Shigeru Ishiba: What to expect from Japan’s new prime minister

By Riyaz ul Khaliq

ISTANBUL (AA) – As Shigeru Ishiba takes over as Japan’s new prime minister, analysts believe he has his work cut out for him with a range of domestic and geopolitical challenges to address.

Ishiba, 67, was elected leader of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) last week, succeeding ex-Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, and has now called a snap election on Oct. 27.

Like all Japanese leaders over the past decades, Ishiba will have to prioritize the “anemic economy,” academic Saul Takahashi told Anadolu.

“Wages have remained stagnant for over 30 years, living costs are rising, and the welfare system is creaking under pressure.”

To make matters worse, he added, Japan has “one of the largest national debts in the world, making it extremely difficult to deal with these issues.”

Jingdong Yuan, director of the China and Asia Security Program at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), endorsed his view.

“Clearly,” he told Anadolu, the LDP “faces lots of problems, especially on the economic front.”

“Abeconomics and Kishida’s economic policy have not delivered as promised,” he said, pointing to the low public approval ratings of the two former prime ministers.

- ‘Endemic corruption’

People are “sick of the endemic corruption in Japanese politics, which was the main trigger that forced Kishida to step down,” said Saul, a professor of human rights and peace studies at Osaka Jogakuin University.

The LDP has ruled Japan for most of the time since it was founded in 1955 and currently retains a majority in both houses of parliament, locally known as the Diet, with the support of its junior partner Komieto party.

The Japanese justice system is known for its high conviction rates, and public prosecutors filed cases against LDP members for a political funds scandal in 2022.

The LDP also faces an issue of factions, with one of the stronger ones led by ex-Premier Shinzo Abe, who was assassinated in July 2022.

The scandal also proved a hard hit for Kishida, forcing him to abandon plans for re-election as LDP head.

“It’s important that Ishiba takes strong measures to clamp down on this and to ensure accountability,” said Saul.

“Unfortunately, none of this is the kind of stuff that excites Ishiba, and it remains to be seen how effective he will be,” said the professor, terming the new prime minister a “national defense hawk.”

- No change in foreign policy

Jingdong believes the new prime minister’s foreign policy “will not depart from far from his LDP predecessors.”

“He will continue to maintain the close US-Japan alliance, implement the 2022 security strategy, which requires increasing defense spending to 2% of GDP by 2027,” he said.

Jingdong believes his “idea of an ‘Asian NATO’ is not very practical and cannot be realized any time soon.”

“A multilateral, treaty-binding alliance in Asia is against the instinct for ‘hedging’ by many likely ‘candidates’ of his envisioned alliance,” he explained.

When it comes to key foreign policy and security challenges, including Japan’s relations with China, Jingdong said Ishiba’s approach “to some extent also depends on how others will act.”

“If North Korea keeps firing missiles over Japan and conducts another nuclear test, these will force him and Japan to adopt more militant stances,” he said.

“Likewise, Japan’s China policy depends on how both Beijing and Tokyo implement and abide by the provisions of the four bilateral documents.”

Observers from Beijing see the Asian NATO concept as an extension of the Cold War era.

“I think the new Japanese prime minister would realize that it would reverse history to expand NATO to Asia today and cause unbearable consequences,” Wang Zaibang, a senior fellow at the Beijing-based Taihe Institute, told Anadolu.

He noted three reasons for the deterioration of China-Japanese relations over the past few years, including the “shadow of Japanese militarism.”

Tokyo “lacks profound reflection on the war of aggression against China,” he said, adding that there is “discomfort” in Japan with China's “revival process.”

The Japanese academic Saul pointed out that anti-Chinese nationalism has “become one of the defining features of the public discourse in Japan for the past 20 some years.”

It “only serves as a distraction from the serious issues Japan needs to deal with,” he said.

- ‘More independent role in international diplomacy’

Ishiba has sought a more equal alliance with the US, which has some 50,000 soldiers deployed in Japan under a bilateral security pact.

Of late, Japan has closed ranks with Washington, becoming part of the US-led security group Quad, alongside India and Australia.

This comes amid an intensifying security environment in the wider Asia-Pacific, with China expanding its economic and military sphere.

However, Saul, who has served on several UN agencies, said Japan “needs to take a more independent role in international diplomacy – not a mere vassal state of the US – while working on getting its own house in order.”

“The fact of the matter is that there are no true nationalists in Japan. All purported ‘nationalists’ only see Japan’s role as a partner – a junior partner – in the US-led military alliance,” he said.

Wang had a similar suggestion for Ishiba on Japan’s relations with China: “As time goes on, Japan will ultimately have to accept China's rise and learn to co-exist with China. Otherwise, Japan will never be able to break free from the control of the US.”

However, within Japan, “compliance with American whims is seen as the ultimate priority,” according to Saul.

“The handful of (Japanese) politicians who have advocated otherwise have all been quickly backstabbed and excluded from the mainstream,” he said.

“Ishiba may not necessarily be happy with that situation, but I certainly don’t see him trying to change it in any significant way.”