Word: junichiro
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Korea. While some of that fear has to do with Pyongyang's habit of testing missiles near Japan, or threatening to turn its former colonial occupier into a "nuclear sea of fire," the decisive change came in September 2002, when Kim Jong-il admitted to visiting Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi that Pyongyang had indeed been guilty of abducting Japanese citizens. Kim paid a heavy price for his uncharacteristic outburst of honesty...
...Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi...
...most inspired political acts of 2006 occurred on Oct. 8, when newly elected Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe stepped off a plane in Beijing. Relations between China and Japan were at their lowest ebb in decades, largely because Abe's predecessor Junichiro Koizumi had repeatedly visited the Yasukuni Shrine, which honors Japan's war dead, including 14 Class-A war criminals. Abe's momentous trip to China broke a political stalemate between Asia's two leading powers and portended closer economic and diplomatic ties between these historical rivals...
...Deepening ties between the two biggest democracies in Asia is part of Abe's efforts to chart a new direction for Japan's foreign policy, one less consumed with the U.S. and more embracing of Asia - albeit selectively. "With [former Prime Minister] Junichiro Koizumi, the U.S. was Number 1, Number 2 and Number 3," says Takako Hirose, a professor of South Asian politics at Tokyo's Senshu University. "I think for Abe, Asia is more important...
...Even the gestures seem to be giving the wrong message, as when Abe last week allowed his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) to reinstate 11 of 12 members banished last year after voting against former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's postal-reform program. Though they pledged to toe the party line, their readmission sent a signal that the LDP's commitment to reform may be halfhearted. "It will hurt us badly," says Taro Kono, assistant chairman of the LDP's policy-research council. "Abe is seen as a weak leader." At least Bono likes...