Chino, Japan, Oct. 30, 2020– New Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga’s first order of business is his government’s outright intervention into private sector business, demanding that phone carriers lower smart phone telecom fees without giving legitimate reasons.
Suga’s instruction to his minister in charge of the telecom industry was hardly a surprise given that his predecessor Shinzo Abe used (a used) his power to enforce numerous unreasonable and unethical acts: distributing face masks to all Japanese households that are too small for adults to wear, through his cabinet’s special business connections; selling a coveted piece of land site at deeply below market rates to a developer by instructions bureaucrats to fabricate its value; and ordering bureaucrats to awarding veterinarian college license to his friend’s school, among many.
In other words, while Abe was abusing the bureaucracy, Suga, who served as Abe’s second powerful cabinet minister, began direct intervention into the private sector, perhaps becoming the first prime minister to do so.
Suga told three smart phone carriers, NYT DoCoMo, KDDI, and Softbank to lower their telecom user fees — directly and without saying whether the three telecoms violates law. The telecoms are feeling overt threat of Suga’s retaliation if they refuse as they need to vie for the next radio wave band called the platinum band.
What Suga does next is raising concern of business circles. Abe kept an arms length distance from the Nippon Keidanren business lobby. Suga, sources say, wants the lobby to be under his wing, not an impossible ambition because its board of directors are all old aged and pro-LDP, which is Suga’s ruling party. Suga may call a general election over the next few months. If LDP wins, he definitely will start acting like other world leaders becoming autocratic and directly meddling into private sector business.
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