By Gearoid Reidy / Bloomberg Opinion
Japan’s ruling party has made its choice — and it is a stunning upset.
In an unusually hotly contested election, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which has held power almost uninterrupted since World War II, was faced with the most varied slate of visions for its future it has ever seen. The field of nine candidates represented nearly every strand of politics the broad party holds. In the end, it chose Shigeru Ishiba.
The party faces a credibility deficit that meant it had to skew radical. Outgoing Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida would be remembered well on the international stage but bombed domestically, failing to dispel long-running scandals not of his making and unable to take credit for his victories. The times demanded change.
While Ishiba might be another Japanese man in his late 60s, he truly represents a different direction for the party. Ishiba is the LDP’s consummate outsider, a dissident who has spent his career refusing to acquiesce to orthodoxy.
In Sanae Takaichi, whom Ishiba upset in the final vote, the LDP would have returned to its most successful strategy of recent years, the policies of former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe. Instead, it has opted for the opposite.
It is a jarring split with the past. The former defense minister — in 2007 and 2008 — has spent his recent career opposing the policies of Abe, after narrowly losing the decisive 2012 leadership race.
In the intervening years, his opposition earned him few friends; indeed, he has a reputation for being a “traitor” due to his public criticism of party orthodoxy and his history of having left the group once. Ishiba has said that his only shot at becoming prime minister would be if “destiny” chose him with the party in disarray.
That fortune has come to pass. Untainted by scandals and popular with the electorate, he makes sense as a choice for the party. What he means for the country is less clear. Ishiba’s policies can be tough to nail down. In his recent book, Conservative Politician: My Policies, My Destiny, he describes himself as a “conservative liberal” in the mold of former Japanese prime minister Tanzan Ishibashi, who had a short-lived but influential term in the 1950s. Ishibashi advocated liberal positions and promoted equality for women, Ishiba too leans liberal on social positions, and has in the past expressed support for legalizing same-sex marriage, though was circumspect at the hustings.
Given that Ishiba draws the comparison, it is interesting that Ishibashi was, later in his career, also known for opposition to many of the policies of his political rival, former Japanese prime minister Nobusuke Kishi — Abe’s grandfather. Kishi and Abe advocated for a strong Japan. Ishiba harbors few such ambitions.
However, other comparisons to Ishibashi should give pause. Before World War II, he promoted “small Japanism,” cautioning against imperialist expansion and arguing for utilitarian diplomacy. Ishiba says that this way of thinking is useful in dealing with today’s China, arguing for “win-win” diplomacy and seeming to advocate for a more neutral position between Beijing and Washington.
That is easier said than done given recent tensions following the killing of a Japanese schoolboy in Shenzhen, China.
Combined with his rhetoric of forming a more “equal” relationship with Japan’s security guarantor as well as his advocating for an Asian NATO, it seems likely he could cause tensions. Washington has for more than a decade has become used to dealing with increasingly helpful Tokyo.
The economy has long been seen as Ishiba’s weak point. Asked at a news conference on Friday about that perception, he demurred.
“I have many inadequacies,” he said, but stressed the need to raise consumption, increase capital spending and thereby defeat deflation, calling for companies to bring production back to Japan.
Stubborn opposition to Abenomics is sometimes the only way to make sense of some of his contradictory policies. Nonetheless, he would continue the path of “normalizing” monetary policy, which would disappoint the stock market — Nikkei futures plunged, and the yen strengthened after his victory, after earlier optimism that Takaichi would triumph had boosted stocks and weakened the yen. However, the rest of his plans are muddy. He speaks often of revitalizing Japan’s regions, as if he is the first to have this idea but has not followed through with specifics.
Ishiba faces a frantic few months. There is a matter of a general election that the party would hope to call before former Japanese prime minister Yoshihiko Noda, who was recently returned as new head of the largest opposition party, can gather his forces. There would be the challenge of dealing with a new US president and handling a relationship with China that has suddenly become turbulent. The country needs fast action on everything from energy policy to supply chains. He should be rifling through his opponents’ discarded notebooks for the best ideas to boost an economy that at last is breaking out of “lost decade” norms.
In his unexpected defeat of Takaichi, Ishiba emulated one of Ishibashi’s most famous victories, when he came from behind to beat Kishi in the 1956 leadership election. However, after just two months, Ishibashi was out of office — and Kishi went on to define Japan’s future. While that was due to ill health, Japanese leaders can have short terms for many reasons. Ishiba must now face off internal threats and restore both party unity and its popularity to avoid a similar fate.
Gearoid Reidy is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Japan and the Koreas. He previously led the breaking news team in North Asia and was the Tokyo deputy bureau chief. This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
Japan’s leader made his career as an anti-Abe
