CHRONOLOGY

SEPTEMBER — OCTOBER 2009

SEPTEMBER

1 A free trade and economic partnership agreement between Japan and Switzerland takes effect.

The Consumer Affairs Agency is launched.

3 New Kômeitô President Ôta Akihiro resigns in the wake of his party’s dismal showing in the August 30 election for the House of Representatives.

9 The leaders of the Democratic Party of Japan, the Social Democratic Party, and the People’s New Party agree to form a coalition government. The coalition will hold a majority in both houses of the National Diet.

11 Media sources reveal that Japan Airlines may receive an infusion of capital from US carrier Delta Airlines, a move that would make Delta JAL’s largest shareholder.

13 Suzuki Ichirô becomes the first player in US Major League Baseball history to record 200 hits in nine straight seasons.

14 The US-based Lasker Foundation announces that Kyoto University Professor Yamanaka Shin’ya will share in the 2009 Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award for being the first to create induced pluripotent stem cells, seen as holding promise for regenerative medicine.

16 Prime Minister Asô Tarô and his cabinet resign en masse in the wake of the ruling coalition’s defeat in the August 30 lower house election. Asô’s Liberal Democratic Party is thus relegated to the opposition for only the second time since its founding in 1955.

The Diet selects DPJ President Hatoyama Yukio to become Japan’s new prime minister. Hatoyama forms a cabinet and launches his administration based on the DPJ’s coalition with the SDP and PNP.

17 Newly appointed ministers announce their intention of ending a number of government undertakings, such as the ongoing construction of Yanba Dam in Gunma Prefecture and plans to build a media art center in Tokyo to showcase anime and other aspects of Japanese pop culture.

An opinion poll by Nikkei Inc. and TV Tokyo shows support for the Hatoyama cabinet at 75%. This is the second-highest level for an incoming government, surpassed only by Koizumi Jun’ichirô’s cabinet at its launch in April 2001.

18 Japan’s unmanned H-II Transfer Vehicle successfully docks with the International Space Station.

21–26 Prime Minister Hatoyama visits the United States. He attends sessions at the United Nations and holds bilateral meetings with other leaders, including Chinese President Hu Jintao, US President Barack Obama, and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. At a UN conference on climate change he gives a speech pledging Japan will reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 25% from 1990 levels by 2020. In a separate UN speech, Hatoyama proposes creating an East Asian Community and proclaims the goal of gaining Japan a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. He also attends a Group of Twenty summit held in Pittsburgh.

21 Minister for Foreign Affairs Okada Katsuya meets with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in New York. The two reaffirm the importance of the Japan-US alliance.

23 Following the cancellation of public bidding for the Yanba Dam project, Minister of Land, Infrastructure, Transport, and Tourism Maehara Seiji visits the area to speak with local residents opposed to halting the ¥460 billion public works project launched in 1952.

24 Minister of Finance Fujii Hirohisa meets with US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner in Pittsburgh. The two agree on the importance of demand-led growth to the world economy and of abstaining from currency market manipulation.

Under orders from Foreign Minister Okada, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs launches an investigation into purported secret Japan-US pacts, including one allowing US ships and aircraft to bring nuclear weapons into Japan without prior consultation, in contravention of the Japan-US Security Treaty.

25 Transport Minister Maehara establishes a five-member task force to rehabilitate Japan Airlines, just one day after JAL President Nishimatsu Haruka asked the minister for an injection of public funds. Four of the task force members belonged to the former Industrial Revitalization Corporation of Japan.

28 The LDP elects former Minister of Finance Tanigaki Sadakazu to succeed former Prime Minister Asô as its president.

29 The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications announces that the consumer price index for August (excluding fresh foods) fell 2.4% from the previous year to 100.1. It was the steepest decline since comparable data began being collected in 1971.

OCTOBER

1–3 Prime Minister Hatoyama visits Copenhagen to attend a meeting of the International Olympic Committee in support of Tokyo’s bid to host the 2016 games. He also meets with Danish Prime Minister Lars Rasmussen. Tokyo is eliminated in the second round of voting.

9 Prime Minister Hatoyama visits South Korea for a meeting with President Lee Myung-bak. The following day he attends a trilateral summit meeting with Lee and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in Beijing.

11 Foreign Minister Okada makes an unannounced visit to Afghanistan, where he meets with President Hamid Karzai to discuss Japan’s assistance for the strife-torn country. On October 12 he visits Pakistan and meets with President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, and Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi. In his meeting with Qureshi, he urges Pakistan to begin negotiations on the Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty and quickly sign the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

The mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki announce the establishment of a joint committee to bid for the 2020 Summer Olympics.

13 At a press conference, Minister of Defense Kitazawa Toshimi states that Maritime Self-Defense Force refueling operations in the Indian Ocean will not be extended after legislation permitting them expires in January.

Transport Minister Maehara unveils a plan to turn Tokyo International Airport at Haneda into a 24-hour Asian hub, revising the policy of concentrating international flights at Narita International Airport in Chiba and domestic flights at Haneda.

14 In an article appearing in the US online scientific journal PLoS ONE, Gifu Pharmaceutical University Professor Hara Hideaki announces the discovery of the gene responsible for schizophrenia.

15 Ministries submit their revised budget requests for fiscal 2010 (April 2010 to March 2011). The requests reach a record-high total of ¥95.0 trillion, reflecting the addition of appropriations for measures pledged by the DPJ in its electoral manifesto.

20 The Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare releases its first-ever figures on Japan’s poverty rate. According to the data, 15.7% of Japanese were living in poverty as of 2006, the fourth-highest figure among the 30 developed countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates meets with Foreign Minister Okada in Tokyo. He urges Japan to adhere to the bilateral agreement on relocating the Futenma Marine Corps Air Station to another site in Okinawa. The following day Gates also discusses the subject with Prime Minister Hatoyama and Defense Minister Kitazawa.

At the recommendation of a government-appointed reconstruction task force, Transport Minister Maehara indicates the government may need to provide ailing JAL with an injection of public funds. The amount of the required capital infusion is expected to reach ¥300 billion, including money from the private sector.

Japan Post Holdings President Nishikawa Yoshifumi announces his intention to resign in the face of pressure from the DPJ-led government, which has decided to have Japan Post reintegrate its banking and insurance services with its postal operations and to require the organization to provide these services at all post offices nationwide. On October 28 Saitô Jirô, a former vice-minister of finance, is inaugurated as his successor. Critics complain the government is reversing the course of postal privatization.

22 Prime Minister Hatoyama presides over the first meeting of the Government Revitalization Unit, a new body charged with the task of eliminating wasteful spending and reshaping the national government as a whole.

23 The government unveils an emergency measure to create 100,000 jobs by the end of the current fiscal year next March, mainly in the field of nursing care and the agriculture and forestry industries.

Prime Minister Hatoyama arrives in Thailand to attend the Japan-ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Summit, the ASEAN+3 (China, Japan, and South Korea) Summit, and the 16-nation East Asia Summit.

26 Prime Minister Hatoyama delivers his first policy speech to the Diet as it starts a 36-day extraordinary session. Hatoyama pledges to undertake a transformation of national politics, ending politicians’ dependence on the bureaucracy, and to put the economy on track to a recovery led by private-sector demand.

30 September data from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications shows seasonally adjusted unemployment at 5.3%, down 0.2 points from the previous month. The preliminary consumer price index for September fell 2.2% from the previous year to 100.4.

The Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare announces the ratio of job openings to job seekers in September improved 0.01 points from the previous month to 0.43.

The Bank of Japan issues a forecast for three consecutive years of deflation, with consumer prices continuing to fall from this year through fiscal 2011.

© 2009 Japan Echo Inc.