Japan in Focus

I am fortunate to participate in projects on Japan or Asia hosted by other experts. Each month, I will share these with you in Japan in Focus. This month, we have two highlights to share.

August should have been a slow month, but on August 14, Prime Minister Kishida Fumio announced he would not seek re-election as president of the Liberal Democratic Party.  With no incumbent in the race, the field became wide open, and major Japanese news outlets began to carry stories about who might enter the race and when. Aficionados of Japanese politics put their summer plans aside.

The LDP presidential election will be held on September 27, with ballots from grassroots party members to be collected by September 26. Candidates will have to register by September 12. As of this writing, three have already declared their candidacies, and several others are expected any day now.

I will write more about the candidates and their foreign policy positions in the coming weeks leading up to the election. But in the meantime, here are a couple of sites to keep an eye on. First, the LDP has its own website which you can take a peek at. The homepage has drawn loads of commentary for its AI-generated graphic and its title, THE MATCH. Historians might enjoy identifying the older party presidents. It is a striking reminder that Japan’s conservatives have had no women at the helm.

A couple of X accounts also help those who want the excitement of the ins and outs of daily coverage. Tobias Harris (@observingjapan) has already begun deep-diving into the likely candidates and their positions on issues. The field will be less populated by late September, but if you want to satisfy your Japanese politics cravings, Tobias has what you need! Another X account I enjoy belongs to Jeffrey Hall (@mrjeffu), who will help you follow the latest conversations on the campaign in Japan. From Japan, Jeffrey includes links to candidate videos, televised debates, and other fun media coverage of the race.

For those of you in Washington, DC, who are seeking a more serene encounter with Japan during this last hot summer month, I highly recommend the Imagined Neighbors exhibit through September 16 at the National Museum of Asian Art at the Smithsonian.

There, in the cool, quiet hallways of the Freer Gallery, you can escape the triple-digit heat (yes, returning this week) while learning how Japanese literati from 1680–1980 imagined China in their art. Paintings and scrolls in the exhibit were created across three hundred years, from Japan’s isolation in the Edo period through Meiji modernization and the postwar rejuvenation of the Showa years, Japan’s artists dreamed of China. Chinese poets, places, and stories, inaccessible in time and space, are all rendered through the admiring eyes of generations of Japanese artists, proving once again that to understand the depth of this complex relationship truly, we must remember to leave the frenetic world of politics behind and enter the more soothing embrace of art and the human imagination.

Enjoy!