Does Japan Need a New Koizumi?
Friday, October 19, 2007 Posted: 06:07 AM JST The world worries again about Japan. Japan needs “a man of strong views,” former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said Thursday in a lecture at Tokyo’s Waseda University. “People are looking for leaders who have to make compromises as a political matter but still are compromising within a range of principles, that they are doing what they believe, and we saw that very much in Prime Minister Koizumi.” The political upheavals of this Summer showing a backlash against “Koizumi reforms” and the impression that old-style Japanese politics have returned to Tokyo are generating these worries. But does Japan really need a new Koizumi? Many seem to think so. Kyodo News eagerly picked up Powell’s statements under the headline Japan needs Koizumi-style leadership. Foreign investors are loosing hope and investment in Japan is down. Foreign direct investment inflows to Japan turned negative in 2006 for the first time since 1989, the Japan Times repo
