Word: ldp
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...this brisk and sunny spring morning, Diet member Yasukazu Hamada was undeterred. A young and conservative member of Koizumi's ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), Hamada saw his pilgrimage to Yasukuni as a proper personal tribute to those who made the ultimate sacrifice for his country. No offense to China was intended, he says, but no special concessions were made to soothe China's sensibilities, either. Three such parliamentary prayer services had been held every year for decades, Hamada notes, and this one had been scheduled long before the anti-Japanese riots in China. He looks surprised when asked whether...
...Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ). A passel of hotly contested proposals to broaden Japan's ability to dispatch its Self-Defense Forces, say many lawmakers, passed into legislation only because Ishiba and Maehara worked together to break down interparty rivalries. Then there's Ichita Yamamoto, a 47-year-old LDP member and a graduate of Georgetown University, who says that 70-80% of the newly elected parliamentarians are in support of amending the constitution. A frequent guest on TV political talk shows and a strident critic of North Korea, Yamamoto was a vocal proponent of a law passed last year...
...given to China over the years, some of these observers fear that Chinese leaders will continue to play the history card whenever they consider it expedient. "In the post-cold-war era, the [Chinese] Communist Party is using nationalism as an ideology to maintain legitimacy," says Keizo Takemi, an LDP member who heads the Young Diet Members' group. "Anti-Japanism is an important part of Chinese nationalism, and has become an outlet for pent-up discontent among the young...
...Okada has a difficult task ahead of him. Many critics say the DPJ has not distinguished itself from the LDP on many key issues. And they say that the DPJ, an alliance of several previously feuding parties, is divided by ideological differences and factional infighting and could break apart as easily as it came together...
...others increasingly believe that Okada-the scion of a Japanese retailing dynasty and a Harvard graduate-is the party's best long-term hope of presenting a unified front against the LDP. His reputation as a serious policy wonk-particularly on Japan's hot-button pension-reform issue-and his history as a committed consensus-builder, they say, have made him a potent contrast to Koizumi, whom voters have begun to think of as imperious and impulsive. "Okada is a leader for the times," says Etsushi Tanifuji, a political-science professor at Waseda University in Tokyo. "After 9/11, politics...