Suga’s First Month as Japan’s Prime Minister

Prime Minister Suga Yoshihide, who took over from Abe Shinzo in September, has been busy as Japan’s top diplomat. Within two weeks of assuming office, he spoke with the leaders in the United States, Australia, South Korea, China, and Russia. On September 26, he made his debut as Japan’s new prime minister to the world when he (virtually) delivered a speech to the United Nations General Assembly.  In October, he made his first foreign visit as the prime minister, traveling to Indonesia and Vietnam.  

Throughout these engagements with foreign leaders, Suga’s diplomatic message has been in line with the foreign policy trajectory that his predecessor Abe set — anchoring Japan’s foreign policy in a robust alliance relationship with the United States while working to strengthen ties with other like-minded countries to pursue the goal of a “free and open Indo-Pacific,” as well as continuing to pursue Japan’s own bilateral agenda with neighbors. Although the agreements Japan reached with Vietnam and Indonesia during Suga’s visits — on the transfer of defense technology and equipment to Vietnam, and an agreement to work toward reaching a similar arms arrangement as well as holding a “2+2” foreign and defense ministers meeting with Indonesia — attracted some media attention, these agreements are the results of consultations that began during the Abe administration.

More noteworthy are some moves Suga made on domestic issues. In fact, he seems intent on leaving his mark as Japan’s prime minister based on the initiatives he has launched for the domestic policy agenda.  

One thing that often goes overlooked, even in Japan, is the fact that Suga comes from a background that is very different from his predecessors’. Not only Abe but also many of Japan’s recent prime ministers — Hatoyama Yukio, Aso Taro, Fukuda Yasuo, and Koizumi Junichiro —all come from pedigree backgrounds, making them second- or third-generation politicians. By contrast, Suga comes from a very humble upbringing. He grew up in rural Akita prefecture before coming to Tokyo, worked blue-color jobs to put himself through college, and began his political career as a city assembly member.  Even the recent prime ministers who did not come from a vaunted political pedigree, such as Kan Naoto and Noda Yoshihiko, came from middle-class families with college degrees. Suga’s political career also has taken an unusual path, with him rising through the ranks without belonging to any of the major factions in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).  

Suga seems to be determined to leverage his humble upbringing to leave his mark as a leader who helped bring the government closer to the people. For one, the motto of his cabinet is “the cabinet that works for people.” Furthermore, in his first meeting with the vice ministers, the highest ranking bureaucrats, of all the government agencies, he directed them to “listen to the frontline” and tackle persistent old practices and habits that “are considerably disconnected with today’s common sense among the people.”

Furthermore, to prove his commitment to bringing the government’s operating methods into better alignment with the practices among Japanese businesses, he chose to appoint Kono Taro, who served as the foreign and later defense minister for Abe, as the cabinet minister in charge of administrative reform.   Kono, despite coming from a political pedigree himself (his father served as a foreign minister and was the speaker of the House of Representatives; his grandfather was one of the influential politicians in the early years of the Liberal Democratic Party) is known more as an independent and out-of-the-box thinker. He quickly moved to press agencies to expedite the digitization of administrative processes in central and local governments.

One such outdated practice is the requirement for a hanko (family name stamp) to be used for all official business documents.  On September 24, Kono issued an official request for all government agencies to conduct a wholesale revision of all the administrative procedures that currently require a hanko.  He also demanded that agencies provide a justification if continued usage of a hanko is considered necessary. The persistence of the practice to require a hanko for proof of identification has prevented Japanese government agencies and businesses from transitioning to full-time remote-work even in the midst of the first wave of COVID-19 outbreaks, putting people in a position where they have to commute to conduct essential business.  Eliminating the hanko requirements for most business procedures will open the doors for more efficient business processes and more timely decision-making, while reducing the necessity for in-person meetings, all of which would contribute to a working environment that is more friendly to remote-work and offers greater flexibility.

It is ironic that an initiative like this is getting a stronger push under a prime minister who is older than his predecessor.  However, if Suga remains consistent with his governing principle — a government that works for the people — he may be able to achieve what Abe failed to do: removing some of the barriers that have prevented Japan from transforming into a more flexible society.