The elephant in the room
What was said and unsaid about Japan's biggest challenge in the party leaders' debate
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With the House of Councillors elections starting on Thursday, 3 July, the leaders of eight parties met at the National Press Club on Wednesday for a debate to kick off the seventeen-day campaign for the upper house.1
Not surprisingly, the most vigorous exchanges concerned their competing plans to help households cope with the rising cost of living, with Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru defending the Liberal Democratic Party’s (LDP) plans to distribute cash to individuals against charges that it is reckless spending by turning the accusation around and accusing Tamaki Yūichirō and other proponents of a consumption tax cut as being the reckless ones and, moreover, preferring a method that will not work nearly as quickly as putting money in the hands of households. The debate ranged wider, including exchanges on agricultural reform; political reform and political fundraising; social security reform; immigration; and the separate surname issue.
But arguably casting a shadow over the entire debate was one man: Donald Trump.
It is not that the debate avoided the recent unpleasantness in the bilateral relationship. There was discussion of Trump’s recent threat to levy tariffs of 30% or 35% on Japan, as well as reports that the Trump administration wants Japan to spend 3.5% of GDP on defense. There was discussion of Trump’s comparison of the US attack on Iran as being like the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the importance of US extended deterrence. Trump was also present in Sanseitō leader Kamiya Sōhei’s slogan, “Japanese People First.” “We propose that the nation be managed without relying on immigrants and foreigners by firmly reducing taxes and implementing aggressive fiscal policy,” he said.
And yet while the debate could not avoid Trump, it was strikingly tentative. Ishin no Kai’s Yoshimura Hirofumi criticized Ishiba for not building a direct personal relationship with Trump, but none of the others picked up this thread. Ishiba repeated his familiar lines about defending Japan’s national interests in negotiations while stressing that Japan has made important contributions to the US economy. Tamaki used the threat of higher US tariffs to justify his party’s consumption tax proposals. The Japanese Communist Party’s (JCP) Tamura Tomoko attacked Ishiba for his willingness to raise defense spending, even if not as demanded by Trump. Constitutional Democratic Party (CDP) leader Noda Yoshihiko offered a more detailed critique of Ishiba’s approach to Trump – taking issue with Ishiba’s reply in the negative to a question from a reporter whether Japan should coordinate more closely with Europe in response to US protectionism and stressing the importance of multilateral cooperation – and suggested the US is moving the goalposts in negotiations because the Ishiba government has not drawn firm lines.
But no one – neither Ishiba nor any of his rivals – tried to answer the most important question that Noda put to the prime minister. What should Japan’s national strategy be when the United States, Japan’s sole treaty ally and the pillar around which Japan’s grand strategy has been organized, is pursuing not just an “America First” strategy but an “America alone” strategy? How is Japan supposed to negotiate with a US administration that is approaching Japan more as a vassal that must accept a one-sided agreement in which it opens its market more to US exporters while accepting higher trade barriers for its own exporters, trade barriers based on entirely arbitrary or whimsical standards? How reliable is a security guarantee from a US president prepared to negotiate with an ally in this fashion? It was apparent that none of the eight leaders on that stage were prepared to grapple fully with the implications of these questions.
This is not to say that Japan’s political leaders are blind to the realities of Trump’s America First foreign policy. I think there is ample evidence from the media, public statements, and parliamentary debates to suggest otherwise. I think it is also notable that while there was the occasional passing reference to the importance of the US-Japan relationship, those old shibboleths were muttered defensively, in passing, perhaps even with a sense of embarrassment. If nothing else, there was a consensus on that stage that the United States is a problem to be managed – not unlike a certain colossal neighbor that went almost entirely mentioned – not the guarantor of an international order that has been indispensable for Japan’s peace and prosperity, a feeling largely shared by the public.
As I wrote earlier this week:
In Yomiuri, only 29% approved of his handling of trade talks; 56% disapproved, though it bears noting that Yomiuri also found that public trust in the United States is extraordinarily low. Only 22% either greatly (3%) or somewhat (19%) trust the United States, while 68% somewhat (46%) or entirely (22%) distrust it. Mainichi found that only 15% want Ishiba to make a deal even if it means making concessions before the exemption from “reciprocal” tariffs expires on 9 July; 57% said that Japan should not make a bad deal even if it means the bilateral relationship worsens.2
While it may be too much to expect that Japan’s political leaders will provide more satisfactory answers to these questions on the campaign trail, the party leaders’ debate revealed that this will be Japan’s first election of a new, more uncertain era.