Posts tagged ‘Abe’

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04/09/2014

Japan PM Abe appoints China-friendly lawmakers to key posts | Reuters

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe picked two veteran lawmakers with friendly ties to China for top party posts on Wednesday in an apparent signal of hope for a thaw in chilly ties with Beijing and a summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe walks into the Prime Minister's official residence in Tokyo September 3, 2014. REUTERS/Yuya Shino

The change in executives in Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) is part of a broad leadership rejig, including a cabinet reshuffle, aimed at strengthening party unity and polishing Abe’s image 20 months after he surged back to office.

In a move welcomed by Tokyo stock market players, Abe drafted Yasuhisa Shiozaki, 63, a proponent of an overhaul of Japan’s Government Pension Investment Fund (GPIF), to head the ministry of labor, health and welfare, which oversees GPIF.

The fund is finalizing plans to boost the weighting of domestic stocks in its portfolio.

Abe also gave women almost a third of the posts in his 18-minister cabinet to show his commitment to promoting women as part of his “Abenomics” growth strategy.

But he retained core cabinet members such as Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, Finance Minister Taro Aso, 73, Economics Minister Akira Amari, 65, and Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida, 57, signaling policy continuity.

Abe’s new line-up faces a number of challenges, including how to repair ties with China that have been frayed by rows over disputed territory and Japan’s wartime history, and whether to go ahead with a planned sales tax rise next year despite signs the economy is faltering.

via Japan PM Abe appoints China-friendly lawmakers to key posts | Reuters.

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01/09/2014

Japan and India vow to boost strategic ties during summit | Reuters

Japan and India agreed on Monday to strengthen strategic ties as Asia’s second and third biggest economies keep a wary eye on a rising China, and said they would accelerate talks on the possible sale of an amphibious aircraft to India’s navy.

India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi (R) and Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe shake hands before their talks at the state guest house in Tokyo September 1, 2014. REUTERS/Toru Hanai/Files

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi also agreed to speed up talks on a so-far elusive deal on nuclear energy cooperation, welcoming what they called “significant progress” in the negotiations.

“The two prime ministers reaffirmed the importance of defense relations between Japan and India in their strategic partnership and decided to upgrade and strengthen them,” Abe and Modi said in a statement after a summit in Tokyo.

Modi, on his first major foreign visit since a landslide election win in May, arrived on Saturday for a five-day trip aimed at capitalizing on a personal affinity with Abe to bolster security and business ties in the face of an assertive China.

In a sign of their warm ties, the two leaders greeted each other with a bear hug when they met on Saturday in Japan’s ancient capital of Kyoto for an informal dinner. Modi is one of three people that Abe follows on Twitter, while the Indian leader admires Abe’s brand of nationalist politics.

“The 21st century belongs to Asia … but how the 21st century will be depends on how strong and progressive India-Japan ties are,” Modi told Japanese and Indian business executives earlier in the day.

“The 18th century situation of expansionism is now visible,” Modi said, referring to incidents such as encroachment of others countries’ territories and intruding in other countries’ seas, in a veiled reference to China, with which India shares a long disputed border.

“Such expansionism would never benefit humanity in the 21st century,” he said.

Sino-Japanese ties have also been chilled by a row over disputed isles, feuds over the wartime past, and mutual mistrust over defense policies as China seeks a bigger regional role and Abe loosens the constraints of Japan’s post-war pacificism.

Abe is keen to expand Japan’s network of security partnerships with countries such as India and Australia to cope with the challenge presented by China.

via Japan and India vow to boost strategic ties during summit | Reuters.

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18/08/2014

Japanese Prime Minister Avoids Controversial War Shrine – Businessweek

On Friday morning, while several members of his cabinet marked the anniversary of World War II’s end by visiting a controversial shrine in Tokyo, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe wisely decided to sleep in. He had caused a storm last December by paying a visit to the Yasukuni Shrine, which honors Japan’s war dead. By skipping Yasukuni, Abe may have improved the chances of a summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping that could help defuse tensions between the two countries.

The Imperial chrysanthemum crest is displayed at the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo

The shrine has long been a problem for Chinese and Koreans. The Chinese media often refers to the shrine as “notorious.” “Each and every visit here by officials upsets and incenses Japan’s neighboring countries,” says a Xinhua commentary published on Friday. The shrine is a symbol “of the brutality of Japanese rule and military expansion,” Lee Won Deog, a professor of Japanese studies at Kookmin University in Seoul, told Bloomberg News. By visiting Yasukuni anyway, Japanese politicians show that “Japan continues to overlook the pain it caused its neighbors during its imperial expansion.”

A look at the shrine’s website shows why visits are so sensitive. In describing the shrine and the almost 2.5 million people it honors, Yasukuni does whitewash Japan’s history of aggression toward its neighbors. Some of the souls enshrined at Yasukuni died as Imperial Japan colonized Korea and Taiwan, occupied Manchuria, and brutalized many parts of China. But according to Yasukuni’s narrative, they died “to protect their country,” and “all sacrificed their lives to the public duty of protecting their motherland.” The shrine “is a place for Japanese people to show their appreciation and respect to those who died to protect their mother country, Japan.”

And what about the World War II-era war criminals enshrined there? Yasukini says not that they were convicted, but rather, that some “were labeled war criminals” (emphasis added) and executed after trials by the victorious Allies.

Some Japanese politicians worry about the way the shrine talks about Japan’s past militarism. Yasukuni “pays homage to war criminals, and exhibitions within its walls extol wars,” former Japanese Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama said in an interview with the China Daily published on Thursday. “I think the best solution is that prime ministers and cabinet members shun the shrine.”

Abe, though, is trying to have it both ways: He didn’t visit today, but two members of his cabinet did—and the prime minister sent a donation through an aide.

via Japanese Prime Minister Avoids Controversial War Shrine – Businessweek.

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22/12/2012

* Japan’s Abe to send envoy to China to mend ties

Commonsense and geo-politics wins over parochial politics.  Thank goodness.

Reuters: “Japan’s next Prime Minister Shinzo Abe plans to send senior ruling party member Masahiko Koumura as an envoy to China as early as next month in a bid to repair ties between Asia’s two largest economies, the Nikkei business daily said.

Shinzo Abe, Japan's incoming Prime Minister and the leader of Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), attends a meeting at the LDP headquarters in Tokyo December 21, 2012. REUTERS/Toru Hanai

Abe, a hardliner who has questioned claims by China and others that Japan’s army forced woman from occupied territories into prostitution during World War II, wants to bolster relations with his nation’s biggest neighbor after anti-Japanese protests there this year, the paper reported, without saying where it obtained the information.

Komura will carry a letter from Abe for China’s leaders, the Nikkei said. Komura is a former foreign minister who served as Abe’s defense minister during his first administration in 2007. As head of the Japan-China Friendship Paliamentarians’ Union, the lawmaker is known for his strong ties with China.

During campaigning for the general election that returned his Liberal Democratic Party to power after three years, Abe pledged to take a tough line with China in the dispute over islands in the East China Sea islands, called Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China.

A Chinese boycott of Japanese cars, electronic gadgets and other products earlier this year, however, hurt Japanese companies, while violent anti-Japanese protests damaged some businesses.”

via Japan’s Abe to send envoy to China to mend ties: Nikkei | Reuters.

See also: https://chindia-alert.org/2012/10/05/diaoyu-islands-dispute-hammers-japanese-car-sales-in-china/

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