Japan reboots: Back on track?

Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com

Was that our alliance flashing past?

“I HOPE Ambassador Kennedy will enjoy the full package of Japan,” gushed Shinzo Abe on April 12th as he took America’s ambassador, Caroline Kennedy, on a test ride on Japan’s new magnetic-levitation train past Mount Fuji and the cherry blossoms of spring. For Mr Abe, who is lobbying for America to use Japanese technology to construct maglev systems on its east coast, it was also a chance to show off the full package of the American alliance before Barack Obama’s visit to Tokyo from April 23rd to 25th (see Banyan).

After a difficult few months, Mr Abe seems to recognise the need to reassure Japan’s main ally about his government’s intentions. His visit last year to the Yasukuni shrine in Tokyo, where high-ranking war criminals are honoured, drew protests from the country’s neighbours, especially China. The United States declared itself “disappointed” with Mr Abe.

Soon afterwards, a series of revisionist statements on Japan’s wartime atrocities from right-wing officials appointed by Mr Abe to the public broadcaster, NHK, brought further condemnation. And his commitment to push through structural reforms, central to his economic revival plan, announced in 2013, seemed to waver.

So the prime minister’s pledge to Japan’s parliament on March 14th that his government would not revise an official apology made in 1993 to “comfort women”—wartime sex-slaves—came as a relief to many in Washington. His personal charm offensive seems to be working. For Ms Kennedy, the maglev ride was “a great moment to be with Mr Abe”. Gerald Curtis of Columbia University says there are signs Mr Abe now understands that he must stop the damaging revisionist statements by close associates.

Mr Abe has also revived his emphasis on the economy. One spur to his supply-side economic reforms has been Japan’s inclusion in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) regional trade talks. On April 17th, at an Economist conference, he was expected to underline his plan rapidly to reach agreement with America on reducing tariffs. Recently, Japan’s negotiators had seemed to backslide on lifting protections for agriculture and autos.

Bolder still, on April 4th Mr Abe declared that his government would move to allow business to make more use of what he called “foreign human resources”. Japan’s political establishment has never embraced the idea of large-scale immigration, so Mr Abe’s move is particularly striking. On April 17th he was expected to add that the Japanese must also show tolerance for outsiders entering the country to work. Few developments would better demonstrate Mr Abe’s will to implement difficult reforms. A further round of growth measures is due in the summer.

As for pressure to rein in the far-right, that comes not just from America and Japan’s neighbours, but also from within Mr Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). The shift could therefore be lasting. The LDP’s senior foreign-policy moderates are furious that Mr Abe has acted to please his right-wing supporters at the expense of Japan’s diplomatic standing. A substantial slice of the party is resisting one of his most cherished aims on national security, which is to change the interpretation of Japan’s post-war constitution to allow the country’s armed forces to take part in “collective self-defence”, whereby they could come to the aid of an ally if attacked. It is a change that America solidly backs. Yet Mr Abe has reportedly had to water down his proposal for now, so that armed forces may operate only in Japan’s immediate vicinity.

Much will also depend on an expected cabinet reshuffle later in the year, which would be Mr Abe’s first since returning to power in December 2012. The LDP rank and file’s resentment of the concentration of power in the cabinet is growing deeper. A coalition of right-wingers and anti-reformers would like to see the departure of Yoshihide Suga, the powerful and relatively moderate chief cabinet secretary. That, however, is unlikely, and if Yasuhisa Shiozaki, a former chief cabinet secretary to Mr Abe from his first term as prime minister in 2006-07, joins the cabinet, it could become more reformist economically.

Set against such hopes, however, is the Yasukuni shrine’s annual spring festival, which, as bad luck would have it, runs in the days just before Mr Obama’s visit. This week it was the turn of Yoshitaka Shindo, the minister of internal affairs and communications, to turn up. Next week a flow of parliamentarians is likely to follow him, though hopefully not the symbolically important, high-ranking cabinet members. For the time being, Mr Abe’s shift looks set to make a difference.

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