Few policy changes seen after Japan prime minister quits; Kishida aided U.S. security alliances

SEOUL, South Korea — Fumio Kishida, Japan’s prime minister since 2021, announced Wednesday that he will step down in September, igniting a fight within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party over who will succeed him as head of one of America’s closest allies.

Mr. Kishida said he would not participate in the party’s upcoming leadership vote, effectively requiring the LDP to select a new prime minister on an unspecified date next month.

That leader will likely lead the LDP, which has dominated Japanese politics since the country’s recovery from World War II, into the next parliamentary elections, which must be held by October 2025.

Analysts do not expect major shifts in Japan’s foreign and security policies regardless of who takes over, given that the LDP, though a relatively broad political movement, is essentially conservative. Moreover, they say, rising regional security challenges demand a more rigorous approach to defense.

Mr. Kishida casts a larger shadow than many previous prime ministers. He has worked with the Biden administration to try to improve relations with South Korea and forge a more effective trilateral alliance to confront regional challenges from China, North Korea and Russia.

Mr. Kishida’s announcement was a surprise but hardly a shock. Rumors have been swirling for months that he would not run in September.

“We need to clearly show an LDP reborn,” Mr. Kishida, 67, told a news conference on Wednesday. “In order to show a changing LDP, the most obvious first step is for me to bow out.”

He urged party members to “work as one.”

His premiership has been hurt by a cost-of-living crisis driven by global inflation, accompanied by a plummeting yen. Two party scandals broke on his watch.

In 2022, a shooter angry with former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe because of his connections with the Unification Church assassinated the former premier. The aftermath exposed extensive ties between the church and party and put the Kishida government on the defensive.

The strongly anti-communist church has supported the conservative LDP for decades but suffers from a poor public image. Mr. Kishida cut the government’s ties to the church, which now faces a legal battle to prevent being dismantled as a religious organization across Japan, but that failed to improve the government’s poor poll ratings.

A foundation tied to the South Korea-based church owns the parent company of The Washington Times.

The party was further shaken by a subsequent corruption scandal involving lawmakers failing to report incomes and creating slush funds. That dragged down Mr. Kishida’s Cabinet approval ratings to less than 20% — seen in Japan as untenable.

Those ratings and local election losses this year have generated mounting talk within the LDP’s various factions that Mr. Kishida must go.

The head of the country’s main opposition party said Mr. Kishida is stepping down after realizing the futility of trying to reform the ruling party or of putting his scandals behind him.

“Whenever the party is in crisis, LDP, for its own survival, has repeatedly changed the prime minister and party leader to reset and have voters forget the past,” Constitutional Democratic Party chief Kenta Izumi told reporters Wednesday. “It’s their strategy, and people should not be tricked by it.”

Success abroad

Mr. Kishida has had more success globally and regionally.

He hosted the 2023 Group of Seven leaders’ meeting and worked to mend long-strained ties with South Korea, capped by the unprecedented trilateral summit with Mr. Biden and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol last year at Camp David.

On the security front, Mr. Kishida has continued the processes Abe set into place, notably building up the fortification of the southern Ryukyu Islands. That presents a massive risk to any Chinese naval force seeking to encircle Taiwan from the north.

Given that he hails from the softer wing of his party, his muscular defense posture has surprised some.

He has strongly condemned Russia for its invasion of Ukraine and vowed to nearly double Japan’s defense spending by 2027, albeit while leaving unsettled how the budget will be funded. He has begun buying a counterstrike force of U.S.-made, long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles, a first for Japan’s armed forces.

Mr. Kishida also has expanded Japan’s defense ties with fellow democracies Australia, Britain, the Philippines and Germany.

“He did not come with a lot of ideology attached, so I think he did OK,” said Haruko Satoh, an expert on Japan’s relations with the region at the Osaka School of International Public Policy, comparing Mr. Kishida with the more forceful and abrasive Abe. “Within what was reasonable and realistic, he was blessed.”

Mr. Kishida especially benefited from the outreach offered by the Yoon presidency in South Korea, which overturned many of the anti-Japanese policies of the prior administration, she said.

Though the roster of challengers for party leadership has not been set, Ms. Satoh anticipates no significant changes in Tokyo’s regional and global policies beyond, possibly, a more pro-Palestinian stance.

“I don’t see any radical shifts. It seems things will remain the same,” she said, because of security challenges from nearby China and North Korea. “There is very little Japan can do differently at the moment.”

Alexander Neill, a Singapore-based security expert with Pacific Forum, agreed.

“I think there is a general strategic trend in Japan which sort of overrides political factionalism,” he said. “The national security predicament means Japan is drifting toward more defense collaboration and more defense industrial collaboration, which bind Japan into more multilateral arrangements.”

Long-simmering domestic problems, combined with Japan’s far-flung economic engagements in a polarized world, are further reasons for Tokyo’s pivot away from decades of pacifist policies and a lack of emphasis on building up a strong military, Mr. Neill said.

Snapping Japan out of a long period of economic doldrums, he said, was a bigger priority.

“Japan is stuck in a middle-income trap, it is on a demographic cliff, it has fiscal problems, and its economic well-being is linked to much further afield — to Europe and the U.S.,” he said. “So this strategic shift, of contributing more to international security, is baked into the national DNA now.”

Speculation on potential candidates has included LDP Secretary-General Toshimitsu Motegi, Digital Minister Taro Kono, Economic Security Minister Sanae Takaichi and Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa.

Top LDP officials are expected to decide next week on the date for the party election.

Since the corruption scandal broke, Mr. Kishida has removed several Cabinet ministers and others from party executive posts, dissolved party factions that were criticized as the source of money-for-favor politics, and tightened political funds control law. Ten lawmakers and aides were indicted in January.

• This article is based in part on wire service reports.