But what will it mean for Japan?
Over the past six years Abe has led on a number of fronts. He has sought to revitalise Japan’s economy through his ‘Abenomics’ economic policy package. He has tirelessly criss-crossed the globe and led diplomacy to make Japan more visible on the international stage. And he successfully passed a series of defence reforms including the passage of security legislation in September 2015 which permits the Japan Self-Defense Forces to conduct limited forms of collective self-defence.
When the international tide changed Abe was quick to recalibrate. He was the first world leader to meet and proactively build a personal relationship with US President Donald Trump. The Trump government’s shocks — including steel and aluminium tariffs and the abrupt announcement of the end of US–ROK war games — have affected Japan, but Abe’s management has helped Japan avoid some of the dislocations other US relationships have suffered. The Abe government has also held the fort on protecting multilateral international economic institutions from the protectionist scourge of the Trump government, led the way on forging an agreement on the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for the Trans-Pacific Partnership after the United States’ withdrawal, and concluded the Japan–European Union Economic Partnership Agreement.
During his third term, as Corey Wallace explains in our first lead this week, Abe’s most immediate challenge will be ‘mollifying US President Donald Trump’s concerns over the US$69 billion US trade deficit’. In particular, ‘Abe hopes to avoid tariffs on Japanese autos while resisting a bilateral trade deal on Trump’s terms’. To this end the Abe government has prioritised defence and energy imports. ‘Japan has announced it will purchase the Aegis Ashore missile defence system (US$5.4 billion) and looks likely to add nine more early warning E-2D Hawkeyes (US$3.14 billion) … Tokyo has also been working to increase Japan’s purchases of US LNG. And Japan is supporting the on-selling of US gas to Asian countries as a further deficit reduction measure’.
The uncertainty begot by the Trump government is also likely to see Japan build its tactical entente with China. Abe is scheduled to visit China to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping next month. One key area of cooperation that Abe and Xi both ‘now appear enthusiastic about pushing forward on [is] the ASEAN-centred Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP)’. This ‘represents a good opportunity for Japan to encourage China to agree to a “higher quality” RCEP deal while it acquires further leverage to resist US trade demands’.
As Tobias Harris argues in our second lead, these may be all ongoing projects which do not necessarily require an Abe government to see them through. The problem, Harris explains, ‘is that it is unclear whether Abe has anything new to offer Japanese voters after six years in power’. Instead, ‘it seems that at this point Abe is mostly focused on completing unfinished business from earlier in his tenure’. Abe has been dogged over the last year by the persistent Moritomo and Kake corruption scandals. And with his ‘having pushed and cajoled his party to follow him for six years, centralising power in the process, the LDP’s backbenchers may be more reluctant to follow his lead quietly’.
The economy is the key issue for the Japanese public. It is uncertain what more, after six years in power, Abe can do or plans to do to bolster the lagging implementation of Abenomics, which has not generated sufficient follow through on its third and most important arrow of structural reform.
Instead, Abe signalled in the first LDP leadership debate on 10 September against his rival Shigeru Ishiba that he intends to pursue his long-cherished goal of constitutional revision. Perhaps the reason constitutional revision remains as unfinished business is that it is a highly divisive and controversial issue. The Japanese public continues to strongly resist revising the Article 9 ‘peace clause’.
The Abe government, Michael Cucek explains, has identified four key areas for revision. First is broadening government powers during a state emergency but this ‘is seen as too controversial and has been shelved’. Second and third are ‘free education through high school and the assignment of at least two senators to each House of Councillors electoral district’ which are actually ‘matters of legislation, not constitutional revision’. This only leaves the revision of Article 9.
A right-wing nationalist at heart but ever the pragmatist, Abe has settled on an approach which leaves the current two clauses of Article 9 unaltered and adds a third clause to establish explicitly the constitutional status of the Japan Self-Defense Forces. This is calculated as giving Article 9 revision the best odds of being navigated through the necessary hurdles for amendment. These hurdles include negotiations with coalition partner Komeito, cooperation with pro-revision micro opposition parties to reach the two-thirds threshold to submit a revision proposal, and public backing through a national referendum.
Ishiba, who favours scrapping and rewriting the second clause, which renounces war and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes, has attacked Abe from both sides on the issue. He insists that Abe’s watered-down approach does not go far enough and that constitutional revision shouldn’t be put to an early referendum ‘without sufficient understanding from the public’. The political calendar, with the abdication of the Emperor in April 2019 and the upper house election in July 2019, further complicates the timing of any possible referendum.
The Abe approach, as Cucek says, appears both unnecessary and risky. ‘The Self-Defense Forces are broadly admired, and their constitutionality is accepted by nearly every part of Japan’s political spectrum’. Moreover, ‘a “No” vote … would force Abe’s immediate resignation … bury, possibly for perpetuity, further attempts at revision … [and] would be the equivalent of finding that the Self-Defense Forces are unconstitutional’.
As Japan seeks to manage the challenges of revitalising its economy with a shrinking taxpayer base and super-ageing population and of maintaining regional stability in a Trumpian world, revising Article 9 at this juncture risks turning into a dead end wasting Abe’s precious political capital.
The EAF Editorial Board is located in the Crawford School of Public Policy, College of Asia and the Pacific, The Australian National University.