News & Insights

Our guest speaker for March was Yoshimi Watanabe, former Minister of State for Regulatory Reform and Financial Services and, since 2008, party leader for Your Party, Japan's third largest political party according to most recent polls. Mr Watanabe is...

Our guest speaker for April was Kenta Matsunami, former Vice Minister of Health, Labor and Welfare, Chair of the LDP Council on Regionalization, and Vice Chair of the Health, Labor and Welfare Committee of the LDP's Policy Affairs Research Council. ...

Our guest speaker for May was Mr. Keiro Kitagami, Vice Minister of Economy, Trade, and Industry, and Member of the House of Representatives with the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ).  Mr. Kitagami is in charge of Japan's negotiations on free trade agr...

Our guest speaker for September was Katsumasa Suzuki, co-founder of the new People's Lives First Party (PLFP) and one of party leader Ichiro Ozawa's closest political allies. Suzuki heads the PFLP's Diet Affairs Committee, a powerful position which d...

Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda’s sudden call for elections on 16 December has reopened the future direction of Japan’s politics. Just three years (and three prime ministers) after the historical shift of power to the DPJ on its promise of a break with...

So much has changed since the election last month and our last meeting of the International Policy Forum. But few are better placed than our guest speaker, Naokazu Takemoto, to comment on that change and the new policy initiatives of the Abe Cabinet....