Word: japanes
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...savers, to spend more and revive economic growth. In the most recent budget, he has moved spending priorities away from the usual pork-barrel stimulus and toward social services like education. As he puts it, "We will be spending not on concrete but on people." In March, the Diet, Japan's parliament, passed legislation promised by Hatoyama to provide a $140 monthly subsidy to parents for each child of junior high school age or younger. With such measures, "the new administration will be able to lead the economy to a new growth path," he says...
...however, Hatoyama has struggled to satisfy Japan's high hopes. The Prime Minister has often appeared a weak, ineffectual leader, unable to provide a clear direction on policy or control a three-party ruling coalition that is a grab bag of politicians with contradictory ideologies, from relative conservatives to outright socialists. Open disagreements have broken out between Cabinet members, especially over the controversial privatization of Japan's postal system - a free-market initiative begun, not incidentally, during Koizumi's term as Prime Minister. "Whenever you try to get down to reforms you're bound to face difficulties," Hatoyama says...
...confusion within Hatoyama's government has complicated his relations with Washington. His administration "has yet to craft a clear vision of their strategy" on security issues, says Sheila Smith, senior fellow for Japan studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington. "They're working it out as they go." Nowhere has that been more apparent than in Hatoyama's handling of the status of American bases on Okinawa. That southern Japanese island, a famous World War II battleground, still hosts roughly 25,000 troops, almost all of them Marines, and the local Okinawans have long resented the heavy military...
...Concern in the U.S. about Hatoyama has been further heightened by his overtures to China. The two Asian giants have had icy, even confrontational, relations in recent years, due to lingering anger among Chinese over Japan's brutal invasion of their country in the 1930s and 1940s. But Hatoyama has defused tensions by promising not to visit Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine, which is dedicated to Japanese war dead, including some convicted World War II war criminals. Regular visits by Hatoyama's predecessors had been a regular irritant in Japan-China relations. In contrast to Gates' testy visit, Japanese officials rolled...
...Hatoyama denies that. He told TIME, "The Japan-U.S. relationship is the most important relationship for Japan's diplomacy," and that his government "is working to create an environment in which Japan will firmly support the U.S. presence in Asia." He also makes clear that by forging warmer ties with China, he's not downgrading the alliance with the U.S. "We are always watchful of the rapidly rising military capability [of China]," he says, but "closer economic ties between China and Japan will be beneficial for the prosperity of the world and for stability in Asia." Better relations between...