Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/after-election-japan-braces-for-new-political-landscape Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript A day after a historic election in Japan that saw the nation's ruling party removed from power for just the second time in postwar history, the newly elected majority began planning for the creation of a new government. Regional experts discuss what the political sea change will mean for Japan, the U.S., and the whole of Asia. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. GWEN IFILL: Was this a vote for the newcomers or a vote just to get rid of the old — old-timers? SHEILA SMITH: I think it was a little bit of both.You know, Japanese voters tended to punish the L.D.P. in that long 50-year tenure of their rule in upper house elections. And they did that in 2007. But this is the first time they have really given the L.D.P. a route or they have really given them a hard time in the lower house.The other side of the story, though, is that Japanese voters have never really had a choice. They have never had a viable alternative, a full political challenge to the L.D.P.'s rule, someone they could vote into office. GWEN IFILL: So, Daniel Sneider, what does this bode for the post-war alliance with the United States after all these years, that new faces are in charge? DANIEL SNEIDER, Stanford University: Well, I think the alliance itself is not in question.And the new party, the Democratic Party of Japan, supports the alliance. But they clearly want to have Japan play a more assertive role. They — they talk about a more equal relationship. They want to emphasize Japan's ties with Asia neighbors a little bit more, sort of balance out the relationship with the U.S. with relations with Asia.So, there's — there's some differences. And I think we could see some tensions over some issues, as — particularly as the new government takes power. There is going to be a transition. There are new people in office who have never been there before. So — but I don't see this as a threat to the — to the alliance itself. GWEN IFILL: Even though, in his op-ed piece that we mentioned, the new leader said, you know, this is — these American-style market — free market economies are what lead us to the problem we are in now, and we need to distance ourselves from that? That didn't feel like a rebuke at all to the U.S. relationship to you? DANIEL SNEIDER: Well, I have — I have heard the same things in the United States.I mean, the Japanese critique of what they call market fundamentalism comes out of the financial crisis and a feeling that the U.S. system of sort of high finance and sort of hot money capitalism has been discredited. I don't think that is unique to the Japanese. I think there are other people who have the same critique.I think Japanese are feeling the impact of globalization the same way Americans are. They see jobs, manufacturing jobs in particular, being lost, going off to China. They have shrinking opportunities for new generations of people entering the work force. They have got an aging population.So, they're trying to cope with all of those stresses. And, sure, there's some discrediting, if you will, of the American model of capitalism. But, as I said, I think you could hear the same things right here.