Yoshihide Suga, the low-key son of a farmer who will be named Japan’s next prime minister on Wednesday, is in many ways a policy clone of recently resigned Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. But that doesn’t mean Suga will bring anything like the same effort Abe did to bolstering Japan’s defense capabilities—a transition in Japanese politics both Beijing and Washington will be watching.
Suga, who overcame two favored party rivals to unexpectedly grab the top of the greasy pole, lacks the political pedigree or hobnobbing skills that made Abe a fixture on the international political scene. But he also lacks Abe’s compulsion to break the constraints of Japan’s post-war defense posture, and is additionally hemmed in by the coronavirus pandemic and the economic damage it’s wrought, which will likely push Japan’s nascent security awakening to the back seat for now.
