Japanese Politics One on One #116

continue with that here we go oh yeah [Music] great so good morning everyone everybody once  again apologies for the technical difficulties still it looks like I'm trying to figure  a clubhouse because the new things the new format seems kind of difficult but okay  at some point we'll be okay with it so again this is a Japan expert inside Japanese  politics one-on-one with the Timothy Langley as a host thank you very much for joining us  Timothy without any further Ado let's start I know that yo

u're not in Tokyo but let's go with  it a little bit later okay thank you very much and good morning to everybody Maya let me just give  you a view of where I am right now okay watching on LinkedIn I am tied up to the pier or to the  dock in Habu Harbor which is a collapsed volcano on the island of Oshima so Evan burkowski  and I sailed here yesterday 14 hours sailing and we are now safely tied up as gale force winds  are pounding outside the harbor and we have to stay here until the storm passe

s so that will be  all day today so during my briefing I apologize you will see some rocking of the boat you'll hear  some waves crashing up against us um but uh that's kind of the situation we're in right now but I  always look forward to having this briefing Maya this is 116 episode yes it is thank you very  much for the persistence the consistency for everything and doing it even from Cabo yes can you  notice I got some sun yesterday absolutely yes yes we um we set sail at 3 30 4 o'clock uh y

esterday  morning and sailed all day and got here at about seven o'clock last night so I'm very happy to be  here and talking to you rather than floating in the water someplace with my life jacket on  so I'm asking to be happy that your income great okay so I'll show you stuff sure  let's go so I'm going to clip this um I found this on the web here we go okay perfect  okay so there might be a little bit of rocking and rolling here mm-hmm and I apologize but let's get  right to it so good morning

everybody 116 episodes in a row right here thanks to you Mata uh Maya  Matilda uh and Japan expert insights for creating the platform and for giving me this opportunity to  talk about um you know what I do in Japan and uh what's going on in Japanese politics uh thank you  very much today is April 30th it's the last day of the month tomorrow is May my gosh we've just  really starting to steam forward and as I told you in our last episode that things will really start  to pick up politically now

that the elections are past us but um there's a lot going on  geopolitically there's a lot going on with Japan uh regionally as well and then the prime minister  is gearing up for potentially another election of the lower house but we're going to analyze that  a little bit better but um Mr kishida and South Korea are beginning to forge closer relationship  ships and closer ties the Prime Minister the president of South Korea was in Washington DC for  five days just this last week they made some

some significant progress and some announcements  there that I'd like to get into Iran DeSantis um potentially the uh candidate for uh from the  Republicans for the president of the United States to run against uh Joe Biden visited Tokyo he was  here for two days on a four Nation Tour so he came to Japan he's on his way to Israel and then the  United Kingdom um and it's somewhat significant that he visited Japan I think many um contenders  come to Japan as a kind of a stamp of approval or to sho

w that they have a international  Acumen and chops but there I believe there was the Southeastern Governor's conference that  was in Japan as well because uh the Ambassador Japan was busy greeting uh Governors and making  presentations there and probably DeSantis was here as a component of that but he's also working  on his um his candidacy for for presidency well can you hear that announcement  in the background Maya yes yes sorry for the disruption it sounds like  the Coast Guard is just annou

ncing the um uh the rough seas and  Advising people to stay in Harbor so I apologize for the um uh the background noise um and all the also by the way uh Maya covet is  over did you know that oh I heard the news yes that's right yes we live to hear it yes so as of  as of yesterday regulations and restrictions on International Travelers coming into Japan was  stopped it was ceased you don't have to show um that you've got three coveted shots and that  you're wearing a mask and that you wash your

hands um so that's for international visitors and  that those um rules and regulations also apply to inside Japan too so whether you have a  graduation ceremony or a a school uh outing um you're not required to be wearing masks nowadays  even in restaurants so that's a great move forward in light of um you know Japan wanting to increase  uh their population it is somewhat noteworthy that they uh Ministry of Health just passed  uh authorization for an abortion pill um on Friday's uh hearings so u

m it's somewhat curious  but you know there are a lot of abortions here um it is one of the major ways for um for  people to um you know keep the population or down and and so there's a heavy Hefty business  in abortion so this is a a a new device a new um medical um procedure in uh two pills that are  taken within um a couple of days of each other uh and it works I think probably within uh nine to  ten weeks of of gestation so it looks like that's going to hit the market and maybe hurt the prim

e  minister's chances for beefing up the population the Japanese also passed a new defense agreement  dealing with Russia and China that published that on a a meeting on Friday dealing with the  aggressive incursions from China into Japanese disputed territories and also the Joint Maneuvers  held by China and Russia as they've come into the Japan sea in um something that could be termed  as a somewhat an aggressive stance so they're starting to beef that up um the Fukushima water  release is sti

ll on schedule uh there will be some news coming out but the reports are coming  up pretty furiously so um Japan's neighbors are beginning to tighten up their opposition to that  with regard to trade in fish and agricultural products so there's still a lot of fight left in  that on the heels of that um it seems as if the avian flu has also hit Japan it is beginning to  make its presence felt and that means that eggs and poultry are going to be affected as a result  in our last briefing Maya um s

omebody asked the question about Ai and so we should talk about that  before our briefing finishes up today and finally um last Saturday there was a a big [Music]  um Festival of LGBT um maybe 200 000 people participated in yoyogi and also demonstrated  in front of the diet for legislation dealing with same-sex marriages many municipalities  in Japan already recognized same-sex marriages there was a Visa that was just issued this  last week for a same-sex for a foreigner coming in on a long-term

Visa who is married  to a Japanese national so that's a first two um and the legislation is being considered right  now as many people know Japan is a laggard in terms of recognizing um same-sex marriages and  liberalization of LGBT rights and legislation is before the diet now there is a big push and I  think it coincided with the protests last week for Japan to pass legislation National legislation to  recognize that but as before there is a contingent within the ldp that is opposed to that s

o whether  they're going to be able to succeed in passing the legislation many people want it done in uh in  time for G7 G7 is in less than uh three weeks so it looks like it it might be a contentious  issue it is a contentious issue it looks like um well it's a little bit too early to call  but with that as a background let's get right into the briefing today with Mr kishida he  has been really on a roll I want to talk about elections as well but let's talk about  what's going on with Mr kishid

a first of all so um you might have noticed the the flag flying  uh looks looking very much like a Japanese flag um with a green background and a red Sun  that is the national flag of Bangladesh so uh the bangladeshis had a state visit this  last week I think Monday Tuesday Wednesday so flags were flying around Tokyo and around  the diet compound you might have noticed that but the prime minister is busy receiving  visitors and participating in a lot of State visits as is normal he is just alway

s on the  run he's going to visit Egypt Ghana Kenya and Mozambique uh this next week I think probably  departing um next week for the four Nation Tour um there is a conference in Tunisia on African  development this is important for Japan because um up until now the Chinese have been very  much dedicated to developing China with their belt and Road initiative and Japan has kind of  slinked back especially during covid so there was their foreign direct investment Japan is very  famous in terms of

practicing diplomacy and policy um by investing by foreign direct investment  in projects throughout the world um in uh in 2016 they invested throughout all of Africa  about 10 billion US Dollars and that fell to uh 4.7 billion in 2020. last year  it improved just a bit to six point eight billion but this is only of of all of  the money that Japan devotes to investing internationally Africa the entire continent of  Africa receives 0.003 percent of Japanese foreign direct investment so this is g

oing to change  pretty drastically apparently this is part of the um the strategy of getting like-minded countries  together to band together against this initiative that's been going on for quite a while from  China Belt Road initiative but also in terms of combating the alliances that seem to be building  between Russia and China this um uh initiative is um pretty much motored by the United States  and it is all-encompassing uh President Biden will be receiving I think 20 members of  the south

island nations in a conference um sometime sometime oh it's after after G7 so  he's very busy he's going to visit not only uh Hiroshima and then from there it looks like  he'll be going through the quad in Australia and then also visit with the um members of 27  members of the island nations country so uh these nations have typically since World War  II been somewhat of a diplomatic Backwater they haven't been that important China has  identified them as places to invest in large projects for f

isheries and Port facilities and  they've been making significant inroads and so finally the United States and Japan and several  other countries are getting together to combat that by coming up with their own initiatives  and their own uh direct investment opportunities also on Friday Japan wanted to clarify its stance  with regard to um potential aggression excuse me by China by North Korea by even Russia against  Japan and what Japan considers to be its allies so any attack on Japan would be

included as  an I'm sorry any attack on an ally in Japan's Regional sphere would be considered an attack  on Japan and thus trigger several developments within the SDF the self-defense forces as  well we've reported on it before as you know with Japan boosting GDP two percent of GDP to  defense spending it also included a kind of a um absorption of the Coast Guard the Japanese  Coast Guard which is a separate entity managed by a separate Ministry it seems that that  uh assumption by the defense

department is going to go forward and they dealt with that  on Friday the Minister of Defense talked about his uh abilities now to overtake uh Coast  Guard Assets in the case of a Potential Threat and there's a lot going on with uh with  North Korea and um their their opposition to the president Yoon and Joe Biden meeting this  last week where the United States pretty much guaranteed uh the defense of South Korea and  Korea pretty much guaranteed that it's not going to pursue nuclear development

nuclear arms  development you might remember that um as North Korea began to ramp up earlier this year there  was talk that if the United States was not going to be basing more forces around there that South  Korea might be considering developing its its own nuclear facilities and that sent shockwaves to  the defense department in the United States and so apparently they've made some sort of an act  um an acclamation for protecting South Korea in light of North Korea's threats and the threats 

have increased you might have seen that our great leader Kim jong-un's sister made some comments  this last week following up on the the trip of uh president Yoon in the United States who also sang  apparently American what is it American apple pie um in a a song to Joe Biden which he liked  very much so that was played up pretty heavily um the new basic plan on Ocean policy passed  through the cabinet this week and basically it is geared toward addressing Chinese and Russia  intrusions into Jap

anese Waters and in preparation of potential launches by North Korea so North  Korea also said that last week that it wants to put a spy satellite in the air so that it can  monitor developments and Japan is interpreting that as a incredibly hostile so they're developing  other um defense capabilities rocketry to shoot these kinds of things out of the sky there was a  report this last Monday about Japan's inability to actually achieve that if North Korea does  shoot a spy satellite up it would b

e the first time for them to put into geostationary orbit  a spy satellite but it looks like that they're going in that direction and once again with  G7 coming up on the 19th of of this month um it is about time for the North Koreans to  Showcase another one of their abilities where awaiting that and I think it's going to happen  sooner rather than later and probably during G7 uh it seems like a pregnant time for um uh Kim  Jong-un to flex his muscles and to make sure everybody knows that he's

here also we reported  on the estellas Pharma employee who was captured for Espionage in China the foreign minister  Hayashi visited China maybe two weeks ago to talk about a lot of different things uh and one  of them was to gain the release of this employee this Japanese employee for the pharmaceutical  company and that was unsuccessful the new uh uh ambassador from Japan from China to Japan also  reiterated China's claim that it's not going to tolerate anybody spying in in China and also said

  that he wanted for you know good relations with Japan and he was looking forward to that and he  didn't consider Japan to be an enemy state which is uh kind of just voicing that is is scary enough  but apparently the the the Chinese are watching this situation very carefully it's a delicate  time I don't know many of the details about the uh the pharmaceutical employee but it doesn't  look like he's going to be released anytime soon um let's talk a little bit about this election  that just hap

pened last Sunday uh the ldp um as as you all know I think there were three  components of the election phase one and phase two phase two had two different components  phase one was Governors and nine prefectures and Mayors and several important big cities  and then phase two was Municipal elections plus Mayors and other municipalities plus  four lower House Seats which were vacated because of death or resignation and  one Upper House seat so all of that happened on phase two this last Sunday  t

he ldp was predicted to do well because number one they hold a commanding lead in most of  the houses uh they have a coalition arrangement with cometo so between the two of them they  usually sweep in and win at least on par with what they did before and the pundits were saying  if the ldp won at least four uh three of the five diet house diet seats that were up uh that would  be considered a victory they won four of the five but they did lose one to ishin and that's a  big shakeup ishin did it

incredibly well this last election better than uh the Constitutional  Democratic party which is uh currently the main opposition party so the uh The ishin Party The  Party from from Osaka is really beginning to be on a roll uh Mr Baba who is the um the the leader  of ishin claimed that if they didn't win 600 seats he would resign they exceeded 600 seats so he's  still in in position and plus they picked up a governorship in uh neighboring wakayama and also  both houses in um in Osaka and the may

or's role the mayor's position and the governor's position  as expected in Osaka so they're really on a roll but let's talk a little bit about what this might  mean for um for Japanese democracy and for the ldp and for what else is going on so the the the big  issues to talk about are the the big diet seeds um that is important because that's where  most of the the juices so there were four five um diet seeds four of them were in the lower  house so I'd like to talk about those four in the lower

house there was um wakayama there's two  in in Yamaguchi and there's one in Chiba so uh the two in Yamaguchi are pretty easy to uh dispense  with one was held by Mr Abe who was assassinated um and the election for that seat is pretty much  a one-term seat because the next time there's an election for uh um Yamaguchi number two that  that election district will have dissolved because of 1010 the gerrymandering which goes  into effect so this was won by Mr Yoshida Shinji there was only two real c

ontenders uh another  Contender from the Constitutional Democratic party um it was not much of a close race because this  is Mr Abe's territory and Mr Abby's wife was uh supporting uh the candidate from the ldp and  also the prime minister went down a couple of times to support him as well um in the second  seat in um Yamaguchi was by the eldest son of Mr Kishi who is Abe's brother younger brother and  his eldest son ran and um he won fortunately for the ldp but the number of votes that he won b

y was  pretty slim I think he he won by 5 700 votes so um that's a pretty narrow margin for that  political district but the ldp squeak by wakayama was a surprise this was won by ishi and  the reason why it was won by ishin was because the ldp promoted two candidates for that position they  couldn't settle on one so it's a huge controversy it's a big black eye for the ldp it is somewhat  reminiscent of the governor's race that was lost by the ldp because the ldp promoted two candidates  and ishi

n took that governorship similarly in wakayama there were several candidates for um for  uh from the ldp and ishin was able to come in and sweep that up the ldp candidate was supported by  nikai and Mr Secco who is in the upper house and one of the top contenders for leadership in the  Abbey faction but uh the uh the ishin did pretty darn well the number of votes between first  place and second place is somewhat dramatic 61 720 versus 55 657. so um splitting the vote and  not getting your act to

gether is an opportunity to for ishin to come in so I think moving forward  you're going to see ishin playing a lot more on this tactic with Chiba ishin also had a candidate  there and the ldp wanted to uh keep this seat this seat was held by a former ldp member who had to  resign because of his uh loose use of campaign campaign contributions um and it's interesting  to go into Chiba a little bit so I want to talk about that if you don't mind uh in the last  election said the fellow who resigned

because of campaign financing is was it his name was  uh Sono UDA kentoro and um he won that election by receiving about 46 percent of the vote there  his next um Contender the person who came in second was from the Constitutional Democratic  party who got 29 of the vote ishin ran a candidate he received 13 and the Democratic People's Party  received 10 that was four years ago so um in the elections today the ldp came in but because of  pretty much voter apathy which is um all over the country

the the votes that were cast this year for  the Municipal elections were down the number of people who were running for election unopposed was  up so they're not getting as many candidates and also the candidates who who hold the position  usually stay there unopposed so this year um uh the candidate who won was from the the ldp  supported by the ldp she won 30 of the vote and the Constitutional Democratic party won 27 percent  of the vote compared to the last time they lost by 29 percent the De

mocratic People's Party won 15  and issuing won 13 so ishin received 13 of the vote the same number of the same percentage as the  last time they won this is with a a field of seven candidates he came in with 13 of the vote which is  pretty uh remarkable given the fact that he was a first termer and 28 years old but the important  part is that this candidate from the ldp is um she's um a nationalized Japanese citizen  with the ergor father and his Becky mother um and the number of votes that she

got  the 30 that she got amounted to about 50 000 votes which means that if the opposition  party had gotten their act together and combined to form a single candidate they would have won  by far because they had more than 60 percent of the votes there she won with 30 so it's  just the competition for a power base that you know splits the vote and it means that  a candidate with 30 percent can can win that happens pretty frequently it's not a a majority  of the voters but when they have more th

an one candidate it does split the vote and that's why  it's important when you see in many of these races comato doesn't provide a candidate they've  got an arrangement with the ldp we they say in those areas where we're not really very strong  we will instruct our cometo members to vote ldp except we want you to support us in those areas  that we are stronger where we're in a contentious battle and maybe don't run an ldp candidate so  that and and instruct your voters to please vote for cometo

it doesn't work as often when it's the  ldp that's going to benefit but it does work when cometo wants to benefit so we see cracks in that  so the uh the flow is that cometo and the ldp are not really as together as they once were in terms  of vote getting so the way it stands right now the ldp was predicted to win three of these five  seats they won four of the five seats they lost wakayama to ishin and all of the other votes  that they were able to get were just squeaky um clearly with uh Yam

aguchi it's an ldp  stronghold they should have won both of those but even in that case it's not very dramatic  and it doesn't say you know we are voting for The ldp because Mr kishida is doing a great job the  outcome of the elections I think um also were closely watched by the Prime Minister obviously  because in our last briefing we were talking about you know if the um if the results are strong  the Prime Minister could possibly close down the lower house after G7 it didn't take the Prime  M

inister long in fact on Monday he announced he's not really thinking about closing down the lower  house after after uh G7 which is pretty much well on the one hand the prime minister is never  going to say he's going to close down the house until he actually does it so it could be a ployed  to put people off and to keep them off balance because you know the timing is so important you  can put your forces in play before any of the opposition can and be ready for it and then call  the election th

e election once it's called would happen within two weeks it's not immediate but  it would happen within two weeks and you would have a significant Advantage apparently the  Prime Minister also doesn't feel like the last election was a true endorsement of the ldp or  of his policies and once again I apologize for the rocking of the boat if you're getting seasick  maybe just stay with um uh the clubhouse briefing so um let's see where are we the other thing I  wanted to give you an update on is t

he standing of the ldp factions so ldp factions are important  because it's a one party but it's controlled by several factions and there has been some  movement there and this movement indicates that they we are on the cusp of Greater  movement so the last time we talked about um the forces within the ldp that control  things [Music] um Mr Abe's faction say wakai had 96 members it now stands at 100 members it's  three digits so that's a big deal three digits um for the political faction within

the ldp is  pretty significant the number two is no longer motegi the last time we were talking it was motegi  and ASO which means they had basically the same number of members Mr also has come up one he now  has 55 members in his political faction motegi stays at 54. Mr kishida has received a couple  of more party members or faction members he's now at 46 the last time we reported he was at 43.  Mr nikai lost one he's now at 41 and the moriyama faction is at seven so the reason why this is  imp

ortant once again is because the numbers that you hold as a faction leader pretty much dictates  how much power you have in other policy areas and certainly within appointments to the cabinet  or committee seats so with this last election you know there is some some um Naval gazing to be  done because of what happened with the governor's race in wakayama and also the um the confusion  that was caused by between Mr Seko and Mr nikai with supporting their candidate who actually  lost so you know t

hese are just tea leaves but they are indicative of other things that  are coming up so my my guess is things will be um positive and building until G7 and then after  G7 um there will be a lot of political realignment I don't know about a snap election it doesn't look  like things are building in the prime minister's favor but you never know I mean G7 is expected to  go off extremely well it should because they're putting that much time and effort into it um so  the Prime Minister wants to main

tain being prime minister there's a little on the political  calendar that dictates he should or must do something so I think he'll take that opportunity  to um to bolster His Image and get more votes it's anybody's guess but it's a good idea to keep  tuned to to this briefing so that we can keep you appraised of it the other thing I want to talk  about is South Korea so as you know uh president Yoon visited um the United States he was there for  five days that's a pretty significant period of t

ime um he's um he's not universally loved Within  South Korean politics he became president by the skin of his teeth and he's got a very vocal  opposition party so what he does is carefully watched and highly critical and criticized so he  made a statement um while he was in the United States I think maybe on Thursday in one of the  speeches that he was having he had already left Washington DC that you know in his view it is  not necessary for Japan to bend the knee in apology to South Korea thi

s has been going on long  enough it does Japan doesn't need to do that and immediately this he received a huge backlash  in South Korea the voters in South Korea so uh you know no matter what you say you're you're  going to be criticized for it but I think what he's trying to do really hard is to mend defenses  between South Korea and Japan it's very important to the United States for him to do that and it's  important for the unity of like-minded countries in defending against you know what's g

oing on  it's particularly in China but also with with North Korea and with uh with Russia as well so  there's a lot of effort and energy going on there and you can see more of it Japan also delisted  uh South Korea as a um as a nation where trade favor favorability was uh minus and to  put them back on the most favored trade Nation that's a big deal and I I'm sure that  that was gained after several concessions um and also it's it's nice to hear that Mr  kishida is going to visit South Korea so

this is something that's kind of new it looks like  it'll be happening uh next week by the time we have our next briefing I think he will be in  South Korea so this will be the first time for a Japanese prime minister to visit South Korea  in five years the previous administration was a very anti-japanese in anti-japan so  there were trade frictions there was a um a problem with selling computer parts and  computer manufacturing devices and also chemicals to Japan I'm sorry to South Korea so th

ere was a  lot of friction going on there so hopefully this is behind us and we're moving into new territory  the other thing that we wanted to talk about Maya is the AI Revolution that's going on in Japan so  um you might have heard the the big news that uh GPT the president visited Japan two weeks ago  and is thinking of setting up an office here um chat GPT is really an ethical change in uh in  technology and the Japanese are finally taking note of that they produced a white paper from um  fr

om the ldp headquarters just this last week it was recorded on widely in the press my company  did an analysis on it and there is a uh an English translation of the white paper that was produced  just this last week the title of the paper is the AI white paper Japan's national strategy in the  new era of AI it is a pretty thorough document 25 Pages if you would like a copy of it and  you can't find it on the internet uh please write to me at Timothy Langley esquire.com and  I'll make sure that y

ou get a copy of it and alternatively you can receive the analysis that  my team produced on that by subscribing to the newsletter that we produce once or twice a month  given uh given what's going on in the area so um the Japanese are really taking a note of this  they understand that Japan uh is behind the times I think then people would say kind of as usual  but it needs to come up to um to speed as is the United States and Europe and they need to adopt  these AI Technologies and so that's wh

y you see this increased push they have identified AI as  something that they really need to embrace and take care of the possible challenges that  they want to address are authentication um the information that comes across as authentic  but could be fake it's AI addresses that and includes you know images deep fakes and videos  that sort of thing so they're trying to prevent that the threat to cyber security that it produces  and the technical implementation gap between Japan and the United St

ates it's kind of like a a trade  advantage that Europe and the United States has the Japanese don't want to be caught um you know  unprepared so they have decided that this is an area that they're really going to start putting  a lot of energy into so the main suggestions contained in the document the white paper that was  produced is that Japan should analyze the policies existing in the United States the European  Union and in China including the following risk categories utilized in internat

ional legal  discussion risks that violate human rights health and safety National Security risks and the risk  of undue intervention in the Democratic process so you can see this happening throughout the  world and Japan wants to be on top of that so that it is not it doesn't suffer from it but  it's also not criticized from suffering from it um and in usual Japanese fashion you know  there's more fear and risk aversion uh in their policy implementation so the first uh part  of their their whit

e paper document is talking about you know the risk of Saudi Associated how  they're going to avoid avoid those risks but take the benefit that AI produces and then um  the document concludes with the implementation of investments in AI in the public and private  sector and the foundational AI models to be used which is probably one of the reasons why the  uh the president of the company was visiting Japan and visited with the prime minister in fact  and public and private sharing of data throug

h AI um and uh just a couple of you know pilot projects  that will be supported and funded by the Japanese government so look forward to a lot of different  things coming out on that and I think Maya let me recheck my notes I think that's the end of  my briefing if I've gone over I apologize but yes that's that's it for today as The Rock as the boat  rocks back and forth you didn't get seasick did you not yet but if you had continued you know  for another five minutes maybe I would have right bu

t thank you for the briefing and I can see a bit of that beautiful  scenery behind you how nice yeah see how choppy the water is oh my gosh I  can see that and you're in the port aren't you wow well hopefully the storm  will pass and you'll get well some good weather to sail back wherever it  is you know I don't know whether you're coming back to Tokyo or you're going no no this  is the first leg this is the beginning so the last seven days will be out on the water  and visiting outstretched Isl

ands great that sounds great well thank you so let's move to  clock house and we'll continue there with the questions and answers so that uh well ah Timothy  by the way yes if you join probably you can find us by clicking on Japan expert insights there and  from there I think that you will find easily this room so it has no title at the moment I'm sorry  because I had to open it just before yes okay oh okay right over there thank you Maya thanks  everybody thank you Timothy great see you there w

ell thank you very much to everybody who  watched us uh apologies for the technical difficulties early early on uh we'll be here once  again on uh Sunday next week 8 20 live streaming from Tokyo once again talking about Japanese  politics and what is important for you to know if you live and work in Japan or if you do  business with Japan so if you find this content helpful useful please share it or  tell your friends and colleagues that we do these sessions weekly on  Sunday morning Japan time

thank you very much indeed we're looking forward  to seeing you again here thank you bye