Japan’s new prime minister, Taro Aso, has his work cut out for him, said Catherine Makino in Asia Times. “Armed with little more than charisma,” he has to revive his country’s “flagging economy” and steer the ruling Liberal Democratic Party through elections that will “sorely test” its 50-year grip on power.
Let’s hope Aso can hang in there longer than Japan’s last two premiers, said the Financial Times in an editorial. Shinzo Abe lasted just a year, and Yasuo Fukuda just 11 months. “Japan badly needs the focus that an articulate, more than fly-by-night leader can provide.”
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