Shinzo Abe, Japan’s prime minister, faces more pressure after his trade minister admitted taking inappropriate donations from a foreign-owned company just days after the revelation that the minister’s staff spent political funds in a bondage bar.
Yoichi Miyazawa, the nephew of former prime minister Kiichi Miyazawa, yesterday revealed that a chapter of the ruling Liberal Democratic party he had headed in Hiroshima prefecture had received Y400,000 ($3,700) several years ago from a company that was majority-owned by non-Japanese.
The Asahi newspaper said that the donor was a pachinko – a kind of pinball – company. Japanese law forbids lawmakers from receiving donations from companies where more than 50 per cent of the shareholders are foreign – a similar measure to rules in the US aimed at limiting outside influence on domestic policy.