30 Asia The EconomistJanuary 30th 2021
1A
mong thestrangest by-products of the
Cultural Revolution was the creation of
one of the world’s most lethal organised-
crime syndicates. When Mao Zedong at last
turned against the Red Guards, he sent
many of them to be re-educated in Guang-
dong, the province abutting Hong Kong. Ei-
ther to avoid prison or after their release,
many escaped to the British enclave, as
Hong Kong was then, where some banded
together as the Dai Huen Jai—the Big Circle
Boys. Since then the group has expanded
operations to other parts of Asia as well as
to Europe and North America.
On January 22nd police at Schiphol air-
port in Amsterdam arrested the man law-
enforcement agencies say became the big-
gest Big Circle Boy of all: Tse Chi Lop.
Though he is too young, at 57, to have been
a Red Guard, he is accused of assuming the
mantle of the organisation’s founders and
of taking its activities to a far higher level,
as boss of a narcotics-trafficking super-
syndicate known to members as “the Com-
pany”. Law-enforcement agents call it Sam
Gor, Cantonese for “Brother Three”, one of
Mr Tse’s many sobriquets.
It is the Company, they claim, that has
been chiefly responsible for flooding the
Asia-Pacific region with methampheta-
mines and other synthetic drugs. The un’s
Office on Drugs and Crime put the syndi-
cate’s turnover in 2018 at between $8bn and
$18bn. That would mean Brother Three is in
the same league, as an underworld king-The elusive boss of Asia’s biggest
drug-trafficking gang is arrestedOrganised crimeIce lord
D
uring histime as chief cabinet secre-
tary, Suga Yoshihide flummoxed Japa-
nese comedians. “He never had any dis-
tinctive characteristics,” says Yamamoto
Tenshin, who impersonates Mr Suga for
“The Newspaper”, a comedy troupe. Voters
projected their hopes on that blank slate
when Mr Suga became prime minister in
September: he entered office with approval
ratings as high as 74%. Yet the longer he has
spent under the spotlight, the less satisfied
Japanese have become. More disapprove
than approve of his performance (see
chart). Some polls show as few as 33% of
voters praising Mr Suga’s administration.
He even looks the worse for wear recently,
with a cough and hoarse voice. “He’s visibly
weaker,” says Mr Yamamoto.
A fresh wave of covid-19 precipitated Mr
Suga’s slide. Most Japanese want the gov-
ernment to put virus prevention above eco-
nomic recovery, whereas Mr Suga has fo-
cused more on the latter. As cases spiked
late last year, the government stuck by a
campaign to promote domestic tourism,
claiming that it had no impact on the vi-
rus’s spread. (Researchers at Kyoto Univer-
sity recently published a study showing
otherwise.) Critics lambasted Mr Suga for
attending a dinner with eight guests in a
posh steakhouse just when the govern-
ment was calling for citizens to avoid din-
ing in big groups. After suspending the tra-
vel campaign, Mr Suga dithered over
whether to declare a state of emergency, ul-
timately doing so in early January in piece-
meal fashion, adding seven prefectures to
the original list of four after regional lead-
ers complained. Some 80% of Japanese be-
lieved the declaration came too late.Mr Suga’s personality has only com-
pounded his problems. As chief cabinet
secretary, his curt, at times combative style
served him well in dealing with the press.
But he has failed to change his tone when
addressing the broader public. “Even after
becoming prime minister, he is playing the
role of chief cabinet secretary,” says Sone
Yasunori of Keio University. One opposi-
tion mp counted Mr Suga’s responses to
questioning in the Diet and claimed that in
a special session last year he uttered the
phrase “I refrain from answering” 113 times.
Mr Suga’s talk of “self-help” and “self-
reliance” grates on some who want more
help from the government amid the pan-
demic. “He’s paying the price for being who
he is,” says Nakano Koichi of Sophia Uni-
versity. “Now is not the time to be a neolib-
eral reformist.” Nor has Mr Suga explained
clearly the goal of his reforms. While Abe
Shinzo, his predecessor, had big-picture
“bird eyes”, Mr Suga has detailed-focused
“ant eyes”, quips Toshikawa Takao, editor
of Insideline, a political newsletter: “He has
no national vision, he is clearly a number-
two man, not a national leader type.”
Mr Suga’s allies hope that once the pan-
demic clouds clear, voters will come to ap-
preciate his longer-term policy ideas, such
as efforts to reduce Japan’s carbon emis-
sions, to digitise government services and
to fund r&dand infrastructure. “Once co-
vid-19 calms down, people will see the
work he is doing for Japan’s future,” says
Adachi Masashi, one of his advisers. Mr
Suga has recently been trying to communi-
cate better, holding more of his own press
conferences on covid-19, rather than send-
ing out lieutenants. He is taking advice on
how to perk up his Twitter game.
Yet his path is treacherous. A string of
tricky by-elections looms. The ratings of
his Liberal Democratic Party (ldp) have
dipped, though not as low as his own, mak-
ing the contests a test of its broader sup-
port. The roll-out of the covid-19 vaccine,
which the government plans to begin only
in late February, presents further hurdles.
So does a decision on whether to press on
with the Olympics this summer, which it
and the International Olympic Committee
will probably take by late March.
These tasks are so daunting that they
might actually help Mr Suga keep his job, at
least in the short run, by scaring off poten-
tial challengers. “Every rival knows this is a
bad time to become prime minister,” says
Iio Jun of the National Graduate Institute
for Policy Studies in Tokyo. Yet many in the
ldp have begun to wonder whether Mr
Suga has the star power to lead them into
the general election that must be held by
October. This is fuelling talk of an open
race for the ldp presidency in the party
elections scheduled for September. Mr
Yamamoto may need to learn a new satiri-
cal impression sooner than he expected. 7TOKYO
The prime minister of five months
struggles to inspireJapanese politicsSuga slumps
Downhill struggle
Japan, net approval rating of prime
minister Suga Yoshihide, %Source:MorningConsult40200-20-402020 2021Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan