In 2012 you could have made the same argument for a former failed Prime Minister who had crashed and burned in under a year but... no, the devil's had enough advocacy for one day. Noda's completely the wrong leader for the moment, but I have no idea who on their benches would actually be *right*.
So the CRA *could* appeal to a lot of voters, but on the other side of the balance: dubious branding, a hastily thrown together partnership, an unclear policy platform, and honestly nobody on those benches is a good enough political attack dog to make the public case that the LDP has lost the plot.
Also, while I personally think Komeito has generally been a positive influence in Japanese politics over the past 20 years, the fact remains that they're the political wing of a cult, and tying up with them largely defangs any critique of the LDP's slimy entanglement with the Unification Church.
However, to dispense with the devil's advocate act: just because CRA *could* be making that appeal doesn't mean they *are*. For a start, throwing together a whole new party days before an election with no fully agreed policy platform doesn't exactly scream "we're the stable option".
It's not for nothing that the biggest electoral threats to the LDP have always been forces led by former LDP figures! When the LDP is out of favour (which it still basically is, despite Takaichi juicing cabinet support polls), voters swing to "kinda like the LDP but without the scandals" offerings.
To play devil's advocate for CRA: poll data show that most Japanese voters consider themselves centrists on the vast majority of issues, primarily valuing stability / competence on valence, pocketbook issues. "The LDP is going off the rails, we're offering continuity" isn't the worst campaign ever.
(Itโs the same performative act theyโre doing with tourism - they donโt want to harm revenues but they know citizens are getting fed up of negative externalities, so theyโll poke and prod haphazardly at various bits of policy until they actually manage to break something.)
Itโs nothing as strategic as a smokescreen; theyโre pushing buttons and pulling levers in an attempt to square an impossible circle in domestic public opinion, and as is often the case with migration policy, struggle to understand that migrants themselves also have agency and follow the news.
Right, thereโs still very clearly an understanding at high levels of government that they need foreign labour to keep the country afloat - so you end up with an incoherent mess of positioning thatโs designed to appease diametrically opposed constituencies.
The same factors allowing that sector to put heavy downward pressure on pay and conditions in recent years will also allow them to shrug and say โnot my problemโ over visa fees. (Japan losing interest in English language education was arguably an early warning sign for the anti-globalist turnโฆ)
It will absolutely suck for ALTs as individuals, but thinking of the employer perspective (since they actually have the voice to make the government reconsider these proposals), unfortunately I donโt think ALT dispatch companies etc. have much cloutโฆ or will be particularly troubled.
Oh 100% - the popularity of the Leopards Eating Peopleโs Faces Party is a global phenomenon, and thereโs no doubt a serious level of โbut Iโm one of the good ones!โ thinking going on within some of those groups too. Even so, I think hiring for skilled jobs is about to get a lot harder hereโฆ
Iโd draw a significant distinction here between the โexpatsโ (here on transfers etc.) and the much larger population of regular immigrants working in high-skilled and reasonably well paid positions across sectors like software, engineering etc. - the large majority of whom are not white westerners.
By the time of his assassination there were already dissenting voices on the far-right accusing him of hoodwinking conservatives by paying lip-service to them while pursuing a globalist policy agenda. His death stemmed that talk, but it could have been the start of a pretty serious schism.
I do wonder how Abe would have coped with the sharply anti-globalist turn on the right that we've seen since COVID. His death makes him easy for the right to canonise, but there's a good chance that they'd have demonised him for his globalist stances instead, had he lived.
(Not that I disagree that there are going to be a lot of shocked_pikachu_face reactions when employers in the US find international workers are going cold on the idea of moving there; I just think places like Japan will find this stove burns their hand FAR more quickly when they touch it.)
America arguably has more leeway on this because salaries in fields like tech are very high by global standards, creating a major pull factor. Japan (and other countries experiencing similar anti-migrant turns, like the UK) have far less runway before the economic damage starts to bite hard.
I've seen many comments along the lines of "the number of foreigners in Japan suddenly increased after Abe died, MAKES YOU THINK". The way his spirit is invoked in RW discourses is honestly fascinating, and they definitely want to revise the history of his actual immigration policies.
I know many fellow "lifers" who won't be inconvenienced by these changes but worry about the direction of travel. Restricting foreign residents' access to health and social welfare systems, for example, remains a fringe proposal for now - but the slope definitely looks more slippery than it used to.
One further thought on this immigration thread. While the proposed cost rises aren't a major issue for most people in relatively high-earning fields like tech / finance, I don't think we should underestimate the impact this "mood music" has on the ability to attract / retain international labour.
Consequently, there will probably be some fairly hard pushback from employers / businesses on these and other changes - but with the government themselves fanning the flames on this issue, it may be hard for them to back down from their proposals.
For all the rhetoric, Japan struggles to attract migrants - salaries are poor and the weak Yen dissuades migrants from the developing world who need to send money home. The relatively open, easy to navigate immigration system was a rare boon to employers trying to access international labour pools.
These rises will disproportionately impact lower income migrants. People in fields like tech or finance can afford the fees, and employers may cover the costs for many of them. But this will be a hammer blow for fields like agriculture and construction, which are deeply reliant on migrant workers.
Thereโs a case for bumping fees associated with visas if it funds better staffing etc. at the immigration agency, which is operating wildly beyond capacity in Tokyo in particular. The proposed rises go beyond that and are clearly intended to be punitive and dissuade migrants from coming / staying.
Aside from the obvious populist scapegoating, a striking thing about the governmentโs stance here is how utterly incoherent it is with the past decade of LDP policy - including that of Takaichiโs icon Abe, who squarely aimed migration policy at shoring up the countryโs dwindling workforce.
Sadly there is no extra zero - the proposal floated this week is to raise the cost for PR to 300,000ๅ, so ~$1900 is accurate.
Itโs both! Some classic Nihonjinron (โintestines uniquely evolved to digest riceโ) kitbashed with national victimhood conspiracy (โforeign powers, knowing about the magical rice-eating intestines, forced the importation of wheat products to weaken Japanese peopleโs bodies and neuter the nationโ).
How does a fringe, anti-vaccine party come to influence national politics? In this insightful article, Romeo Marcantuoni and Robert A. Fahey examine Sanseitล, a Japanese political party founded during the pandemic.
www.cambridge.org/core/journal... #Japan #Politics #ConspiracyTheories #APJJF
I propose a meta-review of the field, conducted by phrenological examination of the papersโ authorsโ heads. Could their faces reveal why theyโre so bad at doing science?
Thereโs also no $250bn, but since most AI deals now seem to be pure speculative fiction they may as well get freaky with it; why NOT swap a machine god for imaginary money?
