Defence “Geek” Shigeru Ishiba Is New Japan Prime Minister

Japan got a new prime minister on Tuesday, with Shigeru Ishiba setting out to jumpstart a lacklustre economy, defuse a demographic crisis and build an Asian NATO to face down China.

Ishiba, 67, says he intends to call a general election for October 27. He won a tight race on Friday to lead the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which has governed almost continuously for decades.

The former defence minister outlined his policies at a news conference late on Tuesday, warning that “the security environment surrounding our country is the most severe since the end of World War II”.

“With the Japan-US alliance as a foundation, we will expand the circle of friendly and like-minded countries, using diplomacy and defence to realise the peace of Japan and the region,” he said.

Ishiba’s new cabinet of 19 ministers was announced after the LDP-dominated parliament approved his appointment. Just two were women, who have historically been poorly represented in politics and business in Japan.

Foreign minister Yoko Kamikawa, one of five women in the outgoing cabinet, was replaced by Takeshi Iwaya. Katsunobu Kato, who was health minister during the Covid pandemic, was named finance minister, while Gen Nakatani took defence.

Ishiba, who has held at least three previous ministerial posts, tried and failed four times before to become LDP leader.

He finally succeeded this time because, while a divisive figure within the party, he is relatively popular among voters, analysts said, unlike his predecessor Fumio Kishida.

Ishiba’s win “indicates that the LDP sought an experienced leader with broad voter appeal to steer the party in the next national election”, said Yuko Nakano of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“… Ishiba will have the opportunity to reshape the party’s internal dynamics and restore public confidence, while addressing Japan’s broader challenges, including economic stagnation felt by many voters and regional security concerns” if the LDP and its junior coalition partner win an election, Nakano said.

Tumbling stocks

Markets reacted negatively to his selection, with the Nikkei plunging almost five percent on Monday. The benchmark index recovered some ground on Tuesday, closing up 1.9 percent.

Ishiba’s backing of interest rate hikes by the Bank of Japan has sent the yen higher, while the prospect of corporate tax hikes has worried investors.

Kato, 68, told Bloomberg News last month that Japan should “keep moving” on interest rates and inflation after years of stagnant prices and borrowing costs “created structural distortions”.

“The Japanese economy stands on the brink of whether to emerge from deflation,” Ishiba said on Tuesday, pledging to continue Kishida’s work.

The military is expected to be another focus for Ishiba, a self-professed defence “geek”.

Kishida undertook to double defence spending and boost ties with the United States and other countries rattled by China’s rise and the behaviour of Russia and North Korea.

A Japanese warship sailed through the Taiwan Strait for the first time last week after a Chinese aircraft carrier steamed between two Japanese islands near Taiwan a week earlier.

Japan has also scrambled fighter jets on multiple occasions in recent weeks to respond to activity by Russian and Chinese aircraft, including in its airspace.

Ishiba, who visited Taiwan in August, backs the creation in the region of a military alliance along the lines of NATO, with its tenet of collective defence.

“Replacing Russia with China and Ukraine with Taiwan, the absence of a collective self-defence system like NATO in Asia means that wars are likely to break out because there is no obligation for mutual defence,” Ishiba said in a recent policy paper.