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2012 January 18 - 24 [POLITICS]

Conservative critics start praising PM Noda

While Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko has incurred public displeasure by reshuffling his cabinet in preparation for a consumption tax hike, he is now being praised by right wing and conservative critics and journalists.

One of them is diplomatic analyst Okamoto Yukio, a former foreign ministry bureaucrat who was appointed as special advisor to successive prime ministers in former Liberal Democratic Party governments. In TV debate programs, he has often criticized the diplomatic policies of the Democratic Party of Japan.

In the January issue of a magazine concerning labor-management relations, Okamoto wrote, “Focus on the Japan-U.S. alliance, entry into the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) pact, participation in peacekeeping operations in South Sudan, relaxation of the three principles banning arms exports, and a consumption tax hike – direction in which the Noda Cabinet is moving is what we can call a new conservatism. Many of these policies could not be realized under the LDP government” (in “Rosei Forum”).

If the Noda Cabinet can maintain the defense budget, increase spending for Official Development Assistance (ODA) programs, and review the ban on collective self-defense rights, “there will be no need to risk political confusion by having the LDP return to the helm of government,” he said.

Another supporter is Sakurai Yoshiko, a leading conservative journalist who is vocal in support of constitutional revision and the right of political leaders to visit Yasukuni Shrine. In a column she contributed to the January 14 issue of weekly magazine “Shukan Diamond”, she stated, “Prime Minister Noda’s basic policy program is right.”

As reasons for why she now praises Noda, Sakurai listed three decisions he made: to enter the TPP economic pact, to lift the ban on arms exports, and to propose the elimination of a legislative paragraph that restricts space development only for peaceful purposes.

Okamoto’s and Sakurai’s arguments are echoed by the daily Sankei Shimbun. On the front page of its January 6 paper, it ran a column that gave a thumbs up to the prime minister’s policies by saying, “It was reasonable (for Noda) to revise the three principles on arms exports and decide not to exclude military items in space development.”

Some suggest that these arguments are based on the expectations that right-wing advocates hold for the LDP and DPJ to form a grand coalition government in order to revise the Japanese Constitution.