David Murakami Wood has provided us with a useful empirical account of ferry traffic in 2019 between Korea and Japan, and the lack of tourists there. However, the causal analysis presented, based on interviews with crew members who cited "Abe" as the cause for the decline in Korean tourists coming to Japan, seems incomplete and lacking context. Abe started his second term as prime minister in late 2012, yet the drop off in tourists only happened in 2019. The reason is not "Abe" so much as policies implemented by the Abe administration to tighten export controls on the sale of significant Japanese inputs into Korea´s IT industry in mid 2019, a transparent form of retaliation for the Korean government´s position on the seizure of Japanese corporate assets to compensate Koreans forced to work for Japanese companies during the Pacific War. We know that this policy triggered a large-scale Korean boycott of all things Japanese, including tourism to Japan. However, before that Korean tourism to Japan had been healthy if not booming during the Abe administration. Of course, Abe is responsible for imposing export controls in retaliation, but that is almost certainly the cause, not Abe´s previous diplomacy or some dislike of him personally. Also, the bilateral confrontation over compensation for Koreans forced to work for Japanese companies is a complicated one, for which the Moon administration is hardly blameless.


Regarding the thought-provoking posts on Abe´s diplomacy toward South Korea by Thomas Wilkins and David Leheny, my sense is that while Abe did not handle the overall relationship very well, especially in 2019 as discussed above, I think he deserves credit for trying to resolve the so-called Ianfu issue in 2015, although as David Leheny insightfully notes, this might have been directed as much at the US as at South Korea. It certainly took political courage for Abe to conclude this agreement, and I saw a very negative reaction to it from his political base. On the other hand, this agreement was arguably flawed from the beginning, as it failed to include the former Ianfu in the negotiations and ended up being a pure state-to-state process. To be sure Korea has to take primary responsibility for this failure, but it was in Japan´s interest to push for their inclusion, and not in Japan´s interest to conclude an agreement that had such a glaring flaw.


Best Regards,


Paul Midford


差出人: ssj-forum-bounces@iss.u-tokyo.ac.jp <ssj-forum-bounces@iss.u-tokyo.ac.jp> が SSJ-Forum Moderator <ssjmod@iss.u-tokyo.ac.jp> の代理で送信
送信日時: 2020年9月25日 5:38:15
宛先: ssj-forum@cal.iss.u-tokyo.ac.jp
件名: [SSJ: 11163] Re: Abe Shinzo - what have been his most consequential domestic policy actions?

From: David Murakami Wood <dmw@queensu.ca>

Date: 2020/09/18


I read this with a sense of disbelief, having experienced at first hand
the effects of Abe's diplomacy with South Korea last year as we
travelled from Russia to SK to Japan via ferry (on my way to do research
on the security preparations for Tokyo 2020). From Vladivostok to
Donghae, the ferry was packed with hundreds of Korean tourists and
visitors. It was a pretty raucous scene. However (after a brief typhoon
stop-over), when we resumed from Donghae to Sakaiminato in Tottori-ken,
there were fewer than 30 people on the entire ferry, none of them
Korean. it was a sghost town and everything was shut because there were
not enough passengers. I talked to some of the largely Filipino crew
about what was going on and they explained that this used to be a really
popular route for Koreans, with Sakaiminato's famous yokai street just
the beginning of the attractions. However they weren't coming any more.
Not just some of them, but none of them. And the reason was 'Abe'. The
reduced tourist numbers were clear during our brief stop in the town
too. In fact so bad was the downturn that the ferry service announced it
was suspending operations in late 2019, and of course now, because of
COVID-19, that's likely to be permanent.

It's all very well us musing about the top level effects, but we really
have to get down to what ordinary Koreans are doing to see the damage
that Abe's 'diplomacy' has done.

All the best,

David.

David Murakami Wood

Former Canada Research Chair (Tier II) in Surveillance Studies

Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, Queen's University,
Kingston, Ontario.

Co-editor-in-Chief, Surveillance & Society,
http://www.surveillance-and-society.org

dmw@queensu.ca
From: ssj-forum-bounces@iss.u-tokyo.ac.jp
<ssj-forum-bounces@iss.u-tokyo.ac.jp> on behalf of SSJ-Forum Moderator
<ssjmod@iss.u-tokyo.ac.jp>
Sent: 16 September 2020 23:05
To: ssj-forum@cal.iss.u-tokyo.ac.jp <ssj-forum@cal.iss.u-tokyo.ac.jp>
Subject: [SSJ: 11150] Re: Abe Shinzo - what have been his most
consequential domestic policy actions?

From: Thomas Wilkins <thomas.wilkins@sydney.edu.au>

Date: 2020/09/10

It's worth also mentioning Abe's efforts at historical reconciliation
I think, too. For a supposedly "nationalist" politician, who favoured a
less "masochistic" view of Japan's national history, on the
international scene he expended political capital to attempt a "final"
settlement on the comfort women issue with Seoul - though this backfired
in the end as President Moon undid the deal done with Abe by President
Park (and upped the ante with reparations claims), I still believe he
went the extra mile (in respect of what is politically possible for him)
to mend fences with South Korea.

He achieved (easier) success with the US during the Pearl Harbor visit,
and especially with Australia through his visit to Darwin (site of Pearl
Harbor type raids during WW2). Indeed, it was during his tenure that the
Japan-Australia relationship gained the appellation "Special Strategic
Partnership" and security cooperation and diplomatic alignment between
these countries has flourished. In this respect, Abe contributed a lot
toward making Australia a true friend of Japan, (which also reduces
previous Japanese "isolation" in the broader region).

Lastly, the FOIP (and the Quad/Quad plus) was a major foreign policy
initiative led by Abe (and subsequntly adopted by the US) and
contributed to a perception that Japan is finally playing a bigger role
in the region.

From our perspective down under at least he is well admired for such
efforts.

~~ Thats my 2c!

best to all, Tom

Dr Thomas S. Wilkins

Senior Research Fellow: Japan Institute for International Affairs (JIIA)

Senior Lecturer: Department of Government & International Relations (GIR)

Mailing address:
434, A02 Social Sciences Building
Science Road, The University of Sydney NSW 2006

AUSTRALIA +61 (0)2 9351 5008

Associate Editor (Asia general ): Pacific Affairs

Co- Area Editor (Politics): Japanese Studies

NEW MONOGRAPH: "Security in the Asia Pacific":
https://can01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rienner.com%2Ftitle%2FSecurity_in_Asia_Pacific_The_Dynamics_of_Alignment&amp;data=02%7C01%7Cdmw%40queensu.ca%7C2c7e31c6ccb74904b54708d85ab71d06%7Cd61ecb3b38b142d582c4efb2838b925c%7C1%7C0%7C637359089874030252&amp;sdata=yHCPrgaC5fyIiwetasAtRM0Uv9y52PHGvPAFFzn1xPI%3D&amp;reserved=0
From: ssj-forum-bounces@iss.u-tokyo.ac.jp
<ssj-forum-bounces@iss.u-tokyo.ac.jp> on behalf of SSJ-Forum Moderator
<ssjmod@iss.u-tokyo.ac.jp>
Sent: Thursday, 10 September 2020 2:47 PM
To: ssj-forum@cal.iss.u-tokyo.ac.jp <ssj-forum@cal.iss.u-tokyo.ac.jp>
Subject: [SSJ: 11146] Re: Abe Shinzo - what have been his most
consequential domestic policy actions?

From: Paul Midford <paul.midford@ntnu.no>

Date: 2020/09/05


On the question of how successful Abe was in his second term, I think it
is a mixed bag. In some ways his biggest success was just staying in
office for such a long period and bringing some political stability and
sustained, albeit very low, economic growth over a long period. I also
think his assault on the Bank of Japan´s deflationary bias was a big
success, and shows the benefits of being out of power. I doubt Abe or
any other LDP leader would have been able to think outside the box and
consider taking on a major governmental institution had they not had the
sobering experience of being voted out of power.

Reinterpreting the constitution is also an important legacy, although it
was in fact a far more modest reinterpretation than is commonly
understood. Abe also withdrew Japan from all boots-on-the-ground SDF
deployments overseas in support of international security, favoring a
more isolationist approach. In many ways, his constitutional revision
and reinterpretation projects end up looking more like inward looking
ideological projects rather than attempts to remake Japan´s security
policy.*

I don´t think Abe made very much progress restarting Japan´s nuclear
power plants, certainly far less than he originally intended (he wanted
all reactors restarted by 2015). He only restarted up to 9 out of 48,
and some of those had to shut down again to meet new anti-terror
standards. Many reactors are being scrapped. Abe de facto took Noda´s
policy of ending nuclear power by 2039 and extended that deadline by 10
to 15 years. Like the consumption tax, Abe ended up implementing his
DPJ´s predecessors' energy reform policies for promoting renewable
energy. Abe added a hydrogen strategy on top of that, which also
promotes renewable energy. Consequently, energy sector reform is one of
the few areas where we saw real progress with the Third Arrow of
Abenomics.** TPP and the EU-Japan FTA can also be counted as significant
successes that also made some contributions to the Third Arrow, although
again both policies originated with the DPJ. A more independent
initiative that Abe deserves credit for (i.e. for the courage of taking
on his conservative base) is creating a guest worker program, although
so far the results have been miniscule.

Overall, for a leader of a coalition with a two-thirds majority in the
lower house and a stable coalition majority in the upper house (except
for the first 8 months) over 7 years and 8 months Abe´s accomplishments
do not seem that impressive to me. I think there are two major
explanations for this: either Abe was not a very strong leader who got
lucky, or he is a strong leader who made the maximum amount of change
possible in Japan´s political system. If it is former then we can
anticipate that a stronger leader could make bigger changes. If it is
the latter then we should expect less change moving forward. I
personally think it was more the former: Abe was not a strong leader who
got lucky, but I open to the second possibility.


Best,
Paul


* Here I would cite Bryce Wakefield´s chapter in a new published (7
September) volume I co-edited on Japan´s inward looking debate on
constitutional reform:

https://can01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fprotect-au.mimecast.com%2Fs%2FsMC_Cnx1jniVW2o0T9pCLZ%3Fdomain%3Damazon.com&amp;data=02%7C01%7Cdmw%40queensu.ca%7C2c7e31c6ccb74904b54708d85ab71d06%7Cd61ecb3b38b142d582c4efb2838b925c%7C1%7C0%7C637359089874030252&amp;sdata=EsY%2Bwi8FTgoqmHGu15ofsIkwyPc%2F8lIOnxqJaPJn6b8%3D&amp;reserved=0


** Here is another shameless plug for a new book looking at Japan´s
energy policy in comparative perspective:
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差出人: ssj-forum-bounces@iss.u-tokyo.ac.jp
<ssj-forum-bounces@iss.u-tokyo.ac.jp> が SSJ-Forum Moderator
<ssjmod@iss.u-tokyo.ac.jp> の代理で送信
送信日時: 2020年9月3日 7:36:14
宛先: ssj-forum@cal.iss.u-tokyo.ac.jp
件名: [SSJ: 11140] Re: Abe Shinzo - what have been his most consequential
domestic policy actions?

From: Ellis Krauss <eskrauss@gmail.com>

Date: 2020/09/03

Peter:

I think you are being too harsh on Abe. What could he have done
domestically? What were Japan's most serious problems. Crime? No?
Violence? No. Immigration reaction? No. An aging society and massive
debt? Yes. But he managed to get through the consumption tax increase,
if delayed, no mean feat given internal LDP opposition and massive
opposition in the public. He also brought back nuclear power (personally
I don't like it but...) -- a stopgap to supply energy needs until Japan
can diversify more.

It's true that Abe's main achievements were in foreign policy but you
confined this to domestic policy. And perhaps the main domestic
achievement was to bring back political stability after 7 years of
non-stability.

Comparatively, what other leader of a major industrialized country even
accomplished that much? Johnson? Trump? Don't make me laugh. Macron?
Couldn't accomplish his needed reforms and there was instability over
them. Maybe Merkle, but her main accomplishments were in foreign policy
too and now she's facing a resurgent extremist right.

So what were your expectations?

Best,
Ellis
Ellis Krauss


On Wed, Sep 2, 2020 at 21:45 SSJ-Forum Moderator
<ssjmod@iss.u-tokyo.ac.jp> wrote:

From: Peter Cave <Peter.Cave@manchester.ac.uk>
Date: 2020/08/28

Dear Forum members

With PM Abe's announcement that he is stepping down, I would be
interested to know what you consider to be his most consequential
actions in domestic policy, excluding the actions to boost inflation and
lower the value of the yen. I deliberately limit the question to
domestic policy, and I exclude those particular actions, because I
suspect that many might agree about their importance.

There are various opinions about Abe, and he raises quite strong
passions. However, given that he has enjoyed perhaps the most commanding
parliamentary majority in the democratic world during his
record-breaking tenure, my personal impression is that he has done
remarkably little with it on the domestic front. I can't help feeling
that almost any other leader of a comparable country, in a comparable
position, would have done far more. You may agree or disagree about this
- I look forward to hearing. But if it is a correct view, the question
then arises, why? Various reasons could be imagined. For example, it
could be argued that Abe was weaker than he appeared, and so could not
do things he really wanted to do, because of divisions within the LDP,
and the LDP's need for the alliance with Komeito. It could also be
argued that Abe (and the LDP as a whole) is actually relatively content
with the state of Japan, and so did not see the need for radical
measures (this would not be surprising given that the LDP has been in
power for the vast majority of the last 65 years, and thus has played an
enormous role in shaping Japan as it is today).

I look forward to hearing the views of Forum members.

Peter

Peter Cave
Senior Lecturer in Japanese Studies
SALC, University of Manchester
Samuel Alexander Building
Oxford Road
Manchester M13 9PL
United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0)161 275 3195
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