Ishiba returns home empty handed | This Week in Japanese Politics

Ishiba attends his first G7, while the government and opposition spar during the last days of the Diet session and the Bank of Japan tweaks its tapering plans

Thank you for reading Observing Japan. This post is available to paid subscribers. “This Week in Japanese Politics” will be published for paid subscribers once or twice a week.

If you are looking for timely, forward-looking analysis of the stories in Japans’s politics and policymaking that move markets, I have launched a new service through my business, Japan Foresight LLC. For more information about Japan Foresight’s services or for information on how to sign up for a trial or schedule a briefing, please visit our website or reach out to me.

In case you missed it, I analyzed a new round of polling on Monday.

Everything's coming up Ishiba

---

The rundown

Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru started the week in Canada for the G7 summit and, while he had productive meetings with his counterparts, he returned home without the hoped-for breakthrough in trade talks with the United States. Meanwhile, the war of nerves between the government and opposition continues in the final days of the Diet session as the opposition parties united to unseat a Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) committee chair and Constitutional Democratic Party (CDP) Noda Yoshihiko has still not formally ruled out a no-confidence motion. Meanwhile, the Bank of Japan left rates unchanged but tinkered with its tapering plans, while new data showed a marked decline in Japanese exports to the US (and another big increase in inbound tourism). Plus: against the backdrop of the BOJ meeting this week, some deep dives into the market for Japanese government bonds. All of this and more in a new This Week in Japanese Politics.