Dovish Kishida may take defence mantle of slain mentor Abe

NARA (Japan) • After a strong showing in an election overshadowed by the killing of former premier Shinzo Abe, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida may have fresh momentum to increase defence spending on a scale beyond the grasp of his slain mentor.

In doing so, Mr Kishida, a moderate from Hiroshima who wants nuclear weapons banned, would expand on Mr Abe's hawkish legacy and ensure support from Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) hardliners loyal to Mr Abe.

The LDP's ruling coalition increased its majority in Parliament's Upper House two days after Mr Abe, the nation's longest-serving premier and a party power broker, was gunned down during a campaign speech in the western city of Nara.

The LDP and its junior partner Komeito won 76 of the 125 seats contested in the chamber, up from 69 previously. The LDP alone won 63 seats, up from 55, to win a majority of the contested seats, though it fell short of a simple majority on its own.

At a news conference yesterday, Mr Kishida said he would take up the difficult problems that Mr Abe was not able to resolve, such as revising the Constitution, adding that he hoped there could be discussions on the topic during the next session of Parliament. "We gained strength from voters for stable government of this nation," Mr Kishida said.

Seen by some voters as too hawkish, Mr Abe had never been able to boost defence spending to the 2 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) that his party has set as a goal.

The next defence budget could be as much as six trillion yen (S$61 billion), or an increase of 11 per cent from last year, one LDP lawmaker who had been close to Mr Abe and had knowledge of internal defence discussions told Reuters, on condition of anonymity.

"If he can achieve that, the conservatives within the party will flock to Mr Kishida, and he will have a long-term administration, no doubt about it," the lawmaker said. "Kishida can secure his throne by realising Mr Abe's goals."

That conservative support is critical, as Mr Kishida has pursued economic policies that diverge from the neo-liberalism Mr Abe favoured.

Control of the factious LDP would allow Mr Kishida three years to execute his programme before another election.Japanese voters, fearing a slide into militarism, have traditionally been wary of big increases in defence spending, but many now worry that Russia's invasion of Ukraine may embolden China to attack

neighbouring Taiwan.

Annual percentage increases of about 10 per cent, the size mentioned by the LDP lawmaker, would double military spending to 2 per cent of GDP by the end of the decade and make Japan the world's third-biggest military spender behind the United States and China.

Beijing now spends more than four times as much as Japan on defence, a ranking of 2021 global defence budgets by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute shows.

"Kishida is riding a virtually unprecedented wave of support in Japan for increasing the defence budget," said Mr Christopher Johnstone, a senior adviser and Japan chair at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies. "There is little controversy about what Kishida has proposed."

Annual increases north of 6 per cent to 7 per cent are "plausible", Mr Johnstone added.

Mr Abe, who stepped down in 2020 after two terms as prime minister, was elected for his second stint in 2012 pledging to revive the economy and loosen the limits of a pacifist Constitution that prevents Japan from waging war.

His Cabinet later adopted a resolution to amend the post-World War II Constitution to allow the exercise of collective self-defence, providing the legal basis for expansion of military activities, but he ultimately failed to revise it.

Mr Kishida appears to have less enthusiasm for that goal than Mr Abe. He has said parts of the Constitution may have elements that "are outdated and lacking" and hoped discussion on revising it could proceed. Parties open to revising the Constitution maintained their two-thirds majority in the Upper House.

Mr Kishida will have to reveal how much he wants to increase defence spending by the end of next month, and his Cabinet will approve the final number at the end of the year.

He is set to release a revised national security strategy and a new five-year military procurement road map by year's end.

REUTERS