The five candidates pose for a group photo ahead of their joint press conference for the LDP leadership election. Morning of September 23. (©Sankei by Ataru Haruna)
My longtime acquaintance, Clyde Prestowitz, voiced his frustration that he could make no sense of Japanese politics by relying on media coverage in the United States. An economist who served as a special advisor to the US Secretary of Commerce under the Ronald Reagan administration, Prestowitz has been closely observing Japan for many years.
Indeed, despite the dramatic upheavals in Japanese politics, coverage in American media remains limited. The occasional newspaper article often feels superficial and oversimplified. Most of Washington's numerous private think tanks rarely hold periodic seminars or publish papers focused on Japan.
By contrast, reporting and discussions about other Asian countries, such as China and South Korea, are frequent and in-depth.
The New York Times on Ishiba's Resignation
The Donald Trump administration has made it clear that it values Japan and the US-Japan alliance. And American public opinion toward Japan is generally favorable. Yet there seems to be a disconnect between the administration and the public on one side, and major media outlets and most Japan scholars on the other.
This gap is evident in recent US newspaper coverage. Take, for example, a New York Times article from early September, when Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba finally announced his intention to resign. It framed Japan as "grappling with rising right-wing populism at home and heightened unpredictability from its key ally, the United States," implying that these pressures forced Ishiba out.
In other words, the article attributed Ishiba's resignation to the domestic right-wing and the Trump administration. It failed to acknowledge Ishiba's own broken campaign promises or lapses in competence. Those problems had alienated supporters of the Liberal Democratic Party. The newspaper's analysis also relied heavily on the opinion of a single scholar specializing in British politics.
Labels for Takaichi
It is worth noting that the New York Times, known for its liberal stance, frequently applies pejorative labels such as "right-wing" or "far-right" to conservatives.
Shortly afterward, the paper published a brief commentary quoting Mireya Solís, Director of the Center for Asia Policy Studies at Brookings Institution. She described Ishiba's resignation as plunging Japan into a "profound leadership crisis" and returning to "the politics of indecisiveness." Solís also suggested that Japan could be led by a populist far-right. The article made no mention that Ishiba himself had been indecisive, nor that conservatives were not far-right — a clear liberal interpretation.
Similarly, coverage in both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal at the time labeled Ishiba's successor candidate, Sanae Takaichi, as a "hard-line conservative" and "right-wing candidate" who was close to former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Meanwhile, they portrayed Shinjiro Koizumi as a moderate conservative and a suitable successor to Ishiba. This reflects a bias against conservatives that differs from the Trump administration's assessment of Takaichi.
The Left-Leaning Academic Lens
Kevin Doak, a Georgetown University professor and longtime Japan scholar, explained the current American perspective: "In recent years, the majority of American scholars on Japan have been strongly left-leaning, portraying Shinzo Abe as a dangerous far-right figure, particularly over topics such as the comfort women issue. But Abe became central to Japanese politics, and as US misunderstandings over comfort women faded, these scholars' arguments lost relevance."
Doak notes that these left-leaning scholars often relied on the New York Times as their primary platform. Yet their criticisms of conservatives were undermined by the Trump administration and Congress's firm support for Abe.
According to Doak, there are now virtually no Japan experts in the US recognized by the general public, largely because these scholars have become disconnected from reality.
This may help explain why American researchers on Japanese politics have largely remained silent in the face of Japan's recent political transformations.
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(Read the article in Japanese.)
Author: Yoshihisa Komori, Associate Correspondent in Washington for The Sankei Shimbun
