Abe should use mandate wisely

His first remarks after securing victory in Upper House elections on Sunday were on his economic choices. He asked the people for support for deflation-busting policies, because rising prices on account of a deliberately depreciated yen were beginning to hurt consumers, who have already suffered shrinking wages.

Preparing for an increase in consumption tax to reduce the public debt is also part of the game plan. Abe’s focus on the economy would have been noted approvingly in China and South Korea, which are locked in an uneasy relationship with Japan over contested maritime territory and borders.

But he did not stage a comeback, after an abysmal first stint as prime minister in 2006, by charting bold economic directions alone. He has also been adept at playing the partisan card, to rouse in the people a stirring of the bushido spirit. 

So what’s wrong with a call to patriotism when most of the nation has been pulling together behind the Liberal Democratic Party’s drive for a Japan confident enough to overcome its travails, economic or otherwise?

This is where an unassailable mandate comes with a responsibility to exercise it wisely. None of Japan’s leaders up to the mid-1980s had to contend with declining prosperity in the world’s second-largest post-industrial nation, complicated by a surge in nationalist fervour in all of North Asia. Abe has to. 

How he will manage conflicting pulls on his conservative beliefs and instincts will have a bearing on the region’s prospects. Where nationalist sentiment in the early post-war years was directed at the American occupiers, most pronounced during the Eisenhower era, the focus has shifted to what right-wing politicians portray as the China threat.

The situation calls for Abe to be circumspect about his intentions to bring constitutional change that will disavow pacifism and give the military the effect of a fighting machine that can engage in collective self-defence with treaty allies such as the United States.

Beijing and Seoul will not take kindly to a precipitate move. Abe’s call for a “calm and deep debate” on the issues has a hint of restraint, but it does not escape notice that his legislative path is now smoother. Japan is on the right path pursuing economic revival. This is where he should invest his political capital as polls show a majority has little stomach for re-militarisation.