What Will Abe’s Policy Legacy Be – Or Can He Even Leave One?

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has had a busy summer. He played host to the G-20 Summit in Osaka, Japan, merely a month after welcoming U.S. President Donald J. Trump as Japan’s first state guest after the Imperial succession. Less than a month after that, Abe led his ruling coalition to another electoral victory in the House of Councillors (Japan’s upper house) polls on July 21. Even though the ruling coalition came a few seats short of what it would have needed to gain a two-thirds majority, it now holds more seats in the upper house than it did before the election, promising Abe a stable political base for the remainder of his administration. Then, at the end of August, Abe attended the G-7 Summit in Biarritz, France.

With his current term ending in approximately two years, Abe is entering a period when he would like to score a major policy achievement – foreign or domestic – that can be remembered as his legacy. However, the prospects to do so are rapidly shrinking.

The chances for Abe to leave a legacy in domestic politics are already slim at best. “Abenomics” was unveiled to high expectations and enthusiasm – but in the end not only did the policy package not result in the revitalization of the Japanese economy that everyone was hoping for, but it instead seems to have contributed to the already-widening economic gap within Japan. Thus the possibility of Abe being remembered for leading Japan out of two decades of economic stagnation (which would have been a huge political legacy) has disappeared. While Abe has not given up hope of revising the Japanese Constitution by the end of his term (which he really would like to accomplish), his ruling coalition’s failure to secure a two-thirds majority in the House of Councillors has made that task extremely difficult.

The foreign policy side does not look too promising, either. If nothing else, Abe now faces a more complicated foreign policy landscape than when he began his term in December 2012. A potential breakthrough in negotiations with Russia on the sovereignty issue over the Northern Territories/Kuril Islands under “new approach” looks more remote by the day. Abe’s call for a “meeting without pre-condition” with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has yet to be answered. His hope for playing a mediating role in diffusing tension between the United States and Iran quickly dissipated when a Japanese tanker was attacked while Abe was visiting Iran. Then Iranian leader Ali Khamenei refused to receive a letter Abe was entrusted to carry from Trump. Japan’s relations with South Korea – the country Abe used to call “Japan’s most important neighbor” – hit a new low when Seoul announced its intention to withdraw from General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA) on August 22, with no immediate prospect for even minor improvement, let alone breakthrough. Furthermore, North Korea seems to have resumed developing its missile program as Pyongyang’s bilateral denuclearization negotiations with the United States stagnate, including test-firing missiles that landed in Japan’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) on August 24.

The bad news for Abe is that he seems fated to have to navigate through these mounting foreign policy challenges alone. Despite his tireless efforts to cultivate and maintain close personal ties with Trump, it is increasingly clear that his efforts have not paid off. Throughout his time in office, Trump has turned out to be Abe’s fair-weather friend at best. In fact, from the decisions to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Paris Climate Accord, to the surprise U.S.-North Korea Summit in Singapore and an ill-timed criticism of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty being “unfair” on the eve of his arrival in Osaka for the G-20 summit, many of the Trump administration’s policy decisions and the president’s personal statements have worked against what Abe wants to accomplish. Japan’s anticipated bilateral trade deal with the United States – Abe and Trump announced at the G-7 that they had agreed on “principles for the agreement” and set September 2019 as the target to conclude the negotiation – could bring further criticism against Abe.

When Abe returned to office in December 2012, he had high aspirations for where he wanted to lead Japan – most notably, he wanted Japan to be a solidly reliable ally for the United States, and to move Japan beyond the remaining legacies of World War II. With only a little over two years remaining in office, however, Abe’s chances to reach his envisioned destinations are dwindling.