By Tom Fowdy
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has won a landslide victory.
Social media is awash, as usual, with "hot takes" pointing out how China's pressure campaign against Japan, triggered by her previous comments over Taiwan, has handed her such a victory, therefore Beijing's campaign "didn't work."
What these people are saying is technically right, but they are also missing the bigger picture: The entire crisis was by her own design. It's what the LDP does, it is what they alwaysdo. Those who follow Japanese politics should be aware that the LDP uses a playbook of repeatedly whipping up nationalist anger or fear in relation to foreign adversaries and then cynically calling a snap election to win a huge majority, so they can stay in power effectively indefinitely. It works every single time.
Since Japan reformed its constitution following the end of World War II, the LDP has been in power for all but two occasions, those two occasions being when the economy was weak and there was no foreign adversary to demonize (1993 to 1996 and 2009 to 2012). While Japan is, on paper, a democracy, in practice, the LDP forms the backbone of the state's elite and upper classes, who are the same elite derived from the Empire of Japan, not purged or rebranded.
The United States chose not to pursue a policy of "denazification" in Post-War Japan in the same way that had been done in Germany, precisely because the Cold War was now emerging and the US wanted a strategic Anti-Communist bulwark in Asia. Thus, Japan's leaders were not held to account like the Nazis were in Nuremberg, but they were rehabilitated, and the LDP became their political coalition and the backbone of the reformed Japanese state. They have dominated the country's politics ever since.
The LDP maintains power perpetually in Japan not because they are overwhelmingly popular by any means, but because they form a solid electoral coalition and no other political party is given the scope or capacity to do so; all they need is more than the rest, who are never capable of gaining enough support to challenge them. This is because the LDP "elite" maintains tight centralised control over the media, key state narratives, and is given an advantage through Japan's highly conformist, centralised, and bureaucratic culture.
A big part of maintaining this advantage is using the weaponisation of a "foreign adversary" in order to invoke fear into their core support and then timing this with politically opportunistic "snap elections." As a case study: In 2017, Abe Shinzo deliberately escalated tensions with North Korea and encouraged the Trump Administration to do so. The state deliberately staged theatrics to whip up public panic. Every time North Korea tested a missile, Japanese television would flip to emergency broadcasts, the metro would stop, and air defence missiles would be even placed in central Tokyo. Abe then predictably called a snap election in the middle of the crisis and won with a huge majority. This is the LDP playbook; it is by design.
Therefore, when Sanae Takaichi made provocative comments towards China over Taiwan, she absolutely intended for the reaction it would bring from Beijing, and moreover, because of Anti-Chinese sentiment in Japan, she knew such fury from China would give her political support. Beijing's subsequent pressure campaign against Tokyo was thus a political goldmine for her, and thus, to nobody's surprise, came the snap election and the supermajority. While China is also politically inclined to respond the way it does over the Taiwan matter (as it also benefits from Anti-Japanese sentiment), it is very much clear they played into her hands with this. Therefore, the LDP retains power yet again. It would honestly not surprise me that now she has what she wants domestically, Takaichi will somewhat alleviate tensions, although there is little doubt that she is also a massive advocate of Japanese military revisionism, and things will remain rough.
But in conclusion: People need to understand what the LDP playbook is. 1) Create tensions 2) Whip up fear and panic against the targeted foreign adversary 3) Call a snap election 4) Win big. It is a playbook that has kept them in power for most of the 75 years of post-war Japan.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.
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