Shigeru Ishiba: Japan's new cabinet is on the road, what are the challenges ahead?

Shigeru Ishiba: Japan's new cabinet is on the road, what are the challenges ahead?

Shigeru Ishiba, who was newly elected as the 28th president of the Liberal Democratic Party, became the 102nd Prime Minister of Japan after the Liberal Democratic Party's ruling coalition stabilized by more than half a seat. The largest number of candidates in the history of the Liberal Democratic Party, which has lasted more than two weeks, has come to an end.

Although Shigeru Ishiba finally defeated the menacing Sanae Takaichi in the second round of the LDP presidential election, which surprised the outside world, Shigeru Ishiba's election did bring some changes to Japan and geopolitics.

How did the "long-time popularity king" defeat Sanae Takaichi, who was strongly supported by the conservative camp, in the second round and become the leader of the post-Kishida era, and what kind of chemistry will this presidential election bring to the LDP? And what challenges will Ishiba's cabinet face? It's all worth exploring.

▌ Kill the situation of the factional war

Since the beginning of this year, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has been embroiled in a political donation scandal known as the "Rikkin Incident", which caused an uproar when various factions within the party held fundraising events, selling "party coupons" that only declared the amount of funds raised, but did not declare the excess funds. Not only has the support of the Kishida cabinet plummeted, but the "faction" of the Liberal Democratic Party has also become a rat crossing the street.

In order to save the support of the Liberal Democratic Party, Kishida did not hesitate to announce the dissolution of the faction within the Liberal Democratic Party, and also stated that he would give priority to disbanding his own Kishida faction (Koikekai), and other factions were forced to follow suit. It's just that this move did not make the polls pick up, not only did Taro Aso, who insisted on maintaining the faction, turn against Kishida, but finally Kishida also announced his withdrawal from the presidential election in September, which is equivalent to leaving class early.

The political situation has led to a chaotic situation in the election of the new president. Although there were a total of 9 candidates at the time of the announcement on September 12, after a week of cooperation, the situation gradually became clear, and finally became a three-person battle between Shigeru Ishiba, Sanae Takaichi and Shinjiro Koizumi, while Koizumi, who was originally very impressive, gradually fell to third place due to his own performance and the influence of internal and external factors, and was finally eliminated in the first round.

On the contrary, it was Sanae Takaichi who became a rising star, when Aso expressed his position at a critical moment, the popular Ishiba did not have much advantage in the party member votes, and Takaichi greatly surpassed Ishiba in the votes of the councilors, and finally won the championship in the first round of elections, and the position of president seemed to be in the bag, but I didn't expect the second round of voting but the pigs and sheep changed color, so that Ishiba Shigeru defeated the menacing Takaichi Sanae.

Among them, the key players are Yoshihide Suga, who originally supported Koizumi, and Fumio Kishida.

In the Takaichi camp, there is a lack of a "King Joe" role like Suga's, and Takaichi itself is in the conservative mainstream camp, and he did not come forward to integrate when the largest faction, the Abe faction, was leaderless and suffered the heavy blow of the "Rikkin incident", and became the leader of the conservative mainstream camp, but maintained the usual factionless faction. Although Aso gave up his son Taro Kono and raised his arms to shout for the conservative mainstream to support Takaichi, he was unable to turn the tide and let the non-mainstream prevail and achieve the final victory.

▌Two challenges: the conservative mainstream of the party and the economic market

Although Shigeru Ishiba finally got his wish and sat on the throne of prime minister, in the second round of the election, he was only 21 votes short of Sanae Takaichi (215 votes for Ishipo and 194 votes for Takaichi), which is not a stable majority, and there is still a great challenge for the future Ishiba administration.

The first challenge is the conservative mainstream camp, which has different philosophies. Although Ishiba Shigeru showed goodwill to the conservative mainstream in the party for the sake of harmony within the party, he also went to meet with Taro Aso through his confidant Hiroshi Moriyama, who would be the party secretary-general, and pleaded for the party's top adviser and obtained his approval, so as to stabilize the conservative backlash. However, Sanae Takaichi and Takayuki Kobayashi all declined Shi Po's invitation and refused to take over the new position. It remains to be seen whether the conservative mainstream camp in the LDP will put pressure on Ishiba in the future.

The second challenge is the economy. In the past, Ishiba said that the Bank of Japan should return Japan's interest rates to normal levels, which means that after taking power, it will be possible to change the loose policy maintained in the past Abe era. This also caused the Japan stock market to fall by nearly 2,000 points on September 30; Even though Ishipo's reputation among the people is extremely high, it is still a tragic impact, and the market is still watching whether the Ishiba regime will change its easing policy in the future.

Ishipo's ascension to the throne this time relied on the support of many senior parliamentarians, so Yoshihide Suga, who was in charge, Yu Moriyama, who was friendly with him, and Kishida's subordinate general Yoshimasa Hayashi, etc., will all hold important positions. There are some who have accused Ishiba of being a "pro-China", but in the foreign affairs and security aspects of the cabinet, three members of parliament who have experience in the Ministry of Defense have been appointed to key positions, including Takeshi Iwaya (Foreign Minister), Mototo Nakatani (Minister of Defense), and Akihisa Nagashima (Assistant to the Prime Minister for Security), and the Minister of Economy and Security has been appointed to Minoru Jouchi.

In addition, Shigeru Ishiba has recently talked about "Ukraine Today and Northeast Asia Tomorrow", and is also committed to promoting an Asian version of NATO and amending Article 9 of the Constitution. On September 27, the day of the LDP presidential election, the Hudson Institute, a well-known think tank in United States, published Shigeru Ishiba's submission to the Asian version of NATO, and with the current cabinet personnel arrangements, I believe that Shigeru's attitude is self-evident.

▌Yoshihiko Noda, the largest opposition party of the Liberal Democratic Party

This year, several of Japan's major political parties, including the Liberal Democratic Party, the Limin Party and the Komeito Party, have rotated their leaders, and the largest opposition party, the Rikmin, has changed its hardliners and elected moderate former Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda as its leader. Compared to the hard-line Takaichi and Koizumi, who is unable to deal with the questioning, Ishiba Shigeru is considered a good candidate to deal with Noda, which may be one of the reasons why Ishiba Shigeru was able to finally qualify. In the past, the scenes of-for-tat confrontation between the ruling and opposition parties in the parliament hall may be seen less often in the future.

With high public support, Shigeru Ishiba, who is in a honeymoon period with Japan public opinion, will announce the dissolution of the Diet on October 9. Of course, this move is relatively unfavorable for the opposition party, after all, the largest party, Noda, has just taken office, and it is too late to carry out the integration of the opposition. However, whether the Ishiba regime can take advantage of the victory when it first takes office, in addition to maintaining the existing stable ruling situation, and even reaching the threshold of constitutional amendment, will be the primary challenge of the Ishiba administration.

And for Sanae Takaichi, who has returned with a feather, this re-election to the House of Representatives is crucial.

The reason is that among the conservative mainstream, especially in the former Abe faction, there are still many people who hope to go to the next level, including Koichi Hagiuda, Yasunori Nishimura and others, although they have been hit hard by the "Rikkin incident", but if they can be re-elected in this election, the chances of returning to the power circle are not small. In particular, Hagiuda, who has excellent popularity and a very stable style, has a higher chance of becoming the new co-owner than Sanae Takaichi.

In the Asia-Pacific region, it remains to be seen whether Japan-China relations will change as a result, and reforms within the LDP to restore public trust in the LDP are the key issues that Ishiba must face at the moment. So at least until the House of Representatives is re-elected, there isn't much Ishiba can do.

Shigeru Ishiba has a number of hobbies, and prefers railways, aviation, military and other house interests, is a rare down-to-earth leader in the LDP, but he himself is excessively "neutral", and even more opposition than the opposition party, and his popularity within the party is not good.

However, after more than ten years of Abe's line, Japan has long gone out of its own way, for Ishiba Shigeru, even if Abe is a political enemy for many years, he has to admit the correctness of Abe's line, but a number of drawbacks developed during the period, including gold power politics, entanglement with the old Unification Church, the expansion of social disparities (social differences, divisions), economic challenges, and even security and diplomacy. However, whether he can really realize his reform policy will be the focus of attention from the outside world.