The upper house campaign approaches | This Week in Japanese Politics

The upper house elections have a date, the parties ready their campaigns, and Ishiba stays home

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In case you missed it, I previously published posts on the rise of Sanseitō and the implications of the Tokyo metropolitan assembly elections.

The Sanseitō question

Reading the Tokyo elections

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The rundown

The ordinary session of the Diet concluded on 22 June, and the Ishiba government formally set the date for the upper house elections for 20 July. The ruling and opposition parties are finalizing their nominations and platforms, and the critical number for the campaign is 50, the number of seats that the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and Kōmeitō need to win to preserve a majority in the upper house. Meanwhile, a member of the Bank of Japan (BOJ) policy board argued that the bank needs to be prepared to raise rates again, even as the BOJ released notes from the policy board meeting this month showing the concerns that led the bank to revise its plan for reducing bond purchases. Finally, Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru decided not to attend the NATO summit in the Netherlands this week, meaning that he missed seeing US President Donald Trump again amidst reports of tensions over defense spending as well as the ongoing trade talks, which will continue at the ministerial level this week. Plus: post-mortems on the Tokyo metropolitan assembly elections. All of this and more in a new This Week in Japanese Politics.

Public opinion

The Observing Japan public opinion tracker has been updated with new polls from Kyodo and Asahi TV.