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Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.
Viewpoint: How Abe still casts a shadow over Kishida in Japan
Former Japanese PM Shinzo Abe was tragically gunned down one year ago. Yet he still casts a long shadow on Japanese politics and the agenda of current PM Fumio Kishida.
Last year, Kishida’s public approval ratings nosedived mainly because of controversies related to Abe, like the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s ties to the Unification Church (or “Moonies”). Those ties go back decades to former PM Nobusuke Kishi, Abe’s grandfather. Since then, Kishida has regained his political footing. But when it comes to Japan’s national security, foreign affairs, and economic policies, Kishida still walks in Abe’s shadow. Or does he?
To get an idea of how this is all playing out, especially as Kishida mulls calling snap elections later this year, we sat down for a chat with David Boling, Eurasia Group’s lead Japan analyst.
What is Abe's main legacy on Japanese politics a year after his death?
He continues to exert outsized influence over day-to-day politics and policymaking.
At the time of his death, Abe was head of the largest faction, which now has 100 members, within the conservative LDP. That’s nearly double the size of the next largest faction. The caucus still bears his name, the “Abe faction,” and he remains the glue that holds them together. Even though a year has passed, they still can’t agree on a new standard bearer.
On policy, his vision outlives him too. Abe was a very controversial and provocative politician. He was edgy and relished a good fight. This made him unpopular and is the reason why most Japanese people opposed a state funeral for him — to the dismay of many foreign observers. But his policy vision transcends all that rancor. It might even be called mainstream now.
So as William Faulkner said, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”
What would Abe think of Kishida’s performance so far?
Abe would be happy to see that Kishida has supported increased defense spending, which is set to reach 2% of GDP by 2027. But he would question Kishida’s leadership abilities and not consider him conservative enough.
It’s worth remembering that before Abe was gunned down, he was positioning himself to make yet another run for prime minister. So Kishida certainly saw Abe as a political rival – you might even say they were “frenemies.” They were both LDP members and somewhat dependent on each other – Kishida had served nearly five years as Abe’s foreign minister. But they were suspicious of one another.
How has Kishida shaken off the controversy over the Moonies in the wake of Abe’s shooting?
Kishida took a huge beating in the polls last fall over the Unification Church scandal, even though Kishida himself had no personal connection to the church. It was Abe, members of his faction, and other LDP members who were chummy with the Moonies.
The controversy over LDP ties with the Moonies burned very hot but then fizzled out. In December, Kishida helped push through legislation to crack down on fundraising abuses by religious organizations. Since then, though, the issue has completely dropped out of opinion polling.
How has Kishida followed Abe’s playbook, and where has he distanced himself from his old boss?
Although he has sought to distance himself from “Abenomics” with his “new form of capitalism,” Kishida has stuck to Abe’s economic blueprint of big fiscal spending and ultra-loose monetary policy. That’s been a surprise.
On defense, Abe was a hawk. Kishida is a dove who has been mugged by the reality of China, North Korea, and Russia. So Kishida has become a supporter of spending more money on defense. He wants to raise taxes to pay for some of that increase, whereas Abe was fine just to pay for it with new debt.
Finally, the Japanese public sees amending the constitution to clarify the status of the self-defense forces as a low priority – as does Kishida – while it was a top priority for Abe.
How popular is Kishida today, and how much of a change/mandate is that for him moving forward?
Kishida’s popularity has been like a roller coaster. It was up at the beginning of his tenure. But it went down in the second half of last year to its lowest point. Then up from the beginning of this year through the G7 summit in Hiroshima. Now it’s heading down again.
Kishida is not as threatening as Abe, but his popular support does not run as deep either. The Japanese public has a “meh” attitude towards him. There’s a good chance he’ll dissolve the lower house and hold snap elections later this year, and those results will determine how much Kishida can do in the coming months.
U.S. President Joe Biden with Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in Mexico City.
What We’re Watching: Biden in Mexico, Japan's Kishida on tour, Ukraine’s eastern flank
What’s on the agenda at the “Three Amigos Summit”?
A meeting of North American leaders known as the "Three Amigos Summit" kicked off in Mexico City on Monday with US President Joe Biden, Canadian PM Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, known as AMLO, set to meet face-to-face for the first time since Nov. 2021 to chart a path forward on a range of thorny issues. Biden was greeted by his Mexican counterpart a day after making his first visit to the US southern border since becoming president. Indeed, the two have plenty to talk about. While Washington usually calls the shots when it comes to the US-Mexico relationship, AMLO will be looking to earn some concessions from Biden, who is desperately seeking help in dealing with a chaotic situation at the US southern border. This comes after Biden announced in recent days that Mexico had agreed to take in tens of thousands of Nicaraguan, Haitian, and Cuban migrants denied entry into the US in exchange for more work visas for Mexican laborers. Still, the White House might ask for more: While AMLO has agreed to take in an extra 30,000 migrants per month from these countries (plus Venezuela), some 90,000 people from these four places sought to cross the US southern border in November alone. Stopping the drug smuggling trade from Mexico into the US will also be high on the agenda as fentanyl overdoses continue to devastate American communities. Much of the remaining conversation will center on the United States-Mexico-Canada trade deal: Ottawa and Washington have accused AMLO of exerting excessive state control over the energy market. Meanwhile, Canada-US ties have been strained since the Biden administration’s landmark Inflation Reduction Act, passed last summer, included a slew of tax breaks for buying US-made electric vehicles, which Ottawa says will cripple its car manufacturing industry.
Japan’s PM Kishida's seeks security assurances from allies
Japan’s PM Fumio Kishida has kicked off a trip to Europe and North America where he’ll seek to solidify new defense and security agreements with allies just months ahead of a G7 meeting in Hiroshima. This move comes after Tokyo adopted a new security doctrine in December, transitioning away from its pacifist defense posture that's been the law of the land since World War II. Kishida’s first stop was in Paris on Monday and will be followed by stops in Italy, the UK, Canada, and the US, where the Japanese defense and foreign ministers will also meet with their American counterparts. Indeed, Tokyo has left little doubt that its new strategy is aimed at defending itself from military advancements in China – and to a lesser extent North Korea – and is focused particularly on protecting its southwestern islands if China attacks Taiwan. As part of its new defense posture, Japan plans to start deploying long-range cruise missiles capable of hitting mainland China by 2026, improve its intelligence and cyber know-how and double its defense expenditure to 2% of GDP. What’s more, Kishida and Biden will discuss plans to establish a joint command in the Pacific, while in Europe, the joint development of a new fighter jet with the UK and Italy, to be rolled out by 2035, will likely top the agenda. We’re watching to see whether Kishida, facing a sluggish approval rating, gets a domestic boost from this act of international statesmanship, particularly as the Japanese population is increasingly mistrustful of Beijing.
Putin’s chef wants all of the salt
The forces of Wagner group, a mercenary army controlled by “Putin’s chef,” Yevgeny Prigozhin, have mounted a major assault on the town of Soledar, in eastern Ukraine. Soledar and the nearby town of Bakhmut are home to deep salt and gypsum mines, which Prigozhin says he wants access to so he can station troops and tanks inside their “underground cities.” For months, Moscow has been trying without success to take control of the area, ahead of what Ukraine has warned could be a fresh Russian offensive. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said Monday that the resistance of Ukrainian troops in Soledar and Bakhmut had “won for Ukraine additional time and additional strength.” But early on Tuesday, Russia claimed it already controls most of Soledar.Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida attends a press conference in Tokyo, Japan.
Japan to go the way of the samurai: Why and at what cost?
After decades of pacifism, Japan recently announced that it will double its military budget over the next five years to become the world’s third-biggest defense spender behind the US and China.
How did Tokyo, whose commitment to pacifism is enshrined in the country’s post-war constitution, get here? And what are the implications – at home and abroad – of the world’s third-largest economy embarking on a major military buildup?
Japan’s move towards beefing up its military posture has been incremental. Tokyo's transition to increasing its fighting capacity has taken decades of debate by successive governments. Politically, the measures have been slow but steady, with many initiated during the long tenure of recently slain former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, including a more enhanced role of the National Security Council, which has translated into the loosening of arms controls, the constitutional re-definition of collective defense to fight alongside partners, and Tokyo’s founding membership of the Quad. More recently, Tokyo unveiled its first new national security strategy in a decade.
What is Prime Minister Fumio Kishida actually pushing for? In short, doubling the defense budget to 2% of GDP by 2027. For starters, $315 billion are earmarked for multi-dimensional defense over the next five years, including the acquisition of Tomahawk cruise missiles that could hit targets in mainland China. Critically, besides filling a major gap through a 20,000-strong cyber force, Japan would also build counter-strike capabilities to conduct retaliatory attacks on and across the Korean Peninsula, with the ability to penetrate Chinese defenses.
This isn’t just a military tech upgrade. It’s the end of the country’s pacifist foreign policy. “For years, Japan talked the talk — about increasing defense spending and acquiring counter-strike missile capabilities — without walking the walk,” says David Boling, director of Japan & Asia Trade at Eurasia Group. “Now it's walking the walk. Maybe even starting to run.”
Why is famously pacifist Japan beefing up at this rate? For more than half a century, Tokyo has refused to call its military a military – referring to it as a self-defense force – and has limited its uniformed engagements to multilateral peacekeeping missions aligned closely with the US.
“The reason for Japan’s new hawkishness can be explained in one word: China,” Boling says.
“China’s constant intrusions into Japan’s territorial waters, its rapid military buildup, and its firing five ballistic missiles into Japan’s exclusive economic zone in August during the military exercises around Taiwan — all these combined to reach the tipping point for Japan,” adds Boling.
But China’s buildup isn’t just rapid and advanced. For a Japan haunted by memories of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it’s increasingly nuclear too. Considering that Japan has long supported Taiwanese democracy, the more Beijing threatens Taiwan, the more imperiled Japan feels. This is due to both the political and geographical proximity between Tokyo and Taipei.
The problem on the peninsula. Japan is also feeling increasingly threatened by Pyongyang. Experts think a fresh nuclear test looks inevitable – which would be the seventh since Pyongyang went nuclear in 2006 (the last one was carried out in 2017). North Korea has conducted 86 missile tests this year, an all-time high, with many projectiles launched into Japanese airspace.
Add Russia’s actions in Ukraine, as well as China’s saber-rattling with India in the Himalayas to the contemporary geopolitical mix, and the messaging for Tokyo is clear: Aggression isn’t a mere policy option. On the Eurasian landmass, when strong armies confront a weaker force, it’s an actual policy.
The politics of it all. Kishida is already facing pushback at home. Influential members of his Liberal Democratic Party have already renounced his solution for paying for the spending hike by increasing taxes. The pushback from within the ruling party may also be connected to Kishida’s low approval ratings, which are hovering in the 30s and have been hammered by a year of controversial decisions, a weak economy, and a spiraling yen.
Critically, more than 60% of Japanese favor the newly proposed counter-strike capability. In a new poll released after the proposed militarization, the majority of respondents favored Kishida’s plan to boost defense, with 55% endorsing the new national security plan.
Moreover, Eurasia Group’s Boling surmises that Kishida has some other factors in his corner, including a weak opposition, growing national support for sanctions against Russia, and years of experience in navigating national security as a former foreign minister. Kishida’s also wary of recent China-centric and defense-based polling: According to a recent survey, a third of the Japanese population thinks that there will be a military conflict in the Taiwan Strait.
Indeed, according to Boling, the recent intra-party controversy over raising taxes for defense is a sign of what’s to come.
“It augurs increased friction between Kishida and other leading LDP members in 2023,” he says.
Smoke rises after a Russian drones strike on Kyiv, Ukraine.
What We’re Watching: Drones over Kyiv, GOP’s advantage, Kishida’s church probe
Russia starts droning on
Russia attacked targets across Ukraine on Monday with Iranian-made “suicide drones,” which fly into targets and then explode. At least four people were killed when one of them struck an apartment complex in Kyiv. The building is located across the street from the offices of Ukraine’s national energy company, which may have been the intended target. That’s consistent with Russia’s recent approach of striking critical civilian infrastructure in retaliation for Ukraine’s sabotage of the Kerch Strait bridge earlier this month. Also on Monday, a Russian drone strike crippled a major sunflower oil export terminal in the southern city of Mykolaiv, raising the prospect of a renewed turbulence in prices for cooking oil, a staple in kitchens around the world. Tehran denies supplying the drones, but experts say they are clearly Shahed-136 drones from Iran. Until now, drones have been deployed to the most devastating effect by the Ukrainians, but Russia — suffering military setbacks on the ground and unable to establish aerial dominance — could be seeking a way to strike lots of targets crudely and at a relatively low cost. Although drones are slow-moving and easier to shoot down than jets or missiles, Ukraine is still calling for better air defenses overall. See our recent interview with a Ukrainian drone operator here.
Republicans’ midterm edge
We are in the homestretch before US midterm elections on Nov. 8, and things are looking up for … Republicans. A New York Times/Siena College poll released Monday shows that economic issues are top of mind for voters, with 44% of Americans polled listing it as their top concern, up from 36% in July. What’s more, as inflationary pressures persist, a majority of voters (64%) now see Republicans as better equipped to tackle cost-of-living issues. Part of the reason for the Dems’ poor outlook is that midterms are often seen as a referendum on the president’s performance, and President Joe Biden is not a popular guy. Another trend identified by the poll is growing support for Republicans amongst independents – a crucial electorate – with the GOP having edged out team blue to establish a 10-point lead among these voters. These revelations are devastating for Democrats, who were hoping the reversal of Roe vs. Wade – an unpopular move with independents – as well as renewed calls for gun regulation after a spate of recent shootings, might bode well for their electoral prospects. The GOP looks set to take control of the House, but keep an eye on the Senate, where several key races are neck-and-neck.
Japan’s Kishida pulls out all the stops
On Monday, Japan’s PM Fumio Kishida – whose approval ratings have been plummeting – announced a state investigation of the controversial Unification Church. The probe will look at whether the church, which has ties to Kishida’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party, harmed public welfare or engaged in activities beyond the scope of a religious group. The church, whose members are known as Moonies, has been the focus of scrutiny since the July assassination of former PM Shinzo Abe by a 42-year-old man who said he killed Abe because of his association with the church. The alleged killer accused the Moonies of having caused his mother’s financial ruin. Depending on the findings, the church could lose its tax-exempt status but would still be allowed to operate. The move, which some say reflects government tokenism, is unlikely to improve Kishida’s dismal approval rating, which recently fell below 30%, the lowest level since he came to office almost a year ago. But as the Japanese yen plunged on Monday to its lowest level against the US dollar in 32 years – in part because of the central bank’s longtime refusal to raise interest rates even during times of high inflation – can anyone blame Kishida for trying anything and everything to stop the bleeding?
Grief & controversy in Japan for Shinzo Abe's state funeral
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Hi, everybody. Ian Bremmer here from Tokyo, Japan, where it has been a pretty intense day. The state funeral of Shinzo Abe, the prime minister who, of course, of Japan was assassinated some 80 days ago. In some ways just kind of an astonishing couple of weeks for the world. Beginning of last week, of course, you had the funeral for Queen Elizabeth, by far the most important figure for the United Kingdom in the post-war period. Then the United Nations, where the entire world comes together in New York, and now in Japan, the state funeral, the first state funeral that you've had in Japan, 55 years for Abe Shinzo, who is by far the most important figure in Japan in the post-war period.
And in both cases, an astonishing outpouring of emotion, of grief in both countries. In the United Kingdom, of course, because she had ruled for 70 years, through so many prime ministers, since Churchill. In Japan, because Prime Minister Abe was gunned down, was assassinated by a young man with homemade weapons in a country that has virtually no violence and certainly not gun attacks against a former prime minister in broad daylight.
Also, controversy in both cases. In the case of the United Kingdom, young people increasingly unhappy with the idea of a monarchy. They think it's something that's kind of, sort of out of date, no longer appropriate for the United Kingdom or the world in the way it projects its power internationally. And of course, King Charles not nearly as popular as Queen Elizabeth has been. In the case of Japan, you have a sitting Prime Minister Kishida, who was both a protege and enormous ally of former Prime Minister Abe, whose popularity has been crushed over the past months, in part because of a crashing yen and challenges in economy, but also in part because of opposition to holding this state funeral, which frankly was because the of a big scandal in across the entire Liberal Democratic party in Japan, the ruling party, because of connections with the unification church, the Moonies as they're called.
The person who assassinated Abe actually wanted to assassinate the head of the Unification Church and couldn't because COVID restrictions meant that he was no longer traveling to Japan. And so he decided, okay, I'm going to kill Prime Minister Abe instead. And then you have these revelations that so many members of the LDP in parliament, in the Diet in Japan, were receiving funds, were going to meetings of the Unification Church. And Kishida's not tried to whitewash it, but it has made the decision to host the state funeral unpopular.
Having said all of that, you saw very little of that today. 20,000 members of Japanese police coming out to ensure that there was no security breaches anywhere during the day, and certainly I didn't see any problems at all. There were some demonstrations. They were relatively small, a few thousand people. Frankly, 5,000 people showed up directly inside for the state funeral. And people I've spoken to in Tokyo today, on balance pretty happy with the fact this has all gone relatively smoothly. We can finally put this horrible act behind Japan, behind the nation.
I will say Japan, unlike so many other democracies in the world today, is a relatively well functioning country, relatively unified. You don't have the same level of populism and fragmentation and de-legitimization of the political system that you see so much in other advanced industrial economies. But this still was an episode, this assassination, that really did deeply shake the Japanese people. And there's still, there's going to be a hangover for that I think for a long time.
Final point for me, the ceremony itself was really quite moving. Kishida-san, the prime minister, gave a powerful opening speech that was really about his political alignment with Prime Minister Abe and everything that Abe had done, his legacy. But by far the most moving part of the ceremony was from Suga-san, who was basically, in addition to being a one of Abe's closest allies, was also perhaps his best political friend. And he spoke about how he was able to convince Abe, after stepping down the first time as PM because of a significant illness, to run again for PM, and that it was the most significant accomplishment he considered of his entire life, and that he would consider it such until he was no longer here with us. Again, it was a moving speech. I saw that Prime Minister Abe's wife was crying all the way through. There was a spontaneous outburst of applause after he gave the speech, which is very unusual in Japan. Certainly otherwise, it was all quiet and respectful all the way through.
Also, such a large number of international leaders that came out for the Abe funeral. Not surprising, Prime Minister Modi, Narendra Modi of India, who was really Abe's best friend on the international stage, a relationship that really initiated the Quad that we have today. It started with Japan and with Abe, not with the United States, the US then picked it up, and it continues to be perhaps the most robust new international grouping that we have in Asia right now. But also, presidents and prime ministers from all over the world, foreign ministers just showing that the longest standing prime minister of Japan in its post-war history didn't just make a mark on Japan inside the country, but also leaves the legacy internationally that we'll be talking about for generation to come.
So that's, anyway, it for me here from Tokyo, I hope everyone's doing well and I'll talk to you all very soon.
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Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida speaks at a news conference during the 77th UN General Assembly in New York.
Will Japan's PM avoid the "danger zone" after Abe funeral?
Japan held a controversial state funeral Tuesday for former PM Shinzo Abe, who was assassinated in early July. Now that the ceremony is over, one attendee who'll feel some relief is Fumio Kishida, the embattled current prime minister.
How did we get here? Since seeing his popularity soar to a record high after responding to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine with unusual toughness, three months ago Kishida’s approval rating started to slip. It was mainly over the economy — with many Japanese people starting to panic over inflation after 20 years of deflation.
Abe’s assassination swept the ruling Liberal Democratic Party to a decisive victory in the upper house election three days later, but soon after that, the blowback from his tragic death made the Japanese public sour on the PM. First, Abe's assassin blamed his family's financial ruin on the Unification Church, a cult-like religious movement born in South Korea whose members are known as Moonies (after founder Sun Myung Moon).
The revelation sparked a public outcry against the Moonies, which have long been cozy with the LDP — including Abe himself. Kishida, who has no ties to the church, responded to the backlash by firing his cabinet ministers with Moonie baggage, but the scandal just won't go away.
At the same time, Kishida waded into an unforeseen culture war by authorizing a state funeral for Abe. That struck a sour note for the majority of Japanese voters who oppose the taxpayer-funded $11.5 million ceremony because it’s an honor traditionally reserved for members of the Imperial Family.
Until Abe, only Shigeru Yoshida, Japan’s first postwar PM, had received a funeral with all the state bells and whistles. While Abe fans might argue that he deserves the same treatment as the country’s longest-serving PM, David Boling, Eurasia Group’s lead Japan analyst, says the backlash shows that Abe’s hawkish politics were always divisive. (To get an idea of how much, days ago an elderly man set himself on fire in central Tokyo to protest the funeral.)
Also, the economy has gone from bad to worse. Last week, the Bank of Japan intervened for the first time since 1998 to prop up the yen after the currency hit a new low, having lost one-fifth of its value against the dollar in 2022. Japan is not the only country grappling with high inflation and a weak currency, but it has stubbornly refused to raise interest rates in response.
Annual core inflation reached 2.8% in August, which may not sound like much yet is historically very high for Japan. Boling says that rising prices — which the government can do little about — and the central bank dragging its feet on rate hikes make Kishida look ineffective.
Is the PM in real danger of losing his job? Not yet, but for Boling he's close to the "danger zone" with an average approval rating of about 37%. If Kishida’s numbers go down even more a month from now, "that becomes a bigger concern, and he really hits the panic button."
Still, Kishida has two things going for him.
First, the PM doesn't have an election on the horizon. That’s what doomed his predecessor, Yoshihide Suga, who stepped down with a similar approval rating a year ago. Kishida then won the LDP leadership race and captained the party to a comfortable majority in the October 2021 lower house election.
Second, Boling says that the opposition remains disorganized and fragmented. Meanwhile, the LDP's so-called Abe faction, the main ruling party bloc that might seek to challenge Kishida in the near term, is leaderless.
Kishida also has a personal reason to stay. Next year, Japan takes over the presidency of the G7, which will hold its 2023 summit in Hiroshima, the PM’s electoral district. Kishida wants to use the symbolism of the location to make a big splash about nuclear weapons non-proliferation.
Finally, Boling says Kishida’s low numbers don’t necessarily reflect his personal popularity among the Japanese public. He is perceived as someone who listens more and is less in-your-face than Abe or Suga — the flip side is that he's also seen as rather bland and indecisive on policy.
The upshot: Since 2000, only two of Japan’s prime ministers have served more than 15 months in office: the larger-than-life Abe and the flamboyant Junichiro Koizumi, famous for serenading then-US President George W. Bush with Elvis songs. The more low-key Kishida hardly has their charisma, yet could follow in their footsteps if he weathers the current storm.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing, China February 4, 2022
What We're Watching: Putin-Xi meeting, Brussels vs. Budapest, Sweden's next government, Japanese yen in trouble,
Putin hears out Xi on Ukraine, blasts “unipolar” world
Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping met in person on Thursday for the first time since Russia invaded Ukraine. The Russian leader said he valued the “balanced position” Beijing has taken over Ukraine, noting that he understood Xi’s “concerns” about how the war is going (not well). But since there’s no way the Russian president will reverse course in Ukraine, he took the opportunity to play his greatest hits, railing against US-led efforts to create a “unipolar” world that leaves both Russia and China out to dry. Putin might consider what a US Senate committee did Wednesday an example of that. It advanced a bill that would for the first time authorize providing $4.5 billion worth of direct US military aid to Taiwan. The proposal still needs to pass the Senate, and the White House is not fully on board. But if it becomes law, Beijing will likely see this as a de facto change in US policy toward Taiwan. Since 1979, Washington has sold Taiwan weapons to defend itself against a Chinese invasion that was considered a long shot just a decade ago. Not so much now — which explains why the US is mulling preemptive sanctions to deter Xi.
Will Brussels freeze out Budapest?
The European Union’s executive reportedly plans to recommend withholding billions of dollars in funds to Hungary due to alleged corruption by the Hungarian government. What’s more, in a symbolic vote on Thursday, the European Parliament declared Hungary a “hybrid electoral autocracy,” a scathing condemnation of PM Viktor Orbán’s leadership. Brussels and Budapest have long been on a collision course over the latter’s erosion of democratic norms since Orbán’s conservative Fidesz Party came to power in 2012. Hungary is hoping to unlock more than 40 billion euros of EU funding over the next five years, but the EU alleges that Budapest has failed to reform its public procurement process, which undermines competition and favors government allies. If Brussels follows through, it would send a worrying message to other rogue EU states – like Poland – that have been at loggerheads with Brussels over rule-of-law issues. A final decision will be released Sunday and would need to be passed by a majority of member states to take effect. Orbán, who has long relished his reputation as an anti-EU warrior, has reason to worry given that annual inflation in Hungary hit a whopping 15.6% in August and the currency continues to depreciate.
Sweden’s next government
Magdalena Andersson resigned as Sweden’s prime minister on Thursday following a narrow election defeat for her center-left bloc last weekend. Her Social Democrats – which have dominated Swedish politics for nearly a century – remain the country’s largest party, but it’s bloc politics that matter most, and the parties of the right have proven more unified than those of the left. Moderate Party leader Ulf Kristersson will now try to form a government. Controversies over immigration policy, price inflation, and rising crime have increased support for a bloc of conservative parties that also includes the anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats, which have used the promise to “make Sweden safe again” to stride from the wings to center-stage in Swedish politics. It remains unclear how large a role the Sweden Democrats might play in a Kristersson-led government. Following elections four years ago, it took four months for Andersson to form a government. But Kristersson will begin coalition talks at a moment of national urgency as the country battles an economic crisis and prepares to enter NATO in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Anti-immigration policies can limit the size of the potential workforce, pushing wages higher. So, the big question will be how conservative parties that are primarily pro-business will bargain with the anti-immigration nationalists of the Sweden Democrats, now the country’s second-most popular party.
Japanese yen drops, further weakening Kishida
Things aren’t going well for Japan’s government. The Japanese yen has continued to drop against an increasingly strong US dollar in recent months, falling to a 24-year low on Thursday. The government, meanwhile, says it has not ruled out intervening to try to prop up the ailing currency, though Tokyo also acknowledged that the effect of such a move would be minimal, in large part because of the significant interest-rate gap between the United States and Japan. While Washington has steadily been raising interest rates to curb inflation, Tokyo has kept rates ultra-low in line with its long-held view that a weak currency is good for exports. But current global inflationary pressures have revealed the vulnerabilities of this approach. This comes at a bad time for Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, whose disapproval rating recently reached 41%, the highest level since he took office a year ago. Kishida’s popularity has nosedived over the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's ties to the controversial Unification Church following the assassination of former PM Shinzo Abe. Moreover, the government’s decision to hold an expensive state funeral for the slain former PM on Sept. 27 has been broadly criticized.
Why Japan’s political Moonies have staying power
When Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida reshuffled his cabinet for the first time since former PM Shinzo Abe’s assassination earlier this summer, it was a response to his falling approval rating. His government was struggling to tame rising COVID infections and acute inflation.
But it was also seen as damage control for the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s ties to the controversial Unification Church. Kishida fired cabinet ministers linked to the cult-like religious movement born in South Korea whose members are known as Moonies (after founder Sun Myung Moon).
Although the PM also promised only to appoint future cabinet members who agree to review their relationship with the church, it wasn’t enough. After his popularity plummeted 16 percentage points in just a month to 36%, its lowest level since he took power, Kishida this week demanded all cabinet members review their past ties to the religious group.
The Moonies hit the spotlight after Abe’s alleged assassin blamed the church for his family’s financial ruin. The revelation that over 100 national politicians — most of them LDP lawmakers — have ties to the church also came as an ugly surprise to the public, especially as Japan’s constitution calls for the separation of church and state.
Kishida dismissed then-Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi, Abe’s younger brother, who wasn’t a member of the church but received help from it in past elections. The same was true of Koichi Hagiuda, who was replaced as economy minister.
Abe’s assassination triggered a public outcry against the church's political power. According to a recent poll, almost 90% of the Japanese people want the ruling party to better explain its ties to the Moonies. Strikingly, less than 7% accept Kishida’s explanation that there’s no organizational relationship between the LDP and the church.
Since the reshuffle,at least 20 of 54 lawmakers appointed as deputies to cabinet members have confirmed links to the church.
But Kishida is not severing ties completely. For instance, the ousted Kishi will likely become a special adviser to the PM on national security issues, effectively serving as a direct line to Kishida, and Haguida has been asked to head the LDP's policy research council, an influential party position.
The cabinet reshuffle was a classic move in Japanese politics to change a negative news cycle, says Eurasia Group’s lead Japan expert David Boling. “But this time the Japanese people said: 'not so fast.'”
What’s more, the PM reportedly knew that the replacements for many of the ousted ministers carried some of the same baggage, which for Boling is hardly a surprise. In other words, the Moonies are not really out of power — at least not yet.
"Kishida is between a rock and hard place," Boling says. The PM has to make the impossible choice between appointing experienced people despite their past ties to the church, or inexperienced ones who are free from the Moonie taint.
Still, the Japanese public clearly “wants a clean break."
What’s the big deal about the Moonies and their relationship with Japan's ruling party? The ties between the LDP and Moon’s church go back to the 1960s, when the South Korean pastor expanded to Japan.
In the 1970s, Moon and Abe’s grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi (a former PM and LDP founding member), co-founded an offshoot of the religious movement to confront the spread of communism during the Cold War. Both the LDP and Moon were staunchly anti-communist and deeply conservative.
Japan “has been remarkably fertile ground for so-called 'new religions.' If one thinks of the Unification Church in those terms, it is less surprising that it took root and gained political ground,” says Boling.
Over the years, the relationship evolved into one of mutual pragmatic benefit. The church would pay for LDP members to speak at their events, and in return, they would obtain the material support and manpower via donations and volunteers for campaigns that help meet Moonie political objectives, which often align with the ruling party’s.
“The LDP helped the church gain a sense of legitimacy in Japan,” says Charles T. McClean, a Japan researcher at Yale University’s Council on East Asian Studies. And that legitimacy translated into an economic windfall for the Moonies.
In little over half a century, Moon’s church has built a multibillion-dollar global business empire that owns the conservative Washington Times newspaper Moon founded, the New Yorker hotel in the Big Apple, and other vast real-estate assets. The Moonies supported Richard Nixon’s presidential campaign through organized prayer breakfasts and rallies, and in the 1980s the church attracted controversy for cozying up to America’s New Right.
Despite these notable connections, most of the church’s wealth comes from Japan. Japanese members have traditionally provided as much as 70% of the Unification Church’s financial resources, later funneled via South Korea to finance Moon’s ambitions in the US and elsewhere.
The Moonies are notorious in Japan for their so-called “spiritual-pressure sales” method of extracting donations through manipulation and cajoling, bankrupting many of the faithful – like the mother of Abe’s suspected killer.
So, what’s next for politicians tied to the church? For McClean, the cabinet shakeup was “a dam to prevent leaks before it becomes a larger flood.” But the bigger question is whether the continuing ties between the LDP and the church will have severe consequences for Kishida and his party's future.
The opposition Constitutional Democratic Party has already denounced Kishida’s reshuffle as a cover-up. (A dozen CDP lawmakers have admitted to having church ties, but the LDP has gotten most of the flak because it has governed Japan for most of the country’s postwar history.)
The overlap of religion in politics and business is standard practice in Japan, where some 180,000 groups are officially registered as religious corporations. The LDP is just one of the many parties that employ religion to raise the funds and votes necessary to thrive.
Komeito, the LDP’s junior coalition partner since 1999, draws almost all of its financial support from the Buddhist group Soka Gakkai, with eight million followers just in Japan.
The LDP and Komeito have had a strained alliance in the past, and with intense scrutiny over the LDP’s involvement with the church, Komeito may feel an increased threat to its survival. But McClean says the LDP depends on Komeito to campaign because the ruling party lacks its partner’s strong grassroots ability to turn out the vote, not to mention the Soka Gakkai constituency.
“It’s hard to predict how much the current scandal will negatively impact the LDP over the next few months,” McClean explains. “At least through Abe’s state funeral, I don’t see it going away … we’ll definitely be talking about it over the next month.”
Boling however, sees it lasting longer: “The opposition parties will keep cranking up the heat on Kishida. Japanese media has been aggressively reporting on the LDP-Unification Church connection, and they’ll continue to shine a glaring light on it.”
Still, the Moonies are just one of Kishida’s growing problems. Together with COVID, soaring inflation, and a majority of Japanese citizens opposing the taxpayer-funded state funeral planned for Abe on Sept. 27, things are looking bad for the PM in the near term.
“Kishida must focus on the economy like a laser beam,” says Boling. “The top issue by far is the economy — Kishida ignores that at his peril.”