The Tests For Japan’s Incoming Prime Minister
Ishiba will have to hit the ground running as he doesn’t have the luxury of time
By: Rupakjyoti Borah*
Shigeru Ishiba is expected to be formally named Japan’s Prime Minister at a meeting of the Liberal Democratic Party today, succeeding the hapless former premier Fumio Kishida following a rapid dip in the latter’s approval ratings, with four senior cabinet ministers and several junior ones forced to resign amid allegations that they had embezzled millions of dollars in party funds.
The 67-year-old Ishiba, a former minister of defense and agriculture who campaigned on cleaning up political financing, strengthening defense and developing regional economies, comes to office facing a series of international and domestic challenges, not the least of which is leading a deeply unpopular party which has been in power almost continuously since 1955 and which is regarded as badly corrupt – and one that is not wholly united behind him. He has called for a snap general election to determine control of parliament’s lower house on October 27, a year early, in a bid to solidify his public support.
In what is clearly an indication of the deep divisions within the LDP, nine candidates were in the fray for the leadership, which devolved into a run-off between Ishiba and Sanae Takaichi, 63, who was vying to become Japan’s first female leader. Takaichi has been regarded as the intellectual successor of former PM Shinzo Abe.
Ishiba has earned a reputation for brusqueness with his colleagues and has taken supposedly unpopular stands on same-sex marriages as well as coming out in support of women becoming future emperors, something which many people in Japan oppose. A bigger challenge than this is the issue of immigration – always a hot-button issue for Japan, with a total fertility rate of 1.4, well below replacement and one of the lowest in the world, with a shrinking workforce in a heavily industrialized nation.
Another issue is the state of the economy, which has resisted attempts at reflation almost since the economic collapse of 1990. The cabinet revised down its GDP forecast through to next March from 1.3 percent to 0.9 percent with 1.3 percent, as inflation hurts private consumption, rising to 3.0 percent in August from 2.8 percent, the highest level since October 2023. Private consumption, accounting for over half of the economy, is forecast to fall to a 0.5 percent increase from the 1.2 percent forecast in January. The Nikkei 225 tumbled nearly 5 percent on the first day of trading after Ishiba was named although the yen strengthened to ¥142.52 and government bonds jumped, with Ishiba regarded as a monetary policy hawk.
On the international stage, arguably his biggest challenge is in Washington, DC where Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are locked in the tightest election battle in decades, to be decided on November 5. Outgoing President Joe Biden has spent most of his presidency undoing the chaos that ensued in US-Asian relations under Trump and had established a close working relationship with Kishida. Ishiba has advocated for a more equal Japan-US security alliance, and has talked about having Japanese SDF training bases on US territory, which could be seen as radical thinking in Washington.
Biden has staked considerable energy and time to resuscitating the formerly moribund Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or Quad, between Japan, Australia, India and the US. Washington regards Japan as an integral part of what it seeks to grow into a serious Asian counterweight to China. While Ishiba has called for an “Asian NATO,” that will depend to a great degree on the new administration in the US and also on whether the US would be willing to cede responsibility to Japan. Already the Quad and arrangements like the AUKUS, the trilateral security partnership between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the US seem to be working well. An “Asian NATO” would almost certainly ratchet up regional tensions. The Philippines, Australia, Japan, and New Zealand held exercises in the South China Sea on September 28, with China undertaking drills elsewhere in the same sea.
The incoming premier is expected to maintain continuity on Kishida’s two most important issues, Japan’s continuing defense expansion, in which the military budget is slated to double to 2 percent of GDP by 2027, and Japan’s continuing attempts to reverse decades of acrimony with South Korea over its onetime colonial occupation of the Korean peninsula. After 70-odd years of scrupulous avoidance of military participation, Japan over the past decade has begun to assume partnership in the United States’ efforts to contain a resurgent China under Xi Jinping.
Japan has now started supplying official security assistance on the lines of official development assistance to countries like the Philippines. During Kishida’s visit to the Philippines in November last year, he welcomed the “signing of the Exchange of Notes concerning the provision of coastal surveillance radar system, which is the first cooperation project under the Official Security Assistance (OSA)” Kishida noted that “Japan would continue to strengthen cooperation on defense equipment and technology, including the transfer of warning and control radars, and maritime security capacity building, including the provision of patrol vessels.”
Although Ishiba faces tough challenges, what works in his favor is that he is well-experienced in politics and has a good understanding of the ground situation. He isn’t a member of Japan’s traditional select few, having been raised in a rural area. He is well-grounded in the country’s increasing defense needs. The China challenge will surely test him. Beijing claims the Japan-controlled Senkaku islands, called the Diaoyu by Beijing, which are roughly equidistant from China, Japan, and Taiwan. In 2013, the PRC established what it called the East China Sea Air Defense Identification Zone which includes the islets, and announced it would require all aircraft to file flight plan. It has frequently sent fishing vessels into the vicinity, to Japanese objections.
In another sign of increased tensions, recently a Japanese destroyer sailed through the Taiwan Strait. The Taiwan issue could be a big challenge, especially because of its proximity to Japan. Following in the footsteps of Putin in Russia, in case China were to attack Taiwan, it could be the gravest security challenge since WWII. Then there is the challenge from countries like North Korea and Russia. In the past, North Korea has sent missiles flying over Japan in deliberate acts of provocation. There have also been regular incursions from Russian military aircraft into Japanese airspace and these present a clear and present danger.
Rupakjyoti Borah is a Senior Research Fellow with the Japan Forum for Strategic Studies, Tokyo. The views expressed here are personal.
*We inadvertently uploaded a garbled version of Dr. Borah’s analysis. We apologize. The garbles have been corrected