1. A Dozen Hopefuls To Run For The Post Kishida Race
In the wake of PM Kishida’s recent announcement that he would not run for reelection of the LDP’s presidency in September, twelve Diet members of LDP reportedly showed interest in running for the post Kishida race.
Kishida Cabinet’s approval ratings have been in 20%s since November last year according to NHK’s monthly survey.
Strong public dissatisfaction against LDP’s political fund handling practices has not allowed the approval ratings to go up no matter how the Kishida Cabinet danced.
With the serious concern that the ruling LDP would lose the next general election of the House of Representative down the road, Kishida concluded that changing the face of the top of the party should revive the popularity of the party into a competitive range.
Now that all the political factions like Abe Faction, Nikai Faction, Kishida Faction etc. except for Aso Faction are disassembled, LDP President hopefuls are liberated and free to raise their hands to run for the party presidency.
That led this many hopefuls though official recommendation of 20 or more Diet members are needed to be qualified for a candidate.
According to Yomiuri’s survey, which was conducted on August 23 through 25, 22% of the respondents picked Rep. Shigeru Ishiba as most appropriate LDP president, followed by Rep. Shinjiro Koizumi (20%), Rep. Sanae Takaichi (10%) and Rep. Taro Kono (7%).
In the meantime, 22% of LDP supporters chose Koizumi, followed by Ishiba (20%), Takaichi (14%) and Kono (9%).
Actual votes for the party leader are cast only by the LDP Diet members and registered party members.
Diet members’ voting result and party members’ voting result are given same weight for the first round voting.
If no candidate earned a majority share, a runoff is conducted between the two most successful candidates.
In the runoff, Diet members’ voting result shares 90% of the weight.
2 China’s Invasion Of Japan’s Territorial Air
Japan’s Ministry of Defense announced on the 26th that one Chinese information gathering aircraft Y9 violated Japanese territorial air space off the coast of Danjo Islands of Nagasaki Prefecture for two minutes from 11:29 am on the same day.
Japanese Air Self Defense Force’s fighters made a scramble operation when this Y9 approached the territorial air space giving an warning that the aircraft is too close to Japan’s territorial air. \
The Chinese plane, however, kept the course and violated the territorial air.
So, at least the aircraft itself had an intent to violate Japan’s territorial air.
JASDF fighter gave another warning to the Y9 crew to get out of the air space, and it went out eventually.
The Ministry of Defense didn’t elaborate whether the JASDF fighter conducted any warning shot or not.
MoFA reprimanded China through its diplomatic channel on the same day, while a Chinese spokesperson just said China has no intent to violate territory of any country.
On August 19, a Chinese person, who was hired as a native Chinese translator of NHK’s radio news, air jacked when reading the script of the Senkaku Archipelagos saying that it is China’s territory.
He was fired by NHK and went back to China after that.
Earlier in June, another Chinese person wrote graffiti on a monument of the Yasukuni Shrine where fallen soldiers were worshipped.
By the time the criminal was identified by the police, he had been gone back to China, so he is on the police-wanted list now.
Whether these incidents independently happened or they are a sort of a concerted demonstration is yet to be seen.
3. 47 Foreign Ministers From Africa Gathered At TICAD’s Ministerial Meeting
In preparation for Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD)’s summit meeting to be held in Yokohama next year, foreign ministers from 47 African countries attended TICAD’s ministerial meeting on August 24 and 25.
The meeting was chaired by Foreign Minister Kamikawa, who is one of the hopefuls for LDP’s presidency and prime minister job.
The ministers released a joint statement stating the following key agreements to be implemented in the region:
l Promote the rule of law
l Emphasize the importance of WPS (Women, Peace and Security) encouraging women’s participation in solving regional conflicts
l Establish an ecosystem to promote “Digitizing Africa”
l Stress the necessity of “Effective and responsible use of digital technology including AI”
4. Japanese Government To Nurture Used EV Market For Economic Security
Yomiuri reported on the 29th that the government of Japan is to embark on a policy to raise used EV market in Japan out of the concern of economic security of critical minerals.
Currently, Japan imports most of the critical minerals that are required for EV battery production, but it is revealed that around 80% of used EVs in Japan have been exported.
As China launched a critical mineral export restriction policy last December, how to secure the availability of the supply of critical minerals is becoming an economic security issue in Japan.
Under this Japanese government’s blue print of used EV market, battery manufacturers are to diagnose used EV batteries’ remaining power and durability, while insurance companies are to insure the availability of diagnosed batteries’ performance.
If an insured battery’s performance gets degraded during the insured period, it shall be replaced by its insurance company with a new or an equivalent one.
The degraded battery that cannot power an EV shall be supplied to golf cart industry or battery based small vehicle industry for a possible reuse.
METI has already selected some battery manufacturers and insurance companies to demonstrate this used EV battery recycle and reuse concept.