Friday News Roundup — June 28, 2024
This past week witnessed war and political upheaval around the world.
In Africa, more than 20 Kenyan protesters were killed after demonstrators clashed with security forces over a new tax targeting essential goods such as food and medicine. President William Ruto and the Kenyan parliament had approved the new taxes to address the country’s crippling debt, which has reached $80 billion, or approximately 70 percent of Kenya’s entire gross domestic product. Debt repayments currently consume nearly half of the government’s budget. The mostly young protesters, many living below the national poverty line, were violently opposed. In response to the unrest, Ruto backed down and said he would not sign the controversial finance bill after all.
In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu backed further away from a U.S.-backed ceasefire deal that the Israeli government had previously signed, and he continued to criticize President Joe Biden for withholding some munitions provided to the country, including 2,000 lb bombs that have killed many civilians in Gaza. The Israeli leader now says he would only agree to a “partial ceasefire,” after which Israeli Defense Forces would continue their eight-month-long war in Gaza to destroy the Hamas terrorist group, even as they also shift more forces to the northern border with Lebanon to counter sporadic attacks from the Lebanese Hezbollah terrorist group. Meanwhile, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant was in Washington, D.C. this week, trying to reduce growing tensions with the Biden administration.
In South America, Bolivia’s democratically elected President Luis Arce survived an attempted coup led by General Juan Jose Zuniga. Nine people were injured when the coup plotters occupied the main square in the capital La Paz, and attempted to breach the president’s palace. After the coup attempt failed and General Zuniga was arrested, President Arce rallied supporters in the plaza and in a televised address shouted, “Long live the Bolivian people! Long live democracy.”
In Russia, imprisoned Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was put on trial. The closed-door proceedings represent the first time since the Cold War that an American journalist was put on trial for espionage in Russia. The State Department has declared that Gershkovich and former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan are innocent and “wrongfully detained.” It is believed that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin is using the Americans as pawns, potentially to win the release of Vadim Krasikov, an alleged Russian intelligence agent convicted of the murder of a Chechen dissident in Berlin.
This week also marked the end of the Julian Assange legal saga. The WikiLeaks founder returned to his Australian homeland after pleading guilty to one charge of violating the U.S. Espionage Act for obtaining and publishing U.S. military secrets and top-secret State Department cables. Assange had already spent seven years holed up in self-exile in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, and another five years in a British prison fighting extradition to the United States. His release was seen as a favor sought by close U.S. ally Australia.
This week, CSPC Senior Fellow Hidetoshi Azuma explores the return of “kingmaker politics” in Japan, and CSPC Intern Daphne Nwobike examines China’s role in the U.S. fentanyl crisis. CSPC Senior Fellow James Kitfield appeared on NPR’s 1A Friday News Roundup Show during the “international hour.” https://the1a.org/segments/the-news-roundup-international-28/
James Kitfield is a Senior Fellow at CSPC
The Return of Kingmaker Politics in Japan
By Hidetoshi Azuma
Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party leaders attend a parliamentary session in 2016. From left to right: Yoshihide Suga; Akira Amari; Taro Aso; and Shinzo Abe. (Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons)
As the Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida continues to tread a political tightrope with another historic low in support rate at a mere 16.4% earlier this week, he increasingly finds himself encircled by an emerging anti-status quo coalition within Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). Indeed, the flurry of high-stakes dinner gatherings across Tokyo organized by the former prime minister Yoshihide Suga earlier this month caused a media frenzy surrounding Kishida’s fate due to their long-standing rivalry. The incumbent Japanese leader immediately sought his patron, the former prime minister Taro Aso, leading them to dine frequently over the last few weeks despite their reported estrangement following their disagreement over the political funds deal struck late last month. The growing frequency of secret meetings at high-end Japanese restaurants in Tokyo signifies the resurrection of Japan’s old political style led by powerful kingmakers. Indeed, Japan has already reverted to the age of kingmaker politics, and the new political reality in Tokyo increasingly overshadows Kishida’s precarious future.
In fact, the rise of LDP kingmakers has been in the making since Kishida’s premiership began in October 2021. Indeed, Kishida’s ascendancy to premiership was a product of uneasy political compromise among the LDP kingmakers at the time. The power of kingmakers only grew after the 2022 assassination of Shinzo Abe and the 2024 dissolution of the LDP factions. Remarkably, the resurgence of kingmaker politics coincided with the inexorable decline of Japan’s ruling party. As of June 2024, two prominent LDP kingmakers merit attention: the former prime minister Taro Aso and the former prime minister Yoshihide Suga. The future of the LDP is effectively in their hands, and their simmering rivalry looks to increasingly shape the ruling party’s internal power dynamics.
Aso is one of the LDP’s two most prominent kingmakers as the party’s Vice President and is Kishida’s patron. Hailing from a preeminent political dynasty which produced two prime ministers, including himself, Aso boasts the LDP’s only surviving faction, the Shikokai, or the Aso faction, consisting of 55 members (40 at the Lower House and 15 at the Upper House). He effectively commands Kishida’s fate, especially in meeting the requirement of gathering endorsements from 20 lawmakers for candidacy in the LDP presidential election. Indeed, his faction maintains the largest influence within the Kishida administration with five ministers hailing from his own group. Aso’s influence is also palpable even outside his own faction, especially after the dissolution of other groups in the first few months of 2024. For example, he effectively controls many senior LDP lawmakers, including the LDP Secretary-General Toshimitsu Motegi and the Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa. Moreover, apart from his existing budding relationship with Washington, the former Japanese prime minister now serves as Tokyo’s only point of contact for the US presidential candidate, Donald J. Trump, following their high-profile meeting at the Trump Tower in New York in April 2024. His power as Japan’s top kingmaker looks to further increase in the event of Trump’s reelection in November 2024. In short, Aso effectively controls both the incumbent Japanese prime minister and his relationship with Washington, the two essential levers of power in domestic Japanese politics.
Suga is the other LDP kingmaker and Aso’s archnemesis wielding substantial influence on the ruling party’s internal power dynamics as well as its relationship with regional politics. Unlike Aso, Suga hails from a working-class family in rural Japan and worked all the way up to become a prime minister and later one of the LDP’s foremost kingmakers despite his humble background. As a result, he derives his power chiefly from his rural influence across Japan, spanning from Hokkaido to Okinawa. Despite having belonged to various factions, he has remained “independent” since 2009 and has essentially cultivated his own faction consisting of independents. Indeed, his “independent” status is now his strongest brand following the dissolution of factions, except for the Aso faction, earlier this year, leading him to increasingly absorb various elements disaffected by the Kishida administration. Such elements range from the former Minister of Economy, Trade, and Industry Koichi Hagiuda, a former Abe faction heavyweight, to the former Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato, who was previously a prominent member of the Motegi faction. Suga’s loose coalition of independents looks to increasingly expand as the LDP continues to decline, especially at the regional level, under Kishida.
While these two kingmakers will continue to vie for the control of the LDP, Aso has a decisive edge over Suga with far-reaching implications for the future of Japan’s ruling party. First, his command of the LDP’s only surviving faction accords Kishida’s patron an unmistakable advantage in terms of political mobilization, especially in the LDP presidential election in which 20 signatures from Diet members are needed for the endorsement of a candidate. Moreover, Aso and his factional members as well as his non-factional allies, such as the Upper House member Hirofumi Nakasone, have miraculously survived the ongoing political funds scandal virtually unscathed. By contrast, Suga’s coalition of independents is essentially a motley crew of disaffected elements with divergent agendas and often blemished histories. Indeed, Suga’s proteges now include many LDP stalwarts punished for their violation of political funds regulations, such as the aforementioned Koichi Hagiuda and the former Minister for Internal Affairs and Telecommunications. The former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba has been emerging as a prime minister hopeful among Suga’s allies, but will likely suffer from the lack of party support for his rise as he did during the 2012 LDP presidential election.
Second, Aso boasts Washignton’s unquestioned trust while Suga is largely a domestic player who is closer to China than the US. This is a crucial difference which will undoubtedly become another decisive factor over time in determining the future trajectory of the LDP. Indeed, Aso, Japan’s unrivaled internationalist, frequently meets with senior officials from Washington, such as the Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell (the former Indo-Pacific czar at the Biden White House) and Senator Bill Hagerty of Tennessee (the former US Ambassador to Japan under Trump), to name a few. He even had the audacity of meeting with Trump immediately after Kishida’s state visit to Washington in April 2024, underscoring Japan’s leading kingmaker’s indisputable clout. In other words, Aso is Washington’s de facto point of contact in Nagatacho, and his unrivaled positioning insulates him from virtually any threat to his reign. Aso’s miraculous survival in the ongoing political funds scandal only corroborates this undeniable reality. By contrast, Suga has lost many of his key allies, most significantly the former LDP Secretary-General Toshihiro Nikai to the same scandal. The special investigation into political funds launched by the Tokyo District Prosecutor’s Office (TDPO) in December 2023 was essentially a US political action designed to reverse the LDP’s internal power dynamics to Kishida’s favor, or, by extension, Aso’s, given the historical relationship between Washington and the TDPO. The recent outcome of the TDPO special investigation alone has tilted the Aso-Suga rivalry decisively in favor of Kishida’s patron.
The fate of Japan’s ruling party is now in the hands of two kingmakers. They control Kishida’s future in the upcoming LDP presidential election in September. The incumbent Japanese prime minister thus finds himself inescapable from the emerging political dynamics in Tokyo, leading him to seek his own survival at all costs. Tragically, this bodes ill for the future of the LDP, let alone Japan’s democracy, due to the perceived alienation of the Japanese public from the political process stemming from the parliamentary system. While Kishida will likely secure reelection in September, such an outcome would hardly regain public confidence in the LDP. The LDP is already in terminal decline, and the return of kingmaker politics would only hasten its inevitable demise, perhaps unbeknownst to those presently engaged in intrigue in Nagatacho. Looking beyond Kishida’s fate after this September, the emerging political dynamics in Tokyo is an ill omen likely portending a radical change in Japan’s parliamentary democracy. If the lessons from the 1920s are any guide, history appears to have already returned to Japan, especially after the bloody assassination of Abe two years ago.
Hidetoshi Azuma is a Senior Fellow at CSPC.
Examining China’s Role in the US Fentanyl Crisis
By Daphne Nwobike
Beginning in the 1960s and continuing to grow insidiously, the fentanyl crisis has ravaged vulnerable U.S. cities and communities for decades with no indications of slowing down. This drug has infiltrated the black market through the help of drug cartels and illicit groups that benefit from peddling illegal substances. Mexican cartels have often been identified as the culprits most responsible for the influx of fentanyl, but in recent years, published reports have also highlighted China’s role.
The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) alleges that Chinese companies are involved in advertising and selling fentanyl precursor chemicals and other drugs, such as xylazine, and shipping them directly to Mexico and the United States. Just this month, the Department of Justice (DOJ) issued a 10-count superseding indictment charging Los Angeles-based members of Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel with laundering their drug trafficking earnings using Chinese underground banking organizations. As China continues to promote fentanyl creation and distribution to preserve the profits generated from these illegal activities, many thousands of Americans will continue falling victim to this drug, increasing rates of addiction and overdose.
Tackling China’s role in the spread of fentanyl in the United States extends beyond addressing health concerns and reaches into the realm of national security vulnerabilities. If China can easily evade customs inspections and discreetly launder illicit money, for instance, it can also commit other violations of U.S. national security protections.
The Biden Administration has made several attempts to address the fentanyl problem. President Joe Biden created the 2022 National Drug Control Strategy, for instance, which promotes collaboration with Chinese authorities to “strengthen control of the production, diversion, and transshipment of illicit synthetic drugs and their precursors.” Biden also met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in November 2023 in hopes of improving cooperation and convincing China to play a more aggressive role in limiting fentanyl production and export. Given the persistence of the threat, however, the United States needs more ways to get to the root of its fentanyl problem.
The Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has also examined ways to diminish China’s role in the fentanyl crisis. On June 20, the Select Committee thus announced the formation of a policy working group focused on “combatting the Chinese Communist Party’s role in the fentanyl epidemic.” Reps Dan Newhouse (R-WA), Jake Auchincloss (D-MA), Neal Dunn (R-FL), Ro Khanna (D-CA), Dusty Johnson (R-SD), Ritchie Torres (D-NY), and Michelle Steel (R-CA) will serve on this policy working group as it considers legislation to address the fentanyl crisis.
According to the Select Committee, the specific goals of the fentanyl policy working group include codifying, strengthening, and imposing sanctions on entities involved in the fentanyl trade; enacting and employing trade and customs enforcement measures to restrict fentanyl trafficking; and closing regulatory and enforcement gaps exploited by Chinese money launderers and fentanyl traders. The Select Committee on the CCP hopes this working group and its initiatives will identify far-reaching solutions to the fentanyl epidemic. As more American lives are destroyed by this drug, it is imperative that the public and private sectors exhaust all possible solutions to defeat the scourge of fentanyl addiction.
Daphne Nwobike is a CSPC intern.
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Assange Affair Finally Resolved
By Saakshi Philip
Julian Assange, the co-founder of WikiLeaks, was recently released from a high-security prison in London after spending over a decade entangled in legal battles. Assange’s ordeal began in 2010 after WikiLeaks gained global attention by publishing highly classified U.S. military documents and State Department cables, including a video showing a U.S. helicopter firing on civilians in Iraq, and un-redacted cables exposing the names of U.S. sources in Afghanistan that put the lives of sources at risk. His activities led to multiple legal challenges, including espionage charges in the United States.
In 2012, Assange sought asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London to avoid extradition, where he remained until his dramatic arrest in 2019. Following his detention, Assange faced numerous charges, including 17 alleged violations of the U.S. Espionage Act. His imprisonment at London’s Belmarsh Prison and the ongoing legal struggles sparked international debates on press freedom, the treatment of whistleblowers, and the dangers to national security of releasing un-redacted, top-secret intelligence that exposes U.S. intelligence “sources and methods.”
After years of legal wrangling, a plea deal was brokered in June 2024, allowing Assange to plead guilty to one count of breaching the Espionage Act. The agreement enabled his release and return to Australia, marking the end of a prolonged legal saga. Assange’s release was a moment of jubilation for his supporters, who gathered at Canberra Airport to welcome him home. Despite his freedom, Assange’s case continues to be a touchstone in discussions about government transparency, free speech, and the boundaries of journalism in the digital age.
Saakshi Philip is a CSPC Intern.