Word: japanism
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...Exasperated, the Administration has now unveiled North Korea policy version 3.0. Bush is apparently trying to shame North Korea into complying with its commitments in the so-called six-party talks (with the U.S., China, Russia, Japan and South Korea). In an April 24 presentation in Washington, the Administration produced damning photographic evidence that North Korea was deeply involved in helping Syria build a plutonium nuclear reactor, "basically a copy of Yongbyon," as one Bush official...
Diplomatic visits by heads of state are mostly symbolic affairs, concerned less with ironing out differences than with paying respects in a formal, stylized setting. In that sense, China President Hu Jintao's upcoming trip to Japan - the first by a Chinese head of state since 1998 - is expected to be run of the mill. The meticulously scripted itinerary calls for Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda to play host as Hu strolls through Yokohama's Chinatown, visits temples in Nara and dines at the Imperial Palace. On May 8 at Waseda University in Tokyo, Fukuda's alma mater...
...rival might be just the tonic he needs to revive his moribund prime ministership. Since taking over from the hapless administration of Shinzo Abe in September 2007, Fukuda's team has managed to look even more inept and out of touch than Abe's on issues ranging from Japan's faltering economy to the appointment of a new central-bank governor. Initiatives by Fukuda's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) have been bottled up in parliament by resurgent opposition politicians. Recent polls have put Fukuda's public approval rating at about 25% - lower than Abe's before he resigned after less...
...thousands of Chinese staged anti-Japanese protests in major Chinese cities, typically frosty political relations between the two countries have been warming up a bit - and because of China's growing economic power, it's crucial to Tokyo that this trend continues. (China last year surpassed the U.S. as Japan's largest export destination.) Like Abe, Fukuda has avoided angering Beijing by refraining from official visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, which honors Japanese war dead, including 14 convicted Class-A war criminals from World War II. But the delicate relationship between China and Japan contains many potential flash points, among...
...though, Fukuda could yet turn around his struggling administration. Abe, his predecessor, was most popular right after his successful visit to Beijing in October 2006. Similar good vibrations could give the current Prime Minister time to reshuffle his Cabinet and survive until July, when the spotlight will be on Japan as it hosts a G-8 summit. That could "slow the erosion of [Fukuda's] support," Curtis says. "That's what he has to do if he's going to stay in office much longer." Says Phil Deans, an international-affairs expert and assistant dean at Temple University in Tokyo...