Scandals and compromises at home, global respect for security and diplomacy

TOKYO (AP) — Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will resign Tuesday, handing the leadership over to his successor, Shigeru Ishiba, who is expected to officially take office later in the day. He says he plans to call early elections on October 27.

Kishida’s popularity ratings were unstable for much of his three-year term due to damaging corruption scandals, which eventually led to his resignation.

At home, Kishida was seen as a leader without vision who compromised with strong conservative nationalists within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party to stay in power. However, Japan has won the respect of outside Japan, especially the United States, for making bold changes in its defense and security policies and taking a tougher stance against Russia and China.

Here’s a look at Kishida’s leadership and legacy:

Trouble at home

After taking office in October 2021, Kishida made a number of important decisions, such as reversing Japan’s policy of phasing out nuclear energy and carrying out a rapid military build-up. But he avoided controversial social issues related to gender and sexual diversity. As the leader of a smaller faction in the ruling party, his top priority appeared to be a steady hold on power by avoiding clashes with members of the powerful conservative faction of the Liberal Democrats led by former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Abe’s assassination in July 2022 and subsequent major corruption scandals linked to members of Abe’s group have left him in permanent damage control mode as his approval ratings plummeted. Kishida narrowly escaped an explosives attack during a speech at a fishing port in Wakayama, western Japan, in April 2023.

Investigations into the Abe assassination have led to the revelation of the Liberal Democrats’ decades-long ties to the Unification Church of South Korea. This was followed by a more damaging corruption scandal involving illegal slush funds involving more than 80 LDP lawmakers, also mostly in Abe’s faction.

Cases were filed against many MPs, their deputies and accountants regarding this scandal.

Kishida led internal investigations and moved to reform and tighten political financing laws, but opposition lawmakers and voters found the measures inadequate.

Public outrage over the slush fund scandal has caused the LDP to lose several local elections this year, and lawmakers within the party have called for a new face to shake off the scandals to win the next national election.

Kishida ended his term as a kingmaker who could remain influential behind the scenes after helping lead Ishiba to a come-from-behind victory in the party’s vote against staunch conservative Sanae Takaichi on Friday.

Stronger defense

Kishida, who served as foreign minister for a long time during the Abe administration, earned respect for his national security and foreign policies; This has boosted the country’s international reputation while significantly deepening its ties with the US and other partners such as Australia, the UK, South Korea and the Philippines. profile.

In December 2022, the Kishida government announced that Japan would return to World War II. He adopted a security and defense strategy that involved rapidly increasing Japan’s military power to achieve a “counter-offensive” capability with long-range cruise missiles, a major departure from the post-World War II policy of self-defense. one principle.

Kishida’s government set a five-year goal to double Japan’s military spending to about 2% of GDP, eventually to about 10 trillion yen ($70 billion); This makes Japan the world’s third-largest spender after the United States and China. But it’s unclear how Japan will finance this spending and balance it against other pressing needs, such as dealing with the country’s shrinking population.

In December, Kishida significantly eased Japan’s arms export rules, allowing the licensing of Japanese-made PAC-3 missile interceptors to the United States and the future sale abroad of fighter jets Japan is developing with Britain and Italy.

Kishida quickly joined other G7 countries in imposing sanctions on Russia and supporting Ukraine. “Ukraine today could be East Asia tomorrow,” he has repeatedly said, likening Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to China’s growing assertiveness in the Asia-Pacific region. He worked to strengthen economic and security cooperation in the region.

“Although Kishida’s achievements in foreign affairs were overshadowed by anemic economic growth as well as domestic political scandals involving the Liberal Democratic Party, he oversaw increases in Japan’s stature and popularity in the region and globally, as well as the institutionalization of related partnership gains. ” Mirna Galic, senior policy analyst at the U.S. Institute of Peace, wrote in a recent article.

Better relations with South Korea

One of Kishida’s diplomatic achievements was Japan’s improved ties with South Korea, particularly its common ally the United States, over regional security and shared concerns about China and North Korea.

Under pressure from Washington and with the support of South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, Kishida helped repair ties between the two Asian neighbors who had suffered from a legacy of colonialism and oppression from Japan’s colonial era. The key to a US-led united front in the Pacific is stable relations.

In April, Kishida made an official visit to Washington and spoke to Congress, emphasizing Japan’s determination to stand with America as a global partner. In 2023, President Joe Biden invited him with Yoon to a trilateral summit at Camp David, where the three agreed to strengthen security frameworks.

When Kishida announced plans to resign in August, Biden praised Kishida’s leadership, saying he had helped take the U.S.-Japan alliance to “new heights.”

“Guided by fearless courage and moral clarity, Prime Minister Kishida transformed Japan’s role in the world,” Biden said in a statement. Kishida’s “courageous leadership will be remembered on both sides of the Pacific for decades to come,” he said.

Kishida also recently helped broker a deal with Beijing to lift a Chinese ban on imports of Japanese seafood due to Beijing releasing purified radioactive wastewater from the wrecked Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the Pacific. Tensions continue regarding China’s military activities near Japanese waters and airspace.

It has also deepened ties with Southeast Asian countries, Pacific Island countries, and developing countries in the so-called Global South.

G7 Hiroshima and nuclear disarmament

Kishida represents a constituency in Hiroshima, and hosting the summit of the Group of Seven Rich Countries in the city in May 2023 was one of the highlights of his time in office, aligned with his career goal of working towards a world free of nuclear weapons.

However, the G7 summit statement on nuclear disarmament argued that possession of nuclear weapons was a deterrent, which frustrated and angered survivors of the US 1945 atomic bomb attack.

Kishida says Japan adheres to the principle of not developing, possessing or allowing the deployment of nuclear weapons on its territory. Ishiba, a former defense secretary, advocated deepening discussion among regional partners on the US nuclear deterrence strategy.

“New Capitalism” never succeeded

Kishida has embraced the economic strategy of “new capitalism,” which calls for a more equitable distribution of national wealth as an alternative to Abe’s heavy government spending and ultra-loose monetary policy. Neither policy has succeeded in getting slowing growth back on track.

Kishida’s defense and child care policies would require large expenditures, and the wage increases he supported could not keep up with price increases.

Government moves to reverse Japan’s falling birth rate have mostly included child-care subsidies for married couples and have not addressed the problems of a growing number of young Japanese who are reluctant to marry and start families because of dismal job prospects, the high cost of living, and economic conditions. a corporate culture hostile to working mothers.