The LDP Slip Slidin' Down and to the Left

This marks the third New Year Japan welcomes without former Prime Minister Abe Shinzo. April 3 of this year will mark exactly one thousand days since his passing. The Osaka-Kansai Expo 2025, for which Abe worked hard to secure hosting, is set to open just ten days later. Time, ever merciless, continues its course.

In less than three years, the political landscape of Japan has undergone a complete transformation. It has been a mere three years, yet the change has been profound. Should the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) suffer another defeat in this summer’s House of Councillors election, a change of government may follow.

If there is a power whose significance becomes even more pronounced in its absence, Abe embodied precisely that. He was a formidable force that propelled both the LDP and Japanese politics forward. His absence has left the LDP—a party already a loose coalition—adrift like a ship without a compass, and it continues to drift to this day.

And with each passing day, the reality grows starker. The fault lines running through the LDP are deep, raising doubts as to whether it even functions as a single party. Prime Minister and LDP President Ishiba Shigeru lacks the centripetal force to unify the party; instead, centrifugal forces pulling it apart prevail. The party's prospects for the coming election are bleak.

If one were to map Japanese politics on a two-axis plane (see the picture in the title section,) the horizontal axis could represent attitudes toward the imperial lineage: the further to the right, the stronger the belief in the imperative of a male-line imperial succession. The vertical axis would reflect foreign relations, indicating Japan’s choice of alliances: the higher up, the stronger the conviction that the Japan-U.S. alliance should be reinforced.

Each of these axes encapsulates a diverse range of perspectives. To prioritise the Japan-U.S. alliance does not mean working only with the United States, given the realities of the Indo-Pacific. Rather, it signifies cooperation with the broader coalition of maritime democracies—a course that entrusts Japan’s future to such alliances.

The path of fostering a close-knit network with Australia, India, and the United Kingdom was precisely what the late prime minister sought through his advocacy of the “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” vision and the foundational QUAD framework of Japan, the U.S., Australia, and India.

Moving downward on the vertical axis signals a shift in orientation—one that turns away from the seas and toward the continent. It reflects an inclination to prioritise China’s influence and take Beijing’s wishes into consideration at every turn.

Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has recently adopted a stance of "saying what needs to be said to China while seeking stability in bilateral relations." Yet, one must ask: what does Beijing mean by "stability"?

It means eliminating any discourse on Taiwan from Japanese politics. It means preventing Japan from ever referring to China as a strategic threat. It means forcing Japan to abandon any pushback over territorial incursions.

It means ensuring that institutions like the University of Tokyo and Tohoku University serve as knowledge acquisition centres for China, and that Kyoto and Nara are transformed into Chinese amusement parks through an unceasing influx of tourists from the mainland.

This is the stability as Beijing envisions it. Unless Japan continues to strengthen its defensive and overall national capabilities, it will be powerless to resist. Stability, in truth, is but another name for equilibrium—one achieved only by refusing to retreat from an unending contest of strength. The more people turn a blind eye to this reality, the stronger the pull downward on the vertical axis becomes.

The reason for defining the horizontal axis in terms of commitment to preserving the imperial lineage is that this issue encapsulates the very essence of conservatism in Japan. Be it institutions, customs, architecture, or traditional arts, the measure of one’s position on this axis is determined by the extent to which one regards what has endured for millennia as inherently precious.

Anything that has stood the test of time owes its survival to the small yet ceaseless dedication of countless predecessors, known and unknown alike. It is this accumulated devotion that makes it valuable. Those who hold this belief strongly are positioned further to the right on the axis.

In the Taisho era, the literary giant Mori ōgai, who served as director of the Imperial Museum and head librarian of the Imperial Household, oversaw the opening and closing of the Shōsō-in treasure house in Nara as part of his duties. He left behind a famous poem:

"The land of dreams— A land where flames should rise yet never do, A land where timber-built granaries Stand firm through all eternity."

The Shōsō-in, built in the azekura log-cabin style, is made of wood. A single match could set it ablaze, and yet, it has stood for centuries. Is this not, indeed, a land of dreams? Such was the pure and heartfelt sentiment of his verse.

Now, as the number of those who disdain Japan’s longstanding traditions grows by the day, can this dreamland endure? I, for one, find myself lying awake at night, haunted by visions of the Shōsō-in reduced to ashes.

Among the countless traditions upheld through the unwavering devotion of generations, none is more paramount than the Imperial House—most notably, the unbroken male-line succession. Respecting the sheer weight of continuity and ensuring that it does not wither in our generation is the only correct stance. From this perspective, the sole viable solution is to bring male-line imperial descendants into the family through adoption. Yet, within the LDP, the consensus on this matter wavers and remains unstable.

As evident from the foregoing, Abe was the force that consistently pulled Japanese political discourse towards the upper right quadrant of this two-axis plane. With his absence, the LDP has lost its driving force and is sliding—steadily, inexorably—toward the centre and lower left. This is what is happening now.

As it descends, the LDP inches ever closer to policies such as allowing separate surnames for married couples, legalising same-sex marriage, and, as a logical extension, erasing the words “father” and “mother” from legal texts.

This trajectory ultimately leads to the erasure of gender distinctions altogether. As that shift accelerates, LDP lawmakers begin to lose confidence in maintaining male-line succession exclusively within the Imperial House. I have even spoken with a prominent LDP member from a major local assembly who confided in me about his growing uncertainty.

Who can say with certainty that an unmarried female member of the Imperial Family will not, in the future, choose a Chinese citizen—perhaps even a member of the Chinese Communist Party—as her spouse? If so, would their child have a claim to the throne?

Had Abe been alive, he would have reinvigorated intra-party debate, compelling the LDP to confront such pressing questions.

In their bid to garner popularity by embracing modern ideological trends—what is now commonly termed woke—Japan risks a fundamental transformation at its very core.

This, precisely, is the fissure that now threatens to cleave the LDP in two.

Will Japan, this year, be able to navigate these deepening fractures? Or will it, lacking the strength to overcome them, drift irreversibly toward a decisive turning point?

The above is a direct translation of the article I wrote for Japan's monthly magazine Seiron (Sound Reasoning in English) for its March 2025 issue.