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Bloomberg
Yoshihide Suga, the front-runner to become Japan’s next premier, emphasized the importance of the nation’s alliance with the US for the country’s foreign policy.
“With the US-Japan alliance at the foundation, it is important for Japan to get along with other Asian nations,†Suga said in a debate in Tokyo on Saturday at the Japan National Press Club. While Japan faces difficulties in its relations with China and South Korea, Suga said he would seek to pursue “strategic†relations with both nations through communication.
The debate was the last formal Liberal Democratic Party event where all three candidates share the stage to discuss their policy priorities before it holds a party vote on Monday to replace Prime Minister Shinzo Abe as party leader. Abe said in late August he was stepping down for health reasons.
The LDP, which has ruled the country for 60 of the last 65 years, is expected to use its majorities in parliament to install its new leader as prime minister on Wednesday. Then attention will be focused on the people he chooses for his cabinet.
“Continuity is what’s important in diplomacy,†Suga said when asked how closely he would follow the Abe administration’s style of foreign policy.
He stressed that he’d been in the room for almost all of Abe’s many phone calls with US President Donald Trump, and bristled at the suggestion that just sitting in on the call might not count as diplomatic experience. “When it comes to making decisions as a nation, I’ve been involved in all of it,†Suga said.
Japan, whose own military is restricted by a pacifist constitution drafted by the US after World War II, relies heavily on America’s troops and nuclear weapons for deterrence against growing threats from North Korea and an increasingly powerful China.