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El Japón que Shinzo Abe deja tras de sí

Aug 28, 2020 Bill Emmott

DUBLÍN – La repentina renuncia (por motivos de salud) de Shinzo Abe pone fin al mandato de quien fue el primer ministro de Japón por más tiempo. Abe, el estadista japonés con mayor reconocimiento internacional desde 1945, ha sido, entre otras cosas, el líder mundial más dispuesto a jugar al golf con el presidente estadounidense Donald Trump.

Abe se va con una economía que todavía es débil, pero aumentó la fortaleza y la autonomía de Japón en cuestiones de defensa y política exterior. Es probable que quien lo suceda continúe por la misma senda, lo cual es buena noticia para los partidarios de la paz en el este de Asia y, más en general, del orden internacional basado en reglas.

El mandato actual de Abe debía terminar en septiembre de 2021, pero sus índices de aprobación han caído a mínimos históricos, que vuelven fútil un intento de reelección. De modo que la forma en que se va, tras casi ocho años ininterrumpidos en el cargo, ejemplifica un viejo principio de la vida política: para un veterano líder partidario que sabe que el fin de su carrera política está cerca, es mejor poner las condiciones de su partida antes que ser expulsado por rivales agresivos.

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P. Kamath Aug 31, 2020

Prime minister Abe or others may be gone, but then affairs of Japan Would still be left in good hands. Is it not nice to see they will continue to run a decent, , Democratic Govt. serving as a responsible member among family of nations? It is nice!
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j. von Hettlingen Aug 30, 2020

Bill Emmott says Shinzo Abe will be remembered “as a traditionalist (in Japanese terms).” Yet defining Abe and his legacy following his resignation as Japan's longest serving post-war prime minister divides opinion both at home and abroad. His critics see him as a revisionist nationalist, representing the worldviews of an older, conservative generation that seeks to downplay Japan's wartime record, while pursuing an overly assertive foreign policy. To his supporters, he is a pragmatic realist, boosting the country's global standing, realising its national interests by merging its legitimate ambitions with its clout as the world's third largest economy.
According to the author, Japan, on Abe’s watch, has built “its own network of partners around the world.” His successor will continue the agenda of “a strong state, central leadership, established values, and – most of all – a more robust and autonomous foreign and defense policy.” His conservative instinct to restore Japan's pride, working consistently to bolster the country's national identity and historical traditions, alienated China and South Korea, which had been victims of Japanese invasion and brutal colonial rule during the first half of the last century.
In the past, “no Japanese prime minister since the end of the American occupation in 1952 has been able to contemplate seriously any kind of rupture with the US.” Despite his “slavishly close relationship with Trump, Abe has recognised that “America has become a less reliable and cooperative ally, especially under Trump.” It prompted him to pursue his own agenda, allowing Japan to play a more independent role on issues like trade and regional security.
In November 2016, Abe was the first world leader to visit Trump, the president-elect, hoping to salvage the 12-country Trans-Pacific Partnership. In 2017, he led the effort to save the TPP, following Trump’s withdrawal from the deal. “Japan has also negotiated a bilateral free-trade arrangement with the European Union, and will shortly complete a parallel deal with the United Kingdom.” Abe reinforced existing alliances (most notably with the US) and developed new partnerships with regional and global actors, both democracies and authoritarian regimes, regardless of their ideological leanings.
Earlier this month, Defence Minister Taro Kono talked ambitiously of Japan potentially joining the Five Eyes intelligence partnership between the UK, US, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. China’s rise has pushed Japan into the arms of the Five Eyes, with intelligence sharing and TPP membership seen as next steps in forging closer relationship and deepening cooperation with other countries. Abe saw it as a "proactive pursuit of peace" approach, which has become the new normal in Japanese foreign policy.
The author says “Abe has also strengthened Japan’s defense relationship with India,” whose prime minister, Narendra Modi, shares personal chemistry with his Japanese counterpart. Abe was one of the first world leaders to congratulate Modi for his gigantic victory in 2014 well before all the votes were counted. Modi made Japan his first port of call outside south Asia in September 2014 once he assumed office. He said he was “pained” to hear about Abe’s ill health and credited him for cementing relations between the two countries.
Yet “by emphasizing a revisionist view of Japan’s wartime history,” Abe has brought “relations with South Korea – Japan’s closest neighbor and a fellow US security ally – to a new low following that country’s leftward turn.” Tensions between the Seoul and Tokio ebb and flow, yet bilateral relations reached a nadir last year following a trade war. The state of Japan-South Korean relations is the lynchpin of the US alliance network in Northeast Asia, yet Trump is incapable of pulling them back from the brink. Instead he urged them to increase defence spending and buy arms from the US.
In Seoul and in Beijing, provisions that allow Japan's Self-Defence Forces to participate in collective security operations; the development of a more flexible defence doctrine; and the acquisition of valuable new military hardware, including F-35 fighter aircraft and new Izumo-class helicopter-equipped destroyers capable of enhancing Japan's regional power projection capabilities, raised the spectre of a resurgent Japanese military, and foreshadowing of renewed expansionist ambitions.
The “potential” successors within Abe’s own party, the LDP, are unlikely to deviate from his path. They “may compete to appear even stronger on security issues, advocating more military spending, pre-emptive strike capabilities against North Korean missile threats, or tougher action against Chinese maritime incursions in the East China Sea.”
It remains to be seen whether some of Abe’s key political ambitions – most notably his cherished goal of constitutional revision and the resolution of territorial disputes, including the "Northern Territories" negotiations with Russia left over from World War Two – will be realised. On paper Japan and Russia are still at war. Will the two countries ever sign a peace treaty and settle their claims once and for all?
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