Japan's new Prime Minister

[ant]

Read up on Japan's new Prime Minister. It will be very interesting to see how he of all people is going to patch things up with China and South Korea while wanting to change/revise the constitution and build up a stronger military. He has no children but it is no wonder why if you see the young ladies that go out to his speeches.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/world/4202511.html

[Kuzu Ryu Sen]

Pfft, one LDP is as good as another. I'll start paying attention to Japanese politics when another party actually manages to win the damned elections. How can a country vote for one party for 60 years in a row?

[soundchazer]

LOL... that article got the pronounciation wrong. It is Ah-Beh, not Ah-Bay. Typical English speaking mistake, trying to make words with the e at the end sound like bay more often than not.

As for the type of person this guy is, it seems the relationships with China and Korea will continue to deteriorate. A stronger military, a rewrite of a pacifist Consitution and the support of the war shrines sounds like trouble.

[silan]

I agree with Soundchazer on this one.

He sounds like a looming return to a pre-war Japan mentality. He's encouraging the use of history books in schools that have been edited to hide or erase atrocities that Japan committed during the war. He wants to rewrite the constitution to give Japan greater military presence. He's a strongly nationalistic person, maybe too much so in a world where a leader needs to know how to handle issues with other nations diplomatically while still having patriotic pride.

It'll be interesting to see how this change will affect Japan.

[Yurika Star]

I've had a few friends asking if I know anyone in MI5 who can assassinate this guy. Chinese friends who are interested aren't too happy.

[Phate]

On a lighter note, he doesn't have Koizumi's hair. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v218/Ph4t3/Emot/emot-argh.gif

[yotakafish]

i will say that he has quite the task in front of him. He has to build better relations with several other countries, and the first thing he should do is stop going to the damn shrine and maybe build a new shrine or something that doesn`t have war criminals in it. You can honor your fallen soldiers with out honoring every single one. He has been doing alot of changes to the school systems which directly effects me as a teacher in japan. He is increasing the amount of english taught in schools to in the future help jpn econmy. He also wants to instill more national pride but has to do so in a way that is not negative. The japanese have lots of national pride but blotting out all the bad things they have done is not the way to increase it. Most japanese people have never heard of the rape of nanking. Everyone has to own up to what they have done and pay the piper. Besides those don`t learn from thier past are doomed to repeat it. I`m starting to ramble. Sorry. Anyways, I am most intersted in this prime minister as he has many difficult issues ahead of him not to mention the aging population in Japan as well as the low birth rate.
Japanese politics is interesting even if it is a one party system because The Kozster had gone and done many econmic changes such as privatizing the postal service in an attempt to improve the economy with out a full backing of his party. It will be interesting to see these changes pan out.

[laborpilot86]

With the test of NK's nuke, expect Abe-san to call for a Japanese nuke and a return to a more aggresive military posture

[ant]

We will see some progress in the next few days as the Diet will vote on the matters such as the educational reforms and the amendments to the constitution.