Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe rolled the dice high in holding elections a year early in spite of the fact that his own personal popularity rating stood about 30 percent.
But it paid off, unlike British Prime Minister Theresa May’s bid to improve her Conservative Party’s position with early elections in June. Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party and its coalition partner won two-thirds of the seats in the lower house of the parliament on Sunday, clearing the way for some constitutional changes he wants to make, including movement toward the remilitarization of Japan. The turnout was low, about 30 percent, due to severely inclement weather, but the LDP’s margin was clear.
Seeking lessons for the United States from political developments in other vigorous democracies, it was also interesting to see that the LDP’s previous major opposition for years, the Democratic Party, split into pieces in advance of the elections. One fragment, the Party of Hope, led by popular Tokyo mayor Yuriko Koike, surged briefly, then sagged when Koike withdrew her own candidacy. Another ex-piece of the Democratic Party, the Constitutional Democratic Party, ended up doing better at the polls than the Party of Hope.
Probably the biggest issue in the Japanese elections was what should be done about North Korean rocket-rattling. (The economy is humming along.) Japan’s neighbors in Pyongyang have fired two intercontinental ballistic missiles across Japan into the sea in recent months. Given President Donald Trump’s erratic approach to that issue and others of interest to the Japanese, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact, which Japan supported and Trump dumped, the Japanese are coming to have less confidence in the relationship it has shared with the United States since its surrender in 1945.
Abe’s move toward constitutionally sanctioned remilitarization is a logical Japanese response to both the North Korean threat and the American shift of posture.
For a United States interested in reducing its exposure and its expenses overseas, a stronger and more independent Japanese defense role could be welcome. The difficult part could be the reaction of Japanese rivals and formerly militarily dominated neighbors China, North and South Korea, the Philippines and others to a Japan rearmed with 21st-century weapons, including nuclear arms if the Japanese like. Japan’s occupation and Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere in the region died only 72 years ago and lingers on in the region in bitter memories.
Let’s hope that Washington is thinking this issue through as it determines its policy response to Abe’s strengthened mandate. Another visit by Abe to Mar-a-Lago probably won’t do it.
