Just as PM Turnbull was in town to meet with his Japanese counterpart yesterday, I completed a piece for the Lowy Institute Interpreter. The final version is here.
This is the original version, mainly for my records, but you're welcome to read it too. I recalled a post I wrote back in June 2014 on the then 2+2 ministerial meeting. You'll find that here. The more things change...etc.
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A dogged year ahead (a nod to 2018 being the year of the Dog)
As news outlets summed up the year that was
and the year ahead, the Yomiuri Shimbun,
Japan’s most widely-read newspaper (and notably pro-government) featured its
top 10 stories for 2017, domestic and international, according to its readers.
Internationally, Trump was the story. Domestically, it was a 14 year old shogi (Japanese chess)
master-in-the-making and his run of 29 straight victories. In a year where
there was a snap election, political scandals, formalisation of the Emperor’s
abdication (for the first time in centuries), and growing concerns about the
Korean Peninsula, it was Sota Fujii, who captured most readers’ imaginations. Perhaps
it was a sign that the nation, exhausted by the politics of the year, sought
refuge in the competitive instincts of a junior high school chess master in the
making.
As in shogi,
so too the demands of politics, domestic and international, will require
masterful strategic analysis and plays, especially as 2018 unfolds for Prime
Minister Abe.
He began the year with a six-nation trip to
Europe, taking in three Baltic States, as well as Bulgaria, Serbia and Romania.
Talks were expected to centre on international issues such as North Korea as
well as regional economic potential. The visit was a first for a Japanese prime
minister and for PM Abe, it was also an opportunity for some diplomatic content
for his newly-acquired Instagram account.
The backdrop to 2018 here in Japan is the 150th
anniversary of the Meiji Restoration, recognised as the time when a ‘closed’
Japan was opened to the West. As with most narratives of nation-forging
identities, the Meiji Restoration has its supporters and its detractors. The
debate will continue through the year. PM Abe increasingly sees himself as a
latter-day Meiji figure, ready to restore Japan to its former greatness, with
just sufficient ambiguity as to just what that means for the nation and for
regional relations.
In the broad brush of Meiji commemorations,
perhaps PM Abe seeks to avert his gaze from the pressing domestic issues placed
before him, like shogi pieces he will
need to account for them though rather than sweep the board. Carrying over from
2017, the ongoing tensions with the people of Okinawa, host of key American
bases, and increasingly, site of accidents and ‘mishaps’ that the locals
continue to resist. In the year that Abe seeks to amend the constitution, we
will be compelled to engage with the very real concerns of Okinawans who
confront the reality of a ‘reconstituted’ military daily. Australian proponents
of greater security cooperation would do well to familiarise themselves with
the circumstances that draw the people of this prefecture to an ongoing resistance
of Tokyo’s dictates.
Abe’s strategizing on several fronts leads
to his party, the Liberal Democratic Party holding its conference later in the
year, whereupon Abe anticipates a further extension of his already-extended
term as party president. At times, this seems like a fait accompli and at other times, increasing factional machinations
point to a testing road to the presidential post. In recent LDP history,
extensions to its admittedly self-imposed two two-term limits on the post (as
party president one is automatically prime minister as long as the LDP is in
government) have been ceded but only where no immediate challengers were
apparent and a level of charisma carried the incumbent over the line. This is
not the case for PM Abe and his ambivalent relationship with the public does
concern some members of the party, both hawks and doves, who are reluctant to
wait much longer to take their turn at leading the party.
Meanwhile, although the opposition parties
are continuing to shake out the 2017 shakedown of break-ups and alliances, it
is clear that a more concerted opposition to constitutional reform will
coalesce and at the same time, opposition parties are also declaring their
intent to pursue ongoing political scandals with Moritomo and Kake educational
organisations. These scandals over money and favours for friends, cost Abe
greatly in opinion polling, even more so than constitutional reform, which is
played out at a much more abstract level for many people.
Abe returns to Tokyo then to walk almost straight into a meeting with Australian Prime Minister Turnbull, while not quite the first strategic move on the chess board for 2018, both prime ministers share a potentially tumultuous year ahead will perhaps seek a moment to confide in each other’s respective domestic domains as well as reaffirm strengthening, if not predictable, security cooperation. The meeting was foreshadowed on Christmas Day 2017, on the front page of the conservative Yomiuri Shimbun, something of a surprise for keen observers of the bilateral relationship. The Yomiuri, as a strong backer of Abe’s constitutional reforms, not surprisingly reported the forthcoming meeting as a strategic necessity, even citing the talks as signalling a ‘strengthening of a relationship with a partner considered a quasi-ally’. No doubt, both prime ministers will nod in furious agreement but it is not exactly the sort of thing that is going to spark the hearts and minds of a populace prepared to back the outlier story in a year of notable events. For that to happen, Japan and Australia will need to go beyond the military-security pretext and reinvigorate a once robust and multi-dimensional relationship.
Abe returns to Tokyo then to walk almost straight into a meeting with Australian Prime Minister Turnbull, while not quite the first strategic move on the chess board for 2018, both prime ministers share a potentially tumultuous year ahead will perhaps seek a moment to confide in each other’s respective domestic domains as well as reaffirm strengthening, if not predictable, security cooperation. The meeting was foreshadowed on Christmas Day 2017, on the front page of the conservative Yomiuri Shimbun, something of a surprise for keen observers of the bilateral relationship. The Yomiuri, as a strong backer of Abe’s constitutional reforms, not surprisingly reported the forthcoming meeting as a strategic necessity, even citing the talks as signalling a ‘strengthening of a relationship with a partner considered a quasi-ally’. No doubt, both prime ministers will nod in furious agreement but it is not exactly the sort of thing that is going to spark the hearts and minds of a populace prepared to back the outlier story in a year of notable events. For that to happen, Japan and Australia will need to go beyond the military-security pretext and reinvigorate a once robust and multi-dimensional relationship.
