A new Japanese prime minister: Does it matter for Japan’s defense?

Fumio Kishida won’t be Japan’s prime minister after September. Kishida served longer than most—nearly three years. However, Japanese prime ministers, with the exception of the late Shinzo Abe, seem to come and go so often that one might think it isn’t so important who the prime minister actually is.

But it does matter, especially when it comes to Japan’s defense, which has made unusual progress in recent years.

One worries that with a different prime minister, Japan’s efforts to bolster defense will “drift” as has historically been the case.

There have been a few interludes of relatively rapid and measurable progress, but by and large, it “drifts.”

No faster and no slower than Japan feels like moving.

And nothing that might provoke too much Asahi Shinbun criticism or upset the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)’s coalition partner, Komeito, or even the leftist factions in the LDP itself.

So Japan ends up doing what is easy—rather than what it needs to do—regardless of regional circumstances and threats just beyond Japan’s borders.

For the last decade or more, these threats have been unmistakable as the People’s Republic of China (PRC) gears up to teach Japan a lesson—and finally has the means to do so, not to mention its friends in Pyongyang and Moscow who will help out.

The last few years have been an exception on the defense front for Japan, even if progress might have been faster. It’s been faster than normal progress.

And Kishida deserves credit, even if he just had the good sense not to unduly interfere with the progress being made.

These improvements didn’t happen by coincidence.

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This file by 外務省is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.