Clash looms in Japan as Tokyo governor says Abe’s Covid-19 measures not enough

Tokyo’s governor, Yuriko Koike, is poised to call for further business closures to contain the coronavirus outbreak, setting her on a collision course with the prime minister, Shinzo Abe.

Disagreements between Koike and Abe over how far the emergency measures should go have quickly escalated since Tokyo’s 14 million residents were asked to stay home earlier this week amid record numbers of new cases.

“Asking for residents to use self-restraint and stay home is not enough,” Koike said soon after Abe declared a state of emergency this week. “We should also restrict the use of cluster-causing facilities” such as restaurants and karaoke parlours, she said.

The governor is expected to list on Friday the categories of shops and other non-essential businesses she expects to join the city’s battle against the coronavirus.

The capital and the central government have clashed over the comparatively relaxed attitudes towards businesses as Tokyoites struggled to observe Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s calls to reduce contact with other people by 70-80% over the next month.

A state of emergency was declared this week, which covers 56 million people in Tokyo and six other prefectures, and enables governors to press restaurants and non-essential shop to close, but media reports claimed government officials – spooked by warnings that Japan is about to slip into a deep recession as a result of the virus – were obstructing tougher measures.

With 4,257 infections and 92 deaths, Japan has avoided the devastation seen in China, the US and parts of Europe, but a recent surge in Tokyo, with 1,339 reported cases, and other major cities forced a reluctant Abe into making the emergency declaration.

While individuals have been urged to avoid the three Cs – closed spaces, crowded places and close-contact settings – Abe said smaller businesses would remain open, adding that restaurants should “take precautions”, such as improving ventilation.

Yasutoshi Nishimura, who is overseeing coronavirus measures, told Koike and other local leaders to wait for two weeks to gauge if social distancing was succeeding in reducing infections before targeting businesses, the Nikkei Asian Review and other media said.

Some restaurants, bars, cafes, hostess clubs, pachinko parlours and karaoke venues closed their doors, but others have remained open, concerned by Abe’s rejection of “unrealistic” calls to directly compensate those that suffer losses.

“I don’t think the reduction is anywhere near the 70 or 80% Abe is aiming for,” said Yoshihiko Furusawa, as he watched people walk past the central Tokyo ward office where he works. “I think the most important point is to stop people going to bars after work.”

Streets in some parts of Tokyo were quieter than usual after the declaration, but a reluctance among many companies to allow teleworking meant commuters were still packing into trains on busy routes, raising doubts about Abe’s goal of bringing Covid-19 infections to a peak in two weeks’ time.

Passenger numbers on the Yamanote line, which loops around central Tokyo, have fallen by about 40% on weekday mornings in recent weeks, but that is still well short of the government’s target. Subway lines have reported a drop of about 30%.

Success in reducing human contact – widely seen as essential to slowing infection rates – will partly depend on companies keeping their employees off public transport, according to Kentaro Iwata, a specialist in infectious diseases at Kobe University hospital.

“Japanese people are generally obedient towards authority and play by the rules, but it depends on how cooperative companies are, and how much they are able to abandon traditional working styles and encourage people to work from home,” he said.

Critics say concern over the impact the state of emergency will have on the world’s third-biggest economy is behind Abe’s reluctance to put more pressure on the corporate sector, particularly in Tokyo, which generates about a fifth of the country’s gross domestic product.

“Abe appears to think that his job is to focus on salvaging what is left of his economic policy,” said Koichi Nakano, a political science professor at Sophia University in Tokyo.

“[Abe] seemed genuinely reluctant to call the state of emergency, so maybe out of fear of further damaging the economy, he dragged his feet for too long, but then he had no choice but to accept that the outbreak is now out of control,” Nakano added.