Is Japan's space programme limping on?

As the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Hayabusa probe, which may have collected a soil sample from an asteroid, limps into Earth orbit due to thruster problems, a new debate seems to have started about the country's space programme

According to this article from the English language Daily Yomiuri newspaper the Japanese space programme has its own problems with a debate brewing about whether manned spaceflight can continue

Japan, despite being a wealthy nation, has always had goals far beyond the resources its prepared to put into them and last year the country's government imposed a 10% cut on the agency's budget

Once touted as a partner in the doomed ESA/Russian Federal Space Agency plans for Kliper/Clipper JAXA must now be wondering how it sustains its involvement in the International Space Station to 2020 and beyond