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Japan
OpinionComment
William Pesek
William Pesek

Opinion | How Kishida’s disappearing Japanese premiership is a gift to China

  • Embroiled in political scandal, deeply unpopular and increasingly irrelevant, Kishida cannot push the economic reforms Japan needs to be a counterweight to China
  • As Biden seeks to limit China’s influence in East Asia, Kishida is becoming less of a functioning partner

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Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida leaves after a press conference in Tokyo on December 13. He has ousted all four cabinet ministers of the ruling party’s largest faction, as he seeks to control the damage following a political fundraising scandal. Photo: Xinhua
William Pesek

Not much has been going President Xi Jinping’s way so far this year. China’s economy stumbled out of the gate. Stocks have been plunging. Deflation is deepening. And Evergrande is trending as a search term again. But leave it to Japan to offer Xi a win.

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Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s fast-disappearing premiership is a gift to Xi and a blow to US President Joe Biden. Kishida’s government ended last year with public support as low as 17 per cent. One poll found public disapproval for the cabinet at its highest since 1947.
Tokyo’s pundits have settled on the financing scandals enveloping Kishida’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) as the culprit. This is nonsense. The problem is that Japan is in recession, or very near one, after more than two years of Kishida dithering on the economy.
In 2012, Kishida’s mentor, Shinzo Abe, led the LDP to power promising a reformist “Big Bang”; the idea was to remind China who’s boss in Asia. But Abe only managed a few small pops of positive change. They enriched investors betting on a surging Nikkei 225 Average, not households. Stocks are now at 34-year highs, as wages trail gains in inflation.

Unsurprisingly, Japanese voters are in a foul mood. New year, same old political complacency and indifference. The latest financial scandals have exacerbated the perception that Japan’s political system only serves itself.

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In a healthier democracy, Kishida’s party would shunt him aside. But with opposition parties in disarray and no obvious LDP successor, Mr 17 Per Cent is safe for now. Yet Tokyo’s designs on getting back in the economic game in Asia are dwindling by the day – and playing right into Beijing’s hands.
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