1. Ishiba, Takaichi and Koizumi Lead The Post Kishida Race
Since the previous digest that reported about a dozen hopefuls to run for the post Kishida race, nine of them were eventually qualified as official candidates by being able to collect recommendations of 20 or more Diet members individually.
According to Yomiuri’s survey, which was conducted on September 14 and 15, Mr. Shigeru Ishiba, Mr. Shinjiro Koiumi and Ms. Sanae Takaichi are most popular candidates so far in terms of registered party members, while Koizumi seems to be able to secure 45 votes from LDP’s Diet members, followed by Kobayashi (40), Hayashi (36), Takaichi (29) and Ishiba (26).
Number of votes secured From registered party members Diet members
Mr. Shigeru Ishiba 123 97 26
Ms. Sanae Takaichi 123 94 29
Mr. Shinjiro KIoizumi 105 60 45
Mr. Takayuki Kobayashi 62 22 40
Mr. Yohimasa Hayashi 54 18 36
Ms. Yoko Kamikawa 45 22 23
Mr. Toshimitsu Motegi 40 7 33
Mr. Taro Kono 35 11 24
Mr. Katsunobu Kato 24 3 21
Undecided 123 33 90
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. The election is due on September 27.
2 China Continues Military Provocations
Japan’s Ministry of Defense announced on the 18th that Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning sailed in a Japanese contiguous zone between Yonaguni and Iriomote islands in Okinawa Prefecture.
It was the first time for a Chinese aircraft carrier to enter a Japanese contiguous zone.
Vice Administrative Minister Masataka Okano of MoFA conveyed its serious concerns to the Chinese ambassador Wu Jianghao demanding to improve the situation.
Liaoning with two frigates were identified at the point 210 km northwest off the Senkaku archipelagos at 7 pm on the 17th.
The vessels passed the contiguous zone in the dawn of the 18th sailing toward the Pacific Ocean.
Contiguous zones are areas adjacent to territorial waters and are set by a country within 24 nautical miles from its coasts based on the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea.
In August, Chinese military aircraft violated Japan's airspace for the first time off the Danjo Islands in Nagasaki Prefecture, and a Chinese Navy vessel intruded into Japan's territorial waters near the island of Yakushima, Kagoshima Prefecture.
China had expressed dissatisfaction with Japan's increased defense spending and strengthened cooperation with NATO.
It is believed that the repeated military provocations by China against Japan are aimed at countering these developments.
3. Japanese Government To Promote Applying Dual Use Technologies To Defense Equipment
On September 18, METI and Ministry of Defense jointly announced that the two ministries would establish a new framework to promote dual use technologies to make most use of commercial technologies in Japan for the development of defense equipment.
Following are some examples of dual-use technologies in their mind:
l Image interpretation x AI: to be applied for unmanned reconnaissance aircraft and self-bombing drones
l Satellite/communication x Software: to suggest appropriate firing positions to automatic fire direction control system based on satellite and reconnaissance aircraft intelligence of positioning
l Positioning Information Interpretation: to be applied for signal validation by identifying falsification of positioning information like GPS
l RPO technology: to be applied for killer satellites
4. Inbound Visitors Continue To Grow Through August
The pace of the increase of the number of foreign visitors to Japan didn’t slow down in August this year, the Japanese travel bureau announced on September 18.
2,933,000 people visited Japan in August, which is a 16.4% increase from the same month of 2019 when the pandemic was not in place.
Largest number of visitors came from China (745,800), followed by Korea (612,100).
34,700 visitors and 25,900 visitors came from Italy and Spain respectively, which are largest ever as a single month number of visitors individually.
For aggregate number of visitors from January through August this year in comparison with the same period of 2019, visitors from the Middle East increased by 68.1% while visitors from India grew by 28%. There seems to be a boom of new hotel constructions in Japan and opening new flight routes between Japan and the Middle Ease as well as India.