Word: koizumis
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Japan hasn't convinced China to forgive, either. Tokyo's repeated apologies for its militaristic past have never been remorseful enough for many Chinese. And Japan's former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi further fanned the flames by visiting the Yasukuni Shrine, which honors Japan's war dead-among them several class-A war criminals executed after the Tokyo trials, including the general in charge at Nanjing...
...taken the issue of poverty and social disparity more seriously than Koizumi did, appointing a special minister to take charge of a program designed to help the unemployed and underemployed refine their job skills. "We're hardly disregarding people's kitchens," says Nobutaka Machimura, a former Foreign Minister and influential LDP Diet member. But when Abe's feel-good rhetoric clashes with the economic realities of Japan today, he can look disingenuous or simply ineffective. At the LDP convention in January, Abe declared that "economic growth is not for business enterprises, it is for the public," and later called...
...That complaint gets to the heart of Abe's political quandary. Japanese who feel uncomfortable with the reforms of recent years see Abe as just a friendlier version of the disliked Koizumi-while those eager for faster reforms have come to view Abe as an obstacle. Hisashi Hirano, an official with the Yubari government, couldn't stand Koizumi, but says that at least with him, "we knew where we were headed. With Abe you can't understand what his intentions are." At the same time, Koizumi's most ardent fans-especially the young, unaffiliated voters he lured back into politics...
...made genuine progress is the one that critics were most afraid he would mishandle: foreign affairs. Abe has quickly managed to rebuild Japan's fractured relationships with South Korea and China, traveling to both capitals for lightning summits less than two weeks after he took power. While Koizumi continually irritated his neighbors by visiting the controversial Yasukuni Shrine, which honors Japan's war dead, Abe tactfully sidestepped the issue by refusing to say what he intends to do about Yasukuni. "He's shown real success in dealing with this," says Koichi Kato, an LDP heavyweight who has been critical...
...policy speech to the Diet, Abe announced that by May he would lay out "Innovation 25," a blueprint for Japanese R&D through 2025. But he has yet to unveil the concrete details that turn intentions into policy. "These are good ideas," says Takenaka, the former Koizumi minister. "But how is his agenda actually going to work...