My manga portfolio has seen better days

Just two weeks after the meteoric, Paul Martin-esque rise and fall of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Japan is set to have a new chief executive: 71-year-old Yasuo Fukuda.

Thoughta? For one, Taro Aso, Fukuda's chief competitor and a great fan of manga, will not be PM.

(And here I was hoping for more North American imports of hentai DVDs.)

It also means that Japanese foreign policy in East Asia may return to form, breaking from the more jingoistic regional relations practiced by Abe and his predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi. As the BBC writes:

Mr Fukuda is seen as a foreign policy dove who eschews Mr Abe's more ambitious policies, such as revising Japan's pacifist constitution to facilitate military deployments overseas.

He has emphasised the need for cordial ties with China and promised not to visit the contentious Yasukuni shrine, which Japan's neighbours see as a symbol of the country's past militarism.

He has also hinted at a more flexible stance towards North Korea to resolve a row over Japanese nationals abducted by Pyongyang in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

But Mr Fukuda is in favour of continuing Japan's naval mission in the Indian Ocean to refuel warships supporting the war in Afghanistan.

Coming off recent progress made on the North Korean nuclear issue, Fukuda's dovishness is good news for the region — which is, I might add, the only region where things seem to be going in the Bush administration's favour.