JAPAN: Upper House Chair Resignation & more – 17th July 2025

Konnichiwa from BA! This is the Rorshok Japan Update from the 17th of July twenty twenty-five. A quick summary of what's going down in Japan.

On Tuesday the 15th, Shigeru Ishiba, the prime minister, created a new office in the Cabinet Secretariat to take a look at foreigner-related issues, including immigration control and land purchases by foreigners, amidst Japan’s growing non-native-Japanese population.

This follows the increased debate around immigrants brought on by the Upper House election — a story we covered in last week’s show. The ultraconservative Sanseito party, especially, is pushing for stricter immigration policies, saying things like foreigners are buying up Japanese land and stock, making Japan poorer. In response, protestors gathered in Shinjuku, Tokyo, on Sunday the 13th, accusing Sanseito of racism.

Many online users criticized Sanseito as well, with the most level-headed voices saying that if there’s a problem with people abusing rules around land or not paying social security, then officials should investigate all non-payers, not just foreigners.

Meanwhile, Yosuke Tsuruho, the chair of the Liberal Democratic Party’s Upper House Budget Committee, resigned after backlash over a comment made last week. While giving a speech, he said that it was lucky that a major earthquake struck the Noto Peninsula because it made two-region lifestyles more popular. He apologized after the first wave of criticism, and when it didn’t let up, he resigned, with local media breaking the news on Saturday the 12th.

Pretty much everyone, including people from his own party, criticized Tsuruho for his comment. Opposition leaders said that Prime Minister Shigeru was partly at fault because he lacked leadership skills.

Next up, Japanese nationals are shying away from working in China after a Beijing court sentenced a pharmaceutical employee to three and a half years in prison on vague charges of spying on Wednesday the 16th. The closed trial and the court’s refusal to share any of the evidence against the employee have worried many Japanese people living in China, especially those who are asked to move there for work.

Ke Long, chief researcher at the Tokyo Foundation’s policy research department, said that considering that the punishment for breaking China’s espionage laws go from three years all the way up to life imprisonment, the Chinese court probably gave the employee a short sentence because it wanted to avoid worsening Japan-China relations.

Businesses that work in both Japan and China are trying to tighten security measures to make it less likely that their employees will be targeted.

In imperial news, on Monday the 14th, Emperor Emeritus Akihito was admitted to the University of Tokyo Hospital to begin a new oral treatment for his heart, following a lack of improvement from medication and exercise. Diagnosed with right heart failure in twenty twenty-two and asymptomatic myocardial ischemia in May, he will undergo an electrocardiogram to determine the proper dosage. The hospital stay may only take a short time, depending on how his body responds to treatment.

While he’s on the mend, others are not so lucky. Bear attacks in northern Japan are on the rise, and many residents of Fukushima Town in Hokkaido are on high alert after a brown bear killed a newspaper deliveryman on Saturday the 13th. Days later, a bear broke into a supermarket shed and stole pet food just 400 meters (or a quarter of a mile) from the fatal attack.

Authorities think food waste may be attracting bears, and told residents to only put out garbage on collection days.

In other news, tariff talks are ongoing. Donald Trump, the US President, criticized Japan for restricting imports of US cars and agriculture, despite selling millions of cars to the US. Trump announced a new twenty-five percent tariff on Japanese goods starting on the 1st of August, up from the twenty-four percent proposed in April.

Japan’s government officials said that they do not impose any tariffs on imported cars, and that consumer preference—not policy—is the reason for weak US car sales.

Speaking of cars, Nissan will stop making vehicles at its Oppama plant in Kanagawa, eastern Japan, by the end of fiscal twenty twenty-seven. In twenty twenty-four, the Oppama plant employed almost 4,000 people, so it’s a big announcement. Nissan plans to move its operations to Fukuoka, southern Japan, as part of a major restructuring plan.

This follows the company losing 671 billion yen, which is over four billion dollars, last year. Struggling with debt, failed merger talks with Honda, and stiff electric vehicle competition from China, Nissan also canceled plans to build a one-billion-dollar battery plant.

With the twenty-five percent US auto tariffs, the company may be in a lot of trouble, and is currently thinking of partnering with Foxconn, an electronics company that currently specializes in iPhones but wants to expand into cars.

That’s not the only business with failed partnership plans. On Thursday the 17th, Alimentation Couche-Tard, a Canadian retailer, withdrew its forty-seven billion dollar buyout proposal for Seven and i Holdings, the owner of the Seven-Eleven convenience store chain.

This followed nearly a year of the two companies going back and forth, with Seven and i being very reluctant to sell to a foreign company. The Canadian Company basically said it was tired of being jerked around.

Seven and i rejected this statement, saying it had sincerely considered the proposal. However, it wanted to focus on restructuring efforts instead.

In previous episodes, we’ve mentioned the World Expo in Osaka, and we’re back at it again. The Expo had attracted ten million general visitors as of Saturday the 12th, nearly three months after it first opened on the 13th of April. Since the Expo will stay open for another three months, closing on the 13th of October, the ten million visitors milestone landed almost exactly on the Expo’s halfway point.

To celebrate, the Air Self-Defense Force’s aerobatic team performed an air show over the Expo, which thousands of visitors enjoyed.

On that note about airplanes, the government recently said that the Baikal teal, a migratory bird, is a serious threat to planes following a fatal airplane crash in South Korea involving the species.

The crash killed 179 people after the birds ran into both engines of the Jeju Air jet.

Sightings of Baikal teals in Japan have skyrocketed sevenfold from 20,000 in twenty twenty to 140,000 in twenty twenty-four. Airports like Narita, Tokyo’s biggest airport, are on high alert because it has flocks of Baikal teals nearby. Airlines are telling pilots to watch for the birds, which look like black clouds when they’re flying together.

Japan is also experiencing a more typical kind of cloud—rainclouds. From Thursday the 17th until Friday the 18th, the Meteorological Agency said that a large part of the country would get very heavy rainfall, and that weather conditions would be very unstable, especially on the Pacific Ocean side of eastern and western Japan. The Shikoku region in western Japan will likely get 250 millimeters or ten inches of rain, while Tokai in the east is expected to receive 200 millimeters or eight inches.

Officials said there could be mudslides and flooding in these areas, adding that people should also look out for lightning and strong winds.

Closing this episode with some health news, the University of Osaka Hospital said on Monday the 14th that it would start performing multifetal pregnancy reductions in certain high-risk cases, such as triplets or twins with maternal complications, following Japan’s first clinical study on the subject.

The procedure reduces the number of fetuses in a pregnancy, and since it is used to protect mothers and the remaining fetuses in cases where all individuals might otherwise die, Japanese law doesn’t classify it as abortion.

The clinical study on pregnancy reductions showed a high success rate with minimal risk to the surviving fetuses. Still, the hospital said it was very important to get psychological support for mothers. It also hopes to make the procedure a recognized option since fertility treatments have made multiple pregnancies more common.

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

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Mata Ne!