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Prime Minister Abe Shinzo Intends to Step Down
- benrbray 6y agoMore information: [1] Japan Times, "How Possible Successors Stack up if Abe Resigns" (https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/08/24/national/politics-diplomacy/shinzo-abe-successors/ https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/08/24/national/politi...) [2] Japan Times, "Abe to Resign due to Health Concerns, NHK Reports" (https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/08/28/national/politics-diplomacy/shinzo-abe-resign/ https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/08/28/national/politi...)
- l_davis 6y agoNot surprising. Haven't seen much if anything of him in the media since he announced Japan's complete victory over Covid 19 right before things started reopening.
- bamboozled 6y agoJust to clarify, that its' definitely not been a complete victory. More like a nice display of "selective testing" so the numbers always look acceptable.
- SapporoChris 6y agohttps://toyokeizai.net/sp/visual/tko/covid19/en.html https://toyokeizai.net/sp/visual/tko/covid19/en.html Publicly available test results show active cases slowly surge higher than the point when they started shutting down. The numbers hardly look acceptable. If Japan didn't have the pandemic under control, would there not be a surge of deaths, particularly in the vulnerable age groups? https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/05/12/national/tokyo-overall-mortality-data-shows-no-surge-deaths-pandemic/ https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/05/12/national/tokyo-...
- gridlockd 6y agoThe death rate has a lot to do with who gets infected, elderly in Japan tend to be far healthier and in better care. Another possibility is that those deaths are simply not counted. Japan did notoriously little testing in the beginning. If a couple of 90 year olds die a bit sooner, few would suspect foul play.
- bamboozled 6y agoI don't believe this statement is accurate, there are a lot of elderly who aren't in great shape in good care also. I think what is accurate is that there is a lot of shame in Japanese society and there are many accounts of even healthcare workers being ostracized and bullied for catching it. What I believe is more accurate is that it's swept under the rug in Japan more than other countries. If someone elderly in a family dies from Covid19, it's easier to not bother requesting a test so you don't have to deal with the shame of having it in your family if it comes back positive. I'm not that against the lenient testing strategy, just don't think it's an accurate depiction of what's going on in Japan.I do think it's having a negative impact economically because people never truly feel safe as they don't understand the risks well enough to enjoy themselves.
- l_davis 6y agoI was being sarcastic; should not have assumed that would have been understood. Certainly room for improvement regarding Japan's Covid's management strategy, but I live in the US so shouldn't really throw stones from my glass house.
- henearkr 6y agoJapan just passed the peak of the second wave. It seems like the situation is slowly improving, and is on the good slope, but the epidemic is very much still alive. I always look at the "要入院" (people needing hospitalization) curve on the graph, rather than the "新規" (new cases) curve, because it cannot be manipulated as easily by changes in testing policies. I use the following site: https://newsdigest.jp/pages/coronavirus/ https://newsdigest.jp/pages/coronavirus/
- bamboozled 6y agoI appreciate the enthusiasm, but look at how few tests are being done in Tokyo though? https://stopcovid19.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/en/ https://stopcovid19.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/en/ It's tiny, Tokyo, often not even breaking 4000 in a city of 14 million. Not to mention it's difficult to get tested without meeting certain _criteria_ or pay 30000Y. I know people in Aus and the US countries who have been tested multiple times by now for free. The testing is hopeless, the results are tallied up by faxes sent around from different wards in Tokyo and are delayed by a few days. Really, it's a pretty sad state of affairs. I think it's nice that whatever numbers Japan is presenting are on the down trend, but the narrative is also tightly controlled no one knows what to really believe.
- henearkr 6y agoI hate too the testing policy in Japan. But this policy alone cannot explain a supposed anomaly in the count of "requiring hospitalization" covid patients. That's because I assume that the persons with covid with a health state that requires hospitalization will always be tested. What do you think would be a plausible bias? Maybe less aggravating factors among infected Japanese people?
- bamboozled 6y agoI do think it's likely that mostly younger people make up the majority of new cases, that's probably a large part of it. Then many young people seem to wear masks in public (at work etc) so they just don't easily spread it to elderly? Who knows...
- square_usual 6y agoHe seemed to have had this issue back in 2007, when he resigned from the Prime Ministership for the first time. At soon-to-be 66 he's not older than Trump, I wonder if he will make a third comeback. If he doesn't, I wonder how future generations will look upon Abenomics. Reuters is already claiming it failed to deliver [1], but it takes ages to understand the full impact of economic changes. 1: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-economy-abenomics-analysis-idUSKBN25O0TT https://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-economy-abenomics-a...
- oblio 6y agoWas it his decision to open Japan up? I've seen some graphs and they've had more tourists in the past 10 years than they've had in many decades, combined, before.
- kijin 6y agoIn previous decades, there weren't as many tourists from China. Japan is rather far away from most of the rest of the developed world, so its international tourism industry relies heavily on a handful of neighboring countries. China, Korea, and Taiwan make up 2/3 of all foreign tourists who visit Japan, and almost 3/4 if you count Hong Kong as well [1][2]. The increase in the total number of tourists in the 2010s is more a reflection of how well Japan's neighbors have been doing as it is of Japan's objective attractiveness as a destination. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourism_in_Japan#Statistics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourism_in_Japan#Statistics [2] China's share was probably even larger in 2019, as diplomatic disputes with South Korea resulted in a ~60% drop in the number of Korean tourists to Japan in the second half of 2019. This year, of course, the pandemic screwed up everything.
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago>In previous decades, there weren't as many tourists from China. This. Billion+ people country with a growing middle class that's almost within day-trip distance is gonna result in a hell of a lot more tourists.
- brian_herman__ 6y agoisn’t his name Shinzo Abe?
- squiggleblaz 6y agoIn Japan, the surname comes first. Both orders are found in English; surname last has been more common. I understand it is becoming more common to stop the reversal, in equivalent fashion as Xi Jinping who has his name in the Chinese order rather than the English order even in English.
- yomly 6y agoAlso Kim JongUn and Lee Hsien Long + Lee Kwan Yew
- matthewheath 6y agoYes, but apparently you put the family name first in Japan.
- notadog 6y agoIn Japan, the convention is to write the family name first and the given name second. https://www.npr.org/2019/05/22/725753561/shinzo-abe-or-abe-shinzo-japans-foreign-minister-tells-media-to-change-the-order https://www.npr.org/2019/05/22/725753561/shinzo-abe-or-abe-s...
- ulfw 6y agoMost languages of East Asia have a Surname First Name order (even with limits to how many syllables the family name can have). So Mr. Shinzo’s first name is Abe, written as Shinzo Abe. Same with Korean’s Kim, whose first names are Jong Un or let’s say Vietnamese’s Ho Chi Min, whose surname was Ho. Sun Yat-sen (last name Sun), Taiwan’s Tsai Ing-wen (surname Tsai), Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew (Lee family) etc etc. You get the idea.
- magnio 6y agoNitpick: the name is Ho Chi Minh, not Min.
- Aeolun 6y agoNot sure what to think of that. Of course it’s annoying to have your disease recur, but it does feel like he’s just up and leaving when things aren’t looking good.
- flocial 6y agoYou just can't falsify a medical diagnosis and would you rather have a Prime Minister leading the country despite deteriorating health? Japan's COVID-19 situation is still way better than most countries. Whether it will hold is anyone's guess but he's not fit enough to make big decisions and at some point Japan might need another lock down. I will say that I don't trust the LDP to rise above their internal bickering and backroom politics to choose someone capable of handling this pandemic but that is neither here nor there. We will find out soon. There really isn't any stand out for LDP leadership post Abe and that's something that deeply concerns me.
- gridlockd 6y agoI think Japan shows that political leadership, of all factors, has minimal impact on COVID-19 outcome. The Japanese government did almost nothing and got away with it.
- jiggawatts 6y agoThey didn't have to, because much of their population already follows "COVID-safe" practices. A large fraction wears facemasks in public and especially on public transport. They bow instead of shaking hands. They don't kiss acquaintances on the face, unlike say the custom in parts of the middle east. They're very hygienic, even taking their shoes off when entering a home. Food workers wear masks and gloves. So do taxi and bus drivers. Etc, etc... A full lockdown on top of this would have unnecessarily harmed their economy with little medical benefit.
- greggman3 6y agoso many mis-conceptions. Japanese don't all wear masks. They all had experience wearing them but it wasn't common to see more than 5% of people wearing them at any one time until Covid Japan is not remotely hygienic. Most hospitals and doctor's offices would be shut down by the health inspectors in the USA. I've seen all kinds of disgustingly dirty beds, cabinets, shelves, tables, and equipment in my 14 years here. Most restaurants as well. It was only covid that finally got them to cover food items at bakeries and buffets. It's easy to lose your appetite when you see kids sneezing on all the food. And for the last 2/2.5 months the country has seemed mostly not caring about Covid. People are partying at bars, restaurants, and coffee shops and their masks are off. Clubs are even open. Something else must explain why Covid hasn't been bigger here but it is not hygiene
- flocial 6y agoHe is the longest serving Prime Minister in the history of Japan just shy of 8 years. Before COVID-19 he was under constant attack for a school funding scandal, manipulating a cherry blossom party guest list hosted by the government, and his mishandling of COVID-19. He never got to revise the Japanese Constitution to reinstate a standing military force and all his economic gains were cancelled by COVID-19. I don't know how history will judge Abe but he did better than most.
- claudeganon 6y agoI wish I understood the origin of all the pro-Abe PR narratives in the US. In Japan, he’s immensely unpopular and emblematic of the country’s corrupt, one-party democracy. His supposed “revitalization” of the Japanese economy has done little more than further impoverish average people, so he can hand out tax benefits to the wealthy and his cronies. He’s dismantled press freedom in a way that other politicians on the far right only dream of, having fired or demoted several prominent journalists who voiced (by Western standards) mild criticism of him.
- bonchicbongenre 6y agoThe origin seems pretty obvious to me — Abe is part of the old guard, a plutocrat and moral conservative, like his propagandist supporters in the US media. Doesn't take any squinting to see their interests align
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- claudeganon 6y agoYes, it was inaccurate for me to question the origin. I should've said its surprising to me that otherwise educated people still fall for these narratives.
- Klonoar 6y agoBlind idolization of Japan runs deeper than you might expect, especially in communities like the one we’re typing on. When I lived there, I could never find anyone who liked him... but then again as a society it’s not quite like the west where political engagement is high.
- benbojangles 6y agoNow who will open the Olympic Games?
- ahmedalsudani 6y agoI have my disagreements with Abe, but it’s hard not to admire someone who walks in with bold ideas and tries for as long as he did to push society in a different direction. The morass would have done many in much sooner. Wishing Mr. Abe a swift recovery.
- xnyan 6y agoThere's a pro Abe narrative in the west I do not understand. It's a one party system, and as all one party systems it's incredibly corrupt. Under his tenure poor people became poorer, his friends became richer, and press freedoms got crushed into the earth. What on earth did he do or attempt to do that was admirable?
- claudeganon 6y agoThe Liberal Democratic Party (Abe's party) has received monetary, opposition intelligence, and propaganda support from the US since it's inception: https://www.nytimes.com/1994/10/09/world/cia-spent-millions-to-support-japanese-right-in-50-s-and-60-s.html https://www.nytimes.com/1994/10/09/world/cia-spent-millions-...
- ahmedalsudani 6y agoAgain, I have disagreements with him. But Japan has been in a bad place for decades. Abenomics, though it has not achieved the results it was aiming for, was an attempt. Trying to restore Japan’s standing army is another bold attempt. Bringing about big changes is something to be admired.
- conception 6y agoHe’s done quite a bit of work on getting women into the workforce and into leadership positions with not terrible results for such a difficult problem.
- claudeganon 6y agoThis narrative is touted in the western press, but has little basis in reality. In real terms, women were only allowed into low wage, low rank, and part time or contract work to juke labor force participation stats. Gender parity is worse than it was 14 years ago: >This year, the World Economic Forum ranked Japan 121st out of 153 countries on gender parity, down 11 places from the year before and 41 places from 2006. Its gender pay gap of 23.5 percent is the highest among G-7 countries and the second highest in the OECD, behind only South Korea. And while the share of women in the labor force has grown to more than 70 percent, higher than in the United States or the European Union, most female workers in Japan have part-time or contract jobs, which are more vulnerable during economic crises. Of the 970,000 irregular jobs that were lost in April due to the coronavirus pandemic, 710,000 were held by women. https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/trend-lines/28972/for-japan-s-abe-womenomics-is-not-enough-to-achieve-gender-equality https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/trend-lines/28972/for-ja...
- known 6y agoRare politician; If I can’t discharge my responsibility to the people of this country with confidence, then I judge I should not continue as prime minister https://archive.vn/KaCoE https://archive.vn/KaCoE
- jsnider3 6y agoHe will be missed.