Japan’s New Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga: The Gray Face of Power

Japan’s prime minister-designate has yet to speak for a day when the call is already being heard in his hometown of Yuzawa, in northern Japan, to have a monument in a public place for him.

ichen park. Because at least in their former homeland they are very proud of Yoshihide Suga. The son of a wealthy strawberry farmer made his way into distant Tokyo on his own, with perseverance and a sense of power. This is unusual in Japan, where deputies often inherit their constituencies from parents or grandparents. Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who resigns for health reasons, also comes from a political dynasty.

On Monday, the conservative Liberal Democratic Party (PLD) named Suga its leader in Tokyo; on Wednesday he will be officially elected as the new head of government in parliament. The winner thanked them with deep bows. It is a triumph for a politician who, as chief cabinet secretary, has mainly pulled the strings in the background.

Unlike Abe, whose wife Akie, the controversial “First Lady”, liked to make a name for herself, Suga carefully protects himself and his private life. Little else is known about his wife, her name is Mariko, who met her in the office of a member of parliament. It was there that Suga began his political rise as the youngest of seven secretaries.

Abe’s promise

With Suga, everyday life returns to Japan. The party atmosphere has calmed down under the charismatic Abe. He spoke of the beautiful world for himself and his compatriots; promised a return to a mythical Japan transfigured the day before yesterday. Suga, on the other hand, is the gray face of power.

The prime minister-designate has announced that he wants to preserve the legacy of his nationalist predecessor Abe. He could also have said that he wanted to continue his own hard line. Because Abe ruled for almost eight years, longer than before, ultimately thanks to Suga. With his authoritarian style, Suga has already had a lasting impact on the political culture of Japan in recent years.

As a loyal shadow shogun, Suga made sure that Abe miraculously survived numerous political scandals. This involved, for example, state properties that were sold to minions at junk prices. The files were falsified or disappeared. A tax officer ordered to help cover up the orders of his superiors committed suicide. A chief prosecutor who highly appreciated the Abe government had to remain in office beyond the age limit established by a special law.

This attack on the rule of law was too bold even by Japanese standards; it failed after severe criticism.

The director becomes the main actor

It was always Suga who scrupulously resolved questions about scandals at his ritual press conferences. Behind the scenes, she dominated the once-confident bureaucracy. At the same time, pressure grew on the local media, which traditionally tend to self-censor anyway.

Critics of the government gradually disappeared from television screens. Since there is hardly an opposition in parliament worthy of the name, once polyphonic Japan often seemed like a one-man production, with Abe in the title role and Suga as director.

There was hardly any debate about the future.

Suga may have now disguised himself as Abe’s successor by powerful party bosses. According to polls, he is much less popular with the population than one of the two opponents, also men, who competed against him in the party’s internal freestyle. Suga is supposed to maintain the distribution of power in Tokyo. His internal party election was a formality.

So now the shooter himself is becoming the center of attention. Changing roles is not easy for him. In recent days, Suga has shown little desire to explain his politics as one might expect in a democracy when he appears on television. But as prime minister he will have to show that he can inspire voters.

The next general elections must be held in one year at the latest.

Can Suga fill the position permanently?

Whether Suga becomes more than just a transitional prime minister depends mostly on how he addresses the four biggest challenges facing the third-largest economy:

• The Crown Crisis – Crisis management, in which Suga was significantly involved, often turned out to be chaotic. Japan tested fewer people for Sars-Cov-2 than almost any other industrialized country; State aid is often late to those in need. The Japanese should thank the Japanese for the fact that the epidemic so far has been relatively mild: they stick together in crises and learn from an early age to be considerate. Wearing masks is taken for granted.

• Aging: The island nation is aging extremely fast, declining by more than half a million people in 2019 alone. The result: older people also have to work more and more; desert of rural areas. To moderate the trend, the government has pledged to promote women.

• In terms of gender equality, Japan fell to 121st, behind the United Arab Emirates, according to the latest report from the World Economic Forum. By comparison: Germany ranks 10th. Japan would have to modernize the male-dominated society. Suga, on the other hand, apparently views the population decline primarily as a medical task: These days, he demanded that insurance companies cover the costs of infertility treatments.

• The economic decline: Suga wants to continue the economic policy of his predecessor. It’s called “Abenomics” and it’s based on an ultra-lax monetary policy similar to that followed by the European Central Bank and other central banks. Tokyo’s monetary authorities print money in a particularly rampant way: By investing heavily in exchange-traded funds (ETFs), they distort share prices, for example. The central bank practically became the main shareholder of “Japan AG”. Abe’s stock market boom gave the industry time. However, it has been misused. Japan is lagging behind China, especially in the IT sector.

Japan is currently experiencing the deepest recession of the postwar period, exacerbated by the consequences of the corona epidemic. Suga now has to explain how the economy should grow in the future. With good consumer incentives, such as a reduction in cell phone rates, that it promises, it is unlikely to halt the decline.

The foreign policy dilemma: Japan threatens to become the scene of a new Cold War between its military protector, the United States, and its most important trading partner, China. So far, Prime Minister Abe has tried to maneuver between the superpowers: at home he struck nationalist overtones, outwardly he avoided upsetting strengthened China with criticism.

However, above all he cultivated friendship with the president of the United States, Donald Trump. Unlike the courteous Abe, his successor Suga has little foreign policy experience. You can only hope that Americans elect a president in November that doesn’t spark the many potential hot spots in East Asia.