Here’s
my weekend memo on Aso channeling the Nazis, edited to avoid any duplication
with other stuff out there. Someone whose judgment I respect suggests that I’m
being a little too harsh on Aso. I suspect he’s right, and I don’t think that
Aso can bring the Aso administration down all by himself. Nevertheless, he is
revealing the significant potential as a target for the opposition that I
mentioned at the beginning of the Abe administration, a target that can be very
useful when the Abe administration is more vulnerable.
Last week, the media swarmed all over Aso regarding
an occasion where he allegedly suggested that Japan should learn from the Nazis
in how they quietly (stealthily?) changed the German constitution. There’s a
case to be made that Aso was mistreated. After all, he first mentioned the rise
of the Nazis under the Weimar Constitution in what appears to be a warning that
even a perfectly respectable constitution could lead to a disastrous political
outcome. However, he later indeed talked about the Nazi experience as something
to possibly learn from. True, most likely from a purely tactical point of view,
but he broke an unwritten rule of the West: Never say anything remotely
positive about the Nazis. Ever. That said, it’ll blow over.
First, the international impact. China and
South Korea are jumping on Aso (and the Abe administration by implication), and
the story certainly ties into the tide of ill will that has been developing and
will impede nascent efforts on all sides to contain the negativity and
hopefully improve the situation. That said, the impact of Aso’s latest gaffe
will be limited by the fact that Nazism is not a significant element in the
history issues that plague Japan’s relationship with its neighbors. It does not
resonate in the way that disputing the testimonies of comfort women does for
South Korea and the Nanjing Massacre for China. (But hey, if you’ve been
telling your clients or bosses that Prime Minister Abe will go to Yasukuni on
August 15, this is a useful excuse to stop tooting that horn.) It does
resonate, though, in Europe and the United States, which is where the bulk of
the public communications damage is being done. Even there, it will not do
lasting structural damage to Japan’s all-important relationship with the United
States (or the less important one with Europe), but it does make every
desirably outcome that much harder to achieve.
Second, the domestic. The Abe
administration is on a roll; it is strong enough to weather opposition attacks
and media ridicule—which is the problem. Aso has stepped in it before, on
issues from women, to the elderly, to nationalism and just about everything
else(or so it seems)...and so at this point, the press are just waiting for him
to produce provide the next headline, making him a perfect target for
opposition attacks that could, cumulatively, weaken the Abe administration with
a decidedly negative impact on governance during the three-year, election
pressure-free (theoretically) window that Abe has to create a legacy as a
transformative prime minister. And much of the media will be happy to build on
any negative narratives emerging after the honeymoon with the Abe
administration.
Clearly, the best outcome for the Abe
administration is to have Aso do the honorable thing and fall on his sword. The
problem is, Aso appears to be temperamentally disinclined to take a hint. When
he became prime minister in 2008, he refused to honor his predecessor Yasuo
Fukuda’s wishes and call a snap election while the electoral honeymoon lasted
and instead made a year-long effort to create a legacy for himself. (And we
know how that story turned out.)
So that’s the problem that Abe has as prime
minister. He has a finance minister who has jurisdiction over the fiscal
elements of Abenomics, a finance minister who, he knows with a high degree of
certainty, will serve as a high-yield point of attack for the opposition. It’s
the best gives hope (other than a significant economic downturn) for to the
divided and demoralized opposition and potentially the worst as a potential political
nightmare for an administration that wants to use the rare three-year window
between national elections for extensive structural reform.
No comments:
Post a Comment