Stockholm Syndrome: Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party

The 79th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima was commemorated at a time of heightened fears of nuclear war. Around 150,000 people were killed on 6 August 1945 when the United States mercilessly dropped the bomb with a nuclear warhead called “Little Boy”.

On that painful day, which is remembered as a day of catastrophe for Japan and the whole world, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida refrained from naming the perpetrator. In his speech, Kishida said that nuclear threats from Russia had created an ‘increasingly serious’ environment for nuclear disarmament.

In another statement, Kishida, of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), expressed his commitment to nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, while relying on the US extended deterrence, known as the nuclear umbrella, to allay concerns and deter the growing nuclear capabilities of China, North Korea and Russia.

So why is the ‘murderer’ protected?

The LDP is a party that emerged after the American post-war occupation of Japan. After the left-wing parties merged into a single Socialist Party of Japan in 1955, Japanese conservatives, backed by the US CIA, decided to merge the two main conservative parties, the Liberal Party and the Democratic Party of Japan. The new LDP gained the upper hand and oversaw Japan’s economic miracle. It also benefited from an electoral system that favoured rural areas, where the party’s influence was strong. Factions within the party’s big tent competed as regime change came from within. This LDP dominance, known as the “1955 system”, ended in 1993 when a group of powerful LDP figures left the party and formed an alternative coalition government with opposition parties. This unruly coalition dissolved the following year, but not before electoral reform had paved the way for the emergence of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), whose victory over the LDP in 2009 was seen as a harbinger of a period of genuine intra-party competition.

The main figure in the aforementioned “1955 system” was Kishi Nobusuke, who was listed as a Class A war criminal after World War II, but whom the US government did not indict or even prosecute, but chose as the best man to lead Japan in a pro-American direction. The Kishi family would now become a name that would shape Japanese politics with the support of the US. Shinzo Abe, who would shape Japanese politics for years to come, followed in his own grandfather Kishi’s footsteps and maintained strong ties with the US. However, in a Japan that could not break free of its traditionalist structure, Abe was the leader of the Japanese people who, as stated in Article 9 of the Constitution, ‘The Japanese people, sincerely desiring international peace based on justice and order, permanently renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force to settle international disputes. Accordingly, no army, navy, air force or other armed force shall be maintained. No right of war is recognised for the State”, and he died as a result of an assassination attempt.

1 July 1957 Nobusuke Kishi with his two grandsons Hironobu Abe (in Indian dress) and Shinzo Abe (on his lap)

The US-led policy in Japan sought to change the pacifist defence strategy and legitimise an aggressive policy with constitutional support. After all these attempts were blocked, the eyes were interpreted as a sign that the Japanese “deep state” structure was acting against the US leadership.

Shinzo Abe was one of the strongest proponents of the Indo-Pacific concept. As early as 2007, in a speech to the Indian parliament, he had stressed the importance of the ‘Indo-Pacific’, speaking of the region’s future geopolitical rise and pushing for closer quadrilateral cooperation with the US, Australia and India. In August 2016, in his keynote speech at TICAD VI in Kenya, Prime Minister Abe announced to the world for the first time the concept of a ‘Free and Open Indo-Pacific’. This plan has been interpreted in the region as a geostrategic planning programme entirely in the interests of US ideals. The development that will make this interpretation realistic was confirmed by the “Free and Open Indo-Pacific Strategy” to be announced by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in 2021. In this statement, the US pointed to the common problem in the region by stating that “a free and open Indo-Pacific means stronger ties within and beyond the region, allowing us to work together as a regional community to solve our common challenges.

Undoubtedly, the People’s Republic of China is the countervailing power to this alliance, which the US calls a ‘common problem’ and of which Japan is the flag bearer. China, which is growing stronger not only in the region but also globally, is seen as a power that will shake US hegemony. At this point, the US is trying to implement the ‘containment of China’ strategy by pursuing joint policies with the governments in the region under its leadership.

Today, Fumio Kishida’s hiding the name of the murderer is actually a strategy to maintain a tradition and policy of his party. The deep function of the US on the states of the region shows us an effect more frightening than the nuclear bomb.