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japan is one of those countries that
surprises on all four aspects and among
all the things that could surprise us
one of the most striking is precisely
politics visualpolitik fans since the
fall of the empire of japan in 1945
japan has had approximately 35 prime
ministers that's roughly one prime
minister every two years and no it is
not that the term of office is shorter
the ordinary term of office is four
years what happens is that japan changes
prime minister almost as often as
manchester united has changed its coach
over the last decade or chelsea for that
matter there are no slouches either
however another fundamental
characteristic of japanese politics lies
precisely in its stability
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to give you an idea since the advent of
democracy in japan in the late 1950s
technically only one political party the
liberal democratic party or
organizations within its orbit has
governed and all this time we can only
find a brief two-year hiatus in which an
opposition government came to power and
no japan is obviously not a dictatorship
in practice is something like a
democracy that functions on the basis of
the more or less democratic bodies of
its main political party don't tell me
it's not a curious system the fact is
that in the land of the rising sun
political squabbles are fought mainly in
the corridors and in the offices so that
japanese politics has become a puzzle of
comings and goings resignations early
elections and motions of censure
in fact the protagonist of this video
the current prime minister familio
kishida came to power in october 2021
and did so due to the resignation of his
predecessor yoshihide sugar who had only
been in office for one year and who
knows maybe by the time you're watching
this video good old kishida will be
history precisely for that reason in
order to be updated and if you like what
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we are preparing thank you very much to
all of you who support us month after
month and also of course to all of you
who are on the other side of the screen
video after video but let's not get
sidetracked the fact is that the new
leader of the land of the rising sun is
a character quite different from what we
have seen in japan during the last
decade and in a way very different from
the new president of south korea which
we have already covered here on
visualpolitik and it is so in terms of
both form and substance you see unlike
the new korean president yoon seokyol
who is a political outsider kushida is
an old acquaintance
in this case we are talking about an
experienced politician who has been a
member of the house of representatives
since 1993 and over the years has served
as minister of state for okinawa and
northern territories affairs minister of
defense and minister of foreign affairs
under shinzo abe nevertheless what is
expected from kishida is a major
turnaround from arbay's policies within
japan and a certain continuity in the
case of foreign policy that is a lot
more defense spending because japan is
reportedly back on the chessboard of the
world's major powers
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visualpolitik viewers at the local level
kishida has proposed among many other
things to freeze the economic
transformation plan known as arvanomics
in order to reinvent nothing less than
capitalism itself the new prime minister
wants to create a kind of japanese-style
market economy do you want to know more
about what all this means and also what
plans this new leader has on such
important issues as relations with china
or the united states well let's begin
with foreign policy so let's get started
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the awakening of a sleeping giant
during his administration one of the
obsessions of shinzo abe japan's
longest-serving prime minister was to
bring japan back to the international
stage to achieve this among other
measures the japanese government began
to take increasingly tougher positions
toward china and north korea set itself
up as the protector of allies such as
taiwan and also led to the trans-pacific
free trade agreement now the most
fashionable trade club in the world
following the departure of the united
states led by donald trump in other
words we have begun to see an unusually
active japan in international politics
and not only that shinzo abe also very
importantly advocated increasing the
country's military strength
this is something that we have already
told you about on various occasions
under arbei's impetus the japanese
government has sought to change the
constitution to put an end to its
article 9 which states that japan is a
fundamentally pacifist country something
that has limited the scope and funding
of its self-defense forces
aspiring sincerely to an international
peace based on justice and order the
japanese people forever renounce war as
a sovereign right of the nation and the
threat or use of force as means of
settling international disputes land sea
and air forces as well as other war
potential will never be maintained the
right of belligerency of the state will
not be recognized act nine of the
constitution of japan well now for mio
kishida not only wants to go ahead with
this constitutional reform but he wants
to go much further and to prove an
ambitious plan to improve the country's
military capabilities
in fact this is exactly what the same
groups of his party that propelled him
to the leadership are asking for
japan's ruling ldp asked government to
double defence budget we're talking
about japan gradually approaching and
even exceeding two percent of gdp in
military spending to give you an idea
this would bring the country's military
budget to around 100 billion dollars
this would entail an additional boost of
between 50 billion and 60 billion
dollars each year between 240 and 300
billion dollars in new spending over a
five-year period can you imagine what
they could buy with that kind of money
well this would obviously turn japan
into a superpower and make it the
country with the third highest military
budget in the world this is the ultimate
dream of the united states another
friendly superpower in indochina ready
to rival the asian giant the fact is
that the war in ukraine has now marked a
turning point the kishida government has
stepped on the accelerator to try to use
the current situation as a kind of turbo
boost for its politician and yes our bae
is also involved japan's ldp features
xpm abbe and constitutional reform drive
risking opposition backlash and the
question is what the hell does the war
in ukraine have to do with it
well we've already told you the russian
invasion has marked a turning point
nobody trusts the tyrants they have as
neighbours anymore and in fact don't
forget that japan has been in its own
territorial dispute with russia since
world war ii over the karil islands
japan slams russia's move to end
disputed cural island peace talks over
sanctions
japan says disputed islands illegally
occupied by russia japan describes four
islands whose ownership its disputes
with moscow as illegally occupied by
russia in the latest version of a
diplomatic report so you see japan is
gradually acquiring an increasingly
important and forceful role in
asia-pacific politics of course this is
not the only aspect in which the new
japanese leader is expected to follow in
the footsteps of his predecessors
kishida is also a strong advocate for
repositioning japan as the leading
regional player in trade matters we've
already told you about his leadership on
the cp tpp and above all he favors even
closer ties with the united states of
america nevertheless the main challenge
or the main objective depending on how
you look at it is much much closer and
no for once we are not talking about
china but south korea while
traditionally relations between the two
countries have been very bad during the
time that shinzo abe and moon
jae-in-coincided things were even worse
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provocations on one side and
intransigence on the other and vice
versa made the fight seem endless hold
on though because now all that could be
about to change cast an eye on these
news headlines
south korea officially decides to join
cptpp to strengthen supply chain
yoon said will positively review joining
quad if invited report and take note
because although this may seem minor it
could be the beginning of a titanic
change in the region as mentioned before
japan leads the cptpp trade agreement
and is also a member of the quad a kind
of military alliance or partnership
between the united states australia
india and japan well now you can imagine
what it would mean if once and for all
south korea and japan were to put their
old quarrels behind them and strengthen
their relationship once and for all we
are talking about two economic and
military giants we are talking about two
of the richest and most technological
advanced countries in the world with a
combined gdp of almost seven trillion
dollars and a joint military budget that
if the aspirations of the current tokyo
government are fulfilled could reach
between 110 and 150 billion dollars a
year and you can believe me when i tell
you that few things would be more
appealing in washington
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because if we take into account the
characteristics of the armies their
commitments and their size in terms of
troops we are talking about a budget
that could be more than enough to rival
the people's republic of china itself
let's see xi jinping's country would
still spend much more some 300 billion
dollars but its armed forces also have
many more salaries to pay to maintain a
deployment across all the country's
borders to put this in perspective it is
estimated that since 2008 the rising
cost of personnel has eaten up more than
half of the increases in china's
military budget so in terms of real
investment capacity the balance could
tip in favor of this hypothetical
japanese korean alliance an alliance
capable by itself of acting as a
counterweight to all the dictatorships
in the region and that's without
counting the united states australia and
the rest of their allies we are talking
about a tectonic shift of course we are
also talking about two countries that
don't get along at all so it will not be
an easy task be that as it may the new
south korean president is advocating
closer ties and kishida well let's just
say that the japanese prime minister has
begun to grasp the enormous opportunity
this presents
kashida said cooperation with south
korea needed more than ever but wait a
minute because this is not the whole
story along with foreign policy
kishida's other major policy objective
is the economy nothing less than
reinventing japanese capitalism listen
up
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a left turn
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kishida is clear he wants to mark a
turning point in the japanese economy
and he wants to do it according to him
by developing a kind of japanese
capitalism well what exactly does this
mean well it basically means
implementing ultra expansionary public
spending policies and promoting a
greater redistribution of wealth yes
sorry these are essentially the same old
keynesian formulas that japan has been
applying for decades but now this leader
wants to take it one step further and
where did it start well take a look
japan's diet and acts record 107.60
trillion yen budget for fy 2022. japan's
diet enacted tuesday a record
107.60 trillion yen that's 900 billion
dollars budget for fiscal 2022 to
finance measures against the coronavirus
as well as rising social security and
national defense costs japan pm kashida
unveils 490 billion stimulus packaged to
give you an idea the stimulus plan
presented by kishida alone represents
more than 65
of the entire budget of the european
union's post-covered recovery plan with
japan having three and a half times
lower population than the eu now don't
tell me that's not making a statement
but if this huge increase in public
spending is already striking perhaps the
most important thing is where kishida
wants to spend all this money and even
more importantly how he seeks to finance
it
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well you see the key the point of
difference between kishida and his
predecessors is that instead of
continuing with growth-oriented economic
reforms in this case he's betting on
carrying out a huge wealth
redistribution campaign for example
kishida wants to increase taxes on large
companies and the highest incomes and to
continue pushing the central bank to
continue issuing more and more public
debt which already stands at
253 percent of gdp thanks precisely to
the enormous support that the government
obtains from the central bank and the
enormous savings of japanese families
in fact this is precisely what has
caused the latest japanese yen crisis
look at this
japan once celebrated a cheap yen now
the worst currency crash in 20 years is
causing widespread panic bank of japan
further accentuates the yen's fall by
tightening its ultra loose policy well
the fact is that with all that money the
prime minister has promised direct
financial support for households with
children for full-time and temporary
workers and also for small and
medium-sized enterprises the problem of
all these things is that they never seem
to work but hey there's good old kishida
to try to prove otherwise
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but that's not all the other aspect of
this kind of new japanese style
capitalism or whatever you want to call
it has to do with this
kashida calls for aggressive wage hikes
and push for wealth redistribution
japan pm kashida launches flagship panel
to look into wealth redistribution the
justification for pursuing greater
redistribution and pushing for companies
to pay higher wages is that according to
this prime minister this will raise
consumer demand and with it output and
inflation in other words what the
politicians always say in order to
achieve this the first thing he is doing
is to raise the minimum wage pensions
and medical coverage for workers on the
other hand he's promoting wage increases
in companies in exchange for introducing
certain tax breaks
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the problem is that japanese companies
generally have lower rates of return
than their international comparables and
also that gdp per hour worked is about
30 lower than the g7 average and almost
40 percent lower than that of the united
states in other words japan is not very
productive this is essentially why
higher hourly wages are not paid and it
is also why the average monthly wage has
barely increased by 8.5 over the last
nine years and yes this also has to do
with the fact that the net wealth of the
japanese has been falling sharply for
all deciles except for the richest 10 of
the population and to tell the truth
they haven't experienced any kind of
euphoria either
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in addition the capital gains and
dividend tax hike proposed by this prime
minister runs the risk of discouraging
investment which could result in an
outcome directly opposite to that
expected be that as it may for the
moment this kind of japanese style new
capitalism this fumionomics or
cushidonomics or whatever the hell they
want to call it generates more questions
than answers in fact some of the
measures announced are as ridiculous as
this one
5000 yen gift to pensioners unlikely to
produce smiles the ruling coalition is
considering providing a lump sum payment
to senior citizens to help tide them
over during the pandemic but the figure
being floated 5 000 yen 42 is unlikely
to put smiles on many faces in fact many
people might regard the amount as
insulting but well you see this is the
plan of the new japanese leader on the
one hand to increase the international
political influence of the land of the
rising sun to increase military spending
and to improve its ties with the united
states and south korea and on the other
hand it seeks to further dope the
japanese economy with huge increases in
the money supply government stimulus
debt and inflation there are those who
would call it a mixed bag in any case
his margin for action could be rather
restricted and it also remains to be
seen how long he manages to last in
office remember that japan changes prime
ministers almost as often as manchester
united changes coaches but now that
we've come this far it's your turn will
japan become a key player in the asia
pacific what do you think of the new
prime minister's plan taking into
account the video we made about the new
south korean president which country do
you think will do better leave us your
comments below and if you found this
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visualpolitik if you haven't already
done so thank you so very much for being
there all the best i'll see you next
time
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