After Japan’s former prime minister, Shinzo Abe, was unexpectedly attacked and killed during the election campaign last week, all eyes turned to Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and the rest of the government.
In the elections held on Sunday, two days after the assassination, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its coalition partners, in which Abe is counted as a key figure, won a great victory and gained a two-thirds majority in the House of Advisors after the House of Representatives.
This situation and the three-year period without elections means that Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who is seen as Abe’s successor, has reached the “golden period” when there are no obstacles before him to make any political maneuvers, including reforms and constitutional changes.
Everyone in Japan expects Kishida to follow Abe’s path, even with minor differences of opinion. What are the future milestones of this path?
Cautious approach to China and Russia in foreign policy
Until 2012, when Abe became prime minister for the second time, there was a softening towards Chinese President Xi Jinping and China’s economic power, and a willingness to establish good relations with China, especially in Europe.
Nationalist Abe, on the other hand, accepted the reality of China-Japan’s commercial partnership, but always took a skeptical hawkish attitude towards China, constantly warning the United States about China’s real purpose and military power, saying that Japan should be able to defend itself.
Abe’s warnings form the backbone of the West’s same skepticism towards China today.
Abe is expected to maintain this stance in Japan’s dialogue with China.
In response to China’s “debt hostage diplomacy” (to lend high-interest loans to developing countries with the promise of large infrastructure investments and then confiscate them when countries could not pay) that led to the bankruptcy of today Sri Lanka as a country, Japan joined the G7, Turkey. He made an alternative to a new kind of “quality infrastructure” projects accepted, such as the Marmaray and Çanakkale Bridge projects he had undertaken.
Japan’s arming seems possible
Abe succeeded in making people accept the claim that in terms of the security of the Far East, the USA must be an active and strong Japan in the region.
Accordingly, it seems possible for Japan to arm itself in a way that has not been thought before, such as ordering aircraft carriers apart from the over 40 F-35s it has already purchased from the USA.
On the other hand, Abe’s diplomatic attempts with this country, who frequently spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin, were inconclusive.
Neither Japan was able to sign an agreement with Russia that declared the end of the Second World War and resolved the islands problem between them, nor did Russia’s frictions with the Developed Countries G7 group come to an end. Relations worsened when Japan sided with Ukraine and the West after Russia invaded Ukraine.
There is nothing Kishida can do in this area until the Ukrainian occupation is resolved.
Some people found it strange that Abe, who traveled to 80 countries during his prime ministry, had such a close relationship with the previous US president, Donald Trump.
According to HR McMaster, Trump’s former national security adviser, Abe made history as the person who first came up with the idea of a Free and Open Indo-Pacific and brought together Japan, the USA, Australia and India for this purpose.
It is thought that Kishida will take over and continue Abe’s great success.
Situations are mixed in domestic politics and economy.
Despite his stance that unites Japan with the world and is constructive in favor of the country in foreign policy, it is accepted by experts that in domestic politics, Shinzo Abe displays a polarizing personality with his populist rhetoric.
Japan’s persistent desire to change the 9th article of the peaceful constitution written by the Americans after the Second World War, which prohibits the possession of an army, on the grounds of the security of the region, caused a rift with those on the left and those who remember the destruction of the atomic bomb very well.
Considering that Fumio Kishida entered the parliament from Hiroshima and his opposing stance on nuclear weapons is considered, it is estimated that he will follow a different policy from Abe, who can even put forward the idea of sharing nuclear weapons with the USA when appropriate.
Arguing that history books should include more of Japan’s victories, denying or ignoring the war crimes committed by Japan in the Second World War, Abe, who angered the peoples of the Korean Peninsula, whom Japan once regarded as his backyard, but in Japan. It is also known that he pursued a divisive policy that conservative, nationalist and extreme rightists love.
This risks increasing polarization in Japan, perhaps the most homogeneous country in the world.
“New Capitalism” versus Abenomic
In the field of economy, when Abe became prime minister in 2012, he put into effect the neoliberalist economic prescription and growth-oriented package of measures called Abenomy, which is named after him.
In Japan, which was struggling with economic recession at that time, although it increased the profits of companies and halved unemployment, it fell short of achieving other goals such as reducing inflation to 2 percent.
“However, these efforts were not in vain,” reports the Financial Times.
Kishida, on the other hand, implicitly criticizes Abe’s neoliberal policies with his own economic policy called “New Capitalism”, which he promises to solve income inequality.
The head of the central bank is not yet known.
Despite this, the names he will appoint to some key positions in the economy will also determine the political legacy that Kishida will leave behind.
However, in certain matters, his hands are tied. For example, it is not yet clear who will replace Haruhiko Kuroda, the head of the Bank of Japan, who worked closely with Abe in the coming months.
On the other hand, there is tight monetary policy pressure on the Central Bank to prevent the Japanese yen, which has experienced a historical decline against the dollar, from falling further.
In Japan, which was conditioned to the economic and political agenda of Shinzo Abe, known as the “shadow shogun” due to his immense power within the LDP, despite not having a government job, the LDP and its leader Kishida won the weekend elections, resulting in the “golden period” in which there were no elections for the next three years. “She will live.
The only possibility that will destroy the positive political atmosphere that Kishida has achieved is the dissolution of the LDP faction led by Abe and of which Kishida is a member, and rivals appearing in the leadership of the party.