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Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe during a meeting of the Japanese House of Councillors on Mar. 6.(AFP)

It’s widely thought that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s hardline measure of imposing a two-week quarantine on people entering the country from South Korea and China was aimed at reassuring his conservative base amid mounting pressure about the failure of his initial attempts to contain the outbreak of the novel coronavirus. But as COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, spreads at the community level inside Japan, tightening restrictions on entry to the country are unlikely to be very effective, experts believe.

During a cabinet meeting in Tokyo on Mar. 6, the Abe administration finalized a raft of disease control measures that include requiring visitors from South Korea and China to stay at designated locations for two weeks; suspending visa-free entry from South Korea, Hong Kong and Macao; and invalidating visas that have already been issued. The measures were first announced during a meeting of Japan’s disease control task force on the evening of Mar. 5.

The immediate occasion for these measures appears to have been the delay of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s state visit to Japan next month, which Japan appears to have regarded as the removal of a diplomatic obstacle. Despite pressure from Japanese conservatives to ban entry from all of China, the Abe administration had limited the ban to residents of Hubei and Zhejiang Provinces. The Abe administration had no choice but to tread cautiously where China was concerned considering Xi’s visit, scheduled for April, which Abe had wanted to highlight as the culmination of his foreign policy vis-à-vis China.

Another contributing factor appears to have been Japan’s belief that there wouldn’t be a severe backlash from China, since the Chinese cities of Beijing and Shanghai were already asking visitors from Japan not to go out or placing them under a 14-day quarantine. Sure enough, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian’s remarks on the evening of Mar. 5 were fairly muted. “Both sides have to take appropriate measures about the infection. The two sides are staying in close consultation through diplomatic channels,” Zhao said. Japan appeared to attempt to appease China by placing the same restrictions on South Korea, which has the second largest number of COVID-19 cases, while also bowing to anti-Korean sentiment at home that has been inflamed by a recent spat between the two countries.

The Abe administration’s measures can also be seen as an attempt to create an external scapegoat for the government’s failed response to COVID-19. With the number of cases recently climbing above 1,000, Abe has been facing sharp criticism not only from his political opponents but also from his own party. On Mar. 3, Abe got a tongue-lashing from Hiroshi Yama, a right-leaning lawmaker with the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), who said, “The influx [of COVID-19 infections] from the outside hasn’t been entirely blocked.” Another LDP lawmaker was quoted by the Asahi Shimbun as saying that the Abe government “completely failed in its early response.” The Nikkei reported that Abe told his colleagues that they’ll only come under fire if they do nothing and that it would be better to go overboard, showing how the tougher measures fit into the context of domestic politics.

During a press conference on Mar. 6, Japanese Minister of Health, Labor and Welfare Katsunobu Kato even seemed to be trying to quell the uproar. “We’re just asking people [to wait]. It’s not compulsory.” But that claim sounds less persuasive when the new measures — which include limiting travel to Narita and Kansai Airports, suspending visa-free visits and invalidating already issued visas — are considered in their totality.

Japan’s abrupt toughening of its quarantine measures against South Korea and China comes too late and is unlikely to be ineffective, experts argue. “This will only have a very limited effect considering that new cases are occurring through transmission inside Japan. The government had promised to shift its focus from stopping the disease from entering the country to preventing its spread domestically, but this seems to undermine that strategy,” Yasuyuki Kato, a professor at the International University of Health and Welfare, told the Mainichi Shimbun.

By Cho Ki-weon, Tokyo correspondent

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