Xinhua News Agency, Tokyo, October 3rd Hot Q&A | What are the highlights of Japan's Liberal Democratic Party presidential election
Newspaper reporter Liu Xiaobo.
The ruling Liberal Democratic Party of Japan will elect a new party chairman on 4th, and the candidate is likely to become a new Japanese prime minister.
What is the latest selection?
Voting for party members and party friends in this Liberal Democratic Party presidential election has closed on the 3rd. After voting by Liberal Democratic Party members of parliament on the 4th, a new president will be elected. As the election campaign comes to an end, new changes have taken place in the electoral pattern: among the five candidates, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshima Hayashi, Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Shinjiro Koizumi, and former Minister in charge of Economic Security Takashi Harami have the lead in support, showing a three-pronged pattern.
Among the three above, Lin Fangzheng has recently appeared to come from behind, and the NHK said that his support rating among members of parliament has surpassed Takashi. Lin Fangzheng is known as a "firefighter" in the political arena. She has repeatedly replaced cabinet members after resignations due to scandals. She has served in important positions such as Defense Minister, Minister of Education, Culture, Science and Technology, Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Chief Cabinet Secretary. Relying on his rich political experience and steady image, he gradually expanded his support base.
In comparison, two other popular candidates have recently caught up in controversy. Ho Chi Minh Camp supporters who were exposed to Ho Chi Minh Camp posted a message on the website and provided a ready-made “positive review template” for which Ho Chi Minh publicly apologized. Public opinion believes that this could affect his score. Ho Chi Minh City has been criticized for “kicking the deer” – she claimed in her speech that “Narean Park has foreign tourists kicking the deer”, but the park denies it.
According to the latest survey results of a number of Japanese media, although Lin Fangzheng's election situation is on the rise obviously, he is still at a disadvantage in terms of party members and party friends' votes. Japanese media generally predict that the most likely result of this election is that Koizumi and Takashi will enter the second round of confrontation. At that time, due to the big gap between Lin Fangzheng's policy stance and Takashi, his supporters are more likely to support Koizumi, who also advocates continuing the "stone-breaking route", thus further expanding Koizumi's advantage.
Difference in election proposals.
According to the recent series of statements, the above three candidates' campaign propositions mainly focus on domestic economic and people's livelihood issues, and deliberately avoid expressing their positions on sensitive issues.
In terms of foreign policy, each of the three advocates the consolidation of the Japan-US alliance, but each has a focus on the specific positions. Lin Feng is serving as chairman of the Japan-China Friendship Parliamentary Union, and is more pragmatic in the statement of relations with China; Xi Jinping puts more emphasis on safeguarding economic security; High City continues its consistent strong gesture and proposes the new establishment of the "National Intelligence Bureau" to strengthen the collection of information in the fields of diplomacy and security.
In the field of security, Lin Fangzheng proposed that the goal of defense spending accounting for 2% of GDP should be achieved ahead of schedule before fiscal year 2027; Koizumi emphasized that steady progress should be made within the framework of this goal; Gao Shi called for the introduction of the latest weapons and the strengthening of long-range strike capabilities, and did not deny the possibility of further increasing the proportion of defense spending as required by the United States.
Around the question of how to deal with foreigners, the above candidates advocated “raise the threshold, take stricter restrictions”, but in different degrees. In addition, they deliberately avoided statements during the campaign on some sensitive topics that can cause controversy, such as Xiao Xiao didn’t mention the gender issues discussed in the last election, and the city also avoided directly answering questions such as “whether to visit the Yogyakarta sanctuary as prime minister.”
What do Japanese people think?
For the policy proposals of the various candidates, the Japanese media generally assessed "the same small, lack of new ideas".In the Japanese media, the majority of the proposals are "overlapping" with the existing policy principles, lack of substantive breakthroughs, the policy debate as a whole seems boring, and whether it can really be implemented remains to be observed.
The general assessment of the campaign in Japan has also tended to be negative. Reporters on a street campaign in Tokyo’s Akihabara on September 24 saw that there were significantly fewer spectators on the scene than in previous years. Even though the candidates enthusiastically shouted slogans such as “drive growth” and “let Japan be at the center of the world”, there were few reactions on the scene. There were people who said: “Wages do not rise, life is getting worse, and there is no candidate who reflects on the status quo, but constantly stresses external threats, which will only disappoint people.”
It is worth noting that Takashi mentioned the unconfirmed claim of "foreign tourists kicking deer" in his campaign speech, once again raising concerns about Japanese xenophobia. Hiroshi Shiraoti, a professor at Hosei University in Japan, pointed out that such remarks are actually advocating the "Japanese first" argument and may intensify discrimination against foreigners in Japanese society. (End)