In his first news conference of the year, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida cited, as would be expected, policy challenges he intends to tackle in the coming 12 months.

But Kishida would be quite mistaken if he thinks he will no longer be criticized or questioned about rash and radical policy shifts he made late last year without carefully weighing their consequences. The policy changes should be scrutinized and debated thoroughly during the ordinary Diet session to be convened later this month.

In his new year news conference on Jan. 4, Kishida stressed that his administration is solidly committed to its “historical role” of making decisions on “policy challenges that can no longer be postponed” at this “historical turning point.”

Kishida cited three key policy challenges he will tackle this year: securing an economic cycle that leads to higher wages; responding effectively to the problem of the nation’s demographic decline; and ensuring that Japan provides effective leadership during discussions at Group of Seven meetings as the holder of the G-7 presidency for 2023.

Kishida tried hard to highlight his commitment by using the word “challenge” 12 times during his 40-minute news conference.

But major political and other obstacles remain to be overcome to solve these tough challenges. Take what he called “other-dimensional” policy responses to the problem of low birthrates, for instance. He needs to crack the fiscal conundrum of how to secure stable revenue sources to finance his plan to double spending to support families with young children. As he tries to transform these slogans into action, his ability to get things done will be sorely tested.

As examples of his administration’s actions to deal with policy challenges that cannot be postponed, Kishida cited his decisions to fundamentally enhance the nation’s defense capabilities and reshape the government’s energy policy.

Kishida has decided to give the Self-Defense Forces the ability to strike enemy bases, a move that effectively eviscerates the long-established principle of maintaining a strictly defensive national security policy, and double the nation’s defense spending. He also decided to switch to expanding the use of nuclear power generation, a sign that the government is losing sight of the harsh lessons of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster.

All these decisions were made without meticulous and careful public debate. Kishida is unlikely to win broad public support for his policy approach as long as he keeps praising himself for his reckless decision-making.

In a commercial broadcasting satellite TV program aired at the end of last year, Kishida defended the way these policy decisions were reached by stating the government spent a year discussing the issues. He cited discussions at meetings of the four ministers involved in the National Security Council, hearings organized by the National Security Secretariat and talks within the ruling parties. But all these meetings were held behind closed doors. The public was not made privy to information to form any judgment on the policy changes or the risks involved.

When speaking about related issues in public forums, such as Diet sessions and news conferences, Kishida only repeated that the government was still considering options until the last moment without offering any clues to what the proposals entailed.

In the same TV program, Kishida said he obstinately sticks to decisions once they are made after taking alternative views into account.

“The ability to listen is not incompatible with being obstinate,” he said. But reality suggests he does not listen to dissenting voices and criticism.

Another challenge that emerged last year but has yet to be fully addressed is clarifying the relationship between the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and the Unification Church, now formally known as the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification.

In particular, the LDP did not cover local assembly members in its “review” of its members’ ties with the controversial religious organization even though the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan and other opposition parties published the results of their investigations into the matter.

Touching on scheduled unified local elections slated in April, Kishida told the Jan. 4 news conference that local government elections, which he described as being “the closest to the public,” are very “important for democracy.”

If he means what he said, Kishida should order a fresh inquiry into the links between local assembly members of the LDP and the Unification Church and release the results before the local elections to help voters make decisions at the polls.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Jan. 5