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By Shaun Tandon
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo
Abe has never been shy about seeing his job as being like a US
president.
From creating Japan’s first
“National Security Council,” to his strides at foreign summits
holding his wife’s hand, Abe has praised the White House model as
offering “strong political leadership to make quick decisions.”
Now Abe has a parallel to George
W. Bush he could do without—a stinging election rebuke set to
cloud over his bold, neoconservative foreign policy vision.
Abe, who has vowed to build a
Japan prouder of its past and rewrite its pacifist post-World War II
constitution, was trounced Sunday in elections that focused
primarily on domestic scandals.
His foreign policy goals—a
stable relationship with China, a tough line on North Korea and a
more confident partnership with the United States—will now have to
take a back-seat to salvaging his government.
“He’s essentially a dead man
walking. The man has no credibility left whatsoever,” said Robert
Dujarric, director of Temple University’s Institute of
Contemporary Japanese Studies.
“His main ideas have always
been reforming Japan’s constitution and its post-war regime and
now everybody knows that the voters said we don’t care.”
Bush’s Republican Party lost
control of Congress in November elections due to a backlash over the
Iraq war, while Abe’s long-ruling Liberal Democrats were ousted
from the upper house of parliament.
“It’s quite right to say the
situations are similar, only that it happened later in Japan,”
said Takayoshi Shibata, professor emeritus at Tokyo Keizai
University.
Japan’s opposition has already
pledged to use control of the upper house to fight any plans by Abe
to extend Japan’s logistical support in the Indian Ocean to US
military operations in Afghanistan.
But Abe’s coalition still has
the power to override the upper house and some analysts doubted the
opposition would risk alienating the United States, Japan’s main
ally.
Abe, despite his hardline
reputation, scored quick political points after taking office by
flying to China and South Korea, helping preempt any criticism from
them to his goals such as rewriting the pacifist constitution.
The two countries had snubbed
Abe’s predecessor Junichiro Koizumi due to his visits to a Tokyo
shrine that venerates Japanese war dead and war criminals alike.
But Abe, who has cited improved
relations with China as a key achievement, could now be in a
vulnerable situation.
He is set to go again this autumn
to China, which has myriad disputes with Japan including over
lucrative gas deposits in contested waters.
“I think they realize that Abe
needs China more than China needs Abe at this moment,” said Temple
University professor Phil Deans. “The Chinese are aware that the
prime minister is weaker and that it’s easier to extract
concessions from him.”
Abe is also expected to be
weakened over North Korea. A pro-Pyongyang newspaper crowed ahead of
the election that North Korea will no longer deal with him.
Abe has refused to fund a
US-backed six-nation arms-for-disarmament deal in February due to a
long-running dispute over Pyongyang’s past kidnappings of Japanese
civilians.
Abe is so identified with the
kidnapping issue that members of his party told campaign rallies
that a vote for the opposition would send the wrong message to North
Korea.
North Korea will see the election
“as a sign that Abe’s strong anti-Pyongyang position isn’t
widely accepted and that he’s increasingly marginalized,” Deans
said.
“It will make it much easier
for the North Koreans to ignore him completely.” 
--AFP
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