Abe Elected New Japanese Prime Minister

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Tang Li, Arab News

TOKYO, 27 September 2006 — Japan yesterday elected Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to replace Junichiro Koizumi who stepped down from the premiership after five-years.

Abe was assured the premiership after winning the leadership of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party on Sept. 20 with a two-third majority. Under the Liberal Democratic Party’s rules, a party president serves a maximum of five years and given the party’s dominance of Japanese politics, the party president is usually the prime minister. Abe won a commanding 339 votes out of a possible 475 in the powerful lower house of the Parliament. In addition to this, Abe also won a commanding majority in the upper house.

Abe, who at the age of 52 is Japan’s youngest postwar prime minister, has been seen by many as Koizumi’s natural successor and his protégé. Many are expecting Abe to continue with Koizumi’s economic reforms, which have been credited for the revival of the world’s second largest, and Asia’s largest economy.

However, the greatest task for Abe will be in reviving the relationship with Japan’s giant neighbor China. In his first television address, Abe told the nation that he intended to “make Japan a country that abounds with dynamism, opportunity and kindness,” and he described China as “a very important country for Japan and China’s development is a plus also for Japan.” Abe vowed that he would “work to further develop relations between China and Japan.” Abe who played a key role in Koizumi’s foreign policy of maintaining a tight alliance with the US and revising Japan’s pacifist constitution, thus producing a more assertive foreign policy, will be challenged to improve relations with both China and South Korea. During the five years of Koizumi’s leadership, relations were often strained between Japan, China and South Korea due to Koizumi’s visits to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine which both China and South Korea have claimed glorifies Japan’s militaristic past. The Yasukuni Shrine houses what China and South Korea have called “Class A War Criminals.” However, Koizumi was unrepentant about his shrine visits and in his farewell address he called China and South Korea’s canceling of high level visits in protest of his shrine visits, “wrong.”

However, with China’s growing economy and Japan’s growing trade with China, Abe will have to act to ensure that diplomatic rows do not damage trade relations, which given the size of both economies, would have implications in the Asia-Pacific region and beyond.