Japan's Prime Minister Naoto Kan Resigns

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/world/japan-pm-naoto-kan-resigns-amid-public-di...

Herald Sun...

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Japan PM Naoto Kan resigns amid public dismay

AP, AFP
From: Herald Sun
August 26, 2011 7:33PM

PHOTO:
Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan. AP

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JAPANESE Prime Minister Naoto Kan has announced he is resigning amid plunging approval ratings over his government's handling of the tsunami disaster and nuclear crisis.

In a nationally-televised speech today, Kan said he was stepping down as chief of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan, effectively ending his 15-month tenure as leader of the country.

The decision was widely expected because in June, Kan had promised to quit once MPs passed three key pieces of legislation. The final two bills cleared the Parliament earlier today.

The Democrats will vote on Monday for a new leader, who will almost certainly become Japan's next Prime Minister - the sixth since 2006.

Former Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara is viewed as the frontrunner to replace him. Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda and Trade Minister Banri Kaieda are also viewed as contenders.

Looking back on his time in office, Kan said he did all he could given difficulties he faced, including the disasters and a major election defeat in Upper House elections last year that left the Parliament in gridlock.

''Under the severe circumstances, I feel I've done everything that I had to do,'' he said.

''Now I would like to see you choose someone respectable as a new Prime Minister.''

The 64-year-old Kan has seen his approval ratings tumble amid a perceived lack of leadership after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami and subsequent nuclear crisis.

Survivors complain about slow recovery efforts, and radiation from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi plant has spread into the air, water and food supply.

Political infighting between the ruling and opposition parties also have discouraged the public. Recent polls show that his public support has fallen under 20 per cent.

Whoever wins faces the unenviable task of overseeing Japan's biggest post-war reconstruction, resolving of the world's worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl 25 years ago and shielding the economy from a soaring yen.

They must also unite a divided Parliament and win market confidence that Japan can overcome a legislative quagmire to address the world's biggest debt.

Ratings agency Moody's this week downgraded Japan, citing its revolving-door political leadership as a major obstacle to much needed reform.

After taking office in June last year, the 64-year-old Kan struggled amid low support ratings, a power struggle within the DPJ and a divided Parliament in which the Liberal Democratic Party opposition blocked various bills.

Japan's triple disaster - which left 20,000 dead or missing, wiped out whole towns and sparked the Fukushima nuclear accident - tested his leadership and led to accusations that he bungled the response to the calamity.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia-pacific/japans-prime-minister-kan-annou...

The Washington Post...

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Japan’s Prime Minister Kan announces resignation

PHOTO:
Koji Sasahara/AP - Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan bows after giving a speech at the Democratic Party of Japan lawmakers' meeting in Tokyo Friday, Aug. 26, 2011. Kan announced he was resigning after almost 15 months in office.

By Chico Harlan, Published: August 25

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FUKUSHIMA CITY, Japan — Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan on Friday announced his resignation, ending a 15-month tenure defined by crisis and opening the door for this country’s seventh leader since 2006.

Kan’s decision to step down, coming after months of criticism over his government’s response to the disaster reconstruction and the nuclear emergency, turns the attention to Kan’s successor — to be determined in a ruling party election Monday.

Japan’s next prime minister will inherit all of the problems that Kan struggled to handle. Even before the March 11 disaster, Japan was dealing with a soaring debt, a stagnating economy and a shrinking population. Now, dealing with its biggest crisis since World War II, Japan also faces critical decisions about energy policy, nuclear reform, and the viable reconstruction of its northeastern coastline.

Kan had hinted three months ago that he would step down once Japan’s parliament had passed three final bills, and Friday the final two — one related to renewable energy; another related to the approval of new bonds — were finally passed.

“Under the severe circumstances, I feel like I’ve done everything that I had to do,” Kan said, according to the AP. “Now I would like to see you choose someone respectable as the new prime minister.”

The ruling Democratic Party of Japan will hold its presidential election on Monday, picking from as many as nine candidates, according to the Yomiuri newspaper. The frontrunners include former foreign minister Seiji Maehara, industry minister Banri Kaieda, finance minister Yoshihiko Noda.

Kan took over in June 2010 replacing the unpopular Yukio Hatoyama, but Kan himself squandered popularity within weeks, facing criticism for his flip-flopping over a possible consumption tax raise.

At the time of the March 11 9.0-magnitude earthquake, Kan was days away from stepping down. But the disaster, and the short-lived political cooperation that ensued, gave him a second chance.

Post-disaster, the former activist emerged as a sharp critic of Japan’s powerful nuclear industry, which long enjoyed a cozy relationship with the government agency designed to regulate it.

In July, Kan told the nation he was in favor of a nuclear phase-out — meaning Japan should eventually shut down all of its 54 reactors. But even with a majority of the country favoring such a policy, Kan was unable to translate his opinion into popularity. Fellow lawmakers blasted him for speaking his mind without consulting others. And in the meantime, the government at large struggled to convey understandable and timely information about the unfolding nuclear crisis.

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http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/indepth/2011-08/26/c_131077322.htm

Xinhuanet...

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China-Japan ties must rise above Japan's political volatility
English.news.cn 2011-08-26 17:26:49

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BEIJING, Aug. 26 (Xinhua) -- Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan effectively finished his tenure Friday, after resigning as head of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan.

It is hoped the latest change of Japanese leadership, the sixth in only five years, will not hamper development of China-Japan relations, which are of great importance for Asia-Pacific peace and stability but have undergone ups and downs in recent years.

China and Japan, as the world's second and third biggest economies, have enormous bilateral trade, worth 300 billion U.S. dollars in 2010, but their relations have sometimes soured over historical and territorial disputes.

A steady and friendly bilateral relationship will be beneficial for both sides, whether in political or economic fields.

In past years, the immense bilateral trade, to some extent, has helped alleviate Japan's economic stagnation and allowed Chinese consumers to enjoy Japan's high-tech products. And since the global financial crisis hit in 2008, the two countries have worked closely to limit its effects.

Both China and Japan claim sovereignty over the Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea, and their ties have from time to time been strained by this sensitive issue.

Confrontation and conflict between the two countries on the issue could be disastrous for the Asia-Pacific region, while their sound relations will be a blessing.

It is important for both sides to further promote bilateral exchanges, including those under regional frameworks such as APEC and ASEAN+3. Moreover, the global economic picture is still gloomy, with debt crises biting the United States and Europe.

China and Japan, as two of the world's economic heavyweights, should work together to tackle the ongoing severe global economic problems.

It is hoped that whoever becomes the new Japanese leader will properly handle China-Japan relations.

Meanwhile, both sides should further deepen exchanges, agree to disagree, and continue to push forward bilateral ties.

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Editor: Yang Lina

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/08/25/501364/main20097611.shtml

CBS...

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August 26, 2011 2:40 AM

Japan Prime Minister Naoto Kan resigns

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PHOTO:
Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan bows after giving a speech to a meeting of lawmakers from Japan's Democratic Party in Tokyo, Aug. 26, 2011. (AP)

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(AP)

TOKYO - Prime Minister Naoto Kan announced Friday he was resigning after almost 15 months in office amid plunging approval ratings over his government's handling of the tsunami disaster and nuclear crisis.

In a nationally televised speech, Kan said he was stepping down as chief of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan, effectively ending his tenure as leader of the country. The decision was widely expected because in June, Kan had promised to quit once lawmakers passed three key pieces of legislation. The final two bills cleared the parliament earlier Friday.

The Democrats will vote Monday for a new leader, who will almost certainly become Japan's next prime minister — the sixth since 2006.

Former Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara is viewed as the front-runner to replace him. Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda and Trade Minister Banri Kaieda are also viewed as contenders.

Looking back on his year and three months in office, Kan said he did all he could given difficulties he faced, including the disasters and a major election defeat in upper house elections last summer that left the parliament in gridlock.

"Under the severe circumstances, I feel I've done everything that I had to do," he said. "Now I would like to see you choose someone respectable as a new prime minister."

The 64-year-old Kan has seen his approval ratings tumble amid a perceived lack of leadership after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami and subsequent nuclear crisis. Survivors complain about slow recovery efforts, and radiation from the crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi plant has spread into the air, water and food supply.

Special section: Disaster in Japan

Political infighting between the ruling and opposition parties also have discouraged the public. Recent polls show that his public support has fallen under 20 percent.

Japan's new leader will take over a heavy load of tasks: rebuilding the country from the triple disasters, tackling a surging yen that is undermining the export-led economy and mapping out a new energy policy that is less reliant to nuclear power.

Kan's successor will also need to restore confidence in Japan's alliance with the U.S. Tokyo recently canceled Kan's U.S. visit for talks with President Obama, expected in early September, due to the political uncertainty.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/27/world/asia/27japan.html

The New York Times...

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August 26, 2011
Prime Minister’s Departure Underscores Japan’s Search for Leadership
By MARTIN FACKLER

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TOKYO — Three months ago, Japan’s unpopular prime minister, Naoto Kan, seemed to have a chance at a comeback. The former civic activist ordered the shutdown of a nuclear plant in a risky earthquake fault zone, enraging the powerful atomic energy establishment but winning applause from Japan’s now nuclear-phobic public.

But Mr. Kan proved incapable of seizing the moment. His approval ratings quickly resumed their slide, falling into the mid-teens, even as polls showed opposition to nuclear power growing after the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in March.

On Friday, Mr. Kan bowed to the inevitable, confirming his cabinet’s previous announcement that he will resign early next week after just 15 months in office. That will make him the sixth Japanese prime minister to step down in the past five years.

Indeed, the timing of Mr. Kan’s ouster — coming as Japan, already in the throes of a two-decade economic decline, still struggles to recover from the March earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster, and now the threat of global recession — has seemed to mark a new political low even for this nation of revolving-door prime ministers. Perhaps more than the resignation of any of his short-lived predecessors, Mr. Kan’s forced departure has underscored the difficulties that Japan faces in trying to find leadership out of its long economic and social decline.

“Mr. Kan is the outsider-turned-prime minister, who should have provided leadership,” said Takayoshi Igarashi, a political professor and long-time friend of Mr. Kan who serves as an adviser to his cabinet. “The move to escape from nuclear power should have been his great chance to shine.”

Mr. Kan was supposed to be different. In a nation where so many national politicians are second, third and even fourth-generation lawmakers, Mr. Kan was the rare self-made man. Mr. Kan, 64, entered public affairs four decades ago as an aide to a prominent feminist leader, and rose to national attention as health minister in the 1990s when he exposed his ministry’s cover-up of a scandal involving H.I.V.-tainted blood products.

When he became prime minister last June, T-shirts appeared with the slogan “Yes We Kan” — a reflection of hopes that he would break the mold of ineffectual Japanese political leader and shake up this stagnant nation’s sclerotic status quo.

Instead, Mr. Kan followed an all-too familiar pattern: after a strong start with approval ratings above 60 percent, support quickly began to slip and fall as he faced rising criticism for failing to show leadership.

“This is a nation groping in the dark for what its new goals should be,” said Koichiro Kokubun, a philosophy professor at Takasaki City University of Economics, whose comments on the Kan government have won attention in Japan. “Prime Minister Kan’s biggest failure was not pointing a direction.”

Of course, Mr. Kan has faced a host of deep and formidable problems in office that would have challenged any leader: not just the earthquake and tsunami, which left 20,000 dead or missing, and the resulting nuclear accident, but also paralyzing divisions within the governing party and Parliament that will also hinder his successor.

But political analysts and even Mr. Kan’s allies, like Mr. Igarashi, say that Mr. Kan’s failure has also been at least partially his own doing.

In recent months, Mr. Kan has faced constant criticism for what many here see as his impulsive and inconsistent handling of the nuclear crisis in Fukushima. At the same time, his lone-wolf style and refusal to engage in Japan’s prerequisite consensus-building has alienated almost every major player in the political establishment: bureaucracy, news media, even members of his own party.

But even his supporters say his biggest liability was an inability to communicate to the public. It is on this latter point that he is often unfavorably compared with a previous iconoclastic Japanese leader, Junichiro Koizumi, who proved much more successful as prime minister for five years until 2006.

While Mr. Koizumi had mastered the art of short news conferences, tossing out pithy sound bites that resonated with voters, Mr. Kan refused to give such impromptu briefings. Mr. Koizumi built a populist appeal that he used to defeat a powerful interest group, the post office, which had become a crucial cog in the old-style political machines that Mr. Koizumi was trying to dismantle.

By contrast, Mr. Kan’s crippling inability to connect with voters was most clearly seen in his failed effort to challenge another vested interest, the nuclear industry, despite the clear public backlash against atomic power. Mr. Kan got off to a strong start in May by ordering the shutdown of the vulnerable Hamaoka nuclear power plant. He also won popular applause by criticizing the cozy ties between the nuclear industry and regulators, who are widely blamed for allowing the Fukushima plant to operate without adequate protection from tsunamis.

However, Mr. Kan failed to persuade the public that his new anti-nuclear stance represented a serious change of heart by a leader who before March supported building new nuclear plants. Worse, say analysts, he failed to lay out a detailed road map of how Japan might realistically rid itself of nuclear power without all the lights going out.

“He could have gotten out in front of this issue, but he didn’t communicate,” said Gerald Curtis, a professor of Japanese politics at Columbia University.

“Prime Minister Kan never seemed to grasp the importance of communication,” said his adviser, Mr. Igarashi. “I told him and told him, but he had this belief that a man should be judged by actions, not words.”

On Friday, Mr. Kan made what might be his final action, confirming that he was finally stepping down. Indeed, this has been one of the most protracted resignations in recent memory, with Mr. Kan first promising to resign in June, but then trying to prolong his time in office by vowing to pass disaster-related bills first.

In a sign of deep divisions within the party, no less than seven candidates have put their hands up to replace him in an internal party vote to be held Monday. Whoever replaces Mr. Kan will face a divided Parliament where the upper house is in the hands of the opposition Liberal Democrats, who seem intent to force an early election by blocking passage of whatever agenda he puts forward.

“I don’t see any of the problems changing,” said Mr. Curtis of Columbia. “If anything, the next guy will be the shortest-lived prime minister yet. ”

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http://www.the-dispatch.com/article/20110826/ZNYT03/108263000/-1/news?Title=Prim...

The-Dispatch...

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Prime Minister’s Departure Underscores Japan’s Search for Leadership
MARTIN FACKLER
Published: Friday, August 26, 2011 at 4:06 a.m.
Last Modified: Friday, August 26, 2011 at 4:06 a.m.

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PART ONE...

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TOKYO — Three months ago, Japan’s unpopular prime minister, Naoto Kan, seemed to have a chance at a comeback. The former civic activist ordered the shutdown of a nuclear plant in a risky earthquake fault zone, enraging the powerful atomic energy establishment but winning applause from Japan’s now nuclear-phobic public.

But Mr. Kan proved incapable of seizing the moment. His approval ratings quickly resumed their slide, falling into the mid-teens, even as polls showed opposition to nuclear power growing after the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in March.

On Friday, Mr. Kan bowed to the inevitable, confirming his cabinet’s previous announcement that he will resign early next week after just 15 months in office. That will make him the sixth Japanese prime minister to step down in the past five years.

Indeed, the timing of Mr. Kan’s ouster — coming as Japan, already in the throes of a two-decade economic decline, still struggles to recover from the March earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster, and now the threat of global recession — has seemed to mark a new political low even for this nation of revolving-door prime ministers. Perhaps more than the resignation of any of his short-lived predecessors, Mr. Kan’s forced departure has underscored the difficulties that Japan faces in trying to find leadership out of its long economic and social decline.

“Mr. Kan is the outsider-turned-prime minister, who should have provided leadership,” said Takayoshi Igarashi, a political professor and long-time friend of Mr. Kan who serves as an adviser to his cabinet. “The move to escape from nuclear power should have been his great chance to shine.”

Mr. Kan was supposed to be different. In a nation where so many national politicians are second, third and even fourth-generation lawmakers, Mr. Kan was the rare self-made man. Mr. Kan, 64, entered public affairs four decades ago as an aide to a prominent feminist leader, and rose to national attention as health minister in the 1990s when he exposed his ministry’s cover-up of a scandal involving H.I.V.-tainted blood products.

When he became prime minister last June, T-shirts appeared with the slogan “Yes We Kan” — a reflection of hopes that he would break the mold of ineffectual Japanese political leader and shake up this stagnant nation’s sclerotic status quo.

Instead, Mr. Kan followed an all-too familiar pattern: after a strong start with approval ratings above 60 percent, support quickly began to slip and fall as he faced rising criticism for failing to show leadership.

“This is a nation groping in the dark for what its new goals should be,” said Koichiro Kokubun, a philosophy professor at Takasaki City University of Economics, whose comments on the Kan government have won attention in Japan. “Prime Minister Kan’s biggest failure was not pointing a direction.”

Of course, Mr. Kan has faced a host of deep and formidable problems in office that would have challenged any leader: not just the earthquake and tsunami, which left 20,000 dead or missing, and the resulting nuclear accident, but also paralyzing divisions within the governing party and Parliament that will also hinder his successor.

But political analysts and even Mr. Kan’s allies, like Mr. Igarashi, say that Mr. Kan’s failure has also been at least partially his own doing.

In recent months, Mr. Kan has faced constant criticism for what many here see as his impulsive and inconsistent handling of the nuclear crisis in Fukushima. At the same time, his lone-wolf style and refusal to engage in Japan’s prerequisite consensus-building has alienated almost every major player in the political establishment: bureaucracy, news media, even members of his own party.

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CONTINUED...

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