JAPAN'S coalition-building is a complicated and confusing process, both at home and abroad, due to the plethora of new party names and their proper translation.
In Japan, the LDP is known as Jiminto, an abbreviated form of Liberal Democratic Party. The Komeito or Clean Government Party, the Democratic Socialist Party (DSP) and the Japan Communist Party all match their Japanese and English names.
The former Japan Socialist Party is, however, a case apart. Dialectical differences between its moderate and left-wing factions, a few years ago, permitted a change in the English name only, to Social Democratic Party of Japan (SDPJ).
But, for the Japanese, the party remained Sakaito (The Socialist Party), which is why most foreigners disdain SDPJ since no such party exists in Japanese.
Another complication is that there are, ostensibly, three democratic socialist parties - the SDPJ, the DSP and the Social Democratic Union (SDU). For the SDU, most prefer to use its Japanese name, Shaminren.
In English, the SDU is also called Union of Democratic Socialist Parties (USDP), a misnomer if ever there was one.