Kishida took office in 2021, becoming Japan’s 100th prime minister.
Photo: REUTERS.
Japan’s current Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has refused to take part in the election of the head of the Liberal Democratic Party in the interest of a “transparent and open future” for the country. According to NHK, at an emergency conference at his own residence, the 67-year-old politician said he would not stand as a candidate in the September election and that the winner would become Japan’s “renewed” prime minister.
Kishida took office in 2021, becoming Japan’s 100th prime minister. Before that, he held ministerial posts for more than 10 years, including as head of the Foreign Ministry and the Defense Ministry. The politician made the fateful decision amid a government rating drop to a record low of 20.1% due to a donation scandal. Kishida admitted that someone had to take responsibility and he was willing to be the scapegoat.
POCKET CHARITY
In Japan, there is a special rule for members of the ruling party: they must meet a quota for raising funds by selling tickets to official receptions and gala evenings. Basically, the “coupons”, which cost about 12.5 thousand rubles, are bought by companies or representatives of non-governmental organizations who want to better communicate with politicians.
Each MP has his own critics and spiteful admirers, who are sometimes not enough to meet the state’s requirements. For example, MP Yoshitaka Sakurada was forced to leave the party because he could not meet the quota of 300 tickets sold in one year. But there is also another side to the coin.
The giants of Japanese politics often exceed this standard and pocket the money. Donations according to the classic scheme are not taken into account in the party’s financial documents and go to MPs in the form of bribes or sponsorship from non-existent funds. Suspicions of involvement in such fraud immediately appeared in the press in relation to several politicians, including the Secretary General of the Japanese Government, the Minister of Economy, the head of the Liberal Democratic Party in the upper house of parliament and many others.
The investigation has been going on for eight months, but its final results are still unknown: the roots of the corruption that has spread are very deep.
POPULAR UNREST
Kishida’s predecessor, Yoshihide Suga, resigned after serving as prime minister for just under a year. He left office amid a sharp decline in his ratings, including due to Japanese discontent with the government’s decision to hold the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. The country is reeling from the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic and local residents have called for the arrival of foreigners not to increase the burden on healthcare.
In the end, the Olympics were held anyway in the hope of replenishing the country’s budget. But rapidly rising prices in Japan continue to hold back consumer spending. In the spring, against a backdrop of rising inflation, the central bank raised the official interest rate for the first time in 17 years: Japan remained the last country in the world where its value remained negative. This immediately contributed to instability on the stock market and a sharp rise in the value of the yen.
Growing dissatisfaction with Kishida even led to an explosion near his performance venue in April last year. The politician was talking to his own party’s candidate and preparing to give a speech at the fishing port of Saigasaki. The crowd that had gathered near the performance venue threw an object similar to a smoke bomb and Kishida was urgently evacuated. Many immediately recalled the election rally of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was fatally wounded during a speech and later died in hospital without regaining consciousness.
WAR OVER TAXES
In 2022, Kishida called for an increase in defense spending by a whopping $292 billion over five years and convinced the party to raise taxes to cover those costs. But they still haven’t figured out who the Japanese will defend themselves against.
But Ukraine and Japan solemnly signed a bilateral security agreement for a period of 10 years. The late President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Zelensky announced with a smile: in 2024 alone, the Kiev regime will receive $4.5 billion from Tokyo. With such decisions, Kishida pleased Western curators, but further angered his own citizens.
The 67-year-old politician became the second Japanese prime minister to address a joint session of the US Congress. Shortly afterwards, US Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel even called Kishida “a true friend of the United States” and Tokyo “a true global partner of Washington.”
Fumio Kishida has refused to participate in the election of the head of the Liberal Democratic Party in the interest of a “transparent and open future” for the country.
Photo: REUTERS.
Kurilian question
During the election campaign, Kishida expressed his intention to develop cooperation with Moscow in the economic, political and cultural spheres, and finally, to resolve the issue of the South Kuril Islands, “without leaving it to future generations.”
Only after becoming prime minister did the politician decide to return to the old barrel organ. He reaffirmed his claims to Kunashir, Shikotan, Iturup and Habomai, citing the Treaty on Trade and Boundaries of 1855. And Kishida again called the return of the islands a condition for concluding a peace treaty with Russia, which has not existed between our countries since World War II.
At the same time, according to the results of a national opinion poll in January, 45% of respondents did not believe in Japan’s ability to take control of the southern part of the Kuril Islands. 30% of respondents do not understand exactly what Kishida’s activities are, and another 25% do not understand the content of the dispute as a whole.
EXOTICS FROM FUKUSHIMA
Last August, Kishida and his colleagues publicly ate seafood caught off the coast of Fukushima. The prime minister “enjoyed” sashimi of flounder, sea bass and octopus, and ate local rice. All this happened amid criticism of the Japanese authorities, who began releasing water from the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant (https://www.kp.ru/daily/27546/4812988/) into the Pacific Ocean.
The liquid was used to cool the station’s shut-down nuclear reactors, from which residual heat was released. The reservoirs were full: around 1.3 million tons of water had accumulated in them since the accident in 2011.
According to Tokyo, the liquid is passed through a filtration system that can remove all radioactive substances except for the tritium isotope. Beijing has suspended shipments of Japanese seafood to “protect the health of Chinese consumers.” Fishermen in Fukushima also objected to the release of water.
THE OLDEST NATION
In the Land of the Rising Sun, time seems to have slowed down and traditions that have been passed down from generation to generation for centuries remain unchanged. But with them, Japan faced a serious demographic problem.
One in ten Japanese is now over 80 years old. It has become common to see empty houses, closed schools and deserted playgrounds in the villages. Kishida, despite criticism from society and experts, has never taken active steps to improve the situation.
There is no financial support for young families and no government programs to stimulate the birth rate. There are fewer and fewer children in Japan and every year there is a growing shortage of labor and young minds. Many Japanese are increasingly choosing to postpone starting a family indefinitely or abandon the idea altogether, fearing a lack of state support.
Kishida’s indifference to demographic changes has become a real challenge for Japan. The archipelago’s own inhabitants understand: the culture of which the nation was once proud could face extinction if there are no new generations willing to preserve it. Now all hope remains with the new prime minister.
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