Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi yesterday picked outspoken conservatives as his new top ministers and then a hawkish successor, probably spelling more tension with Asian neighbors in his remaining year in office.
Koizumi, the longest serving Japanese premier in a generation, reshuffled his Cabinet after winning a landslide victory in an election he cast as a referendum on reforming the economy and bringing new faces into politics.
But he tapped two party stalwarts -- both grandsons of former prime ministers -- as his top aides.
Shinzo Abe, 51, was given the powerful post of chief Cabinet secretary, while Taro Aso, a hardliner on China, became foreign minister.
"The Cabinet has moved to the right with the reshuffle," said Sadafumi Kawato, a professor of Japanese politics at Tohoku University. "Japanese foreign policy will get closer to America and remain far apart from China and South Korea."
As chief Cabinet secretary, who is the government spokesman and becomes the acting prime minister when Koizumi travels abroad, Abe's position as a frontrunner to be prime minister when Koizumi leaves office next September has been strengthened.
Both Abe and Aso are staunch defenders of Koizumi's visits -- the latest being on Oct. 17 -- to the Yasukuni shrine, which honors 2.5 million Japanese war dead, including notorious war criminals.
"If the prime minister, the chief Cabinet secretary and the foreign minister all turn up to visit Yasukuni, it is feared it would lead to a quite serious situation," said outgoing foreign minister Nobutaka Machimura, who was sidelined in the new Cabinet.
Mizuho Fukushima, head of the left-wing opposition Social Democratic Party, said Koizumi, who had run on a platform of economic change, was "promoting changes to the Constitution and Yasukuni pilgrimages, bringing Japan's relations with the rest of Asia to a very disastrous state."
In April, Aso was the only Cabinet member to pay a pilgrimage to Yasukuni for its spring festival, just as Koizumi was seeking a summit in Jakarta with Chinese President Hu Jintao (
Aso, addressing his first press conference as the incoming foreign minister, said the Yasukuni shrine was not the only issue between the neighbors and urged dialogue.
"Apart from that one particular issue, Japan-China relations as a whole are basically proceeding well in such areas as economic relations and exchanges of youth culture," he said.
Abe, known for his ease with the media, has won a public following for his strongly worded rebukes of North Korea, especially for its past abductions of Japanese citizens.
Abe said Koizumi was still committed to the reforms on which he ran in the election.
"I want to do my best to push forward the structural reforms currently proceeding under Prime Minister Koizumi's leadership. This Cabinet is one that will turn reform into reality," he said.
CALL FOR SUPPORT: President William Lai called on lawmakers across party lines to ensure the livelihood of Taiwanese and that national security is protected President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday called for bipartisan support for Taiwan’s investment in self-defense capabilities at the christening and launch of two coast guard vessels at CSBC Corp, Taiwan’s (台灣國際造船) shipyard in Kaohsiung. The Taipei (台北) is the fourth and final ship of the Chiayi-class offshore patrol vessels, and the Siraya (西拉雅) is the Coast Guard Administration’s (CGA) first-ever ocean patrol vessel, the government said. The Taipei is the fourth and final ship of the Chiayi-class offshore patrol vessels with a displacement of about 4,000 tonnes, Lai said. This ship class was ordered as a result of former president Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) 2018
‘SECRETS’: While saying China would not attack during his presidency, Donald Trump declined to say how Washington would respond if Beijing were to take military action US President Donald Trump said that China would not take military action against Taiwan while he is president, as the Chinese leaders “know the consequences.” Trump made the statement during an interview on CBS’ 60 Minutes program that aired on Sunday, a few days after his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in South Korea. “He [Xi] has openly said, and his people have openly said at meetings, ‘we would never do anything while President Trump is president,’ because they know the consequences,” Trump said in the interview. However, he repeatedly declined to say exactly how Washington would respond in
WARFARE: All sectors of society should recognize, unite, and collectively resist and condemn Beijing’s cross-border suppression, MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng said The number of Taiwanese detained because of legal affairs by Chinese authorities has tripled this year, as Beijing intensified its intimidation and division of Taiwanese by combining lawfare and cognitive warfare, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday. MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) made the statement in response to questions by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Puma Shen (沈柏洋) about the government’s response to counter Chinese public opinion warfare, lawfare and psychological warfare. Shen said he is also being investigated by China for promoting “Taiwanese independence.” He was referring to a report published on Tuesday last week by China’s state-run Xinhua news agency,
‘ADDITIONAL CONDITION’: Taiwan will work with like-minded countries to protect its right to participate in next year’s meeting, the foreign ministry said The US will “continue to press China for security arrangements and protocols that safeguard all participants when attending APEC meetings in China,” a US Department of State spokesperson said yesterday, after Beijing suggested that members must adhere to its “one China principle” to participate. “The United States insists on the full and equal participation of all APEC member economies — including Taiwan — consistent with APEC’s guidelines, rules and established practice, as affirmed by China in its offer to host in 2026,” the unnamed spokesperson said in response to media queries about China putting a “one China” principle condition on Taiwan’s
RSS