Wholly Active A Hundred Million

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe reshuffled his Cabinet on Wednesday. Not implementing his words to encourage women’s involvement in society, number of female Ministers declined. While Abe hoped to regain popularity with his determination to revitalize Japanese economy, the concept was too weak to be recognized as the key element for the future. Abe administration looks like drifting without any obvious direction to go.

Abe picked Katsunobu Kato for Minister for Wholly Active A Hundred Million, which is officially interpreted as Minister in Charge of Promoting Dynamic Engagement of All Citizens in Cabinet Office homepage. In the press conference, Abe introduced Kato as the captain for social reform.

Kato was a former elite bureaucrat in Minister of Finance, named Katsunobu Murosaki, and changed his name when he married with a daughter of one of the bosses of a fraction in Liberal Democratic Party, Mutsuki Kato, who was a close colleague of Abe’s father, Shintaro Abe. It is common for a bureaucrat who wants to be a politician to be married with a daughter for succeeding her father’s political legacy, even changing his surname. In other words, Abe relied on bureaucracy for his agenda called New Three Arrows.

One of the three arrows, ¥600 trillion of gross domestic products in 2020, would still be a hard target to achieve. Governor of Bank of Japan, Haruhiko Kuroda, indicated a possibility of delay of reaching the goal of 2% inflation in the first half of 2016 on Wednesday. Although Abe insists that Japan has gotten rid of deflation from people’s mind, the people are growingly frustrated with accumulation of policies damaging their ordinary life.

The second target, hopeful birth rate of 1.8 in the middle of 2020’s, is also unrealistic. Young couples hesitate to give birth not because nursery for their kids is in short, but overwhelming uneasiness for the future, being affiliated to lower layer of the society. An episode that Chief Cabinet Secretary, Yoshihide Suga, was accused by young people in his statement on a marriage of popular movie star, hoping mothers to give more birth attracted by marriage of celebrity, showed indifference of policy leaders. The third target of zero job loss caused by taking care of parents is inappropriate as a target, because it is not verifiable.

Because what the leader wants to do is not clear, it is difficult to assess new Cabinet. Since core members, such as Suga or Finance Minister Taro Aso, have not changed, political direction will not be so different from former one. Abe Cabinet will still be hawkish and revisionistic.