Inflation is the modern era’s "Black Ships” that forced Japan to open trade with the U.S. 170 years ago, according to the head of the country’s leading business lobby.

Just as the armed fleet of Commodore Matthew Perry forced modernization, another foreign intervention, in the form of higher energy and food prices, will break stagnant wages out of a three-decade slumber.

That’s the theory, at least. It’s tempting to believe it after news that Fast Retailing Co.’s Uniqlo is raising domestic salaries by as much as 40%. Tadashi Yanai, founder of the fast-fashion giant and one of the country’s richest men, says he wants to shake up a corporate culture that’s become staid and attract ambitious, younger workers. Media reports on similar steps by names such as Suntory Holdings Ltd. and Canon Inc. suggest a trend.

That’ll please Prime Minister Fumio Kishida who, with approval ratings at record lows, is doubling down on the upcoming annual wage talks, known as shunto, to spark growth in worker raises. He’s called for firms to lift pay more than the 4% inflation rate which, although milder than other countries, is the highest in four decades.

But Japanese workers shouldn’t start spending their expected windfalls just yet. While this year’s negotiations will make pleasing headlines, they have accomplished little in the past. In the early days of the Shinzo Abe administration, large companies initially played along with government requests for salary increases, partly to avoid bad press. They failed to make a dent in the long-term trend.

One-time political coaxing will only take things so far. The very fact that the prime minister needs to call for companies to act, rather than market mechanisms forcing them to do more to attract and retain the best talent, illustrates the challenges that suppress Japanese pay. Kishida should concentrate on fixing those instead.

The shunto talks are likely to give a modest bump below inflation, still resulting in less spending power. But even if they surprise on the upside, it’s difficult to see that cash quickly going back into the economy. What’s not gobbled up by taxes, pensions and insurance seems as likely to end up in savings accounts. A public poll from the Bank of Japan found only 7.1% of households expect to spend more this year, while almost half expect spending to fall.

The pain of taxes and payroll deductions is hardly unique to Japan. However, the next pay hike will be a year away for most workers in the island nation, encouraging workers to scrimp and see how things go. And at the first sign of a downturn, perhaps as the likely recession begins to bite abroad, significant raises will be off the table next year, kicking the can down the road again. We’ve been here before: Giants such as Toyota Motor Corp., which played along with wage increases in the early years of Abenomics, were by 2016 already pushing back against workers’ demands, agreeing to a meager ¥1,500 ($11.50) a month increase, half what unions sought. That was the same year the automaker earned $17.6 billion in net profit.

Abroad, dissatisfied workers seeing real earnings decline might look elsewhere. But while Japan’s labor market is no longer dominated by the "job for life,” it’s much less liquid. One survey by Recruit Holdings Co. found nearly 50% of workers who changed jobs said their new pay was static or even less than their previous workplace; just 18% of U.S. workers said the same. Only 8.5% of Japanese workers switching firms said the move came with a promotion, while 43% of Americans moved up the ladder.

In any case, for most people, the situation at large companies such as Toyota is irrelevant. These firms make up just 0.3% of Japan’s businesses; the remaining 99.7% are the small- and mid-sized enterprises that have much less pricing power. There are logical reasons why they don’t lift salaries. Most aren’t risk-takers like Uniqlo’s Yanai — and higher wages are indeed a risk, if not essential to retaining staff.

Japanese law makes it difficult to cut pay or conduct mass layoffs. Like all policies, this is a trade-off — preventing the large-scale firings Silicon Valley tech giants are now pursuing, much less the those seen in the U.S. and elsewhere when COVID-19 hit in 2020. But the flip side of this security is that staffing becomes a cost not easily shed in the downtimes, which encourages management to keep compensation low.

The model of loyal workers seeking modest raises once a year, and companies playing along because everyone is winning, no longer fits. Japan needs a new model — no amount of cajoling from politicians will convince firms to work long-term against their own interests. So instead of begging companies for short-term pay rises, Kishida needs to properly incentive management and workers.

It’s encouraging that in his opening speech to parliament, the prime minister explicitly linked the issues of labor reform and salaries. He is aiming to promote the confusingly named "job-type” system, where workers’ roles are more clearly defined, remunerated and evaluated — closer to European and U.S. norms than Japan’s seniority-based pay and frequent changes in roles.

Any labor-market reform significant enough to move wages will come with serious downsides. But it’s time for the country to have that conversation. Kishida, who came into office blasting the last two decades of neoliberal policies, might seem the wrong man to deliver meaningful change. Yet with his breaking of the five-decade long taboo on defense spending and despite being a more left-leaning ruling party leader he has surprised already. If Japan is to have its Black Ships moment, he’ll have to do a lot more than beg.

Gearoid Reidy is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Japan and the Koreas.