Exit polls show Japan's ruling coalition likely to lose key election
Exit poll results released seconds after the ballots closed Sunday night mostly showed a major setback for Ishiba's coalition. Japan's NHK television projected a range of 32-51 seats for the prime minister's coalition, while other networks projected it would win just over 40 seats.
A poor performance in the election would not immediately trigger a change of government because the upper house lacks the power to file a no-confidence motion 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.
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 handle policies related to foreigners. The party's populist platform also includes anti-vaccine, anti-globalism and favors traditional gender roles.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CNBC
a few seconds ago
- CNBC
How Huawei ascended from telecoms to China's 'jack of all trades' AI leader
Despite being beaten down by years of U.S. trade restrictions, China's telecom giant Huawei has quietly emerged as one of the country's fiercest competitors across the entire AI landscape. Not only does the Shenzhen-based firm appear to represent Beijing's answer to American AI chip darling Nvidia, but it has also been an early adopter of monetizing artificial intelligence models in industrial applications. "Huawei has been forced to shift and expand its core business focus over the past decade… due to a variety of external pressures on the company," said Paul Triolo, partner and senior vice president for China at advisory firm DGA-Albright Stonebridge Group. This expansion has seen the company get involved in everything from smart cars and operating systems to the technologies needed for the AI boom, such as advanced semiconductors, data centers, chips and large language models. "No other technology company has been able to be competent in so many different sectors with high levels of complexity and barriers to entry," Triolo said. This year, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has become increasingly vocal in calling Huawei "one of the most formidable technology companies in the world." He has also warned that Huawei will replace Nvidia in China if Washington continues to restrict U.S. chip firms' exports to the Asian country. Nvidia surpassed $4 trillion in market capitalization last week to become the world's most valuable company. Its cutting-edge processors and a related "CUDA" computing system remain the industry standard for training generative AI models and applications. But that moat may be narrowing, as Huawei proves that it not only does it all, it does it well. While challenging American AI stalwarts like Nvidia is a tall order, the company's history shows why it can't be counted out. Huawei, which now employs more than 208,000 people across over 170 markets, came from humble beginnings. Founded by ambitious entrepreneur Ren Zhengfei in 1987 out of an apartment in Shenzhen, the firm started as a small telephone switch distributor. As it grew into a telecoms player, it gained traction by targeting less developed markets such as Africa, the Middle East, Russia and South America, before eventually expanding to places like Europe. By 2019, Huawei would be well-positioned to capitalize on the global 5G rollout, becoming a leader in the market. Around this time, it had also blossomed into one of the world's largest smartphone manufacturers and was even designing smartphone chips through its chip design subsidiary, HiSilicon. But Huawei's success also attracted increasing scrutiny from governments outside China, particularly the U.S., which has frequently accused Huawei's technology of posing a national security threat. The Chinese company has refuted such risks. Huawei's business suffered a major setback in 2019 when it was placed on a U.S. trade blacklist, preventing American companies from doing business with it. As the impact of the sanctions kicked in, Huawei's consumer business – once the company's largest by revenue – halved to about $34 billion in 2021 from the year before. The company still managed a breakthrough on AI chips, and pressed ahead despite additional U.S. restrictions in 2020 that cut the company off from chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. A year earlier, Huawei officially launched its Ascend 910 AI processing chip as part of a strategy to build a "full-stack, all-scenario AI portfolio" and to become a provider of AI computing power. But the U.S. targeting of Huawei also had the effect of turning the company into a martyr-like figure in China, building upon attention it received in 2018 when Meng Wanzhou, Huawei's CFO and daughter of Ren, was arrested in Canada for alleged violations of Iran sanctions. As the U.S.-China tech war continued to expand and broad advanced chip restrictions were placed on China, Huawei was an obvious choice to become a national champion in the race, with more impetus and state backing for its AI plans. "The export controls have ironically pushed Huawei into the arms of the Chinese government in a way that CEO Ren Zhengfei always resisted," Triolo said. In this way, the restrictions also became "the steroids" for Huawei's AI hardware and software stack. After another year of declining sales in the consumer segment, the unit started to turn around in 2023 with the release of a smartphone that analysts said contained an advanced chip made in China. The 5G chip came as a shock to many in the U.S., who didn't expect Huawei to reach that level of advancement so quickly without TSMC. Instead, Huawei was reportedly working with Chinese chipmaker SMIC, a company that has also been blacklisted by the U.S. While semiconductor analysts said the scale that Huawei and SMIC could produce these chips was severely limited, Huawei nonetheless had proved it was back in the advanced chip game. It was also around this time that reports began surfacing about Huawei's new AI processor chip, the Ascend 910B, with the company looking to seize upon gaps left by export controls on Nvidia's most advanced chips. Mass production of the next-generation 910C is reportedly already on the way. To fill the void left by Nvidia, Huawei "has been making big strides in replicating the performance of high-end GPUs using combinations of lower chips," said Jeffrey Towson, managing partner at TechMoat Consulting. In April, Huawei unveiled its "AI CloudMatrix 384", a system that links 384 Ascend 910C chips in a cluster within data centers. Analysts have said CloudMatrix is able to outperform Nvidia's system, the GB200 NVL72, on some metrics. Huawei isn't just catching up, "it's redefining how AI infrastructure works," Forrester analysts said in a report last month about CloudMatrix. Meanwhile, Huawei has also developed its own "CANN" software system that acts as an alternative to Nvidia's CUDA. "Winning the AI race isn't just about faster chips. It also includes delivering the tools developers need to build and deploy large-scale models," Forrester's report said, though authors noted that Huawei's products are still not integrated enough with other commonly used tools for developers to switch over quickly from Nvidia. While Huawei's goal to surpass Nvidia is seen as a key development in China and the U.S.'s race for AI, it's important to note that chips represent just one building block of Huawei's broader AI plans. Huawei now has its hands throughout the artificial intelligence value chain, from chips to computing, to AI models and AI applications. These different AI business avenues also leverage other areas of the company's vast technology empire. In fact, the company's "ICT Infrastructure" business — which includes 5.5G cellular network deployment and AI systems for industrial use — became the company's largest revenue driver at 362 billion yuan in 2023. The company has been deploying its Ascend AI chips and AI CloudMatrix 384 at its growing portfolio of AI data centers, which are operated by its cloud computing unit, Huawei Cloud, established in 2017 to compete with the likes of Amazon Web Services and Oracle. These data centers, in turn, have provided the training capabilities and computing power used by Huawei's suite of AI models under its Pangu series. Unlike other general-purpose AI models like OpenAI's GPT-4 or Google's Gemini Ultra 1.0, Huawei's Pangu model is designed to support more industry-specific applications across the medical, finance, government, industrial and automotive sectors. Pangu has already been applied in more than 20 industries over the last year, the company said last month. Rolling out such AI applications often involves having Huawei tech staff working for months at the project site, even if it's in a remote coal mine, Jack Chen, vice president of the marketing department for Huawei's oil, gas and mining business unit, which provides digital and intelligent solutions to transform these industries, told CNBC. That research enabled the company in May to deploy more 100 electric-powered trucks that can autonomously transport dirt or coal using the telecom company's 5G network, AI and cloud computing services. And it's not limited to China. The technology can "be replicated on a large scale in Central Asia, Latin America, Africa, and the Asia-Pacific," Chen said. Huawei has also open-sourced the Pangu models, in a move it said would help it expand overseas and further its "Ascend ecosystem strategy," which refers to its AI products built around its Ascend chips. Speaking to CNBC's "Squawk Box Asia" on Thursday, Patrick Moorhead of Moor Insights & Strategy said he expected Huawei to push Ascend in countries part of China's Belt and Road Initiative — an investment and development project aimed at emerging markets. Over a period of five to 10 years, the company could begin to build serious market share in these countries, in the same way it once did with its telecommunications business, he added.
Bloomberg
28 minutes ago
- Bloomberg
Top South Korean Official in US Again as Tariff Deadline Looms
South Korea's national security adviser made a second trip to the US in under two weeks, as Seoul intensifies efforts to avert sweeping 25% tariffs proposed by President Donald Trump ahead of an Aug. 1 deadline. Wi Sung-lac departed for the US 'to engage in various negotiations with US officials,' Woo Sang-ho, a senior presidential secretary, told reporters Sunday. 'This may not be the last time, and it could continue,' Woo said, adding that the top security official 'will visit the US whenever he deems it necessary for the overall negotiations.'
USA Today
29 minutes ago
- USA Today
Trump celebrates 6-month mark in office, touts US as 'most respected country' in the world
President Donald Trump celebrated the six-month mark of his second White House term by declaring that the United States has become the "hottest" and the "most respected" country in the world. "Wow, time flies!" he wrote on Truth Social on July 20. "Importantly, it's being hailed as one of the most consequential periods of any President. In other words, we got a lot of good and great things done, including ending numerous wars of Countries not related to us other than through Trade and/or, in certain cases, friendship." He added: "'One year ago our Country was DEAD, with almost no hope of revival. Today the USA is the 'hottest' and most respected Country anywhere in the World.' Happy Anniversary!!!" Trump's second term has been met with several challenges, including the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, which he said he would end. The Israel-Hamas war in Gaza also rages on, alongside ongoing efforts to broker a ceasefire and secure the release of hostages. In a separate post, Trump also talked about his poll numbers "going up" among Republicans and MAGA base and claimed they "hit 90%, 92%, 93%, and 95%, in various polls, and are all Republican Party records." At the same time, a couple of recent polls showed Trump's overall approval rate dropping. A recent Economist/YouGov poll, conducted from July 11 to July 14, showed 41% of Americans strongly or somewhat approve of Trump's job performance, while 55% strongly or somewhat disapprove. The results, according to the survey, are the "largest share of Americans who have disapproved of Trump's job performance so far in his second term as president." Another poll, released July 20 by CBS/YouGov, placed Trump's approval rating at 42%, with disapproval at 58%. The survey previously found Trump's approval rating was 45% in June and 47% in mid-April. Trump's on a roll. Why isn't he smiling? Answer: Jeffrey Epstein Democratic leadership is not buying Trump's self-assessment Democratic National Committee Chairman Ken Martin was critical of Trump's self-assessment, adding that every American needs to ask themselves if they are better off than they were six months ago. 'Unless you're a billionaire or a big CEO, the answer is no," he said in a statement. "In six months, Donald Trump has skyrocketed prices for basic necessities, sparked an erratic trade war with no end in sight, and orchestrated the largest cuts to health care and food assistance in American history. As Trump's reckless trade agenda forces small businesses to plan for recession, working families are drowning in sky-high energy, gas, and grocery prices." Contributing: Kathryn Palmer
