On the first day of October, Shigeru Ishiba will become Japan’s new prime minister after his earlier victory in the election of the ruling party leader. Ishiba is not a typical politician for the Japanese elite, being a rebel and a liberal in most unexpected matters. He wants to preserve the political-military alliance with U.S. and U.S. wants the same. However, America will have issues with Ishiba.
Usually, the change of a PM in Japan is not considered to be of significance. Japan is sometimes considered a U.S. vassal state. Japan is a U.S. vassal state in its entirety, this cannot be said of a prime minister from the depth of the Liberal Democratic Party, almost always a ruling one and firmly focused on Washington. ‘They are all the same’ in general.
It is difficult to argue with that in theory. However, the practice shows it is not entirely true: the role of personality in the Japanese politics is not always visible, but often important. This also concerns the official relationship between Moscow and Tokyo.
The most recent example explaining a lot is Shinzo Abe’s period. He was on good friendly terms with Russia’s president Vladimir Putin and had a geopolitical vision that Tokyo needs to cooperate with Moscow to balance the power in the context of the Chinese threat.
At the same time, he was part of the far-right wing traditionally opposed to Russia, which did not prevent Abe from holding the PM office longer than anyone else. He was a nationalist and even ‘a hawk’ never challenging the importance of the military-political alliance with U.S., but during his time Japan did not become Russia’s avid adversary, despite being often asked to do so by Washington.
The outgoing PM Fumio Kishida was completely different. The American press has repeatedly written that Washington could not be more happy about such a sound PM ready to support any anti-Russian initiative of the White House. When it comes to his successor and the new prime minister, Shigeru Ishiba is more like Abe: he is strong-willed, principled, down-the-line and capable of ‘swimming against the tide’.
The PM himself would be offended by this comparison, as he thinks of himself being the exact opposite of Abe, is known to be his inner enemy and attempted to challenge Abe’s leadership in the party twice, albeit unsuccessfully. Being popular among a part of the society, Ishiba was an ‘enfant terrible’ for the LDP elite. An unyielding and confrontational perfectionist daring to attack traditions: this was the role he played in the party, which he headed only after the fifth attempt.
This time, his main rival was a woman, Sanae Takaichi, a close companion of Abe, of the same ‘hawkish’ type and a nationalist like he is, but without warm feelings for Russia. Besides, she supports the traditional role of woman in the Japanese society, the role of mother and wife, not a career person. Her running for PM office was a paradox, which might have prevented her from winning.
On the contrary, Shigeru Ishiba is widely known as an unrelenting liberal. There is one key complaint about him: his indifference about the matter a person of which gender will take Japan’s Emperor throne. Conservatives think that being an emperor is exclusively a man’s cause, but they have one problem: the 64-year old Emperor Naruhito is a father to just one sibling, Princess Aiko. Ishiba does not think her being an empress is a problem, while many of his party colleagues believe it is.
The new prime minister also supports same-sex marriage and is an opponent of China, also because it is a power of an alternative socio-political formation, meaning it is potentially dangerous and hostile by nature (for example, Argentina’s eccentric president Javier Milei dislikes PRC for the same strange reasons).
Ishiba has another important personal feature, which is the capability to drop ‘truth bombs’ like a proletarian. Actually, people like him for his public criticism of party and government leaders, which the Japanese usually avoid doing in public, but his party colleagues dislike him for this.
But his background is not proletarian at all, and he became a politician for the same reason as many Japanese politicians did: because it is their family business, their fathers and forefathers did politics too. But there is one subtle aspect: Ishiba’s father was a governor of a prefecture in the hinterland where almost all the politics was about agriculture. Agriculture was also the specialist field of the current PM until he became keen on military affairs keeping his keen interest until today.
The top position Ishiba ever had was the defence minister. This ministry is expected to remain his favourite one, having gained sufficient power since then. The new PM used to criticize his predecessor but fully agreed with him about doubling the defence budget by 2027.
Finally, Ishiba is known to be a perfectionist and ‘a military geek’ who enjoys gluing models of fighting planes and warships. This makes it improbable that Ishiba gets away from U.S. At least because no one except for U.S. can and will want to provide hi-tech ‘wonder waffles’ the new PM adores so much to counter China. Supporting gender and sexual equality at the same time, Ishiba is surprisingly consistent in his fight for equality: the equal relationship with U.S. That’s a lot of nerve for a Japanese.
Japan’s relations with U.S. were unilaterally defined by the one winning the Second World War. Americans wrote Japan’s fundamental law, also defining literally all exclusions from previous laws and constitutional bans (including the ban to have a regular army which was in force until Abe’s period). Equality in such a context is out of the question.
For example, U.S. has a right to deploy their troops permanently in Japan. Of course, Japan does not have such a right with respect to U.S. Well, Ishiba believes it should. And one more example, the Politico, an American newspaper, reports that the new PM wants to create a new treaty basis for the relations with U.S. raising Japan’s status from a vassal to a partner and partially cancelling the outcomes of the Second World War, which are to Japan’s disadvantage.
The military-political alliance between America and Japan will remain, but a journey of a thousand Chinese li begins with a single step. If we imagine Japan had an assumed goal of gaining actual sovereignty and independence from U.S. (being even if not the third, but still the fourth global economy in the world, it can afford it), Shinzo Abe made the first step in this direction creating a full-fledge army in the country instead of a limited functional self-defence force.
Shifting to equal treaty-based relations with U.S. will be a second step. Even if nothing changes after that in practice, an equal agreement is different from an unequal one, as it can be terminated by either party, not just the strong one, i.e. U.S.
This is why Americans will not be willing to accept this. But refusing the ally will be also no good. They will certainly try to change his mind, and here is when, finally, the new PM’s alleged personal features will come into play. His strong will, high-conflict temper, commitment to subtlest principles and disregard for authority can bring quite a few problems for Americans to make them want to get rid of him.
If this is the case, in a year or two years maximum, the LDP will elect a new party leader. If this is suddenly not and Ishiba turns to a political conflict with U.S. while retaining control over the party, his current PM appointment will not be just another change of hands in Tokyo, but a historic occasion.