
Japan votes in a key election as Prime Minsiter Ishiba faces a loss and political uncertainty
Voters were deciding half of the 248 seats in the upper house, the less powerful of the two chambers in Japan's Diet. Early results were expected Sunday night.
Ishiba has set the bar low, wanting a simple majority of 125 seats, which means his Liberal Democratic Party and its Buddhist-backed junior coalition partner Komeito need to win 50 to add to the 75 seats they already have.
That is a big retreat from the 141 seats they had pre-election, but media surveys predict big setbacks for Ishiba.
A poor performance on Sunday would not immediately trigger a change of government because the upper house lacks the power to file no-confidence against a leader, but it would certainly deepen uncertainty over his fate and Japan's political stability. Ishiba would face calls from within the LDP party to step down or find another coalition partner.
Soaring prices, lagging incomes and burdensome social security payments are the top issues for frustrated, cash-strapped voters. Stricter measures targeting foreign residents and visitors have also emerged as a key issue, with a surging right-wing populist party leading the campaign.
Sunday's vote comes after Ishiba's coalition lost a majority in the October lower house election, stung by past corruption scandals, and his unpopular government has since been forced into making concessions to the opposition to get legislation through parliament. It has been unable to quickly deliver effective measures to mitigate rising prices, including Japan's traditional staple of rice, and dwindling wages.
U.S. President Donald Trump has added to the pressure, complaining about a lack of progress in trade negotiations, and the lack of sales of U.S. autos and American-grown rice to Japan despite a shortfall in domestic stocks of the grain. A 25% tariff due to take effect Aug. 1 has been another blow for Ishiba.
Ishiba has resisted any compromise before the election, but the prospect for a breakthrough after the election is just as unclear because the minority government would have difficulty forming a consensus with the opposition.
Frustrated voters are rapidly turning to emerging populist parties. The eight main opposition groups, however, are too fractured to forge a common platform as a united front and gain voter support as a viable alternative.
The emerging populist party Sanseito stands out with the toughest anti-foreigner stance with its 'Japanese First' platform that proposes a new agency to centralize policies related to foreigners. The party's populist platform also includes anti-vaccine, anti-globalism and favors traditional gender roles.
Conservative to centrist opposition groups, including the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, or CDPJ, the DPP, and Sanseito have gained significant ground at the Liberal Democrats' expense.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


UPI
29 minutes ago
- UPI
Cambodia, Thailand to meet Monday for cease-fire talks
Malaysia's Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim (C) looks on as Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Manet (L) and Thailand's acting Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai (R) take part in talks on a possible ceasefire between Thailand and Cambodia; in Putrajaya, Malaysia, 28 July 2025. Photo by Mohd Rasfan/EPA July 28 (UPI) -- Cambodia and Thailand are meeting Monday in Malaysia for talks to end days of deadly fighting over their disputed border. The meeting comes as fighting continues between the Asian neighbors and after U.S. President Donald Trump announced over the weekend that they had agreed to "immediately meet and quickly work out a Ceasefire and, ultimately, PEACE." Prime Minister Hun Manet of Cambodia and acting Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai both confirmed their separate Saturday night conversations with the American leader. Manet confirmed in a statement that he will lead the Cambodian delegation to Kuala Lumpur, where the meeting will be held. "The purpose of the meeting is to reach an immediate cease-fire, which the prime ministers of both countries, Cambodia and Thailand, agreed on following the initial idea of President Donald Trump last night," he said in a statement. He added that China will be participating. Meanwhile, Wechayachai has raised concerns over Cambodia's willingness to achieve a cease-fire. "Thailand agrees in principle to have a cease-fire in place. However, Thailand would like to see sincere intention from the Cambodian side," he said in a statement. Thailand's Foreign Affairs Ministry reiterated its stance on Sunday. "Cambodia must demonstrate sincerity and good faith in resolving the issue," it said in a statement. "Thailand stands ready to engage in dialogue to bring forth measures and procedures for the cease-fire and the eventual peaceful resolution of the conflict." It pointed to Cambodian forces continuing to launch attacks into Thailand as evidence that "clearly reflects that Cambodia still lacks the sincerity to end hostilities." "More importantly, they are still neglecting basic humanitarian principles by their indiscriminate attacks." U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed late Sunday that his staff was "on the ground in Malaysia to assist in the peace efforts." "We want this conflict to end as soon as possible," he said in a statement on X, referring to himself and the American president. The fighting began Thursday, with each side blaming the other for renewing a decades-old conflict over their disputed border. Thailand has said that at least 14 civilians have been killed, and that it has returned the bodies of 12 slain Cambodians to their native country. Reports state at least 34 people have been killed in the fighting. According to a Monday statement from the Cambodian Ministry of Defense, more than 134,707 people have been displaced by the fighting and nearly 400,000 Cambodian workers in Thailand have returned to their native country in the past five days.


Business Insider
an hour ago
- Business Insider
Alibaba's Jian says most current AI tech will be gone in decade, Bloomberg says
Wang Jian, the founder of Alibaba's (BABA) cloud and AI unit, believes nine-tenths of the technology and services that have appeared since Microsoft-backed (MSFT) OpenAI's ChatGPT started a revolution in AI will be gone in under a decade, Annabelle Droulers and Lauren Faith Lau of Bloomberg reports. 'Probably 90% of the AI people are talking about, I would say, will go away in five or 10 years because it's not really the essence of this technology,' Jian said, according to Bloomberg. 'But that's not bad, and it just helps us to explore.' Elevate Your Investing Strategy: Take advantage of TipRanks Premium at 50% off! Unlock powerful investing tools, advanced data, and expert analyst insights to help you invest with confidence.

Business Insider
an hour ago
- Business Insider
China says it wants the world to work together to govern AI. The US, not so much.
At this weekend's World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai, boxing robots thrilled the crowd. But the real heavyweight bout is between the US and China over the future of AI. The theme of the Shanghai conference, which was organized in part by the Chinese government and lasts until Monday, is "global solidarity in the AI era." In his keynote address, Chinese Premier Li Qiang called for a new global organization to coordinate responses to AI advancements. "Overall, global AI governance is still fragmented. Countries have great differences, particularly in terms of areas such as regulatory concepts, institutional rules," he said, speaking in Chinese. "We should strengthen coordination to form a global AI governance framework that has broad consensus as soon as possible." Li's pitch contrasted with comments made by US President Donald Trump earlier in the week. On Wednesday, the US president released his " AI Action Plan" and signed three executive orders. All of them, Trump said, were designed to free AI companies from regulatory burdens. "From this day forward, it'll be a policy of the United States to do whatever it takes to lead the world in artificial intelligence," he said before signing his executive orders. Trump's doctrine will likely benefit American AI companies. Many of them, like OpenAI, Meta, and Google DeepMind, submitted recommendations to the president and praised the new policies. However, it's an open question whether forgoing stricter regulations in the United States will benefit humanity. AI industry leaders have long warned about the threats AI could pose — everything from disinformation and economic inequality to total loss of all human control. In 2023, a group of prominent AI scientists, including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis, and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, signed a one-sentence statement calling for AI regulation. "Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war," it said. Altman said last year that AI could have a "negative impact way beyond the realm of one country." He said the tech should be regulated by an "international agency looking at the most powerful systems and ensuring reasonable safety testing." One way to do that is through an agreed-upon global framework similar to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which is enforced by the United Nations and which all but four countries have signed. The UN tech chief, Doreen Bogdan-Martin, told the AFP on Saturday that the world urgently needed a global deal to regulate AI. "We have the EU approach. We have the Chinese approach. Now we're seeing the US approach. I think what's needed is for those approaches to dialogue," she said. The Trump administration, however, is likely to hinder any such international agreement. Beyond its own effort to loosen restrictions at home, it has largely dismissed other global collaborations in favor of its America First policy. At the Shanghai conference, Geoffrey Hinton, a computer scientist known as the Godfather of AI, said international cooperation on AI would be difficult. He said few countries agree on basics like how misinformation should be policed. He said there was one subject, however, on which the whole world seems aligned: Humans should not let AI supersede their control. "So on that particular issue, it should be easy to get international collaboration," he said at the conference, adding, however, that it "may be difficult with the current US administration." "But rational countries will collaborate on that," he said.