◼ POLITICS Bloomberg Businessweek March 9, 202035JUSTIN SULLIVAN/GETTY IMAGES
● The prime minister is criticized for a
haphazard response to the outbreakCoronavirus Could
Fell Japan’s Abe
THE BOTTOM LINE Abe has survived other crises, but the novel
coronavirus threatens to deliver an economic blow he won’t be able
to overcome before the 2021 elections.Shinzo Abe has overcome countless political perils
on the road to becoming Japan’s longest-serving
prime minister. He may have met his match with
the novel coronavirus.
In a sign of mounting concern, Abe abandoned
his relatively mild approach to the epidemic with
a shock announcement urging schools to close
nationwide beginning on March 3. The move sent
millions of parents rushing to arrange child care
and raised doubts about the government’s grasp on
a situation threatening to tank the economy, scuttle
Tokyo’s plan to host the Summer Olympics in four
months, and tarnish Abe’s legacy.
“This step signals both the government’s
alarm at the outbreak’s trajectory and—perhaps
more importantly—Abe’s awareness that misman-
aging the outbreak could critically damage his
premiership,” says Tobias Harris, a Japan analyst
for Teneo Intelligence in Washington. “However,
it seems unlikely that this step will either contain
the outbreak or restore the public’s confidence in
Abe’s leadership.”
The reversal followed weeks of controversy over
the prime minister’s efforts to contain a disease
that’s infected more than 300 people in Japan (as of
March 4). Abe’s health minister acknowledged that
Japan was conducting only a fraction of the num-
ber of tests that its peers have, meaning the cases
confirmed so far may be only the tip of the iceberg.
The episode has damaged Japan’s reputation for
competent governance, even as people began to
wonder whether it might be safer to postpone the
Olympics for the first time since World War II. Tokyo
has spent more than $26 billion to prepare for the
event this summer, which Abe has made a center-
piece of his campaign to attract foreign tourists.
The blow has fallen on a Liberal Democratic
Party-led government weakened by a series of cor-
ruption scandals and a sales tax hike in October
that left the economy on the brink of a recession.
Support for Abe’s cabinet has sagged to its low-
est average level since July 2018, according to data
compiled by Bloomberg Economics. One poll pub-
lished by the newspaper Sankei, which backs the
LDP, showed support falling 8 percentage points,to 36%, from a month earlier.
Abe defended his response to the outbreak at a
news conference on Feb. 29. “A decision that affects
people’s daily lives will of course result in various
opinions and criticisms,” he told reporters. “As
prime minister, it is a matter of course for me to
listen to those voices. But at the same time I need
to protect the lives of the people.”
Japan’s benchmark Topix stock index marked its
worst weekly decline in four years in the last week of
February. Market jitters bode ill for an economy that
contracted 6.3% in the last three months of 2019.
While Abe benefits from a divided opposition,
a simultaneous collapse of the economy and the
Olympics might be too much for the LDP to ignore.
Further declines could prompt the ruling party to
ditch Abe before the next general elections, which
must be held by October 2021.
Abe, like leaders in South Korea, Hong Kong, and
elsewhere, has faced criticism for the government’s
reluctance to institute a total ban on Chinese arriv-
als. That’s complicated his push to restore ties with
China. The two countries were mired in one of their
biggest crises ever when he took power in late 2012.
Tokyo and Beijing still say they plan to go ahead
with a state visit by President Xi Jinping in April,
though Sankei reported the trip could be delayed
until autumn or later.
Although Abe has survived worse slumps
before, the coronavirus outbreak is shaping up to
be his toughest challenge yet. Waiting in the wings
is Shigeru Ishiba, a former LDP defense minister
whose efforts to distance himself from the gov-
ernment have helped make him the most popu-
lar candidate to succeed Abe. “There are major
cracks appearing in [Abe’s] bedrock support,” says
Shigeharu Aoyama, an upper house LDP lawmaker
who says the prime minister’s policies had shown
consideration for China while placing burdens on
the Japanese people. “Doubts are emerging over
the nature of the administration and whether it’s
appropriate for the nation.” �Isabel Reynolds