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Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.In his early months as prime minister in 2021, the supposedly non-ideological Fumio Kishida did an enthusiastic turn as an ideologue. Japan, according to his vision, needed to embrace the uplifting but vaguely drawn tenets of “new capitalism” — a wage-inflating, middle-class friendly, wealth-distributing version of the system that would lead the country into a more prosperous age.The technocratic-looking Kishida, who announced his decision to step down on Wednesday, appeared in those early days to be offering Japan a philosophical alternative to “Abenomics” — the flashy but by then largely stalled package of economic, market-boosting reforms launched by his predecessor and ideologue supreme, the late Shinzo Abe. Kishida could never sustain the act of zealot. New capitalism, as a meaningful policy framework and slogan, fizzled feebly and barely made it through his first year. A profound shift in Japan’s positioning around more old-school capitalism, though, has occurred on his watch — some of that by circumstance, some as the fruition of policies (governance reform) and demographic trends (labour market shrinkage) already set in train, but some because he actively ushered it in.It was on Kishida’s watch that the Nikkei 225 Average this year finally broke through the historic high set in 1989 on a wave of shareholder activism, foreign buying and optimism that the Tokyo Stock Exchange could push companies to address decades of capital inefficiency. The Nikkei’s high might have happened without In personbut it was a landmark that had eluded 16 previous prime ministers.Japan, in certain key economic areas such as the end of deflation, the end of zero interest rates and the early stages of labour market liquidity, is finally normalising after decades of abnormality. Its companies look vulnerable to mergers and takeovers in a way they never used to be. Zombie businesses are increasingly being seen as the pernicious guarantees of resource misallocation and innovation suppressors that they are. Shareholder capitalism is looking (by Japanese standards) uncharacteristically feisty and unleashed. Kishida’s era may, for its brevity and unpopularity, pass quite swiftly into memory. But he has steered the country through what is arguably its most life-altering three-year period since the 1980s bubble.Japan could clearly see early in his premiership that it did not have an Abe-style ideologue. And, in terms of actually prodding the country in important directions, that was a critical asset. By being apparently unpropelled by Abe’s forthright nationalism, desire to amend the constitution and other doctrines, Kishida’s policy- and decision-making came across as more stolidly practical in the face of events and, to those who instinctively objected to Abe’s brand of politics, less sinister. That perception, when combined with the extraordinary external events that encircled his premiership, allowed Kishida — for all his later collapse in the polls — to push Japan and its institutions further than his predecessor managed. People who worked closely with him describe, for someone not insulated by the certainties of doctrine, a surprising fearlessness. Where so many others had stumbled, noted one senior official, the non-ideologue convinced the Ministry of Finance to accept tax cuts.Arguably, his most obvious expression of fearlessness has been in the areas of diplomacy and defence. The doubling of the military budget as a proportion of gross domestic product was a remarkable political feat not just for its scale, but for the absence of public backlash.Under the mild-appearing Kishida, Japan’s stance in the world has seen historic change. He engaged more actively with the EU and Nato. He helped mend the previously testy relationship with South Korea. He happened to be in power in 2022 when Japan finally signed a long-negotiated military reciprocal access agreement with Australia, but the subsequent approach to both the UK and Philippines for similar deals in 2023 and 2024 respectively were his work. This has all played out against changes in the US-Japan relationship that were summed up, on Wednesday, by the US ambassador to Tokyo, Rahm Emanuel, as a shift from “alliance protection to alliance projection”.The outgoing prime minister’s crueller critics — and there are plenty of those — may like to paint him as a Forrest Gump-like figure: an uncomplicated, unassuming participant in great moments of history who obtains agency by accident rather than skill or guile. That is to massively underestimate Kishida’s contribution, as his successor — should they fail to keep the momentum going — will find to their cost.leo.lewis@ft.com
