"Honest Abe" Takes the Helm...

Actually, that's pronounced "ah-bay", not "eib". I'm talking about Japan's new PM, Shinzo Abe. He is the first truly post-war prime minister, i.e. the first to have been born after World War II.



Unfortunately, as far as our closest Asian neighbors are concerned, his stated policies reflect that fact all too well.

Following in the footsteps of controversial but generally popular conservative PM Junichiro Koizumi, Abe has always been seen as a rather hawkish politician, but now he is promising to lead the country in a whole new direction...a newly nationalistic one. Certainly, Koizumi was unashamedly patriotic, as he displayed with his visits to (pro-imperialist) Shinto war memorial Yasukuni Shrine in violation of the Constitution and in total defiance of the protests of China and the Koreas. However, Koizumi's main concern seemed to be privatizing public services (and reducing if not eliminating all subsidization of said services) and reducing the tax and legislative restrictions on business. Abe, on the other hand has made national pride his top priority.

Just a few years ago a new series of school history textbooks was published that whitewashed Japan's modern history and tried to claim that Japanese colonization of Asia was both benign and beneficial. Not many schools use it at present, but it was one of the main reasons cited for those explosive protests in China last year, when all those Japanese consulates and businesses were vandalized. Guess what? Abe has been one of the driving forces behind that textbook series from the beginning. He calls it "the foundation of a newly confident Japan" and supports its widespread introduction. One of his stated platform goals is to revise the education system in order to promote national pride. It would seem he is trying to make the playing down if not forgetting of history a fundamental rule.

Our Asian neighbors are not very happy.

One of his other stated platform goals is to revise the Constitution even more than Koizumi did in order to establish a powerful, new military force with the ability to operate wherever and whenever needed. He still wants to rely on the U.S.-Japan alliance for national defense, but he wants Japan to be an equal if not the dominant partner. He says that Japan has played by other countries' rules for too long and wants Japan to start making rules itself. This sounds perfectly reasonable, but considering the "non-military" Japan Self-Defense Forces already constitute the 9th largest armed force in the world (not to mention one of the most sophisticated), bolstering it even a little would turn Japan into a bona fide military power.

Our Asian neighbors are definitely not happy, as this relatively moderate article shows.

It is often said that Abe was elected mainly on account of his hawkishness and patriotism. However, the two men that he beat out in the election are even more rabidly nationalistic than he is. Abe is definitely the most moderate and rational of the three, and that's kind of scary. One thing is definitely certain: Japan has taken a very hard turn to the right. We could be in for a very interesting ride from here...