Originally published on July 9, 2019.
Through an exclusive interview with Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga published in the August issue of Hanada, this passage reveals that the central force sustaining Abe’s long administration was political leadership.
It describes in concrete terms how reforms that previous governments could not achieve—Abenomics, coordination with the Bank of Japan, security legislation, tourism-promotion policy, visa deregulation, and the expansion of tax-free sales—were carried out under the Prime Minister’s leadership.
It is an important testimony for understanding the essence of a long-lasting administration and what visible results mean in the eyes of the public.

2019-07-09
What differs from previous administrations is that the Abe Cabinet clearly set forth in its basic policy what it intended to do, and under the Prime Minister’s leadership carried out reform in united fashion.
The following is an article by Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga published in the August issue of the monthly magazine Hanada under the title, “Exclusive Interview: Japan Cannot Be Entrusted to Opposition Cooperation.”
Not only all the people of Japan, but people throughout the world as well, must read it.
The Secret of the Longest Tenure
Before I knew it, my days in office as Chief Cabinet Secretary have exceeded 2,300, and are approaching twice the previous record of 1,289 days held by Mr. Yasuo Fukuda.
Prime Minister Abe’s cumulative days in office have also exceeded 2,700, making him the third longest-serving in history, and there is now the possibility that he may surpass the second-ranked Eisaku Sato Cabinet at 2,798 days and the first-ranked Taro Katsura Cabinet at 2,886 days.
I am often asked what the secret of a long-lasting administration is, but it can be summed up in a single phrase:
that we have fulfilled the role politics ought to fulfill through political leadership.
What differs from previous administrations is that the Abe Cabinet clearly set forth in its basic policy what it intended to do, and under the Prime Minister’s leadership carried out reform in united fashion.
Above all, the highest priority has been economic revitalization.
As concrete economic policy, we implemented the three arrows of Abenomics conceived by the Prime Minister.
Politics naturally invites opposition.
Before the 2012 House of Representatives election, then Keidanren Chairman Hiromasa Yonekura criticized Prime Minister Abe’s monetary easing policy as “reckless rather than bold,” treating him as an amateur in economics, but I believe the results have already proven themselves.
In order to carry out the policies we ourselves had formulated, we appointed Haruhiko Kuroda, whose thinking was close to that of the Abe administration, as Governor of the Bank of Japan, and sent a clear message that we would proceed with monetary easing.
At the same time, we also carried out fiscal mobilization firmly under Finance Minister Aso.
In addition, as a concrete measure in the growth strategy, the Prime Minister clearly declared in his policy speech that Japan would promote itself as a tourism-oriented nation, and in fact we were able to greatly increase the number of visitors to Japan.
The same applies to agricultural reform.
I believe we have been positively evaluated because we were able to visibly improve the economic situation.
Political Leadership as Seen by the People
The Bank of Japan Act stipulates that “in order to ensure that currency and monetary control and the basic stance of the Bank of Japan’s business operations shall be mutually compatible with the basic policy of the government’s economic policy,
the Bank shall always maintain close contact with the government and exchange views sufficiently” (Article 4), and with regard to economic policy under Abenomics, for the sake of stability in the financial and foreign exchange markets, which is of the utmost importance, we strengthened coordination among the Ministry of Finance, the Financial Services Agency, and the Bank of Japan through political leadership, and established a system under their three-party meetings to keep a close watch on the market.
In the field of security as well, we have properly enacted the necessary laws through political leadership.
Specifically, we carefully debated and passed important bills that previous administrations had not been able to undertake, namely the Act on the Protection of Specially Designated Secrets, the Peace and Security Legislation, and the conspiracy-related offense legislation, while fully taking the political situation into account.
Furthermore, we also advanced efforts to attract foreign tourists through political leadership.
At the time this administration was launched, Japan had fewer foreign tourists than South Korea.
It was clear that the cause lay in visas.
Accordingly, we believed it necessary first to relax visa issuance conditions to the same level as South Korea, but we encountered fierce resistance from the Ministry of Justice and the National Police Agency on the grounds that “the number of undesirable foreigners would increase, and crime would rise.”
However, under the Abe administration, since the Prime Minister clearly stated in his policy speech that “we will promote a tourism-oriented nation that attracts people from around the world,” under my supervision we first obtained the understanding of the then Minister of Justice and the Chairman of the National Public Safety Commission, both of whom had been cautious about visa relaxation, and after that, together with the Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport who oversaw the Japan Tourism Agency and the Foreign Minister, a total of five ministers made the decision in just ten minutes.
As a result, the number of foreign tourists visibly increased.
I believe this is a very easy-to-understand example of political leadership.
In connection with tourism policy, I had long felt doubt about the fact that Japan had fewer signs for tax-free shops than overseas countries.
When you go abroad, tax-free shops are everywhere.
When I looked into it, I found that the number of tax-free items was far too small.
The main eligible goods were little more than electrical appliances.
So we greatly expanded eligibility to include consumables popular with foreigners, such as cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, alcohol, food, and fruit, and at the same time, as part of regional revitalization, changed the system so that almost all local specialty products could also be made tax-free.
This too is an example of a government decision that could not be made before.
As a result, foreign consumption within Japan, which had been 1.08 trillion yen before this administration took office, rose last year to 4.5 trillion yen.
In this way, I believe it is important that, after decisions are made through political leadership, the “results” of a clear increase in foreign tourists are visible to the public.
To be continued.