Newswise — Following a week in which Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party gained control of both houses of the Diet and Abe himself called for revising his nation’s military posture to include offensive strike capability, Cornell University Asian Studies Professor Naoki Sakai, an expert on Japanese history and nationalism, warns that Abe may be leading Japan back into international isolation and Cold War policies.

Sakai says:

“In the last seven months, Abe Shinzo has pursued anti-austerity policies in economics and continued the old imperialist stance that endorses the war criminals enshrined at the Yasukuni Shrine (originally the pre-war war memorial shrine located next to the Imperial Palace in Tokyo). His total disavowal of Japan’s responsibility for its colonialism and war crime issues, such as the Comfort Women, has been severely criticized by not only Chinese and South Koreans, but also peoples in the U.S. and E.U.

“What is part of his agenda now is to dismantle the postwar Constitution; the United States government initially introduced this to Japan in the late 1940s but has attempted to change it since the 1950s with the onset of the Cold War. While insisting on the rejection of the postwar democracy, Abe expresses his nostalgia for the Cold War politics of anti-communism and wants to return Japan to it.

“A South Korean newspaper described Abe’s politics aptly, as ‘trying to solve the problems of the 21st century by the fantasy of the 20th century.’”

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