The Japanese Prime Minister has the toughest task in the Asia-Pacific
North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong Un has reportedly ordered the killing of enough of his close relatives if not necessarily his brother to qualify to be referred to as the Biblical character mentioned in the headline. So, after the landslide two-third majority secured by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in snap elections he called to the Japanese lower house of parliament, the comity of nations and especially those who count themselves as abiding friends of Japan in Asia including India, would be wishing that in a reversal of the Biblical legend it is Abe who is able, as it were, to come out on top.
Abe's stunning if expected win, which now gives his liberal Democratic Party (lDP) a two-third majority in both houses of the Diet, means that with this so-called super-majority he can push through somewhat controversial legislation such as his longstanding goal of revising Japan's post-World War II pacifist Constitution. While his stated priorities include working on continuing to implement his 'Abenomics' policies that seem to have got the Japanese
economy out of its deflationary spiral and dealing with the country's aging - and decreasing - population, there is absolutely no doubt that dealing with the multiple crises perennially created by the rogue state of North Korea is right at the top of that list. Apart from structural changes, a Constitutional amendment would allow Japan to have a full-fledged three-service military apparatus in place of the Self Defence Forces that are currently mandated and the deployment of armed Japanese troops outside the country which is currently prohibited would also be possible.
Indeed, an Abe administration official made clear on the day of his electoral triumph that Tokyo views "the Pyongyang threat as critical and imminent", indicating that Japan, along with South Korea and the US (the former two nations being protected by the American nuclear umbrella) would collectively take different responses to best counter this clear and present danger. Increasingly in world capitals and especially in Asia given the recklessness exhibited by the Trump regime and its unpredictable behaviour towards even long-standing and long-suffering allies such as Japan, Abe is being seen as the leader who has both the maturity and the resources to take a leadership role in containing the toxic Kim Jong Un. Better him than Trump any day, seems to be the common if muted refrain in diplomatic circles.
That a democratic, stable and economically-militarily robust Japan will also be a counterweight from the East to China, aligned with India as counterweight from the West, is not a possibility that has been overlooked by any of the three nations or indeed by the Americans.