Koizumi Steps Down, Abe Steps Up

Neo-Nationalist?

Good to his word, Junichiro Koizumi stepped down from the PM's office, having declared some time back that that's what he would do. Stepping into his shoes is Shinzo Abe who has been elected the new Prime Minister of Japan.
Here's the Guardian article.

Fairly or not, Junichiro Koizumi is widely held to have dragged down Japan's relations with former wartime enemies China and South Korea to their lowest level since the 1950s. But the Diet's expected appointment today of Shinzo Abe as his successor as prime minister could stoke east Asian tensions and make matters worse.

Mr Koizumi's main offence, as seen from Beijing and Seoul, was his repeated visits to Tokyo's Yasukuni shrine where convicted war criminals are honoured along with 2.5 million Japanese war dead. The visits were interpreted, for largely political purposes, as proof that Japan had failed to acknowledge past misdeeds. As a result, there have been no full summit meetings between China and Japan since 2001. That is a bit like Britain and Germany refusing to shake hands 61 years after the shooting stopped.

If anything, Mr Abe, a third generation neo-nationalist who, at 52, will be Japan's youngest postwar leader, may take a tougher line than his flamboyant predecessor. He has said that any future prime minister should continue to visit Yasukuni. He also rejects the validity of the Tokyo war crimes trials that followed Japan's 1945 defeat and says, in effect, that Japan has done enough apologising.

Mr Koizumi emphasised close ties to the US, controversially deploying Japanese troops in non-combat missions in Iraq and buying into the Bush administration's global missile defence plans. Mr Abe may go much further. He wants to end, or circumvent, the self-imposed ban on "collective self-defence". That would allow Japan to form "normal" alliances, undertake more overseas military missions, and pursue a more assertive foreign policy.

That approach appeals to Washington which, warily eyeing China's rise, is anxious for regional allies ready to stand up and be counted. But a more expansive Japan could exacerbate problems with Beijing and Seoul, and the US also wants reduced Sino-Japanese tensions. Mr Abe's stated belief that China is a destabilising factor in Asia that "doesn't share basic values like freedom and human rights" is unlikely to help the US achieve these conflicting aims.

Mr Abe's hard line on North Korea's nuclear bomb and missile programmes is another potential flashpoint. Mr Koizumi tried summit diplomacy but made little headway. Mr Abe, in contrast, made his name by fiercely championing the cause of Japanese citizens abducted by Pyongyang. After North Korea's July missile tests, he floated the idea of pre-emptive strikes. Now he is expected to create a special cabinet post for North Korean affairs.

It's worth a read. I'm rather sceptical as to if Mr. Abe is as nationalistic as he article states. For instance, reading through Japanese headlines, one gets the feeling that he's more soft around the edges than his father or Mr. Koizumi. His stance on the Yasukuni Shrine is a lot more fuzzy than his predecessor and he has stated improving relations with China and South Korea are a priority. I think it's pure speculation as to how Mr. Abe is going to go about doing his job. He could do most anything; he might actually do nothing.

As for Mr. Koizumi, I think he is the only PM of Japan in my lifetime that I felt talked straight and shot straight, while actually knowing what it was he was doing. This was no blundering Murayama or all-style-no-substance Hosokawa. It's really a problem for China and South Korea that their governments couldn't find time to talk to him more furing his tenure, as Japanese pollies tend to be a lot more curly and cute. I guess everybody ends up laying in the beds they make.