No one could have foreseen that Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s popularity would nosedive so soon after the Liberal Democratic Party triumphed in July’s election to the Upper House of the Japanese Diet. Until recently, Mr Kishida’s government received consistently high approval ratings. But the LDP’s links to a controversial religious group, along with the costly state funeral of former prime minister Abe Shinzo, have shaken Mr Kishida’s political base, endangering the country’s fragile economic recovery. The two main causes of Mr Kishida’s declining approval ratings are interrelated. …