Japan’s diminutive new Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga certainly does not have the build of a sumo wrestler – and probably does not have the mindset of one, either.
That’s a shame because the Japanese brand of politics is crying out for some of the core skills from the Japanese brand of wrestling.
A dry, uncharismatic and technocratic sort, Suga, 71, is not a natural fit for leadership. As he picked a cabinet that will have to deal with a staggering, stagnating economy, he should have been slapping, thrusting and hurling unfit bodies out of the ring.
That has not happened. Suga’s first shove should have been directed at Taro Aso, Japan’s soon-to-be-80-year-old finance minister.
