said Tuesday: “It’s important to establish a secondary capital, given the need to correct the ‘one-city dominance’ of Tokyo and handle national crisis management and economic growth.”

Such an arrangement with the LDP and Komeito could have a short term gain and allow the JIP to move closer to their Osaka Domination goal. But, looking longer term, if the LDP slide continues, they will be dragged down with them.

Also Wakkanai is really feeling left out of this second capital discussion.

Ishiba's resignation seems inevitable in the current political environment. He is expected to make a final decision as early as August on whether to step down.

On how long they would like Ishiba to stay, 36% of respondents said that "he should be replaced immediately" -- the highest percentage since he took office.

August is going to begin quite soon. Better start your pros and cons list Ishiba-chan.

On Thursday, Koike held a 15-minute meeting with UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres at the organisation’s headquarters in New York. There, she proposed that more of the UN’s offices be relocated to cities elsewhere in the world, including Tokyo.

“Tokyo would like to provide various types of support [to the UN],” Koike told reporters after the meeting, highlighting the city’s advantages over other locations, such as “public safety, security and now, with the weak yen, there are other positive aspects to life”.

Guterres acknowledged that his office had “received offers of cooperation from various countries and regions”, but declined to elaborate on the Japanese proposal or whether it might be pursued further.

The UN offices across the world are heavily weighted towards New York and Europe, with the base in Nairobi being the main exception. Tokyo is already an HQ for one UN body, the United Nations University so it would make sense as a new Asian base outside its primarily regional office in Bangkok (which is facing a huge funding problem this year).

A postelection survey conducted by Kyodo News showed Friday that 56.4 percent of House of Councillors members do not favor a ruling coalition led by the Liberal Democratic Party and its junior partner Komeito party.

Asked about the preferred form of government after the election, 23.3 percent supported an opposition-led coalition, while 33.1 percent called for a new political framework through realignment, indicating a desire for change from the current ruling structure.

Thoughts and prayers to Ishiba-chan.

Even now, eight decades after his arrival, MacArthur's legacy casts a long shadow over Japan's politics, identity and security. For some, he was a reformer who laid the foundations of democracy, pacifism and prosperity. For others, he was a foreign dictator who imposed a constitution that stifled Japan's sovereignty. Either way, the U.S.-led occupation -- and the institutions it birthed -- continue to define Japan's postwar trajectory.

A good history of MacArthur, the drafting of the Japanese constitution, and how all of that could be undermined in our current world. Bonus points for the photo of the nasty chair at Dougie's desk.

The rapid ascent of the right-wing Sanseito party in Japan has shone a spotlight on public attitudes to immigration, unnerving some non-Japanese residents.

Sanseito, founded in 2020, won 14 seats in Sunday's upper house election on its "Japanese First" platform advocating stricter rules on immigration and foreign capital, along with proposing tax cuts and welfare spending. The party had held only one seat in the 248-member chamber of parliament prior to the vote.

In a stump speech during the election campaign, party leader Sohei Kamiya called for limits on the number of unskilled foreign workers entering Japan to make up for the nation's labor shortage, which he described as a "national doping scheme."

Nikkei Asia asked a number of foreign residents in Japan to describe their reactions to Sanseito's election performance.

A good roundup of foreign resident's thoughts on this new party.

Japanese ocean shipping group Mitsui O.S.K. Lines is exploring options for sending employees to English-speaking countries other than the U.S., citing the possibility of longer-term impacts.

The company has eight participants in its program, with four each at New York University and University of California, Irvine. They have student visas to take part in three-month programs to study English and business.

"The Trump administration's xenophobic policies will in the long term hurt the free-spirited charm has attracted exceptional young talent from all over the world and has been a U.S. strength," Mitsui O.S.K. Lines chief executive Takeshi Hashimoto said.

The internal affairs ministry plans to survey municipalities about uncollected resident tax from foreigners who leave Japan without paying, in order to consider countermeasures, a government source said Friday.

Workers living in Japan as of Jan. 1 are subject to resident tax for that year. However, it is typically paid in monthly installments from June of the following year and the time lag contributes to the problem, as some foreign workers leave Japan before their payments begin.

The core of the problem here is that municipalities are taxing people on a year delay, not people not paying. It is the first thing in the populist playbook to claim the immigrants aren't paying their fair share, but the answer to this problem is not to punish people when the system itself should be the object of reform. Adopting an immediate resident tax would simplify everything.