Right-wing Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi was replaced. Has the Kishida government's China policy changed?

After the dust of the Senate election was settled, Fumio Kishida led the reorganization of the cabinet and the top personnel of the Liberal Democratic Party a few days ago.

Usually, the Cabinet Secretary of Defense, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Chief Cabinet Secretary, the Minister of Finance, and the Vice President and Secretary-General of the Liberal Democratic Party are considered to be the most critical six positions.

Personnel changes in these positions are the bellwether for observing policy changes.

According to the list of cabinet members announced on the evening of August 9 and the list of high-level personnel of the Liberal Democratic Party announced on the morning of August 10, except for the replacement of Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi, the other five key positions such as the Minister of Foreign Affairs have not undergone personnel changes.

Nobuo Kishi is the younger brother of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe who was shot and killed in the street not long ago. What are the reasons for Nobuo Kishi's replacement?

Four considerations for Nobuo Kishi's dismissal

One theory is that the shock of Abe's assassination to Japanese politics is not over yet.

More than 80% of Japanese respondents were dissatisfied that Japanese political parties and parliamentarians did not clearly explain their relationship with the Unification Church.

When he announced the cabinet reshuffle on August 6, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida made it clear that all cabinet members must announce their relationship with the Unification Church.

And Nobuo Kishi, like Abe, has an indistinct relationship with the Unification Church.

He admitted that members of the Unification Church assisted him in his electoral campaign.

In this context, Nobuo Kishi must be replaced from the position of Defense Minister.

There is also a saying that Nobuo Kishi's physical condition is very poor. For some time, Nobuo Kishi walked on crutches. Recently, Nobuo Kishi often uses a wheelchair to move.

In May, he did not stand up for his usual defense in Congress, but sat down.

When he visited Cambodia on June 21, he was in a wheelchair the whole time.

Nobuo Kishi was not physically fit to serve as Minister of Defense, so he was replaced.

There are also voices that it is the arrangement of the Abe family that Nobuo Kishi, as the younger brother of Shinzo Abe, can serve as the Minister of Defense. Since Abe has no children, Abe’s mother Yoko Abe considers that Nobuo Kishi’s son will inherit the family’s political legacy, and the cultivation of the third generation will take time. Nobuo Kishi's entry into politics is a transition plan for family influence.

And because of his short time and limited influence in Japanese politics, it is normal for him to be replaced after Abe's unexpected encounter.

The picture shows the meeting between the defense ministers of China and Japan in Singapore on June 12.

At that time, Nobuo Kishi's joint disease deteriorated and he needed to travel in a wheelchair. The illness became one of the reasons for Nobuo Kishi's replacement.

(Screenshot of Japanese TV Youtube)

Some analysts believe that Nobuo Kishi's political stance is far-right, and like Abe, their hard-line stance toward China and Fumio Kishida's stance are often contradictory.

When Abe was still alive, Fumio Kishida often complained that their anti-China trumpets were too loud.

After Abe's death, Kishida Fumio took down Nobuo Kishi's post as Defense Minister, a product of regaining the tone of his foreign policy toward China.

The above analysis has some truth.

Perhaps it was a combination of factors that determined Nobuo Kishi's replacement.

However, in the eyes of observers, the replacement of Nobuo Kishi's defense minister position is related to the original intention of the Kishida government to master domestic and foreign policies, but Japan's China policy has not changed significantly because of Nobuo Kishi's replacement.

Right-wing forces are growing instead of declining

Overall, this personnel reorganization has two characteristics.

First, after Nobuo Kishi was replaced, the right-wing forces in the cabinet did not weaken, but instead increased.

Nobuo Kishi was not abandoned by Fumio Kishida, but changed his position, from the defense minister to the assistant to the prime minister in the direction of security. In the future, he will still play an important role in the discussion on the increase in defense spending and the formulation of the "National Security Strategy" at the end of the year and other documents. effect.

The new Minister of Defense, Yasushi Hamada, once stayed in the United States in his early years, and served as the Deputy Defense Minister of the Obuchi Cabinet as early as 1998.

In 2008, he was appointed Minister of Defense in the Aso Cabinet and is a non-partisan person.

Some people think he, as a senior defense expert, will uphold the moderate caution of the establishment on the issue of China.

There are also voices that he visited Taiwan together with Shi Pomo, a leader in the Liberal Democratic Party, and when right-leaning has become a political trend, almost everyone hopes to seize political capital by anti-China. Hamada's attitude towards China cannot be as mild as ever.

The new Minister of Defense, Yasushi Hamada, once stayed in the United States in his early years and served as the Deputy Defense Minister of the Obuchi Cabinet as early as 1998.

In 2008, he was appointed Minister of Defense in the Aso Cabinet and is a non-partisan person.

(AP)

Like Nobuo Kishi, the new Minister of Economy and Security, Takaichi Sanae, is a far-right politician who has visited the Yasukuni Shrine many times.

During his previous tenure as the chairman of the Liberal Democratic Party, he pushed for the passage of a resolution condemning China's human rights issues in the National Assembly, advocated the establishment of a security cooperation mechanism between Japan and Taiwan, and publicly stated that Japan would participate in a conflict in the Taiwan Strait.

Takaichi's entry into the cabinet from the position of the Liberal Democratic Party's political investigation chairman is equivalent to stepping into the front desk from behind the scenes, indicating that Kishida hopes to further play his role as an anti-China right wing.

The "Minister of Economic Security" is a new position created by Fumio Kishida when he first formed the cabinet in October 2021. The purpose is to attach importance to economic security. It is conceivable that after Takaichi Sanae took office, Japan's economic prevention and confrontation with China will only be more and not less. .

None of the key positions have changed

Second, this personnel reorganization is not so much the product of Fumio Kishida's attempt to dominate Japanese politics, but rather the product of Fumio Kishida's efforts to stabilize the political situation under the pressure of various forces.

In terms of core personnel, in the cabinet, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroichi Matsuno, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Fangzheng, and Minister of Finance Shunichi Suzuki have all stayed in office. The newly replaced Minister of Defense, Yasushi Hamada, belongs to people with no faction. In the core decision-making circle, the strengths of various factions are compared. remained relatively stable.

When Kishida formed the cabinet for the first time in October 2021, the Abe faction and the Takeshita faction each occupied 4 seats, the Aso faction, the Kishida faction and the non-affiliated members each had 3 members, and the second-order faction had 2 members.

For the second cabinet formation this time, 4 people from Kishida, 4 from Aso, 3 from Motegi, 2 from Second Order, and 4 from Abe.

The proportion of seats occupied by major factions in the Liberal Democratic Party has hardly changed.

The reshuffle of the cabinet this time is essentially a fine-tuning of the members of the major factions within the Liberal Democratic Party.

At the top of the Liberal Democratic Party, the absolute core vice-president Taro Aso and secretary-general Toshimitsu Motegi continued to serve.

In the other seven high-level positions in the Liberal Democratic Party, the chairman of the National Council, Takeshi Takagi, the deputy director of the secretary-general, Hiroshi Kajiyama, and the director of the organization and sports department, Yuko Obuchi, will continue to serve.

There are four positions that have changed. The chairman of the political inquiry has been replaced by the Abe faction’s Takaichi Sanae (in the cabinet) to the Abe faction’s Hagiita Koichi. This position is equivalent to a flow within the Abe faction.

What can reflect Kishida's will is to use Moriyama Yu as the chairman of the election. Moriyama is the chairman of the Moriyama faction (7 people), the smallest faction in the Liberal Democratic Party, and is widely regarded by the Japanese media as an attempt to win over non-mainstream factions in the party.

The death of Shinzo Abe: On July 14, 2022, people mourned the assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe outside the headquarters of the Liberal Democratic Party in Tokyo.

(AP)

After Moriyama was elected as the chairman, Toshiaki Natoto, the former member of the election, was transferred to the chairman of the general affairs committee. Toshiaki Endo had no faction. He and Fumio Kishida were elected for the first time in the same House of Representatives election, and the two had a good relationship.

In the 2020 and 2021 presidential elections, he will serve as the head of the Kishida camp's election strategy headquarters.

Masato Ishida, who had served as Minister of General Affairs in Abe's cabinet, was appointed as the Minister of Propaganda of the Liberal Democratic Party.

Ishida Masato was reused by Abe, but he belongs to a person of no faction.

It can be seen that within the Liberal Democratic Party, the high-level and key core personnel of the Liberal Democratic Party have not changed. Except for one of the secondary core personnel who flows within the Abe faction, none of the other three have no faction.

The only thing related to Fumio Kishida is that the independent person has a good relationship with Kishida.

Kishida's inability to lead major policy changes

Fumio Kishida cannot reflect his personal will in the reform of internal affairs and personnel, which is related to the fact that the Kishida faction where Kishida belongs is a small faction within the Liberal Democratic Party.

There are many factions within the Liberal Democratic Party, and there are eight major factions.

There are only more than 50 members of the Kishida faction where Fumio Kishida is located. Although Abe, the core of the Abe faction, has passed away, more than 90 people of the Abe faction still have influence.

Kishida's ability to serve as prime minister in 2021 is inseparable from the help of the Abe faction. Whether he can govern for a long time in the future also depends on the face of the Abe faction.

After Abe's death, the future development of the Abe faction is the core factor affecting Japanese politics.

Although Fumio Kishida is the prime minister, Kishida himself has limited energy.

Judging from the fact that the Abe faction is still heavily used in the cabinet this time, and that Nobuo Kishi is still an assistant to the Prime Minister after he was taken down as Minister of Defense, the reshuffle of the cabinet is not a reorganization of Fumio Kishida to increase his personal influence at will, so it is not a matter of internal affairs. A big change in diplomacy.

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