Japan PM refuses resignation after election defeat as far right grows

Japan PM refuses resignation after election defeat as far right grows

If I had to explain it, I’d say that Japanese are are unhappy. They’re feeling uneasy. Uh, and this party has come along with a very good online interface and glib answers and people choosing it for that reason. I don’t think it necessarily means that Japanese have turned zophobic and nationalistic in an extreme way. Let’s uh move around and go to Japan. Right-wing populism has undoubtedly been rising in the West. It now seems to be establishing a foothold elsewhere. Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party lost its majority in the country’s upper house in elections held yesterday. Prime Minister Shigaru Ishiba has so far refused to resign, but his position is looking increasingly untenable. It came as a new Japan first party called Sansto increased their se seats from two to 15. Richard Lloyd Perry is the Asia editor for the Times and the Sunday Times and he joins me now. Welcome to the show, Richard. Hello from Tokyo. Uh, thanks so much for joining us. These are seismic results. Let’s start first of all with the loss of a majority because the Liberal Democratic Party, I think I’m right, has been in charge for something like 70 years bar three years. It’s it is basically almost a one party state. Yeah. I mean it it’s not a one party state because there are other parties and they have an equal chance to be elected. You know the the ballots aren’t rigged. No one’s being intimidated or anything like that. But yes, it’s true for I think for except for four of the last 70 years two separate occasions Japanese have chosen the LDP. So this is a big thing. I mean they now lack a m a majority in both the lower house which is the important one that’s the house that passes laws and chooses the prime minister but also the upper house as well and during the times when the LDP’s been empowered that’s never happened before so it’s it’s very bad for them and so uh what is going on in Japanese politics why is the LDP so unpopular and why is there suddenly the rise of this Japan first party and how significant is it is 15 seats significant? Yeah, I mean that is the question. 15 seats is is pretty significant. Uh I mean before this election they only had two seats. This is out of an upper house of 248 seats. So it’s a big big increase and everyone’s, you know, trying to work out what it means. I mean um populist anti-immigrant parties are of course emerging um and becoming stronger all over the world. uh and certainly in in Europe, you might say, also in North America. Uh so that in some ways looks like the explanation. I don’t think that’s all there is to it. I mean, I went to a rally by Sansa last week and I must say as kind of racist ultra nationalist go, these are very tepid, very nice, very friendly people. These are not far-right German skin heads or neo-Nazis of a kind that are familiar from from Europe. So, um I I think I mean I I could be proved wrong about this, but my sense of it is that a lot of this discontent is not really about foreigners because Japan still has a very low number of resident foreigners. It’s less than 3%. Um, it’s more a a kind of way of expressing uh a deeper perhaps less conscious discontent and disqu about other in many ways more serious things. Uh, and that includes the economy. Prices are surging in Japan. The price of rice has doubled in a year. Uh, Donald Trump’s tariffs are creating all kinds of uncertainty. Uh, there’s arguments about taxation. No one really there’s no real consensus about about what to do. So, if I had to explain it, I’d say that Japanese are are unhappy. They’re feeling uneasy. Uh, and this party has come along with a very good online interface and glib answers and people choosing it for that reason. I don’t think it necessarily means that Japanese have turned zophobic and nationalistic in an extreme way. Yeah, that is absolutely fascinating. I mean, I absolutely hear what you say. I mean, Japan is famous for having very low levels of immigration. In fact, many people argue that Japan should have much larger immigration uh in order to grow its economy. It’s a very kind of closed in some ways still quite a closed society. And what is fascinating about what you said about the doubling of uh rice prices for example is you know Japan has had two decades of effectively uh no growth. It’s been famous for having these two lost decades and it’s just breaking out of that with price but but the uh kind of side effect of that is that prices are rising and so on. So this kind of transition out of its doldrum economy into a growing economy is causing problems rather than providing solutions. Yeah. I mean specifically it’s about inflation. Japan for those two decades really 25 years that you talk about had deflation uh which of course sounds fun. prices go down, but it has a terribly strangling, stagnating effect on on the economy because no one spends money. They’re waiting for things to get cheaper all the time. uh and they so for a long time the goal was controlled inflation and and that took a long time to achieve was eventually achieved but now in in certain uh commodities especially rice uh it’s got out of control and and the reasons are very complicated not obvious but it it has a lot to do I think with with bad policy historically farmers were kind of paid not to grow rice because they wanted uh you know to sustain prices for the for the traditional industry. Um, so no one’s really got on top of that yet. Uh, but you know, it’s an extraordinary thing for the price of a staple commodity to double in a year. I mean, in in in years past 100 years ago, you know, that would have been enough to to prompt revolutions in some countries, you know, bread bread riots and things like that. And it hasn’t got to that stage yet. But it does feel like a very unusual time in Japan, one that most people alive now haven’t seen before. I wonder how it will translate. I note what you say about um this farright party, as it were, not being uh perhaps what we would perceive as an extremist party in European terms. But Japan, of course, its post-war history is so interesting. It’s had obviously historic clashes with its neighbors, China, South Korea. It’s now effectively, you know, America’s strongest ally in the region. So, you’ve got this destabling aspect of the Trump administration. Are you likely to see politicians in Japan calling for Japan to be more assertive in the region, which has traditionally not been its role, spending more on defense and asserting itself more strongly? There are some politicians who are saying that um it’s it’s very complicated, you know, as as you’ve observed. Um, I think part of the feeling of insecurity and disquality I was talking about comes from anxiety about security. Uh, I I mean Japan is in a very uh difficult and unpredictable neighborhood as you might call it. They’ve got North Korea over the water and China of course is asserting itself in very aggressive ways with every passing month. And you know when when Donald Trump came in and and told the NATO allies essentially you’ve got to spend more on your defense or we may pull out NATO which is what he was doing that that was alarming but those other NATO countries European countries still have one another. Japan really doesn’t have anyone else in the region. Even South Korea uh which is a you know advanced sophisticated democracy like Japan uh they have very difficult historical relations to do with the colonial period when Japan rather brutally ruled Korea. So Japan does feel very alone and to to stand up against Donald Trump and against the United States I is is a bolder and riskier thing to do than it is even for K starroy and Manuel Macron. So there’s a lot to think about there and I think that’s a debate that’s going to unfold over time. Brilliant. Well, Richard Lloyd Perry, Asia editor of the Times and Sunday Times, thank you for joining me to talk about the uh important elections that Japan has just had uh where the Liberal Democrat party, which is traditionally the party that holds power in Japan, has lost its majority and also seen a new Japan first party called Sansto significantly increase its seats from 2 to 15, albeit just 5% uh of the upper house. But nevertheless a significant progress.

“This party has come a long way with a very good online interface and glib answers.”

The Japanese Liberal Democratic Party have lost their majority in the lower and upper house, while the right-wing populist Sanseito has grown from two to fifteen seats, says Asia editor for the Times & Sunday Times, Richard Lloyd Parry.

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