Anthony Rowley

Macroscope | Ailing Japan needs new ideas from leadership contest to revive its regional role

The contest to replace Yoshihide Suga should be wide open, but Japan’s mindset remains closed on key issues, such as the relationship with China and South Korea

Economic opportunities in the shape of trade and investment abound if only the restraints of Japan’s relationship with the United States can be loosened

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A man walks past an electronic stock board at a securities firm in Tokyo on April 13, 2020. This has been a time of economic decline for Japan. Photo: AP

Anthony Rowley

Published: 8:45am, 13 Sep 2021

As a former senior Japanese official once told me, Japan is a country of “excellent foot soldiers but poor commanders”. Now, as a new batch of would-be commanders jostles to become prime minister, the danger is that whoever wins will again disappoint hopes of more visionary leadership.

Public enemy No 1 for any new leader is the Covid-19 pandemic, an adversary outgoing Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga has had limited success in fighting. Repairing Japan’s pandemic-ravaged economy will be another priority, but what of Japan’s economic and political role in Asia and the wider world?

This is unlikely to be elevated to top priority, whether the winner of the race for presidency of Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) – and thus the role of prime minister – turns out to be the favourite, Taro Kono, or other top candidates such as Fumio Kishida or Shigeru Ishiba.

There has been an increasingly forceful push to elevate national security concerns among Japanese foreign policy issues. But national security concerns are inward-looking and defensive rather than boldly outgoing.

For much of the post-World-War-II era, Japan has been a country “in” rather than “of” Asia. It was tied to the United States, for which it hosts US Asia-Pacific military forces as an “unsinkable aircraft carrier”, to quote former prime minister Yasuhiro Nakasone.

02:22

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga to step down

Japan served also as a kind of US-designated leader in Southeast Asia while South Korea was likewise bound to the US and China was almost off the map as an economic power. China’s rise has changed this balance, but Japan’s economic and foreign policies have not adjusted to the new reality.