Japananese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida won't run for reelection

Transcript

LEILA FADEL, HOST:

A key ally in Asia that the U.S. has relied on for support in the region is facing a leadership change. Japan's prime minister, Fumio Kishida, said he will resign. And as NPR's Anthony Kuhn reports, there's no clear successor in sight.

ANTHONY KUHN, BYLINE: Kishida's announcement came as jarring news amid the celebrations of Japan's Obon holiday. He told a press briefing that he won't stand for reelection next month as president of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, or LDP.

(SOUNDBITE OF PRESS CONFERENCE)

PRIME MINISTER FUMIO KISHIDA: (Speaking Japanese).

KUHN: "It is necessary to clearly demonstrate to citizens that the LDP is changing," he said. "The first and most obvious step to show this is for me to step down." Kishida's support rate has been wallowing in the 20% range. Many Japanese were dissatisfied by his handling of an LDP fundraising scandal, as well as his party's ties to the Unification Church. Kishida tried to regain public trust by breaking up factions within the LDP. But that may have alienated some politicians whose support Kishida had been counting on. Tobias Harris, who heads a consultancy called Japan Foresight, explains.

TOBIAS HARRIS: There's a lot of bitterness towards Kishida and a lot of resistance to supporting him again. He was not going to be able to reassemble the coalition that won him the premiership in 2021.

KUHN: Harris says that none of the politicians in the race to succeed Kishida enjoy broad support across the whole party. Another complication is that a huge asset bubble that has ballooned for the last two years has imploded. Japan's stock prices last week registered their single-biggest-day point drop since 1987.

HARRIS: There's going to be calls to really think about limitations on spending. And that's going to have consequences downstream for what Japan is willing and able to do.

KUHN: Kishida has ramped up Japan's defense spending and strengthened its alliance with the U.S. in order to deter China and North Korea. But Japan's growing domestic political and economic constraints may mean that the U.S. can't expect Japan to do as much of the heavy lifting in Asia as before.

Anthony Kuhn, NPR News, Seoul.

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