Prime Minister Shinzo Abe seems to stumble almost every time he makes an aggressive move. When his coalition parties rammed through the Diet the state secrets law late last year, it met such strong public criticism that he had to apologize at a subsequent press conference. His Dec. 26 visit to Yasukuni Shrine, where the war dead — including Class-A war criminals — are enshrined, caused the U.S. government to issue a statement saying that it was "disappointed," casting a cloud over the bilateral relations. These appear to be self-inflicted consequences of his own making.

On May 15, the day when Abe's private security advisory panel presented him with a report calling for reinterpretation of the Constitution to enable Japan to exercise the right to collective self-defense, major newspapers surprised their readers with news articles on the deregulation council's proposal for reform of farm policies that included demolition of the powerful agricultural cooperatives, which dominated Japan's agriculture.

Even though this was condemned by Akira Banzai, president of the Central Union of Agricultural Co-operatives (JA-Zenchu), Abe told a meeting of the Industrial Competitiveness Council four days later that fundamental changes were needed in farm policies so that local cooperatives could play leading roles and act independently to turn agriculture into a growing sector.