As Prime Minister Tony Abbott dusts himself down after what might be the first of a number of challenges to his leadership, interest in Japan about Australian politics is acute. Japanese political elites…
Shinzo Abe’s decisive win at the weekend’s Japanese election has given his LDP a mandate for sweeping reform.
EPA/Kimimasa Mayama
As widely expected, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has led his conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) to a landslide victory in the country’s snap election. The LDP holds a 291-seat majority in…
Shinzo Abe, looking for a majority about yay big.
EPA/Franck Robichon
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s decision to call a snap election for December 14 comes after what has been a rather bad week for him. Japan has slipped back into recession for the first time since…
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is presenting a snap election as a referendum on his once-lauded policy of ‘Abenomics’.
EPA/Franck Robichon
It may seem politically counter-intuitive for a prime minister to seek an early election just when the economy has gone into recession. But following his return to Japan from the G20 Leaders’ Summit in…
This is Abe’s best chance at re-election.
Toru Hanai /Reuters
The decision by Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, to call a snap election barely two years into a four-year term demonstrates a degree of political flexibility other world leaders can only envy. Abe…
Golden handshake. Abe and Xi meet on the sidelines of the APEC meeting on Beijing.
Kim Kyung-Hoon/Pool/EPA
With considerable pomp and circumstance – and at considerable expense – it fell to China to host the annual APEC summit this year. If it lives long in the memory at all, the meeting will probably be remembered…
Australia’s ageing Collins Class submarines need replacing.
Flicr/Horatio J. Kookaburra
It is not often that we witness strategic design in action, for the benefit of national security and economic growth. The challenges of translating good ideas into meaningful acts can be too great and…
Tony Abbott and Narendra Modi have an active shared interest in building a closer Australia-India relationship.
EPA
During his first year in office, Prime Minister Tony Abbott has conducted a surprisingly energetic and focused foreign policy. Economic diplomacy is one of its principal tools with business delegations…
Shinzo Abe: victim of the times?
Franck Robichon/EPA
There has never been anything quite like Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution. It formally renounces war and the sovereign right of belligerency, prohibiting the use of land, sea and air forces to settle…
Whatever you think about the Abbott government, one of its more surprising features is that foreign policy looks like its strongest suit. True, this may not be setting the bar terribly high given the unproductive…
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe addressing a special joint sitting of the Australian parliament.
AAP/Lukas Coch
The new “special relationship” between Japan and Australia comes to life today, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has told a joint sitting of federal Parliament. In an address also expressing “sincere…
The Australian government has unquestioningly embraced Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe’s nationalistic defence policies.
EPA/Kimimasa Mayama
Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe will today address a joint sitting of the Australian parliament as part of his tour of Oceania. This rare honour comes in the wake of his cabinet’s controversial decision…
Australia’s free trade agreement with Japan has benefits outside the agricultural sectors.
Kimimasa Mayama/AAP
When Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe arrives in Australia to talk trade and investment in Canberra and sign a free trade agreement between the two countries, it will kickstart a relationship first formed…
Shinzo Abo’s visit to Australia this week, three months after Tony Abbott visited Tokyo, comes at a time of alarm in Asia about a shift in Japan’s defence policy.
EPA/Franck Robichon
In his second stint as Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe seems in a hurry. His sudden fall from power in 2007 has left him with a strong sense of the need to get things done quickly. He has embarked on…
After a promising start to an ambitious economic turn-around program, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will have more difficulty with tax changes scheduled to come in over the next few years.
EPA/Harish Tyagi
Another record trade deficit for Japan is raising doubts about Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s “Abenomics” strategy for economic revival. The new figures follow poor manufacturing sentiment numbers earlier…
Japanese prime minister has reiterated his desire to maintain control of the disputed Senkaku Islands in his latest show of assertiveness.
EPA
Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe has received praise from financial markets and economists for “Abenomics”, his set of economic stimulus policies which have so far returned positive growth to the long-stagnant…
Tony Abbott described Shinzo Abe’s Japan as Australia’s ‘closest friend in Asia’. But how might Abbott’s bold declaration affect our relationship in the region?
AAP/Karlis Salna
At the joint Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-East Asia summit just held in Brunei, prime minister Tony Abbott hailed Japan as Australia’s “closest friend in Asia”. Abbott invited Japanese…
Shinzo Abe’s decision to increase Japan’s consumption tax from 5% to 8% next year is part of a plan to reassure investors the country’s debt is under control.
EPA/Franck Robichon
Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced Tuesday a significant increase in the country’s consumption tax and unveiled a ¥5 trillion ($54.5 billion) stimulus package to mitigate the higher levy’s negative…
The finer points of Abenomics are not lost on this guy.
ippei-janine
Japanese PM Shinzō Abe has a problem, and he might end up killing an awful lot of frogs to solve it. Shares are up in Japan, but everything else has flatlined: kick-starting the stubbornly moribund economy…
Japanese women: needed in the workforce.
Byron Villegas
Janet Hunter, London School of Economics and Political Science
Amid the doom and gloom of recent world economic reports, Japan has provided a rare source of good news. In the first quarter of the year, its economy grew by 0.9%, indicating an annual growth rate of…
University Lecturer in Biogeography and Biodiversity; Academic Director of Oxford's MSc in Biodiversity, Conservation and Management, University of Oxford