If Haruhiko Kuroda is named Japan’s next central banker this week, would that loosen the country’s grip on the Asian Development Bank’s leadership? The likely answer, in the near future, would appear to be no.
Kuroda, who currently serves as ADB president, is rumored to be the front-runner to be named the next Bank of Japan governor by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe this week. He would succeed Masaaki Shirakawa, who is leaving the job on March 19.
Other contenders include former BOJ Deputy Gov. Kazumasa Iwata, establishment candidate and former BOJ Deputy Gov. Toshiro Muto, Gakushuin University economist and vocal BOJ critic Kikuo Iwata, and Takatoshi Ito, the dean of Tokyo University’s graduate school of public policy and a candidate that is well-regarded in the West, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Kuroda has led the ADB since February 2005. Since the bank’s founding in 1966, it has been led by a Japanese national. Japan and the United States each hold 15.65 percent of ADB shares, by far the largest amount. China holds 6.46 percent, followed by India with 6.35 percent. Japan’s voting power is similarly large.
Calls for a non-Japanese citizen to lead the ADB aren’t new, and they are expected to get louder as Asia’s economic makeup changes and as emerging economies try to gain political influence. Over the past few years, leadership changes at the International Monetary Fund and World Bank prompted particularly serious challenges to the dominance of European and U.S. candidates, for instance, although in both cases, tradition prevailed.
Politics may also help Japan to hang onto the top job at the ADB: A candidate from China would face certain opposition from various member states, ongoing challenges between India and Pakistan would complicate a candidacy from either country, and a candidate from Australia may be seen in some quarters as somewhat of an outsider given the continent’s geographical location. With Jim Yong Kim, a naturalized U.S. citizen who was born in Korea, now leading the World Bank, a promising bid by a South Korean candidate may still be a few years away.
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