The newly-elected president of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic
Party (LDP) Shinzo Abe expectably won the vote in an extra plenary
Diet session and was elected the country's new prime minister on
Tuesday afternoon, becoming the country's youngest premier after
World War II.
The new career brings with Abe a series of tough tests.
Stepping onto the top executive post at a time when Japan's
domestic and foreign affairs problems mounted, the 52-year-old
conservative hawk faces a great deal of critical challenges such as
mending ties with Asian neighbors, reducing the domestic wealth
disparities, improving the sustainability of the social security
system and reconstructing the national finance.
A diplomatic plight
The first and foremost pressing foreign affairs problem for Abe
is to deal with the Yasukuni issue.
Japanese former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi insisted
hardheadedly on paying visits to the notorious war-related Yasukuni
Shrine during his tenure of more than five years, engendering
severe deterioration of Japan's political relations with its Asian
neighbors, especially China and South Korea, and dragging Japan
into an embarrassed diplomatic isolation in the region.
The backward trend did not only go against Japan's national
interests, but also aroused anxiety of its closest ally the United
States.
From inside Japan's political and economic fields, voices
calling for the improvement of the Sino-Japanese ties have been
gaining strength. Many Japanese economic leaders feared the blur
prospect of Sino-Japanese political relations could lead to a
decline of trade volume and have been urging the government to help
build a favorable environment for the development of economic
cooperation between the two countries.
Recent public opinion polls showed that the majority of Japanese
people hope to see their new premier's making a change to the
Japan-China and Japan-South Korea relations and his saving Japan
out of the diplomatic quagmire.
At the first press conference he hosted as prime minister on
Tuesday evening, Abe described China as "an important country for
Japan" and said that while maintaining the United States as Japan's
closest ally, he is willing to make efforts to "further develop"
the Sino-Japanese ties.
He also showed the intention to resume with China the summit
talks which has been suspended since 2001 due to political
obstacles induced by Koizumi's repeated shrine visits.
In his policy platform released during the LDP presidential
campaign, Abe vowed to enhance mutual trusts with neighboring
countries. The content of the coalition agreement signed by the LDP
and its partner the New Komeito Party on Sept. 25 also reflected
Abe's desire to strengthen ties with China and South Korea. And he
has expressed willingness to visit the two important neighbors
after taking power.
However, Abe has been adopting a "blur strategy" on the
historical and the sensitive Yasukuni issues, and has been
equivocating on how to judge Japan's disreputable militarist
history of invasion before and during World War II and how to
assess its responsibility for war.
Actually, Abe was a supporter of Koizumi's shrine visits and was
a regular worshipper himself, and has made vehement remarks on the
issue. He has up to now refused to say whether he will pay visit to
the Yasukuni, which honors 14 Class-A war criminals, as a
premier.
Besides, he used to take right-wing positions on issues like
history-whitewashing textbooks and "comfort women."
Now it's time to see what viewpoints Abe will adopt and whether
he will suit his actions to the promises he made during the
campaign.???
?
Domestic heavy burdens
The Koizumi administration not only leaves a diplomatic hot
water to Abe, but also widening wealth disparities and social
security crisis to the Japanese society.
To reduce wealth disparities and rebuild finance are undoubtedly
urgent and formidable assignments for Abe, who is not proficient at
economic policies.
Although he has a general scheme to rebuild finance with the
overall economic growth and to invigorate the nation with regional
vigor, it's still unknown whether he could come up with practical
and effective economic policies.
Right after being elected president of the LDP on Sept. 20, Abe
said he would put making drastic reform of the education system and
pushing for the extension of the counter-terrorism act on top of
the reform agenda. He also regarded replacing the current
US-drafted Constitution with Japan's own as one of the priorities,
leaving diplomatic and economic problems unmentioned.
This indicated that Abe may not assume a down-to-earth attitude
and deal with the problems at the center of most Japanese people's
concern at the beginning stage of his term, and thus the future is
in doubt.
The ship of Abe has now left harbor. Whether the "captain" could
make appropriate solutions to Japan's domestic and foreign affairs
problems and provide good answers to the Japanese people will
decide not only his own political career, but also his party's fate
in the House of Councilors election slated for next summer.
(Xinhua News Agency September 28, 2006)
