SNA (Tokyo) — Across the ideological spectrum, a consensus is emerging: Fumio Kishida is unlikely to last another year as prime minister, and even now he is only lingering on because no credible and attractive alternative has appeared.

The Kishida Cabinet’s public approval ratings have recently plummeted from bad to miserable. Most of them now find Kishida’s support in the low 20% range, a level at which past Japanese prime ministers have historically been unable to survive.

Kishida’s fundamental political problem is that, while few actively dislike him, there also aren’t many who have strong faith in him. In other words, he hasn’t proven to be much of a leader. He acts plausibly as the face of the nation on the international stage, but he doesn’t make anything happen.

One crucial aspect that the mainstream media continues to underemphasize due to its own ideological proclivities is that Kishida betrayed the fundamental rationale he had advanced in his campaign to become Japan’s leader.

His signature policy was supposed to be “New Capitalism,” by which he pledged to focus on bread-and-butter economic issues that would improve the lives of ordinary citizens. He hoped to follow in the footsteps of Prime Minister Hayato Ikeda (1960-1964) and his famous Income Doubling Plan.

But even before he took the reins of power, big business and the wealthy cracked the whip through the “Kishida Shock” (tumbling stock prices) in early October 2021. Kishida immediately retreated, ditching his proposal to reduce economic inequality by imposing higher capital gains taxes on those earning more than ¥100 million (US$670,000) per year.

His surrender of his own moderate policy agenda continued in the following months until he was effectively just continuing the Abenomics policies which he had criticized as a leadership candidate, and “New Capitalism” became an empty slogan that gradually fell out of use.

The true historical significance of the Kishida administration comes from the other direction; he has been able to continue the Abe remilitarization policies at a speed which would have been the envy of the late rightwing prime minister.

Last year, Kishida pledged to “double” the nation’s military spending. This move was made possible by several factors.

First, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was somehow taken as “evidence” that Japan’s security was, as a consequence, placed under deeper threat. This was despite the fact that Moscow was obviously obliged to shift more of its military resources from the Far East to the European front, thus reducing any practical military threat to Japan for the foreseeable future.

Second, the Biden administration, led by Asia policy tsar Kurt Campbell, was putting vigorous diplomatic effort into building alliances to confront China, while provoking conflict with Beijing through increased involvement with Taiwan, including open suggestions of support for the breakaway island’s potential bid for formal independence. Kishida, who understood that maintaining friendly relations with Washington usually helps strengthen Japanese prime ministers in domestic politics, was happy to be seen as a proactive partner.

Finally, the very fact that Kishida is viewed by most Japanese as a cool-headed moderate and not a rightwing activist like Abe helped smooth resistance to the remilitarization policy. It seemed to be coming from the more responsible mainstream, not from the ideological margins.

On the other hand, while approving the remilitarization policy may have been the smoother political path for Kishida in the short term, it raised medium- and long-term challenges which are now likely to sink him.

To begin with, by choosing “guns” over “butter,” Kishida committed the nation to a policy agenda that was the precise opposite of “New Capitalism.” Instead of improving the material lives of ordinary Japanese, the people will either be squeezed for more tax revenues to fund weapons purchases or have their already massive public debt expanded further, burdening the next generation which already faces the grim economic realities of demographic decline.

Additionally, to the degree that the Japanese accept the fear-mongering campaign alleging that Russia and China are now poised to launch unprovoked military actions against peaceful Japan, that’s actually a good political argument to place a hawkish prime minister in command of the unjustly threatened nation, not a spineless moderate like Kishida.

In short, Kishida has effectively laid the ideological groundwork for his own replacement. For those who had placed hopes in his ability to improve the material lives of the people or simply to steer Japan toward a more moderate economic or international position, he has proven a total disappointment. And for those who endorse more muscular and hawkish stances, he was never an attractive candidate for national leadership in the first place.

Of course, there are plenty of politicians in the past whose political obituaries were written too soon, and they were saved by dramatic events which revealed an inner strength that had previously been hidden. But with more than two years in power and plenty of political opportunities already squandered in which he might have taken command of the agenda, there’s no reason to see Fumio Kishida headed anywhere except down and out.

This article was originally published on November 27, 2023, in the “Japan and the World” newsletter. Become a Shingetsu News supporter on Patreon and receive the newsletter by email each Monday morning.