KYOTO — Senior business leaders in the Kansai region have long been able to rely on smooth relations with local and central government politicians sympathetic to their causes.
But with the Democratic Party of Japan-led government coming under increasing criticism, and Osaka Gov. Toru Hashimoto's bashing of Tokyo politicians and bureaucrats intensifying, Kansai's business community finds itself thinking about politics more than ever.
At the recent Kansai Economic Seminar in Kyoto, Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, who is also president of the DPJ, came in for sustained criticism from area business leaders on everything from a lack of a coherent policy for reviving the economy to the way the government has handled relations with the U.S. over the relocation of the Futenma air base in Okinawa.