In Japan, Shinzo Abe’s Replacement Faces Daunting Challenges
TOKYO — Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan is leaving workplace a 12 months early with no apparent successor. However whoever finally emerges from the fierce jockeying inside his occasion will face a transparent set of monumental challenges.
The coronavirus, though comparatively contained now, may but rage uncontrolled. The Japanese financial system, the world’s third largest, has taken a historic nosedive. Chinese language army aggression is rising within the area. Selections have to be made about whether or not the postponed Tokyo Olympics can really be held subsequent summer season. A vastly contentious presidential election in the US, Japan’s closest ally, is a bit more than two months away.
And people are simply the current risks.
In the long term, Japan’s subsequent chief faces the unfinished enterprise of Mr. Abe’s guarantees to advance ladies in politics and the office, and to enhance working circumstances in order that males can assist extra at dwelling. The nation is confronting labor shortages because it grapples with a shrinking inhabitants and a stubbornly low birthrate, in addition to snags in bringing in international employees. With the very best proportion of aged folks on this planet, Japan may quickly wrestle to fulfill pension obligations and supply well being care to the growing older public.
To not point out natural disasters turbocharged by climate change, Japan’s energy vulnerabilities from its post-Fukushima nuclear shutdown, the threat of missile attacks by North Korea, and a low ebb in relations with South Korea.
“It makes me wonder why anybody would want to be prime minister,” said Jeffrey Hornung, an analyst at the RAND Corporation.
Those who have already announced their desire to stand for the prime ministership include Fumio Kishida, a former foreign minister; Toshimitsu Motegi, the current foreign minister; Taro Kono, the defense minister; Shigeru Ishiba, a former defense minister who once ran against Mr. Abe for party leader; Seiko Noda, a member of the lower house of Parliament; and Tomomi Inada, another former defense minister.
The eventual successor to Mr. Abe, who cited ill health in announcing his resignation on Friday, will confront the many challenges dogging Japan without the stature he had built over a record-setting run of nearly eight years in power.
Fundamentally, Japan remains an orderly and prosperous nation. Still, its longer-term issues are so deeply entrenched that not even Mr. Abe’s long tenure was sufficient to remedy them. By his own reckoning, his biggest regrets were that he failed to revise Japan’s pacifist Constitution and so “normalize” its military, to secure the return of contested islands from Russia or to resolve the fates of Japanese citizens kidnapped by North Korea decades ago.
For now, the most pressing priority for the next prime minister will be restoring the economy, battered by a worldwide pandemic-related downturn. Japan already has the biggest debt load in the developed world relative to the size of its economy and has spent heavily to stimulate economic activity.
“This is such a heavy lift even before you get to structural change and demographics or any of these larger Japan-specific problems,” said Sheila A. Smith, senior fellow for Japan studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington.
Still, the pandemic could present an opportunity for the next leader to encourage social reforms that could address some deep-rooted problems, including obstacles that make it difficult for women to progress in careers while having families.
Kathy Matsui, chief Japan equity strategist at Goldman Sachs in Tokyo, said she hoped the next prime minister would propose a rigorous digital strategy for the government and urge companies to adopt more advanced technology.
“Demographics are challenged, so how are you going to boost productivity without investing in a very clear IT transformation strategy?” Ms. Matsui said. “We absolutely need a productivity revolution in the not-so-distant future, so turning this pinch into a change for digital transformation” is crucially important.
Technology that enables more people to work from home could also help women, said Barbara G. Holthus, deputy director of the German Institute for Japanese Studies in Tokyo. She said she wished that a new leader would remind companies and employees that teleworking could help not only to contain the coronavirus but also to empower working mothers in particular.
“To have people all of a sudden be able to work from home, when it’s always been said that it’s not possible — I thought, ‘OK, now, we’re finally going to have a trend which allows women to work from home and throw in a load of laundry while working in front of their computer,’” Ms. Holthus said. “If I were prime minister, I would have said, ‘We have to stay with this.’”
While two women, Ms. Noda and Ms. Inada, have thrown their hats in the ring, the possibility of a female prime minister remains remote. Just three of Mr. Abe’s 20 cabinet members are ladies, and Japan is 165th in a United Nations rating of nations primarily based on feminine illustration in Parliament.
On the worldwide stage, one of many largest issues for Japan is whether or not any of the contenders for the prime ministership can maintain on to energy lengthy sufficient to get past a short-term agenda. Each inside Japan and internationally, the worry is that the nation would possibly return to the revolving-door political management that plagued it for years earlier than Mr. Abe started his second stint in workplace in 2012.
“Even in Washington, you’ll be able to hear ‘Oh my God, are we going again to at least one prime minister a 12 months?’” Ms. Smith mentioned.
Mr. Abe had the time to develop diplomatic relationships that had eluded the nation throughout the interval of excessive turnover. That finally allowed him to nudge Japan’s allies into commerce offers and safety partnerships.
“One of many belongings he had was he wasn’t the brand new face within the summit picture op for presidents and prime ministers” at worldwide gatherings, mentioned Takako Hikotani, affiliate professor of political science at Columbia College. “That meant rather a lot.”
With the approaching U.S. presidential election, a brand new Japanese chief must skillfully handle relations with a long-term ally that has these days been stepping again from its management function on the worldwide stage.
Underneath Mr. Abe, Japan “stuffed a few of the vacuum left by the US in its reluctance to stay a substantial Pacific energy,” mentioned Shihoko Goto, a senior affiliate for Northeast Asia on the Wilson Heart in Washington. She mentioned she wasn’t positive if any of his possible successors would be capable to assume the mantle of multilateral management within the area.
In latest years, Japan has sought to behave as a counterbalance to the rising aggression of China, which has carried out provocative maritime actions in each the East and South China Seas and cracked down on Hong Kong.
But when Mr. Abe’s exit ushers in political instability, “China has proven that it takes benefit of conditions and uncertainty,” Mr. Hornung, the RAND analyst, mentioned.
“When you have anyone that they see as weak or inexperienced within the enamel or not very succesful, we would see China step it up in a manner that Japan hasn’t skilled for some time,” he added.
Analysts mentioned they hoped that the subsequent Japanese prime minister would take steps to resolve the strained relationship with South Korea, which stems from a combat over what Japan nonetheless owes its neighbor for abuses dedicated throughout its colonial occupation of the Korean Peninsula earlier than and through World Conflict II.
The longer the dispute goes on, with protracted courtroom fights and commerce battles, “the one winners are China and North Korea, who profit from weakened alliances with others within the area,” mentioned Lauren Richardson, a lecturer in worldwide relations on the Australian Nationwide College.
“Each Japan and South Korea have an curiosity in sustaining the liberal rules-based order within the area, and China is pushing again onerous towards that. However there’s no manner Japan or South Korea can push again on their very own,” she mentioned, particularly with “a weakened U.S. posture” within the area whereas the US is preoccupied with a presidential election and the devastating results of the coronavirus.
Makiko Inoue contributed reporting.