August 30, 2011
US Rolls Eyes at Japan’s PM Revolving Door
When Junichiro Koizumi became Japan’s prime minister in 2001, he got the royal treatment from George W. Bush: a weekend at the Camp David presidential retreat – hospitality that signalled the US’s “favourable feeling” towards its top Asian ally, as Mr Koizumi put it at the time.
A decade later, Yoshihiko Noda, who was confirmed on Tuesday as Japan’s sixth prime minister in five years, will be lucky to get a meeting in Washington with President Barack Obama when he makes his first visit to the US as leader next month. Instead, he will probably have to settle for a chat on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, analysts say.