Word: koizumis
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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With outgoing prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi due to step down next month, Japan's neighbors are breathing a sigh of relief and focusing their attention on his likely successor, Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe. Koizumi's visits to the controversial Yasukuni shrine?the latest on Aug. 15?have long outraged China and South Korea, who view them as deliberate celebrations of Japanese militarism. But Beijing and Seoul have signaled their willingness to give Abe a chance to repair ties?if he forgoes Yasukuni...
...China and South Korea reacted angrily to his visit, the sixth during Koizumi's time as Prime Minister, but the reality is that both countries have long since written off Koizumi, who leaves office in a month. Solving the intractable question of Yasukuni - and possibly ending Japan's virtual diplomatic isolation in Asia - will fall to Koizumi's likely successor, the hawkish Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe. Both China and South Korea have signaled their willingness to give Abe a chance once he takes power, to allow him to begin to repair the immense damage that Koizumi has done...
...issue for Japan, but there's always been support at home, especially among older Japanese who feel they deserve a place where they can pay respect to their millions of war dead without guilt. Although he had never visitied the shrine before he ran for Prime Minister in 2001, Koizumi made an election promise to pay his respects at Yasukuni if he won. That pledge won him key support from conservatives, and in the following years Koizumi deftly used Yasukuni to score political points at home. The louder China and South Korea would complain, the stronger Koizumi looked for refusing...
...Yasukuni left Koizumi in a political situation that Bush might recognize - what succeeds in domestic politics is wrecking the country's reputation abroad. And that leaves Abe in something of a bind. (Abe is a virtual lock to win next month's elections to lead Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party, LDP, which would automatically make him Prime Minister.) If Abe visits Yasukuni after becoming Prime Minister, he could destroy Japan's best chance in years to repair relations with China and South Korea. If he decides not to go, he could be seen as kowtowing to Chinese wishes...
...blue-blooded conservative who has questioned the validity of the Tokyo War Crimes trials, Abe has visited Yasukuni repeatedly in the past, most recently this April, according to Japanese news reports. But unlike Koizumi, he has steadfastly refused to say whether he will go if he is elected Prime Minister. "[Abe] has made it clear that he doesn't want to make Yasukuni a campaign issue," says a Tokyo-based academic. "Koizumi is responsible for politicizing Yasukuni, and Abe is determined not to follow...