Japan's Political Lurch To The Right

[bluesky79]

The election of right-wing Shinzo Abe in Japan will bring an increase in tensions in East Asia but reform for an ailing economy. The new prime minister is 58-year-old Shinzo Abe's election victory marks his return to Japan's highest office after he served as Japan's prime minister for exactly a year between September 2006 and September 2007. Domestically, the economy will be Mr Abe's biggest challenge.

He has called for "unlimited" monetary easing - essentially the continuous printing of money. It is a controversial and high-risk strategy but analysts say it at least represents an effort to do something after years of indecision over the country's economy. Internationally, there is significant anxiety over the direction in which Mr Abe will take Japan's relations with China and with South Korea. Tokyo is locked in two separate maritime disputes, one with Seoul and the other with Beijing. The dispute with China is particularly tense with the two countries both claiming sovereignty over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands in the East China Sea. Mr Abe, a proud nationalist, has cast himself as the strong leader he says Japan needs to overcome its economic difficulties and to stand up to Chinese aggression.

He has called for a change to Japan's pacifist constitution to allow its military to adopt a more offensive stance. His version of history will also cause some unease. He has openly said he doesn't believe that Japanese troops forced Chinese and Korean women into sexual slavery during World War Two despite evidence to the contrary.Mr Ishihara could be blamed for sparking the island dispute with China. His announcement in April that he would buy three of the islands from their private Japanese owners was seen as an overt attempt to irritate Beijing.

The Japanese government's move to block Ishihara's purchase by nationalising the islands was designed to diffuse the tension with China, but it had the opposite effect. The election victory reflects a country that is more nationalist than it has been in decades.

 

[ThirdTerm]

It was a natural reversion to the LDP which had been the ruling party until the DPJ took power in 2009 and the DPJ showed ignorance in governance issues and it failed to live up to expectations with a series of foreign policy blunders and the country's brief experiment with the two-party system may have come to an end with the DPJ's implosion. Based on its nationalist platform, the DPJ demanded US troops' partial withdrawal from Japan with the closure of an American military base, which has made the Obama administration turn a cold shoulder to the DPJ leadership and encouraged China to take a provocative stance on the territorial issue and it's expected that the LDP can smooth things over with Washington. The US-Japan alliance has been the cornerstone of Japan's national defence in the volatile region to deter potential Chinese or Korean aggression, relying on roughly 50,000 American military personnel stationed in Japan without having a large standing army of its own and the Bush administration decided to cut 40% of US troops stationed in the Korean Peninsula after a series of violent anti-American protests in Korea but any reduction of the US military presence in Japan will inevitably lead to the country's remilitarisation to keep up with its hawkish neighbours.

The Democratic Party of Japan wounded itself unnecessarily in its first months in office by undermining a 2006 agreement with the United States on relocating a Marine Corps Air Station within Okinawa. It then spent several years attempting to patch up the differences, while making no real progress on the issue. By 2012, the Noda administration had made some significant moves towards increasing Japan's military strength, including the decision to purchase the F-35, a revision of a ban on arms exports, and continued ballistic-missile-defense activities. Yet, the defense budget continued to decline during the DPJ years, and the party never attempted to tackle the ban on collective self-defense or to propose more burden sharing with the provision of public goods in Asia. Washington will be expecting the LDP and Abe to revert to the working relationship established during the Koizumi years. There are indications that Abe is leaning in this direction, and is ready to try and revise the Constitution to allow for collective self-defense. But Abe will have to come up with a more coherent vision of Japan's role in Asia and the world if he is to convince Washington and others that Tokyo has a stake in maintaining stability and protecting the current international system. While this does not have to be directly related to the alliance, any greater role that Japan plays abroad will probably strengthen the sense of a working partnership between Washington and Tokyo. In particular, Abe could continue to promote the idea of cooperation among democracies and liberal states, which was something he emphasized his last time in office. This then could be part of a larger alliance initiative to encourage further liberalization throughout Asia.

Sino-Japanese relations have been roiled since the summer over the Senkaku islands issue. The Noda administration's decision to nationalize three of the disputed islands led to months of anti-Japanese demonstrations in China, a significant drop in trade and an ongoing game of chicken in the skies and waters around the islands. Japanese Coast Guard ships had responded to near-daily incursions by Chinese vessels, and Tokyo is worried that Beijing is attempting to undercut Japan's claim to exercise administrative control over the islands. Abe must come up with a credible way to assert Japan sovereignty over the islands, as well as maintain administrative control. Yet he cannot sacrifice broader Sino-Japanese relations, and risk either conflict or a collapse in trade. While such possibilities may seem remote, tensions between Beijing and Tokyo remain extremely high, and an accident or miscalculation could have unforeseen consequences. Thus, Abe needs to propose some type of initiative to stabilize Sino-Japanese relations, while not compromising on the islands issue. This may prove to be impossible, but it is in both Beijing and Tokyo's best interest to step back from the emotions of the day and consider their relationship in a broader light. Since China so far appears not to be taking the lead in this manner, Abe could play the statesman's role, and make a case for resetting relations so as to deepen economic, cultural and political ties.

http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/abes-priorities-7893

 

[elvis]

Shall we beef up our defenses in Hawaii?