hankyoreh

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga announces on Friday that he will not be running for LDP president in the party’s elections at the end of the month. (EPA/Yonhap News)

With Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) scheduled to hold a leadership vote on Sept. 29, there’s speculation about whether this will be a turning point when Japanese society makes a break with the “Abe line” that it has followed for the last nine years, since the end of 2012. If elected LDP president, some of the candidates can undermine former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s efforts to strengthen Japan’s alliance with the US to counterbalance China based on a conservative ideology.

Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga’s declaration Friday that he won’t run in the upcoming election has energized LDP members who hope to lead the party in the post-Suga era.

Figures who have announced their candidacy, or who are planning to do so, according to Japanese press reports through Sunday include former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida, former party Secretary-General Shigeru Ishiba, Administrative Reform Minister Taro Kono, and former internal affairs minister Sanae Takaichi.

Abe held the premiership from the end of 2012 to September 2020, or seven years and eight months. That set a record for longest-serving prime minister under Japan’s current constitution.

In contrast, Suga will have served only a year in office. During that time, he unveiled some original policies in domestic affairs, such as establishing an agency to digitalize public services and setting goals to reduce carbon emissions.

But in foreign policy, Suga hewed to the course taken by Abe, his predecessor. He has been slow to improve ties with Korea and hasn’t relaxed Japan’s longstanding policy of hostility toward North Korea.

The most striking figure in this election is Kishida, former chair of the LDP’s Policy Research Council, who has already thrown his hat into the ring. Kishida was one of the major supporters of the Abe line, serving as foreign minister for four and a half years of Abe’s premiership.

Kishida was one of the Japanese officials who reached the 2015 comfort women agreement with South Korea. That gives him little room to seek a change in Japan’s relations with South Korea in regard to the two countries’ fraught history.

Perhaps feeling pressure with the upcoming election, Kishida set up a parliamentary alliance in the LDP aimed at “building a new capitalism” in June, lining up Abe and former Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso as senior advisors.

Kishida has also made remarks supporting the Abe line since announcing his candidacy for LDP president on Aug. 26. He has spoken of the need to amend Japan’s “peace constitution” and to acquire the ability to strike enemy bases.

But given enough time as prime minister, Kishida could pivot to a more reasonable foreign policy stance, more in line with his background as the representative of the LDP’s moderate faction.

Shigeru Ishiba, another strong contender in the race, is a prominent opponent of the Abe line. He ran against Abe three times in LDP presidential campaigns but lost each time. In an appearance on TBS Television on Friday, he criticized Abe for various controversies, including one surrounding a private school operator called Moritomo Gakuen, and said that the investigation into those controversies should be reopened.

As one of the leading national security experts in the Japanese political establishment, Ishiba says that Japan should be more flexible about historical issues so that it can strengthen security cooperation with South Korea.

When South Korea-Japan relations reached a nadir with Korea’s declaration that it would scrap its General Security of Military Information Agreement intelligence sharing agreement with Japan in August 2019, Ishiba wrote on his blog that “Japan’s refusal to own up to its responsibility for the war following its defeat is at the root of many problems.”

Ishiba has also said he’ll keep apologizing for the issue of the “comfort women” until Korea is satisfied and that he won’t visit the controversial Yasukuni Shrine.

The third major contender is Taro Kono, who currently serves as the Minister for Administrative Reform and Regulatory Reform. Several polls in Japan show that Kono is the top pick for the next prime minister.

Kono has called for a range of reforms, such as allowing women to become emperor — an idea opposed by Japanese conservatives — and phasing out nuclear power, which is out of step with the LDP platform. He also supports slashing regulations and boldly delegating authority from the central government to local governments and the private sector when possible.

Taro Kono is regarded as the Japanese politician most knowledgeable about Korea. But considering that he was foreign minister in 2018 and 2019, when the countries were butting heads over compensation for Koreans drafted for labor during World War II, Kono isn’t likely to initiate a sudden change of policy even if he is elected prime minister.

Kono is the son of Yohei Kono, who Koreans remember for the 1993 Kono Statement, in which Japan acknowledged the forcible mobilization of comfort women and the involvement of the Japanese military.

Sanae Takaichi, who formerly led the Ministry for Internal Affairs and Communication, is a far-right politician and a former member of Abe’s faction. Her bid was initially regarded as unlikely, but support from Abe has raised her profile.

Takaichi hinted that she’d continue paying visits to the Yasukuni Shrine even if elected prime minister during an interview with BS Fuji, a private Japanese broadcaster, on Friday evening.

Others exploring a bid at LDP leadership include Seiko Noda, the party’s executive acting secretary-general, and Hakubun Shimomura, current chair of the LDP’s Policy Research Council, but it’s uncertain whether they’ll actually join the race.

By Kim So-youn, Tokyo correspondent

Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr]