Word: abely
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...Japanese conservatives, who consider the emperor the spiritual center of Japan, and they fought hard against the possibility of an Empress: 170 Diet members signed a cross-party petition against the new law, and other opponents included the conservative Chief Cabinet Secretary - and likely future Prime Minister - Shinzo Abe. Former Trade Minister Takeo Hiranuma's xenophobic comments were typical: "If Aiko becomes the reigning empress and gets involved with a blue-eyed foreigner while studying abroad and marries him, their child may become emperor," he said in February. "We should never let that happen...
...Strengthen the U.S.-Japan alliance. That's our China policy." HISAHIKO OKAZAKI, foreign-policy expert and ally of Shinzo Abe, the man likely to be Japan's next Prime Minister, suggesting that an Abe administration would take a tough line on China...
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...
...lifelong right-winger from conservative stock (his grandfather was arrested as a war criminal after World War II, though never charged), Abe has visited Yasukuni repeatedly in the past. So far he has refused to say whether he would go as PM, but even if Abe defuses tensions over Yasukuni, he has other ways to rile Japan's neighbors. For a start, local media reported last week that he has plans to revise the country's pacifist constitution to allow Japan's self-defense forces greater participation in allied military operations?a signal that he's eager for Japan...
...Abe's main opponents, Finance Minister Sadakazu Tanigaki, has come out against the Yasukuni visits, while another, Foreign Minister Taro Aso, wants to sidestep the issue by transforming the shrine into a state-sponsored memorial, instead of a religious one. But Tanigaki and Aso are only polling in the single digits, and the LDP stalwarts who will be voting in the party election tend to be conservative. Abe will have to decide eventually. Many observers assume that his past record means he will make the trip as Prime Minister at some point. But with Abe's proven conservative bona-fides...