TOKYO—A Paralympic skier who lost her leg in a car accident. A fisherman who became a community promoter after nearly drowning. A young business owner with a successful new factory that replaced its recession-ravaged predecessor.
Reuters
Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, second from right, in a final campaign push on Saturday night ahead of Sunday's vote.
Those were among the handful of people Prime Minister Shinzo Abe invited to his residence in late June for a chat. The day's theme: "the second chance" and Mr. Abe's drive for Japan to revive its once-thriving economy by better tapping into the energy of people who have experienced failures or hardships—talent Japan's business and political culture has traditionally scorned.
"Walt Disney DIS -1.00% ran his business into the ground five times before he succeeded," Mr. Abe told his guests, referring to the entertainment entrepreneur's repeated early struggles. "The world would never have seen today's Walt Disney Co. if he had been living in Japan."
With both chambers of parliament under control of the ruling party, stability is likely in Japanese politics for the first time in years. That allows Mr. Abe to tighten his grip on power and solidify the ground for looming policy battles.The discussion had a personal significance to Mr. Abe. His roaring return to leadership in December, five years after his unsuccessful and short first term as prime minister, has become one of the remarkable comeback stories in Japan's modern political history. The big win enjoyed by his ruling Liberal Democratic Party in Sunday's parliamentary elections means he can now safely declare his return a success.
Barring unforeseen scandal or intraparty revolt, he looks poised to stay in office for at least three more years before having to face voters again, a tenure matched only by two other Japanese prime ministers in the past four decades in a system notorious for political weakness and leadership failure. Of the 24 men who have held that slot since the early 1970s—five lasting less than a year, Mr. Abe is the only one to be given a second chance.
Sunday's victory was driven largely by the popularity Mr. Abe has won by successfully melding—so far—the idea of his own comeback with that of Japan, a nation that had increasingly been written off as an also-ran—a once-world-beating economy slipping behind China and others, its industries losing their competitive edge. Thanks to his bold stimulus policies, the economy appears to be emerging from its long slump and is forecast to outpace the growth rate of the U.S. and other advanced economies this year. Mr. Abe says that in time, his new growth strategies should help restore the country's former glory.
As a blueprint for economic reforms, Mr. Abe unveiled on June 15 a package of growth strategies titled "Japan is Back." The plan includes a range of policies designed to encourage risk-taking and provide new avenues of recovery for those who fail, from better access to venture capital to new labor-market flexibility intended to make it easier for people who lose or quit jobs to find new opportunities in a system seen as too rigid to provide second chances.
Mr. Abe's strategy is as much about cultural change as economic change. His personal story is as important as his specific proposals, as he tries to persuade more Japanese to take more chances and to tolerate the failures of those who do. Documents released with his strategy showed the rate of company startups and failures in Japan was less than half that of the U.S. and the U.K., with a goal for Japan to come closer to those countries.
Earlier in his term, Mr. Abe attended a conference on entrepreneurship and innovation, featuring speakers from the U.S., who boasted of colossal failures before creating successful companies, and speakers from Japan, who complained of a culture that shuns second chances. "I knew that one failure would mean no second chance," said Katsujin Chao, general partner at venture capital firm DCM, looking back on his experience starting up a communications firm. "I wanted to become a different sort of venture capitalist," he said.
"People seem to think that the Liberal Democratic Party is tightly bound with the Old Economy. I am here to say loud and clear, that is wrong," Mr. Abe told the group. "Our mission is to make sure talent flows from mature industries to the industries of the future."
"A successful entrepreneur can't be afraid of failures or setbacks," says John Roos, a former Silicon Valley lawyer now serving as U.S. ambassador to Japan. He has tried to instill some American-style risk-taking into Japan's economy. "I'm inspired by the example of Prime Minister Abe, who overcame many challenges after his first term as Prime Minister to successfully return to the highest office."
Abe attributes much of his successful return to regaining health, thanks to the introduction in Japan of effective medicine to treat ulcerative colitis, a chronic disease of the colon that made him progressively sicker during his stressful past term as prime minister. So one area of emphasis in his growth strategy is health care. Mr. Abe often refers to his own case to stress the importance of deregulation that speeds approval processes for drugs.
Mr. Abe's first term lasted from September, 2006 to September, 2007. His administration had been hit with scandals, and he had been criticized for running too nationalist an agenda. The situation began to unravel after his party suffered a big defeat in parliamentary elections 10 months into his term, handing control of the upper house to the opposition, a condition that has tormented his party for the past six years. Winning Sunday's contest, and regaining control of the both chambers is redemption for the prime minister and his long-reigning LDP, which had been relegated to an opposition status for three years before surging back to power last December.
"I have died once, so I have nothing to lose," Mr. Abe told fellow LDP lawmakers before running for his party's leadership in September last year. "I will stake my life on the recovery from the (2011) natural disasters and reviving Japan's economy. I have nothing to fear."
After the collapse of Mr. Abe's first administration, some members of his inner circle remained loyal and became the central force in helping him to run and win his second term. A year after the end of Mr. Abe's first term, one of his close aides at the time, Yoshihide Suga, began to urge him to prepare for a return to leadership. They had lengthy discussions at dinners and on golf courses. Mr. Abe also began to study economic policies, inviting small groups of economists. By the summer of last year, he was ready, Mr. Suga said in an interview earlier this year.
"I knew he didn't want to end his political career with that, as he hadn't achieved any of what he really wanted to do," said Mr. Suga, now chief cabinet secretary and one of Mr. Abe's most trusted aides. "Deep inside, he always carried a determination that he'd try one more time."
The prime minister, presiding over big new policy shifts, looks distinctly different from the man who had abandoned power in seeming disgrace in 2007 after only a year in the office, physically sick and politically impotent.
Given a second chance, Mr. Abe is applying an intensity unusual for Japanese leaders. During his first six months back on the job, Mr. Abe visited 13 countries, gave 40 media interviews and spent more time engaged in parliamentary debate than any Japanese leader in recent decades, according to the Japanese media. During long sessions at parliament, he was often spotted taking sips from a personal thermos containing lukewarm water that he explained was gentler to his still-delicate innards than parliament-issued cold water.
Such intensity has brought problems. An avid user of social-networking sites, Mr. Abe writes multiple posts daily on Facebook FB -1.14% and has increased his following to 375,000 from the 160,000 when he started his current term. Occasionally, his posts have stirred unwitting controversy, taking on an emotional tone and making even some allies cringe. He publicly criticized a former top diplomat as "unqualified to speak about diplomacy." He branded activists protesting his attempt to enter an American-led free-trade pact as "leftists" and "embarrassing adults," even though many members of his own conservative party had similar views.
He took just six days off during his first six months, or one day a month on average, making those around him nervous. "I told his secretaries to tell the boss to take some time off because he looked a bit tense," said economic minister Akira Amari, Mr. Abe's close ally. "They said, 'Minister, you need to tell that to him yourself because he will never listen to us."
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