Hostname: page-component-f554764f5-qhdkw Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-18T05:41:28.527Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

How Important is the Tokyo Gubernatorial Election?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Andrew DeWit
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Metropolitan Tokyo, the world's largest cityregion and site of the 2020 Olympics, lost its Governor (Inose Naoki) to a YEN 50 million political-donation scandal on December 19. Gubernatorial elections are set for February 9, with the official campaign period set to begin on January 23. There are at present three main candidates, one on the left (Utsunomiya Kenji), one on the far right (Tamogami Toshio) and one roughly in the centre (Masuzoe Yoichi). They may soon be joined by a powerful, potentially winning challenger stressing green power.

Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 12 , Issue 2 , January 2014 , e2
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2014

References

Notes

1 On the scandal and Inose's resignation, see “Tokyo Governor Naoki Inose resigns over money scandal,” BBC News, December 19, 2013.

2 These candidates are backed, respectively, by the relevant parties.

3 A very concise and critical summary of both are available from top Japan specialist Aurelia George Mulgan, “Abe puts personal interests ahead of Japan's at Yasukuni,” East Asia Forum, January 1, 2014.

4 The most recent comparative data appear to be a 2008 PricewaterhouseCoopers study, cited in “Tokyo's Position in the Global and Japanese Economy,” Premier Investment Corporation, 2009.

5 The US had 133 of the global 500 versus 68 for second-place Japan (and 61 for 3rd place China), but Japan's centralization on Tokyo was unmatched. See CNN Money Global 500.

6 For a useful list of these assessments, most of which are as recent as 2012, see Wikipedia's entry for “Global Cities”.

7 On this, see “A Clean Tech Air Force By 2033: That's the IAF's Green Goal,” Israel Defence Forces, December 13, 2013:

8 On Koizumi's appeals, see Andrew DeWit “Just Gas? Smart Power and Koizumi's Anti-Nuclear Challenge,” The Asia-Pacific Journal, Volume 11, Issue 50, No.3, December 16, 2013.

9 On his January 9 political blog, Kan Naoto not only described a Hosokawa candidacy as “the LDP's worst nightmare,” but also called on Japan Communist Party- and Social Democratic Party-backed candidate Utsonomiya Kenji to withdraw. See (in Japanese) “Former PM Kan gives a cheer for Hosokawa and declares ”Utsonomiya can't win election,“ Sankei Shimbun, January 9, 2014.

10 On the shutdown of the last operating reactor, see Tsukimori Osamu, “Japan to switch off nuclear power, may be some time before it's on again,” Reuters, September 14, 2013.

11 See (in Japanese) “‘Tokyo Election’: Background to Hosokawa's candidacy is desire to reorganize opposition parties,” Sankei Shimbun, January 12, 2014.

12 A brief, well-done and balanced summary of Hosokawa's career is available here.

13 The official position is, of course, that the delay in cabinet ratification of the policy has nothing to do with the election. See “Gov't to delay cabinet decision on new energy policy,” Mainichi Shimbun, January 11, 2014.

14 On energy issues and some of the mudslinging, see Jonathan Soble, “Tokyo election race to spark nuclear debate,” Financial Times, January 10, 2014.

15 On this, see Eric Pfanner, “Aiming to Reinvent Itself, Panasonic Moves Beyond the Living Room,” New York Times, December 27, 2013.

16 See the relevant section in Andrew DeWit “Just Gas? Smart Power and Koizumi's Anti-Nuclear Challenge,” The Asia-Pacific Journal, Volume 11, Issue 50, No.3, December 16, 2013.