JAPAN: Election Results & more – 31st Oct 2024

Konnichiwa from BA! This is the Rorshok Japan Update from the 31st of October twenty twenty-four. A quick summary of what's going down in Japan.

After the general election on Sunday the 27th, Japan’s government no longer has a majority ruling party. The Liberal Democratic Party or LDP, the former ruling party, and its partner, Komeito, saw their seats drop from 279 to 215 in the Lower House. The Constitutional Democratic Party, which is the LDP’s biggest opposition, gained fifty seats, which brought its seat total to 148. According to Japanese law, the ruling party needs to have at least 233 seats.

Since no political party currently has enough seats, the parties have thirty days to figure out how they are going to govern. Smaller parties, such as the Democratic Party for the People and Japan Innovation Party, may play important roles in negotiations.

The prime minister is typically the leader of the ruling political party. Shigeru Ishiba, who has been prime minister for less than a month, said that he will persevere during these difficult times. However, it’s not clear yet if he will keep his post.

In a quick follow-up to a story from previous shows, China plans to resume some imports of Japanese seafood. Last year, China banned imports after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant began releasing treated water into the ocean. Before the ban, China was one of Japan’s biggest trading partners in seafood. For instance, the export of Japanese carp to China was nearly eight million dollars in twenty twenty-two. After the ban, this number dropped to under seven million in twenty twenty-three since exports stopped after August.

However, China’s General Administration of Customs recently approved six Japanese facilities to export seafood, including four in Niigata and one in Fukuoka and Hiroshima.

While this is good for Japan’s seafood industry, this is half the number of facilities that exported seafood to China before the ban. China hasn’t said yet if or when they will approve more facilities for exports.

In legal news, the Tokyo High Court ruled on Wednesday the 30th that Japan’s ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional. This is the second time a high court has declared this, the first being Sapporo’s High Court. Smaller district courts said the ban was in a state of unconstitutionality, which is much weaker language than the latest ruling.

The court said that restricting marriage to heterosexual couples violates Articles Fourteen and Twenty-Four of Japan’s constitution, which guarantee equality and dignity in marriage laws.

The court denied a million yen, equivalent to 6,000 dollars, in compensation to the seven plaintiffs who brought the case.

That’s not all the courts were busy with. The Kanazawa branch of the Nagoya High Court ordered a retrial for Shoshi Maekawa, who was convicted of killing a junior high school student in Fukui City thirty-eight years ago. Maekawa consistently claimed his innocence, even while serving seven years in prison.

His conviction largely relied on witness accounts of him allegedly wearing blood-stained clothing on the night of the crime. The court found these accounts unreliable and questioned the investigators' methods. After reviewing the evidence, prosecutors did not contest the retrial decision.

This retrial comes twenty years after Maekawa first requested it, following a complicated legal history that included an initial acquittal, a subsequent guilty ruling, and a previously granted retrial in twenty eleven, which the court later revoked.

In an update to a story from last week’s show, on Monday the 28th, the police arrested Rikuto Kubota, the third suspect involved in the robbery and murder of a seventy-five-year-old man in Yokohama. The police believe that the three suspects are part of a larger group coercing people into committing crimes after luring them through fake job ads. The police are still investigating to find out who is behind these ads.

They found Kubota after the National Police Agency offered a reward of up to three million yen, which is equivalent to 19,000 dollars. A civilian then reported information about Kubota, which led to the arrest.

In other news, North Korea launched an intercontinental ballistic missile toward the Sea of Japan on Thursday the 31st. It marked North Korea’s longest missile flight time to date, reaching an altitude of over 7,000 kilometers or 4,000 miles and lasting eighty-six minutes. The missile traveled about 600 miles before landing outside Japan’s exclusive economic zone.

Japan, South Korea, and the US condemned the launch, saying it was a threat to regional peace and a violation of UN resolutions. North Korea launched the missile at an angle to avoid hitting other countries, but Japan’s Defense Ministry said the missile could reach the continental US if North Korea launched it normally.

Countries are concerned partly because of the news that North Korea is planning to ally with Russia and because they’re thinking of conducting its seventh nuclear test since two thousand six.

Meanwhile, the government approved an ordinance on Tuesday the 29th that will allow citizens to use My Number national ID cards as driver’s licenses from March twenty twenty-five. The National Police Agency has been developing a system to store license information on the My Number card’s IC chip, including license number, expiration date, and license type. Citizens can choose between using a My Number ID as their license or retaining a conventional license, which may be required for international driving. The My Number license fee will be 1,550 yen, which is about ten dollars. It’s cheaper than the standard license fee, which is around fifteen dollars.

In business news, Olympus, a Japanese optical equipment firm, announced on Monday the 28th that Stefan Kaufmann, its German CEO, resigned following allegations of illegal drug purchases. Kaufmann had been with Olympus since two thousand three and became CEO in April twenty twenty-three. An unnamed source told the company that the CEO bought illegal drugs, and Olympus told the police. The company board unanimously agreed that his actions violated the company’s code of conduct, and offered Kaufmann his resignation, which he accepted.

Following the news, Olympus shares fell by six percent. Yasuo Takeuchi, Olympus chairman, will serve as temporary CEO while the board seeks a permanent replacement.

In other business-related news, Japanese automakers experienced strong US sales in the first half of the fiscal year, mostly because people bought hybrids and SUVs. Toyota’s US sales rose zero point four percent, while Honda and Subaru saw increases of over five percent. Mazda jumped nearly sixteen percent.

On the other hand, China sales were down for all five Japanese automakers because there is a lot of competition in the electric vehicle market. Toyota’s Chinese sales dropped over thirteen percent, Honda’s fell by more than thirty-seven percent, and Nissan’s by over fourteen.

Because of this, Toyota, Honda, and Nissan all saw a global decline in sales, with Honda posting the biggest overall drop at six percent.

While the car industry faces some external road bumps, train companies are dealing with internal issues. The transport ministry recently said it plans to issue a business improvement order to Japan Freight Railway Company, better known as JR Freight, after it admitted to falsifying data on wheel-to-axle fittings in maintenance work. Workers made up pressure data to meet safety standards, and after investigating, the ministry revealed seven other rail operators, including Tokyo Metro and East Japan Railway Company, had similar issues.

The ministry also found that JR Freight lacked internal rules on these fittings and relied on spoken instructions. Some of those instructions included telling workers to alter logs. JR Freight must now review its safety management practices. The ministry will also issue administrative guidance to the seven other operators that had been falsifying data.

Aaand that’s it for this week! Thank you for joining us!

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Mata Ne!