Copyright scmp
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has been accused of “taking flattery to the extreme” after she informed US President Donald Trump on Tuesday about her plan to nominate him for next year’s Nobel Peace Prize. According to White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt, Takaichi told Trump that she would recommend him for the Nobel Peace Prize. Trump has been complaining about the Nobel Committee for not picking him to win the accolade despite what he says are his efforts to end multiple conflicts around the world. Japan’s government has cited Trump’s “significant contribution to peace and towards resolving regional conflicts” as a reason for the nomination. This was after Thailand and Cambodia signed a ceasefire agreement at the Asean summit in Kuala Lumpur on Sunday in Trump’s presence, after a series of border clashes between the two countries. Speaking to the media on Saturday after a phone conversation with the president, Takaichi said she had “praised his leadership” in efforts to bring about peace in the Middle East. Some of Takaichi’s staunchest supporters, however, have raised their eyebrows over her administration’s decision. “It’s purely diplomacy,” said Ken Kato, a member of Takaichi’s Liberal Democratic Party who supported her in the party leadership election earlier this month. “Everyone knows that Trump wants a Nobel Peace Prize and nominating him is designed to win him over,” he told This Week in Asia. “I do not think he deserves a Nobel as the fighting is continuing in Gaza, and the clashes between Cambodia and Thailand were only minor tussles, and they were not a war. Trump has not achieved any real or historic peace.” He also dismissed Trump’s claim that he was the only person in 1,000 years who brought peace to the Middle East. Nevertheless, if Trump could convince North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to give up his nuclear weapons and return Japanese nationals abducted by Pyongyang to train its spies, he would have made a meaningful contribution to peace, according to Kato, who said he would then support the president for the Nobel Peace Prize. Toshimitsu Shigemura, a professor of politics at Tokyo’s Waseda University, said Takaichi had been “polishing apples” with Trump. “We all know that Trump dislikes any sort of criticism and that he is happy when he is being praised, so this is Takaichi’s way of winning his support for what she needs,” he said, adding that Japanese people understood that the Nobel nomination was “a gesture”. The approach appears to have paid off immediately, with Trump telling Takaichi on Tuesday: “Anything I can do to help Japan, we will be there.” The Japanese prime minister has been the target of criticism for her proposal on social media, with one message linked to a Nippon Television story asking: “I understand that lip service is important in diplomacy, but is this not a bit too forward? “The American president, who has caused the massacre in Gaza and the chaos in Ukraine, does not deserve the Nobel Peace Prize, and Japan nominating him would be like Japan approving the massacres in Gaza.” Another added: “It has become clear that this administration is humiliating the nation and putting on a show to curry favour with the United States. A Japanese prime minister should not be a servant of the US.” At their summit in Tokyo on Tuesday, Takaichi and Trump signed agreements on trade and critical minerals, and discussed efforts to end the war between Russia and Ukraine. Takaichi took the opportunity at the meeting to emphasise her closeness to the late former prime minister Shinzo Abe, who was a close ally of Trump during the president’s first term. She presented Trump with one of Abe’s golf clubs as a reminder of the bond between the two men, formed during their rounds on courses in Japan and the US. “Takaichi just wants to curry favour with Trump,” said Jeff Kingston, director of Asian Studies at Temple University in Tokyo. “She has praised his efforts in Gaza in the past and has been one of the few people around the world to have agreed with the idea that he has halted eight wars,” he added. “It should come as no surprise that she has nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize. She is taking flattery to the extreme, and there will never be a situation in which she or anyone else can provide too much flattery for Donald Trump.”
