When Shigeru Ishiba becomes the 65th Japanese prime minister on Tuesday, it will represent a remarkable break with the recent past. All of the candidates to replace Fumio Kishida were flawed. But given public discontent with the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, the publicly popular Ishiba — a fierce critic of the late Shinzo Abe, whose faction was most implicated in recent scandals over funding and influence — was the safest choice.
Faced with the option of a successor to Abe or his polar opposite, the party has broken with over a decade of orthodoxy. A change might do the country some good. But is it a step in the right direction? Say what you will about Abe’s goals or how he went about them, but you can’t deny the clarity of his vision: A strong nation that can put its wartime guilt aside to become a global actor befitting of its size, with a government that will do what it takes to create a powerful economy.
Japanese leaders who last tend to have strong plans. At a time of never-ending stagnation, Junichiro Koizumi pledged “ceaseless reform” to break Japan free. Abe vowed to “take back Japan.
” Even Kishida promised, though didn’t deliver, an entirely new form of post-neoliberal capitalism. By contrast, nailing down what Ishiba wants Japan to look like is more like nailing jelly to a wall. His statements on everything from nuclear power to monetary policy are by turns contradictory and vague.
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