- Title: File footage of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe ahead of party election
- Date: 18th September 2018
- Summary: TOKYO, JAPAN (FILE - DECEMBER 26, 2013) (REUTERS) ***WARNING CONTAINS FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY*** VARIOUS OF ABE WALKING INTO YASUKUNI SHRINE ABE WALKING IN CORRIDOR INSIDE YASUKUNI SHRINE Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine for the war dead, a temple seen as a symbol of Japan's World War Two militarism. Fourteen Japanese wartime leaders convicted as war criminals by an Allied tribunal are honoured at the shrine along with other war dead. His visit angered China and South Korea and even provoked rare criticism from key ally the United States.
- Embargoed: 2nd October 2018 04:31
- Keywords: Shinzo Abe Politics Prime Minister Scandal reelection liberal democratic party north korea Donald Trump
- Location: TOKYO, FUKUSHIMA PREFECTURE, MIYAGI PREFECTURE, HIROSHIMA, CAMP ASAKA, OSAKA, YOKOTA, KAGOSHIMA, JAPAN / UNIDENTIFIED LOCATIONS / BEIJING, CHINA /VLADIVOSTOK, RUSSIA
- City: TOKYO, FUKUSHIMA PREFECTURE, MIYAGI PREFECTURE, HIROSHIMA, CAMP ASAKA, OSAKA, YOKOTA, KAGOSHIMA, JAPAN / UNIDENTIFIED LOCATIONS / BEIJING, CHINA /VLADIVOSTOK, RUSSIA
- Country: Japan
- Topics: Diplomacy/Foreign Policy,Government/Politics
- Reuters ID: LVA0078Y6MAF9
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, eyeing a historic extended term, has reaffirmed his resolve to revise the nation's post-war, pacifist constitution ahead of a Sept. 20 election for the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party.
Abe, who returned to office in December 2012 pledging to bolster defences and reboot the economy, is widely expected to defeat his rival, former defence minister Shigeru Ishiba.
Victory would give him another three-year term as LDP head and set him on track to become Japan's longest serving premier, given the LDP-led ruling coalition's grip on parliament.
Abe first took office in 2006 as Japan's youngest prime minister since World War Two. But he quit abruptly after a year plagued by scandals in his cabinet and public outrage at lost pension records, and capped by his Liberal Democratic Party's (LDP) big defeat in an election for parliament's upper house. The committed suicide by then Agriculture Minister Toshikatsu Matsuoka, who had come under fire for a series of political funding scandals, was an unrecoverable blow to Abe whose leadership was under fire of scepticism.
Five years after he resigned, blaming it on a worsening chronic intestinal ailment, Abe led the conservative LDP - ignominiously ousted in 2009 - back to power. He then launched a three-pronged "Abenomics" strategy to beat persistent deflation and revive growth with hyper-easy monetary policy and fiscal spending while promising structural reforms to cope with a fast-ageing, shrinking population.
Unlike his first office, Abe survived a blow to his cabinet that came after pushing through a set of controversial national security bills in 2015, which could allow troops to fight overseas for the first time since the end of World War Two - a move that sagged his support and triggered massive protests.
But amid concerns over a volatile North Korea, Abe was re-elected in 2017 with his Liberal Democratic Party-led coalition retaining two-thirds "super majority" in parliament" lower house - a victory that re-energized his push to revise the post-war pacifist constitution.
Suspicions of a cover-up surrounding the ministry-altered land-sale document could slash Abe's ratings and threaten his ambition to become the country's longest-serving premier.
However Abe survived those scandals and while seemingly has lost his strong ties with U.S. President Donald Trump, after threatened with a trade war, Abe previously icy relations with Russia's Vladimir Putin and China's Xi Jinping seemed to have thawed in recent months. - Copyright Holder: FILE REUTERS (CAN SELL)
- Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2018. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
- Usage Terms/Restrictions: None