Forgive me for this somewhat lengthy post. What’s happening in the Land of the Rising Sun has likely forced the imperial family to convene an emergency meeting as well. What I began to think about a few days ago isn’t shaping up to be a fight to the death between two samurai, but rather a “final conversation”, the one from which Japan will emerge as the nation that shuts itself away inside the Imperial Palace in Tokyo, or the one that returns to filling the world’s ports with containers. On one side is the new Prime Minister-in-waiting, Takaichi Sanae, and on the other, the familiar figure of Kazuo Ueda, the man who was promised the use of the katana needed to restore public finances. But you know how things go: making promises is easy, keeping a promise is a slightly more complicated game, even in Japan.
Let’s take a step back. Things began to heat up with the resignation of former Prime Minister Shigeru, the man who, despite everything, managed to convince Ueda to wait with a delicate diplomatic manoeuvre. The central banker waited, despite his desire to fulfil the task for which he had been offered the BoJ’s helm. Evidently, in a country gripped first by rice prices and then by increasingly bellicose neighbours, political bigwigs felt it necessary to halt “the century-old project of reviewing monetary policy.” Shigeru (as is customary in Japan, where the relationship between the Prime Minister and the BoJ President is very close) had the task of managing Ueda and persuading him to accept the decision. Now, Shigeru has returned home to his bonsai trees, but Ueda is still in the trenches. Once Shigeru fell, the macroeconomic picture became increasingly complicated, day after day. Who knows what went through Ueda’s mind when he realised that the “former head of Economic Security” was among the favourites to succeed Shigeru? He probably jumped out of his seat and exclaimed loudly, “But the lady is from the ultra-conservative wing of the Liberal Democratic Party!”
No sooner said than done; former party general secretary Motegi Toshimitsu and Kobayashi Takayuki, chief cabinet secretary Hayashi Yoshimasa, and agriculture minister Koizumi Shinjiro had to surrender to an ultra-conservative woman.
Let’s dig deeper.