Comparative Connections v.11 n.2 - U.S.-Japan Relations

Prime Minister Aso Taro put off the election with the hope that additional economic stimulus measures would increase support for his Liberal Democratic Party. But Aso received a real boost when Ozawa Ichiro resigned as opposition leader in May due to a funding scandal. That boost quickly evaporated when Ozawa was succeeded as head of the Democratic Party of Japan by Hatoyama Yukio. As a result, most analysts continued to predict a victory for the DPJ in a general election expected in August and uncertainty continued hanging over the U.S.-Japan relationship. Japan’s political mess did not get in the way of close U.S.-Japan coordination in response to a series of North Korean provocations. President Obama also made progress in nominating key personnel to guide the U.S.-Japan relationship. The quarter came to a close with the U.S. Congress gearing up for a budgetary battle over the future of the F-22 stealth fighter, which the Aso administration has said it wants to buy, and Secretary of Defense Gates has said he does not intend to sell.