The politics of Japan’s peacekeeping in South Sudan

At the start of this year, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe looked strong. He enjoyed high public approval ratings and was expected to handily win national elections in 2018. Some even suggested he would become the longest-serving prime minister in Japanese history.

But within a matter of months, Abe and his cabinet were beset by two major scandals. The first involved the prime minister and his wife, Akie, who came under public scrutiny for having allegedly arranged the sale of public land to a right-wing school at a heavily discounted price. The second concerned Defense Minister Tomomi Inada, a rising star in Abe’s cabinet, accused of covering up military reports from Japanese peacekeepers serving in South Sudan. The reports described fighting that potentially would have rendered the peacekeepers’ presence illegal under Japanese law, and the accusations against Inada would ultimately lead to her resignation in late July.

The South Sudan scandal was particularly striking. At a time of high regional tensions stemming from North Korea’s increasingly menacing missile program, it was a minor peacekeeping role in a distant African country that came to threaten Abe’s plans for expanding Japan’s role in regional and global security. The prime minister has an ambitious agenda to amend Article 9 of Japan’s constitution, which renounces war, by 2020, and increase the flexibility of his country's military to face down Pyongyang. But in recent months Abe has found himself on the defensive, largely thanks to his administration’s handling of Japanese peacekeeping engagement in South Sudan.

In a new long-form report for Foreign Affairs, DIIS senior researcher Luke Patey explains the politics of peacekeeping in Japan. He argues that the South Sudan scandal demonstrates that even in the face of the danger posed by North Korea’s missile program, Japanese leaders continue to fear public backlash against overseas military adventures. Barring a direct attack against Japan, its political leaders will need to regain the public’s trust and strongly justify the country’s national interest in overseas military operations.