Shinzo Abe’s legacy: a stagnant economy, loyalty to Donald Trump, deepening rivalries with China and the two Koreas – and the longest tenure as PM

Shinzo Abe has failed to resolve old grievances or revitalise the economy ahead of the coming population crunch. His dream of a constitutional revision is also a long shot, yet he has served longer than any PM in Japan’s history

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Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe speaks during the Asean-Japan summit in Thailand’s Nonthaburi province, near Bangkok, on November 4. Photo: EPA-EFE

Kevin Rafferty, a journalist for 50 years, started writing about cricket and football for The Observer when at Oxford University.

Published: 6:00am, 21 Nov 2019Updated: 6:17am, 21 Nov 2019

Japanese media featured smiling shots of Shinzo Abe, who has just broken all records to become Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, at 2,887 days and still going strong, striding atop Japan’s political scene like a real-life colossus.

For all the celebrations of Abe’s record-breaking past, the real questions are for the future: what is Abe doing with his power and how is he preparing an ailing Japan for the challenges of an uncertain future.

If you take a simple snapshot of Japan today, life seems sweet: optimists point to great social stability, relative equality by the standards of other rich countries, continuing economic growth and high employment inside a stable system where most people feel they are middle class. It is an island of prosperous stability in a difficult world. A friend who is head of one of Japan’s big banks complained that he was earning just US$1.25 million, whereas Wall Street friends and rivals receive more than 20 times as much.

But Japan faces multiple threats. More than 126 million people today will decline to 97 million by 2050. Abe has opened the door to 345,000 foreign workers over five years. Such numbers will be hard to assimilate, yet not enough to make up for the diminishing Japanese workforce.