Yamaguchi addresses at joint party plenary meeting

January 21 , 2020

Komeito Chief Representative Natsuo Yamaguchi addressed a plenary meeting of party legislators from both the House of Representatives and House of Councilors, outlining the party’s domestic and foreign policy objectives moving forward. The following is a summary of his speech:

• Earliest possible passage of the fiscal 2019 supplemental budget and fiscal 2020 national budget. Yamaguchi listed disaster recovery and rebuilding as a major goal, in addition to funding disaster prevention and mitigation programs.

• Another priority is to lay the groundwork for an “all-generation” social security system. As part of this initiative, Komeito pushed through tuition-free preschool education and daycare services in October 2019, with high school education slotted for similar subsidies from April 2020. In the same vein, a wide range of programs to prepare a wholesome environment for parents to have children and rear them.

• A key domestic policy goal is to sustain economic growth, partly by taking steps to minimize risks created by offshore sources and partly through programs to ensure that macroeconomic demand continues beyond the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games. To achieve these aims, Yamaguchi called for the prompt adoption of the 2020 budget draft to carry out the economic measures worth 26 trillion yen approved in 2019.

• Diplomatic initiatives over the next ten years: Yamaguchi reaffirmed Komeito’s commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)—with an emphasis on disaster prevention and mitigation as well as climate change initiatives—and driving Japan to achieve them by 2030. He also cited the need for the country to meet the goals set forth in the Paris Agreement for the same year.

• An equally important task is for Japan to stabilize relations with China, building new bonds for a new era. Yamaguchi described Chinese President Xi Jinping’s planned state visit to the country in April as a vital step in this direction, and pledged that Komeito, given its long history of friendly exchanges with China, will continue to exert the utmost effort in making bilateral ties more fruitful than ever before. Yamaguchi assigned similar weight in improving relations with South Korea, calling for further exchanges at the level of ordinary citizens to deepen mutual understanding and friendship. That, he said, will enable the two countries to find a way forward and build stability in the highly unstable area of northeast Asia.

• Yamaguchi concluded his speech by saying that the latest decision by the Japanese government to deploy a small Self-Defense Force contingent to the Middle East was necessary to collect and share information among other naval powers in the region to ensure sea lane security for the safe passage of oil tankers—a vitally important access for Japan, which depends almost entirely on oil imports.