Meanwhile, other DPJ politicians have been publicly speculating on precisely when Kan will resign: probably in June.
FORBES: Another Round of Musical Chairs or a Grand Coalition?
Both parties have been emboldened as popular support for the Kan administration has plunged.
Mr Kan's government has been stymied at every turn, but not crushed.
The trawler captain's release could have prompted China to retire, content that Mr Kan's government had been made to look weak despite apparently reckless behaviour on the part of the fishing boat.
As the largest opposition group in the Diet (parliament), Mr Kan and his colleagues have been trying to persuade the other opposition parties including Ichiro Ozawa's dwindling New Frontier Party, the small but influential New Peace Party and even the Communists to throw their weight behind an effort to topple the government.
The man whose resignation created the vacancy that Kan filled, Hatoyama Yukio, had been saying that he and his faction would support the no confidence motion.
FORBES: Another Round of Musical Chairs or a Grand Coalition?
Mr Kan's tax proposals may just have been one woolly idea too many.
Efforts to reduce the corporate rate have been hung up by machinations within the governing DPJ party, but these should have been put to rest with the triumph of Prime Minister Naoto Kan in an intraparty showdown.
This is Kan Thar Htwat Wa, home to 400 Buddhists who have been here since clashes in late October.
Mr Kan, 63, took over the finance ministry in January and has also been serving as deputy prime minister.
Mr Kan again faced criticism in parliament on Monday - with one opposition lawmaker suggesting he had been ill-prepared from the outset.
Mr Kan was hobbled when Robert Rubin, the treasury secretary, and other American officials who had been preaching to Asian governments about the need to tighten their belts told the Japanese visitors to throw public money at their banking problem.
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