Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba came to power on Tuesday last week in his fifth attempt to lead the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). There is little mood of celebration in Japan, with a plummeting stock market and a record-low approval rating for its new cabinet.
Ishiba’s approval rating stood at about 51 percent, polls showed one day after his inauguration. This was the lowest inaugural rating in data going back to 2002.
Ishiba previously criticized former Japanese minister of the environment Shinjiro Koizumi for vowing to dissolve the House of Representatives ahead of the party’s presidential election. Nonetheless, he did exactly the same thing on Wednesday after winning the election, making his Cabinet the shortest-lived in the post-war era. His inconsistency makes it hard for voters to trust him.
His Cabinet also did not include anyone from the late Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe’s faction. Ishiba even tapped former Japanese minister of state for regulatory reform Seiichiro Murakami, who was suspended for a year after calling Abe a “public enemy” during his state funeral, as the Minister for Internal Affairs and Communications. The nomination was tantamount to rubbing salt into the wounds of Abe’s faction.
Former Japanese prime minister Taro Aso became top advisor to the party. Former minister of state for economic security Sanae Takaichi, who came first in the first round of voting of the party’s leadership race, also has no new role in the party.
Ishiba’s nepotism and elimination of opponents have made it hard for party members to unite against their enemy. Despite the conservative faction’s domination in the party, the faction’s diehard members were excluded from the party’s leadership.
Former Japanese prime ministers Yoshihide Suga and Fumio Kishida, Ishiba’s kingmakers, appear united, but are divided at heart — Suga is right-leaning and Kishida is left-leaning. It would be hard for Ishiba to take the helm with such a rift in the party’s leadership.
Ishiba shared his views on the future of Japan’s foreign policy with the Hudson Institute before he was elected as the party’s president:
First, he would revise the Japan-US Treaty, an “asymmetrical bilateral treaty,” into a treaty between “equal partners.”
Second would be to expand the scope of joint management of US bases in Japan.
Third is to allow Japan’s Self-Defense Forces to be stationed in Guam.
Fourth, he would consider sharing control of nuclear weapons with the US or the introduction of nuclear weapons on Japanese soil.
Fifth would be to establish an Asian NATO.
The US would not agree with the first three points. The world is now at a critical point as it has seen the Russia-Ukraine war, the Middle East conflict, tension in the Taiwan Strait and US-China tensions. The US would doubt and disapprove of Ishiba’s attempt to bargain, especially if former US president Donald Trump wins the presidential election.
Kishida, born in Hiroshima, has refuted the fourth point with the Three Non-Nuclear Principles, which state that Japan shall neither possess nor manufacture nuclear weapons, nor shall it permit their introduction into Japanese territory.
Additionally, India does not share the vision for an “Asian NATO” and the US has rebuffed such calls, especially before Japan amends its constitution.
Ishiba used to be a member of the opposition faction of the LDP. He rose to fame for criticizing the inner circle of the party. He does not know how difficult it is to be a decisionmaker, as he was not part of the leadership.
He vowed to increase salaries and promote investment in his plan to bolster the economy. However, increasing salaries and promoting investment are contradictory and hence not promising.
He would probably fail to deliver his economic policy. Plus, without the support of the diehard conservatives, he would be skating on the thinnest of ice and would barely make any strides even if he managed to win the snap election.
Wang Hui-sheng is chief director of the Kisei Ladies’ and Children’s Hospital in Japan and a founding member of the East Asian Research Institute.
Translated by Fion Khan
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