Why Japanese Conservatives Want Ishiba Shigeru to Resign

Ishiba Shigeru, Japan’s prime minister, describes himself as a conservative politician. Due to his occasional appearances on popular television shows prior to taking office, a wide swath of the public perceives him as a “military geek” and would likely agree with his self-description. However, there is a certain group in Japan that does not consider Ishiba a conservative or a military hawk: Japanese conservative voters.

There are two main reasons why Ishiba is not in the good graces of Japanese conservatives. One is his stance on historical memory regarding pre-war Japan’s imperialism and aggression. Furuya Tsunehira, a columnist on the Japanese conservative movement, highlighted two incidents to explain how this stance led to his fallout with conservatives.

In 2008, Watanabe Shoichi, a conservative commentator, took issue with Ishiba’s remarks to the Chinese press. Ishiba – then Japan’s minister of defense – had pledged not to visit the Yasukuni Shrine as an active minister; rebuked denialism of the Nanjing massacre; admitted that the Japanese military was complicit in the “comfort women” issue; refuted the claim that Japan’s war aims were noble; and argued that Japan should apologize to China for its wartime actions. Watanabe described such remarks as “inexcusable” and even an “act of treason,” arguing that Ishiba had harmed Japan’s reputation.

The same line of criticism resurfaced in 2018, when Hyakuta Naoki, who is now the leader of the Conservative Party of Japan (CPJ), discovered a 10-month-old newspaper article that reported Ishiba saying that Japan should apologize to South Korea during an interview with a Korean media outlet. Although the article also shared Ishiba’s response that he did not use the word “apologize” – instead he said that Japan and South Korea “should keep trying until we both agree” – Hyakuta still treated Ishiba’s apparent call for an apology as a settled fact. He condemned Ishiba as an “leftist” who had discredited Japan’s reputation in the eyes of the international community.

As Furuya explained, Ishiba’s approach to historical memory – not using the word “apology” but instead showing sincere remorse over the era of Japanese imperialism – has been the mainstream conservative posture since the end of World War II. However, Furuya noted that the outburst of criticism in 2018 was a turning point for Ishiba’s relationship with Japanese conservatives, who distinguish their enemies based on their understanding of history. Ishiba’s track record on historical memory has thus prevented him from being recognized as a “true conservative” within Japan’s right wing.

Ishiba’s clash with Abe Shinzo is another reason why Japanese conservatives show a genuine dislike toward him, even to this day. Along with Ishiba’s comments on history to the foreign press, Furuya asserted that his attempt to challenge Abe in the 2018 Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) presidential election was the direct cause of overwhelming malice from Japanese conservatives.

In their eyes, it was unthinkable to challenge a “true” conservative – one who had made a name for himself embracing the views of history that Ishiba shunned. Abe was also the perceived “champion of the abductees” who had resisted Pyongyang’s pressure to drop the issue of Japanese individuals kidnapped by North Korean operatives. Ishiba’s decision to question Abe’s honesty during the campaign, based on previous allegations of favoritism and improper land deals under the Abe administration, only worsened the situation.

However, even if they did not have a close relationship, there is evidence to suggest that Abe had some respect for Ishiba’s ability as a policymaker. Right after Abe returned as the head of the LDP in 2012, he appointed Ishiba as the party’s secretary-general – the de facto executive overseeing the daily operations of the party. After approximately two years in that role, Ishiba remained in the Abe administration until the summer of 2016.

Although Ishiba left the Abe administration for good at that point, if Abe told U.S. President Donald Trump that he had “tremendous respect” for Ishiba even after their presumed falling-out in 2016 – as Trump later claimed – it would further indicate that Abe’s relationship with Ishiba was not as strained as Japanese conservatives have portrayed.

Regardless, these two factors – history and Abe Shinzo – explain why Japanese conservatives have been extremely skeptical of the Ishiba administration from the outset. In fact, Japan’s right wing is among Ishiba’s foremost critics. Conservative members in the LDP, such as Takaichi Sanae and Kobayashi Takayuki, have been openly critical of Ishiba’s policies, ranging from tax cuts to tariff negotiations with the Trump administration. Some members have even called for Ishiba’s resignation; Nishida Shoji, an ally of Takaichi, who is running for reelection, has openly demanded that Ishiba step down as prime minister to avoid a massive defeat in this summer’s upper house election.

Although Nishida is alone thus far in openly calling for Ishiba to resign, the sentiment among Japanese conservatives is clear: Ishiba is not their guy. They had originally wanted Takaichi to become prime minister in last year’s LDP leadership race, and were shocked when she lost in the second round of voting, after the moderate wing of the party coalesced around Ishiba. If Ishiba fails to deliver in the upper house election in July, there is no doubt that calls for his resignation will grow louder – from conservatives rather than from opposition parties.