On August 12, the reorganized Japanese cabinet held its first ministerial meeting of the National Security Council, attended by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, Foreign Minister Hayashi Yoshimasa, Defense Minister Yasuichi Hamada, and Special Adviser Nobuo Kishi, focusing on the PLA's military exercises in the sea and airspace around Taiwan Island and the situation in East Asia.
Yasuichi Hamada said that the new Japanese cabinet should consider increasing the defense budget and greatly improving the counterattack capability, and strengthen Japan's "defense capability" within five years to cope with the current security situation, especially to strengthen the defense of Japan's southwest islands.
After the meeting, when Yasuichi Hamada talked to reporters about the difference between his appointment as defense minister this time and the last time, he said that it was a completely different era from the present, and this time he took office with a great sense of urgency in the predicament.
Raising the defense budget to 2 percent of Japan's GDP is one of the key issues promoted by the Kishida cabinet, but members of the cabinet and members of parliament still dispute the LDP's proposal, and Yasuichi Hamada, who was minister of defense during Aso's administration, welcomed Kishida's appointment, and a defense ministry official said that Hamada Hada had a wealth of experience and a good sense of balance, hoping that he would be able to suppress the noisy debate in the government.
A traditional Japanese political family
As we all know, Japan's political system has a strong family inheritance color, if the elders participate in politics, then the next generation is very likely to enter the political arena, under the promotion of the fathers, mixed with the wind and water, such as Abe Shinzo, his rise is inseparable from the Kishi Nobusuke, Mori Yoshiro and Koizumi Junichiro.
Yasuichi Hamada also came from such a political family, but compared with the Abe family, the Hamada family is quite shabby.
Yasuichi Hamada's father, Koichi Hamada, had a poor family, but was very capable. After graduating from university, Hamada Koichi was elected to the Chiba Prefectural Council, and in 1965 he wrote a campaign song on a whim to win votes, and eventually won 78,000 votes, successfully elected to the Diet, and was also appreciated by Kakuei Tanaka. Although Hamada was always a minor character at the time, he became acquainted with many important figures in future Japanese politics, such as Takeshita Noboru, Yoshiro Mori, and Michio Watanabe, paving the way for his son Yasushi Hamada to enter politics.
Like other political families in Japan, Yasuichi Hamada first served as his father's secretary and made contacts after entering politics. After his father officially retired in 1993, Koichi Hamada officially ran for election to the Chiba Prefectural Council and entered the House of Representatives, which also had many new political talents: Shinzo Abe, Fumio Kishida, and Seiko Noda.
After several years of seniority in the House of Representatives, when Koizumi First reorganized the cabinet, Yasuichi Hamada served as vice minister of defense; After Aso formed the cabinet, Yasuichi Hamada served as defense minister, and in 2009, when the Aso cabinet stepped down en masse, Hamada Yasushi was initially responsible for handling some internal affairs of the Liberal Democratic Party.
Koichi Hamada's father, Koichi Hamada, belonged to the right-wing conservative faction, was reckless and radical, repeatedly clashed with Japanese left-wing forces during his political career, and strongly opposed Tanaka Kakuei's promotion of the normalization of Sino-Japanese diplomatic relations.
Influenced by his father, Koichi Hamada's political spectrum is similar to that of his father, but not entirely consistent.
Ideologically, Yasuichi Hamada is undoubtedly a right-wing politician who supports the Japanese government's constitutional amendment, exercises the right of collective self-defense, supports the prime minister's visit to the Yasukuni Shrine, demands the review of the "Kono Talks" that apologize to the comfort women, and is also a member of several right-wing groups, such as the infamous "Everyone Visits the Yasukuni Shrine Parliamentary Assembly." At the end of July this year, Yasuichi Hamada, Shigeru Ishiba, and other right-wing legislators visited Taiwan to meet with Tsai Ing-wen, Wu Zhaojiao, and others.
But on the other hand, Yasuichi Hamada endorsed the "Murayama Talk" that apologized for Japan's past colonial and aggressive acts; In 2008, when Japan's chief of staff, Tanamu Shintoshi, wrote an article denying that Japan was an aggressor country and glorifying the history of aggression, Yasuichi Hamada immediately dismissed him.
During Hisada's visit to China in 2009, during which China and Japan reached ten consensuses on strengthening defense exchanges, Hamada Washito was the first Japanese defense minister to observe the PLA's shooting training. In addition, according to his campaign website, in 2015, Yasuichi Hamada followed the secretaries-general of the Liberal Democratic Party and the Komeito Party to Visit China again and conduct interpartisan exchanges with our party cadres.
Mr. Hamada also supports issues that Japanese conservatives are not interested in, such as women's right to choose their marital surnames. He, together with Kishida Fumio and Noda Seiko, set up a special group for equal rights for women's surnames, and repeatedly asked the LDP Legal Affairs Committee to convene meetings to amend the Civil Code and the Household Registration Law to allow wives and husbands to register marriages with different surnames, and wives did not have to follow their husband's surname after marriage. Yasuichi Hamada even wrote an article in the media calling on society and the LDP to face up to this problem, and in late 2021, Yasuichi Hamada submitted the bill again, and so far, the LDP has been arguing about this affirmative action bill.
In terms of internal affairs, Yasuichi Hamada has served as an official in agriculture, forestry and fisheries, rural revitalization, etc., and has a certain right to speak in the field of agriculture.
In 2019, South Korea announced the suspension of imports of Japanese aquatic products on the grounds of the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan, and the Japanese government believed that South Korea violated trade rules and brought the lawsuit to the WTO, and finally Japan lost the case. The Japanese government, which learned of the news, was in a bit of a hurry, and then Foreign Minister Taro Kono and Agriculture Minister Takamori Yoshikawa expressed regret over the WTO ruling and insisted that there was nothing wrong with Japanese aquatic products.
At that time, Yasuichi Hamada, who was still idle, waved his pen again and wrote an article angrily denouncing the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs for being slow to respond, saying that it was not painful or itchy, and at the same time did not forget to accuse the Japanese government and TEPCO of ignoring the Fukushima nuclear leak and disregarding the people's livelihood, causing damage to the interests of fishermen.
Can Yasuichi Hamada suppress the cabinet debates?
Although the process of revising the Constitution and raising the defense budget of the Japanese government has been accelerating in recent years, and Kishida Fumio has made it clear that he wants to stand with the United States, the LDP and the opposition parties in the Diet still have some doubts.
In 2022, Kishida Fumio plans to launch three important documents, including the "Japan National Security Guarantee Strategy", covering the situation in the Taiwan Strait, significantly increasing the defense budget, and developing the "ability to counterattack", the outline of the document has been determined, only one person is needed to implement his policies, and Yasuichi Hamada seems to be the most suitable person, who has served as defense minister, has rich experience, and is a right-wing politician who has visited Taiwan.
But Kishida's new cabinet still bears traces of patchwork, and he seems to be maximizing the balance of factions and ideologies. Therefore, Japanese political scientist Yoichi Takahashi believes that Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi and Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki will be an obstacle to Whitsuichi Hamada's ability to promote higher defense spending and implement Kishida Fumio's policies.
Yoichi Takahashi said that in the "great blood change" in the cabinet, Lin Fangzheng, as a "Zhihua faction" or "pro-China faction", should be the first to be replaced, but he was able to stay in office. If Lin Fang is Kishida Fumio's puppet, then Yasuichi Hamada could easily gain the support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, otherwise Lin Fangzheng would become a political resistance to Yasuichi Hamada's implementation of the bill.
Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki and Yasuichi Hamada have a question of money. Yoichi Takahashi explained that Japan issued a special kind of "construction bond" that was essentially used to invest in the ships of the Japan Coast Guard. So if you include the Coast Guard's budget, Japan's defense spending is just 2 percent of GDP.
However, Japan is facing imported inflation, currency depreciation, and the Bank of Japan has issued far more money to the market than demand, and with the current state of the Japanese economy, it is difficult to guarantee whether Yasuichi Hamada can apply for a sufficient defense budget from the Ministry of Finance, and the "construction bonds" may also face cuts.
Finally, Yoichi Takahashi talked about Yasuichi Hamada's temperament not at all like that of the Defense Minister. Yasuichi Hamada's father, Koichi Hamada, is eclectic and reckless, but Yasuichi Hamada does not inherit the temperament of his father, he is too gentle and elegant, and he is very similar to Shigeru Ishiba.
At present, Yasuichi Hamada is still a more complex figure, who not only supports the prime minister's visit to the Yasukuni Shrine" but also endorses the "Murayama Talks", and may also be an Abe-style politician who wants to take advantage of the fire between China and the United States, and his ideology is always wavering with Japan's interests.