Financial Times (August 29)
How long will Japan’s new Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, the sixth in 5 years, last? “To do better, Japan badly needs political stability,” and yet “Japan’s recent crop of leaders has underwhelmed.” Thankfully, the bureaucracy does a competent job of managing the country, but Japan remains “strategically adrift. The big questions of how it rebuilds after the tsunami, how it manages its debt, how it eradicates deflation and how it deals with China have been postponed or fudged.”
New York Times (September 7)
Japan has had 14 prime ministers in the last 20 years and now faces the possibility of a third prime minister in a single year. The “leadership merry-go-round” must end. “Revolving-door leaders with constantly shifting agendas are not in Japan’s interest — or the rest of the world’s.”
Tags: Japan, Prime minister
