Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s (pic) new hardline coalition partner unshackles her security ambitions and gives US President Donald Trump room to press for military spending, but her fragile government may put a brake on what she can do.
Takaichi, an admirer of conservative British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, was sworn in on Tuesday as head of a government that is two votes shy of a majority in the decision-making 465-seat lower house.
Takaichi has only a few days to prepare for her first face-to-face talks with Trump since becoming Japan’s first female prime minister on Tuesday. They may cross paths at the Asean regional bloc summit in Malaysia tomorrow before holding formal talks in Tokyo early next week.
A follower of assassinated Japanese premier and Trump confidant Shinzo Abe, Takaichi ended the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s (LDP) 26-year coalition with the pacifist-leaning Komeito, replacing it with the right-wing Japan Innovation Party, known as Ishin.
“Komeito always served as a brake and now you have two coalition partners that are pretty much aligned,” said Jeffrey Horn-ung, an expert on Japanese security policy at the RAND Corporation. The shift frees Takaichi to push Abe-era security reforms further.
Like her, Ishin wants to revise Japan’s pacifist constitution, strengthen the military to deter China and loosen restrictions on arms exports.
Ishin has even floated a US-style nuclear-sharing deal that would give Tokyo a say over any US weapons deployed in Japan. That would be a radical departure from Japan’s long-held three non-nuclear principles of not developing, deploying or hosting such weapons.
Takaichi has signalled she will accelerate Japan’s largest military buildup since World War Two, doubling defence spending to 2% of GDP.
She has said a “contingency” in Taiwan, which Beijing says must eventually be reunited with the mainland, would be a contingency for both Japan and the United States.
“Managing relations with China will be a major hurdle for her,” said Kenji Minemura, a senior research fellow at the Canon Institute for Global Studies.
“The loss of Komeito, which maintained ties with Beijing, is another setback.”
The upcoming Trump meeting gives Takaichi a chance to outline her regional security goals before Trump meets Chinese leader Xi Jinping next week ahead of the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit in South Korea.
Her political weakness, however, will limit how much she can promise Trump on defence spending, said Tokyo University professor Ryo Sahashi.
“If Trump pushes her for a specific number, it could cause early friction,” said Hornung.
“It wouldn’t surprise me if he says, you’re an ally, you need to do 3%, even 5%.”
To win Trump’s favour, which could bolster her standing at home, Takaichi instead plans to present a package of US purchases, including Ford F-150 pickup trucks, soyabeans, natural gas and a list of potential US investments, sources said. — Reuters
