Kan’s new cabinet enjoys high support rate

TOKYO, Sept 18, AFP Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan’s new cabinet won a high public approval rating Saturday, as the press warned ministers had to work to tame a booming yen and end a damaging territorial row with China.

The new line-up, named by Kan Friday after he survived a leadership challenge from a party heavyweight just three months into his premiership, drew a support rating of 64.4 percent in an opinion poll by the Kyodo news agency.

The rating is the highest since Kan took over from his unpopular successor, Yukio Hatoyama, in early June, when his first cabinet marked the previous high of 61.5 percent, Kyodo News said.

The hawkish Seiji Maehara was given the task of leading the charge in the escalating dispute with Beijing over the arrest of a Chinese trawlerman in disputed waters. He replaces Katsuya Okada, who moves into a key party position to shore up Kan’s control over his sometimes undisciplined parliamentary group.

Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda kept his job as Kan looked to maintain momentum following this week’s intervention in the currency markets aimed at dampening the soaraway currency.

Japanese newspapers broadly supported the new cabinet, with the liberal Mainichi Shimbun saying in an editorial: “On the whole, the line-up is a balanced one.

“We hope the cabinet will spare no efforts from the start.” Kan consulted close aides on Saturday to prepare for a summit with US President Barack Obama in New York on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly next week, local media said.

The Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan’s biggest selling paper, warned Japan’s economic malaise meant experience alone would not be enough.

“The cabinet must work hard on resolving domestic and foreign issues.

Priority should be placed on measures to handle the strong yen and the economy.”

Newspapers were united in their view that the worsening row with China over the arrest of a Chinese fisherman in the East China Sea needed urgent attention.

Beijing has launched a series of diplomatic protests five times calling in the Japanese ambassador for a dressing down and cancelled official visits to Tokyo over the incident near what Japan calls the Senkaku islands, but which are known as Diaoyu in China.

The shake-up in ministerial and party posts was also a chance for Kan to shore up his authority on the year-old centre-left government and sideline his vanquished rival, Ichiro Ozawa, in the ruling Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ).

Ozawa a veteran powerbroker and leading faction boss who failed in his bid to oust Kan in the party’s internal election on Tuesday has not been named to any senior posts, and neither have many of his allies.

Later in the day, prosecutors questioned Ozawa over alleged false financial reporting by his political fund management body, Kyodo reported, quoting informed sources.

In Kyodo’s opinion poll, 67.1 percent said they backed Kan’s selection of new ministers from outside the group of lawmakers loyal to Ozawa in the DPJ.