New York Times (June 23)
“Any reasonable American strategy for managing China’s increasingly aggressive actions in Asia depends heavily on cooperation with Japan and South Korea.” Alas, a new report on comfort women, calling the sincerity of Japan’s 1993 apology into question, has again cast a wrench in relations with neighboring South Korea. Prime Minister Abe’s “continued willingness to play to that political fringe is interfering with Japan’s ability to carry on its leading role in the region.”
Tags: Abe, Aggression, Apology, China, Comfort women, Cooperation, Japan, Political fringe, Sincerity, South Korea, Strategy, U.S.
Financial Times (May 23)
“India has a new prime minister; and each of Asia’s four most powerful nations is now led by a combative nationalist.” India’s Modi, Japan’s Abe, Russia’s Putin and China’s Xi make up the four “nationalist horsemen” who will transform Asia and perhaps the world. “The multilateralist assumptions of the postwar order are giving way to a return to great power competition. Nationalism is on the march, and nowhere more so than in the rising east.”
Tags: Abe, Asia, Assumptions, China, Combative, Competition, India, Japan, Modi, Multilateralist, Nationalist, Postwar order, Power, Prime minister, Putin, Russia, Xi
Washington Post (April 4)
Prime Minister Abe is not the only one worried about empowering women. Companies should be just as worried. Equal Pay Day falls on Tuesday, April 8, symbolizing how far into 2014 women must work to earn what men earned in 2013. “Lip service isn’t enough. Corporate policy matters, too. As long as firms are resistant to changes that will help attract and retain female talent—like more flexible work arrangements, which can actually boost worker productivity—they will be limiting their own potential as well as that of female workers.
Tags: Abe, Attract, Change, Companies, Corporate policy, Equal Pay Day, Flexible work arrangements, Lip service, Potential, Retain, Talent, Women, Worker productivity
The Economist (March 29)
“Women’s lowly status in the Japanese workplace has barely improved in decades, and the country suffers as a result.” Though difficult to quantify, the cost of this lost potential is enormous. “Japan educates its women to a higher level than nearly anywhere else in the world…. But when they leave university their potential is often squandered, as far as the economy is concerned.” If Prime Minister Abe and “the country’s policymakers can find the right ways to help them, those women could boost the economy and reform corporate culture.”
Tags: Abe, Corporate culture, Economy, Japan, Lost potential, Policymakers, Status, University, Women, Workplace
New York Times (March 3)
“Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s brand of nationalism is a becoming an ever more serious threat to Japan’s relations with the United States. His use of revisionist history is a dangerous provocation for the region, which is already struggling with China’s aggressive stance in territorial disputes in the East and South China Seas.”
Tags: Abe, Aggressive stance, China, Dangerous Provocation, Japan, Nationalism, Revisionism, Territorial disputes, Threat, U.S.
Wall Street Journal (February 4, 2014)
The Nikkei’s fall puts added pressure on Shinzo Abe’s efforts to revive Japan. The correction may prove temporary, but it is surely a sign of underlying weakness in Abenomics, which should be fortified. “Policy makers shouldn’t govern by the wishes of stock markets, but in this case Mr. Abe could take a hint. If 2013 was the year when he hyped Japan’s economic prospects, 2014 will need to be the year when he starts doing something about it.”
Tags: 2014, Abe, Abenomics, Correction, Economic prospects, Hype, Japan, Nikkei, Policy makers, Stock markets, Temporary, Weakness
New York Times (December 31, 2013)
“The government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is moving to lift Japan’s ban on the export of weapons…. It is doubtful that Japan or other Asian nations can resolve the many differences in the region by enhancing their military capabilities, which only aggravates a futile arms race.”
Tags: Abe, Arms race, Asia, Ban, Export, Government, Japan, Military capabilities, Weapons
Wall Street Journal (October 2)
The rise in Japan’s consumption tax is an unwelcome return to the old “tax and spend” playbook. Of the estimated $88 billion in revenue, over $50 billion is marked for spending as stimulus. “More rapid and durable economic growth is the only escape from Japan’s self-constructed fiscal trap. Mr. Abe still has a chance to rescue his economic program with a new reform plan, the long-awaited ‘third arrow.’ But with his tax increase he is creating another headwind to overcome.”
Tags: Abe, Consumption tax, Economic growth, Fiscal trap, Headwind, Japan, Reform, Revenue, Stimulus, Tax and spend, Tax increase, Third arrow
Institutional Investor (September Issue)
“While Abe may have won the first couple of rounds, he will need to win plenty more before he can declare final victor in his high-stakes bid to turn around Japan, Inc…. For one, unless structural changes are made, demographics are likely to prove disastrous to Japan’s economy. For another, Japan’s nominal GDP is still at 2008 levels, meaning that it has stood still for the past five years. Finally, with public debt now exceeding 1,000 trillion yen ($10.2 trillion), time may be running out for Japan to sort out its problems.”
Tags: Abe, Debt, Demographics, Economy, GDP, Japan, Structural changes
Bloomberg (July 26)
“Everyone from officials at the U.S. Treasury to punters in London trading pits to salarymen in Osaka are so ecstatic to see a Japanese leader acting boldly that they’ve forgotten to study his strategy. It’s great that Abe wants to shake Japan Inc. out of two decades of complacency. It’s equally important, though, that his fixes are the right ones and are implemented carefully.”
Tags: Abe, Bold, Japan, Japan Inc., Leader, London, Osaka, Salarymen, Strategy, Trading, Treasury, U.S.
