Bloggingheads and the Japanese election

On Sunday, Japan went to the polls and elected the right-wing Abe Shinzo as prime minister. Japan also bestowed a surprisingly large number of seats to the party of far-right contender Ishihara Shintaro, who thinks that French doesn’t deserve to be an international language and who told a Playboy Magazine interviewer in 1990 that the extensively documented Rape ...

On Sunday, Japan went to the polls and elected the right-wing Abe Shinzo as prime minister. Japan also bestowed a surprisingly large number of seats to the party of far-right contender Ishihara Shintaro, who thinks that French doesn't deserve to be an international language and who told a Playboy Magazine interviewer in 1990 that the extensively documented Rape of Naking was "made up" by the Chinese. On Friday, I spoke with Yuki Tatsumi, a security expert at the DC-based think tank The Stimson Center: Yuki described Ishihara as a cross between Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich, and discussed the implications of the election for Japan's relationship with China and the United States. Video below:

On Sunday, Japan went to the polls and elected the right-wing Abe Shinzo as prime minister. Japan also bestowed a surprisingly large number of seats to the party of far-right contender Ishihara Shintaro, who thinks that French doesn’t deserve to be an international language and who told a Playboy Magazine interviewer in 1990 that the extensively documented Rape of Naking was "made up" by the Chinese. On Friday, I spoke with Yuki Tatsumi, a security expert at the DC-based think tank The Stimson Center: Yuki described Ishihara as a cross between Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich, and discussed the implications of the election for Japan’s relationship with China and the United States. Video below:

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Isaac Stone Fish is a journalist and senior fellow at the Asia Society’s Center on U.S-China Relations. He was formerly the Asia editor at Foreign Policy Magazine. Twitter: @isaacstonefish
Tag: Japan

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