Japan’s prime minister
Scarcely an Abe-rration
The prime minister’s latest—and most offensive—gaffe is all too typical
Mar 8th 2007 edition
THE gossip-mill is grinding away, and the man whose career could soon pop out the other end in fragments is none other than Shinzo Abe. When he was elected leader of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), and hence as Japan’s prime minister, last September he won by a landslide, and was hailed as a youthful (52), electorally savvy representative of a new political generation, and, moreover, as one likely to carry on the reform programme associated with his charismatic predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi. Mr Abe began in spectacular fashion, visiting Beijing and Seoul during his first days in office and thus warming up relations that had become damagingly frosty under Mr Koizumi. Since then, however, the only spectacular feature has been his decline.
That decline may explain why on March 1st Mr Abe chose to undo much of what he had achieved through his October visits to Beijing and Seoul, by publicly denying one of the many Chinese and Korean grievances: that Japan’s Imperial Army forced hundreds of thousands of women, mostly Chinese and Korean, into prostitution during the 1930s and 1940s.
Not all of those euphemistically termed “comfort women” were enslaved: some were already prostitutes, and others had been sold into bondage by their families. But many say they were kidnapped, enslaved and raped. Their testimony, plus documents unearthed in military archives, forced the Japanese government in 1993 to acknowledge responsibility. Now Mr Abe has said that there is no “historical proof” that coercion was involved. In other words, that the women are liars.
This revealed Mr Abe’s true colours, as a conservative politician who has long taken a revisionist view of Japan’s 20th-century history. The statement was prompted by an effort by fellow LDP conservatives to force a bill through the Diet (parliament) overturning the government’s 1993 statement (which the Diet never ratified). They were responding to moves in America’s Congress to condemn Japan over the sex-slavery issue. A strong prime minister might have resisted taking a position on such a sensitive matter. Mr Abe, however, is desperate to shore up his party base.
After his groundbreaking visits to China and South Korea last October, and no doubt helped by North Korea’s nuclear test the very day he left Beijing, the new prime minister’s approval rating was in the high 70s. Now it has slumped below 40%. That is far from disastrous, by the low standards of the ten forgettable prime ministers Japan endured between 1987 and 2001. But it is poor by the standards of the starry Mr Koizumi, who took office in that year and remained popular for most of his five-year term. And it is dangerous for two bigger reasons: there are local elections for prefectural governors and city mayors in April, and a critical set of elections for parliament’s Upper House in July, in which the government’s majority could be at stake; and there is a mood for revenge among the many older Liberal Democrats who feel Mr Abe leapfrogged them to gain the leadership last September.
The Japanese public has turned against Mr Abe not because of foreign policy or historical debates but for economic reasons. For all the government’s boasts that Japan is enjoying its longest period of growth since 1945, the Japanese are not feeling much benefit in their purses and wallets. The boast is true only if you ignore deflation, and while ordinary Japanese like falling prices, they do not like the fact that their incomes have risen only slowly—as much because of longer hours worked as because of higher wages. In nominal terms (ie, not adjusted for price changes), Japanese output remains below that of 1997. Recent economic growth has produced record company profits, but a tight labour market has not seen wages rise much. In this respect, things were no better under Mr Koizumi, but at least he seemed to be doing something about it by shaking things up. By comparison, Mr Abe looks clueless.
Dreaming of Lionheart
Actually, his problem is subtler than mere cluelessness. He is torn between dealing with the politically potent topic of inequality—in an ageing Japan, the income gap is widening—and making further reforms to encourage future growth. The only thing he has done so far has made both problems worse, however: his government clamped down on the interest rates chargeable by consumer-finance companies on loans to Japan’s poorest borrowers. This looked popular, but some say it has choked off their borrowing and helped to depress consumer spending.
Worse still, when he has had a political clue it has led him in the wrong direction. Mr Koizumi pulled off the remarkable trick of attacking his own political party, eventually kicking out LDP Diet members when they rebelled against his flagship programme of postal privatisation. That laid the ground for his triumph in the 2005 general election. Mr Abe, keen to curry favour with his party’s old guard, has now readmitted 11 of the rebels. At a stroke, that has changed his public odour from breath of fresh air to the usual LDP halitosis.
Whether he will actually be dumped, however, depends on how badly the LDP fares in the July Upper House elections. Fortunately for Mr Abe, the opposition Democratic Party of Japan is also in disarray, with its leader, Ichiro Ozawa, in poor health and at war with his own colleagues. Yet that may not save Mr Abe, such is the mood against him. Strange stories have been circulating about how cabinet ministers have so little respect for him that they do not bother to stand up when he enters the room. The rival most often mentioned as his budding successor is Taro Aso, the bumptious foreign minister, who is also a conservative and currently cuts a more dashing figure than his boss.
Another name, though, is increasingly being whispered: Junichiro Koizumi. There is no real prospect of tempting him back, at least not yet, for the great man is said to be having far too much fun as Japan’s most eligible bachelor. But how he is missed.
This article appeared in the Asia section of the print edition under the headline “Scarcely an Abe-rration”
https://web.archive.org/web/20191216100302/https://www.economist.com/asia/2007/03/08/scarcely-an-abe-rration
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