TOKYO - Japan's new prime minister, Shinzo
Abe, has set forth an imposing agenda, which
includes repairing strained relations with China
and South Korea, revising parts of the
constitution, reforming education, winning for his
country a permanent seat on the United Nations
Security Council, and closing the income gap while
maintaining 3% economic growth.
The new
premier, who at 52 is Japan's youngest ever
leader, will have his first chance at arranging a
summit with leaders of China and South Korea at a
meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic
Cooperation forum in Hanoi in
November, although it is possible that Abe will
visit the two neighboring countries even before
the APEC meeting.
Momentum has been
building for such a get-together to repair
relations strained in large part by former prime
minister Junichiro Koizumi's frequent visits to
the Yasukuni Shrine. Japan and China held
vice-ministerial talks this week, and Foreign
Minister Taro Aso met on Monday with Chinese Vice
Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo in Tokyo.
Abe
is unlikely to delay implementing some of his
ideas for strengthening the defense alliance with
the United States. In the just-convened
extraordinary diet (parliamentary) session, the
Abe government will seek approval of a bill to
upgrade the Defense Agency to a defense ministry
and extend, for another year, the dispatch of
naval ships to the Indian Ocean to supply fuel to
warships of the US and other countries engaged in
operations in Afghanistan.
Abe was
formally elected prime minister by a vote of both
houses of the diet, after having earlier secured
the post of president of the Liberal Democratic
Party (LDP). He announced a new "nation-building"
cabinet made up of many close aides and
supporters, including a few holdovers from the
Koizumi government, such as Foreign Minister Aso.
The Abe government faces the daunting
tasks of addressing the two negative legacies of
his predecessor: mending relations with Asian
neighbors, especially China and South Korea, and
narrowing a widening wealth gap among Japanese as
a result of Koizumi's market-oriented reforms,
while maintaining the current economic recovery,
which followed a decade-long slump.
Abe
pledged to bolster the economy, plow ahead with
structural reforms and pursue better relations
with China and the rest of Asia. ''I will
accelerate and enhance structural reforms,'' Abe
said. "I will aim for a growing economy.'' On
relations with China and South Korea, Abe
insisted, however, that efforts be made on both
sides. "'Japan's door is always open, and it is
not us who have been refusing summit talks. 'I
would like to make efforts but hope the two
countries will also take a step forward.''
Beijing and Seoul on Tuesday reacted
cautiously to Abe's election, calling for the new
Japanese government to take steps to improve
relations. Seoul said it hopes Abe will "refrain
from behavior" that might cause trouble with
Japan's neighbors.
While expressing a
strong desire to repair damaged relations with the
important Asian neighbors, Abe stands firm in
pursuing his nationalist and hawkish political
goals. Abe's declared goals include, among other
things, giving Japan's military a greater role
abroad through such means as a revision of the
postwar pacifist constitution.
Appointment of close aides Abe
named his close ally and the senior vice foreign
minister, Yasuhisa Shiozaki, 55, to the highly
visible role of chief cabinet secretary and
minister in charge of the issue of North Korea's
past abductions of Japanese nationals. Abe stepped
into the premiership after serving as chief
cabinet secretary; North Korea is the issue that
cemented his popularity with Japanese.
Abe
retained Foreign Minister Aso, 66, who was the
runner-up in the LDP presidential race, and
appointed veteran LDP lawmaker Fumio Kyuma, 65, as
Defense Agency chief. Aso shares similar
conservative and hawkish views, especially on
history and security, with Abe. Kyuma is known as
an expert on Japan-US defense cooperation. He has
held the defense portfolio before.
On the
economic side, Abe filled his cabinet with
ministers well versed in financial and economic
issues, such as naming Koji Omi, 73, a former
Trade Ministry official, as finance minister.
Former labor minister Akira Amari, 57, became
minister of economy, trade and industry, while
Abe's follower Yuji Yamamoto, 54, became financial
services minister.
Only two women were
named to the 17-member cabinet, with Sanae
Takaichi, 45, becoming minister in charge of
Okinawa and Northern Territories issues, and
former Cabinet Office bureaucrat Hiroko Ota, 52,
the only non-parliamentarian minister, becoming
minister in charge of economic and fiscal policy,
the post once held by Heizo Takenaka, an economic
czar under Koizumi.
To strengthen the
functions of the Prime Minister's Office, Abe
established five new advisory posts in charge of
important issues. Among those appointed was Kyoko
Nakayama, a former special adviser to the cabinet
secretariat, who takes charge of North Korea's
past abductions of Japanese citizens. Yuriko
Koike, environment minister under Koizumi, became
a national security adviser.
The prime
minister allocated just one slot to the LDP's
junior coalition partner, the New Komeito party,
by naming Tetsuzo Fuyushiba, 70, minister of land,
infrastructure and transport. New Komeito's new
leader-elect Akihiro Ota, nevertheless, praised
Abe's new cabinet for having both young and
veteran lawmakers. But the new Abe team drew
immediate criticism from some that he picked only
those who strongly supported him in his successful
LDP presidential bid.
During his campaign,
Abe kept his rhetoric largely short on details.
Still, he made it abundantly clear that he will
pursue an ultra-conservative, nationalistic and
pro-US political and foreign-policy agenda. He has
called for a "departure from the postwar regime"
by revising the pacifist constitution, among other
things. Critics say his telegenic appearance and
soft-spokenness mask Abe's hard line in the eyes
of many Japanese.
On Monday, Abe formed
his LDP leadership team. He appointed former chief
cabinet secretary and his close aide, Hidenao
Nakagawa, 62, as secretary general, the No 2 party
post. Abe also named former health and welfare
minister Yuya Niwa, 62, as chairman of the party's
decision-making general council, and Minister for
Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Shoichi
Nakagawa, 53, as chairman of the Policy Research
Council.
Former transport minister
Nobuteru Ishihara, the 49-year-old son of Tokyo
Governor Shintaro Ishihara, was named as acting
party secretary general. Economy, Trade and
Industry Minister Toshihiro Nikai, 67, became the
diet affairs committee chairman. Nikai's role will
be to deal with the main opposition Democratic
Party of Japan, making use of his experience as a
former close ally to DPJ leader Ichiro Ozawa.
Conflicting policy goals Abe
faces multiple policy dilemmas. He has vowed to
repair ties with China and South Korea. But he has
so far failed to come up with an effective avenue
to reach that goal. Instead, his nationalist and
hawkish stance will certainly make China and South
Korea uneasy.
Abe's declared policy goals
include, among other things, giving Japan's
military a greater role abroad through such means
as a revision of the postwar pacifist constitution
and amending the basic education law, which
conservatives criticize as putting too much
emphasis on individual freedom at the expense of
love of country and respect for the public
interests and traditional culture and values.
These goals, coupled with Abe's
nationalist views on history and firm support for
the Yasukuni Shrine, will stoke concerns among
Asian neighbors, especially China and South Korea.
Tokyo's relations with Beijing and Seoul remain
strained by territorial rows, disputes over
natural resources and differences over World War
II history, as well as by Koizumi's repeated
visits to Yasukuni Shrine, which honors 14 Class A
war criminals among some 2.5 million war dead, and
is widely seen as a symbol of Japan's militaristic
past.
The current constitution, drafted by
the US occupation forces immediately after Japan's
defeat in World War II, has never been altered.
Article 9 is widely interpreted as forbidding the
possession of a military. In reality Japan has
about 240,000 troops of the Self-Defense Forces
and one of the world's biggest defense budgets.
Successive governments have explained the
contradiction by claiming the SDF is not really a
military but a kind of super police force.
Abe has said he will seek to pass the
necessary constitutional amendments within five
years. It remains to be seen, however, whether the
supreme law can be revised while he is in office -
possibly up to six years if he is re-elected for a
second three-year term as LDP president and hence
as premier three years from now. Any amendments
must be proposed with support of a two-thirds or
more of both houses of the diet and then approved
in a national referendum with a simple majority
vote.
Legislation setting procedures for
such a referendum is still pending. Although the
coalition of the LDP and New Komeito commands more
than a two-thirds majority in the 480-seat House
of Representatives after a landslide victory in
the general election about a year ago, it is still
far short of a two-thirds majority in the less
powerful House of Councilors.
Despite his
repeated pilgrimages to Yasukuni Shrine, Koizumi
has said Japan's invasion of other Asian nations
was wrong, but Abe is believed by many to embrace
a revisionist view of World War II that does not
see it as a war of aggression waged by Japan. Abe
steers clear of calling Japan's actions unjust and
has questioned whether the country needs to keep
apologizing, saying such judgments are best left
to historians.
There are personal reasons
for his ambivalence about the war. Abe's
grandfather Nobusuke Kishi was appointed commerce
and industry minister in 1941 by then prime
minister Hideki Tojo, a post he kept until Japan's
surrender. Kishi was imprisoned as a Class A war
criminal, like Tojo, although he was never tried
and went on to become prime minister twice. Abe is
critical of the Tokyo war crimes tribunal and also
supports revisionist history textbooks that teach
students to take pride in their nation rather than
focus on Japanese atrocities and aggression.
Infuriated by Koizumi's visits to Yasukuni
Shrine, China and South Korea had shunned summit
talks with him since last year. As a condition for
resumed summits, the two countries have called for
Abe to refrain from paying homage at the shrine.
Abe himself reportedly made a secret visit to
Yasukuni in April, but he has refused to confirm
it. He has been deliberately vague on whether he
would follow Koizumi's practice in visiting the
shrine.
The new prime minister wants to
strengthen the security alliance with the US,
which was already significantly solidified by
Koizumi. This may mean a change in the traditional
view that the constitution prohibits collective
defense measures, meaning the right to come to the
aid of an ally if it comes under attack from a
third country.
The Cabinet Legislation
Bureau, the constitutional watchdog within the
government, has long held a firm view that Japan
has the inherent right to collective self-defense
but is not allowed to exercise it under the
current constitution. This constitutional
interpretation has put severe restrictions on the
SDF's activities abroad, often frustrating the US.
Koizumi stretched the boundaries of the
constitution by deploying non-combat SDF troops to
Iraq, the first SDF mission to a combat zone after
the end of World War II.
Need for
cooperation A staunch advocate of a bigger
say for Japan in global affairs, Abe has made
winning a permanent seat on the UN Security
Council one of his priorities. But this Japanese
bid will only be realized if Beijing does not
oppose it, since China is one of the five current
permanent council members with veto powers. Still
vivid in the memories of many Japanese is an
anti-Japan riot that swept through China in the
spring of 2005 over Tokyo's bid for permanent
council membership.
Abe's hard line toward
Pyongyang, especially over the issue of past North
Korean abductions of Japanese citizens, has earned
him enormous popularity in Japan, enabling him to
take the helm of the LDP and government much
earlier than he himself could have expected when
he was first elected to the diet in 1993. Many in
Japan found Pyongyang's actions unforgivable,
lighting a nationalist fuse here.
Japan
imposed financial sanctions on the reclusive
Stalinist state after its volley of missile test
launches in early July. Japan and the US are
stepping up pressure on North Korea as Pyongyang
still refuses to return to six-party talks on its
nuclear ambitions, which have been stalled since
last November. But many observers question the
effectiveness of unilateral financial sanctions.
The other countries participating in the
six-nation talks - South Korea, China and Russia -
remain reluctant to push Pyongyang even further.
On the economic front, Abe has said he
will follow and expand on Koizumi's reform
policies. But he will tweak them amid growing
criticism that gaps between haves and have-nots
widened in Japanese society during Koizumi's more
than five years in office. Abe has launched a
"rechallenge society" initiative aimed at helping
the unemployed or failed entrepreneurs make
another try. The new financial services minister,
Yamamoto, concurrently occupies a newly created
post of state minister in charge of "rechallenge".
Now that Japan has emerged from years of
deflation, Abe has set an aggressive target for
real economic growth of no less than 3% a year.
This target rate is higher than the government's
forecast of 1.9% growth in the current fiscal year
ending next March. Abe will aim to achieve the
target growth through tax breaks aimed at
encouraging technological innovation in the
private sector, thereby boosting productivity, a
key condition for growth amid the rapidly graying
- and even shrinking - population.
Abe has
emphasized the need for more spending cuts to
nurse Japan's ailing government finances - the
worst among major industrialized nations - back to
health. He has said, however, that it is too early
to talk about any specific size or timing of a
possible hike in the currently 5%, broad-based
consumption tax. Opinion polls show that
rehabilitating the nation's creaking
social-security system amid dramatic demographic
changes is of great concern for most Japanese.
Meanwhile, free-trade agreements are
considered the best avenue to cash in on the rapid
growth in other Asian economies. But negotiations
between Japan and South Korea have been stalled
for nearly two years, partly because of soured
political relations. Japan's heavily protected
agricultural market - which has been left
unreformed despite Koizumi's reform drive - also
remains the biggest obstacle to concluding FTAs
with many trading partners.
Swing to
the right Some even within the LDP are
uncomfortable with Japan's swing to the right,
which began under Koizumi and looks likely to gain
momentum under Abe. He was elected LDP president
with broad support within the party, but many of
those who voted for him just jumped on the
bandwagon, hoping for party and government posts
or simply fearing being sidelined.
Some
even disapprove of Abe's views on key policy
issues. "I have repeatedly warned against extreme
nationalism," former prime minister Yasuhiro
Nakasone wrote in a newspaper. "Nipping it in the
bud is the duty of political leaders."
Abe's high popularity among Japanese
voters does not necessarily mean they support his
nationalistic and hawkish propensities. In fact,
opinion polls show that the largest percentage -
43% in one recent survey - of those polled who
said they favored Abe as Koizumi's successor cited
his personality and image, not his policies. It
seems too early, therefore, to tell whether the
changes brought about during Koizumi's more than
five years in office will all hold for good.
Hisane Masaki is a Tokyo-based
journalist, commentator and scholar on
international politics and economy. Masaki's
e-mail address is yiu45535@nifty.com.
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