Yesterday, nationalist Shinzo Abe was elected by Japan’s parliament as the nation’s new prime minister. In a decisive victory, Abe won 339 out of 475 votes in the lower house, and 136 of 240 in the upper. The election of Abe, an outspoken, forward-thinking, revisionist politician, was a significant event in Japanese—and global—politics.

“It’s the beginning of the new era under Abe,” ruling party Secretary General Hidenao Nakagawa declared. Abe comes to office as a champion of “revision of the pacifist constitution, a more outspoken foreign policy, and more patriotic education” (Associated Press, September 26).

To pursue what he envisions as a more nationalistic and militarist direction for Japan, Abe has wasted no time in consolidating and empowering his government. Not only has he already stacked his cabinet with conservatives, but he has strengthened his own position. “His government immediately declared that the prime minister—not the powerful bureaucracy—would direct policy” (ibid.). “The prime minister’s office,” according to incoming Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki, “should be strengthened as the control center for the whole state” (ibid.).

It is no wonder Abe’s ascendance to power, as the Los Angeles Times put it, “raises fears that the nation’s long-repressed well of virulent nationalism, buried just beneath the surface, could again rise up …” (September 25). Indeed, even prior to Abe becoming prime minister, his predecessor Junichiro Koizumi was laying the groundwork for a more nationalistic Japanese foreign policy, to be underpinned by a more assertive military.

Throughout his time as prime minister, Koizumi ruffled feathers (most notably China’s) by visiting a shrine honoring Japanese war criminals, proposing changes to Japan’s pacifist Constitution, and tampering with textbooks to gloss over Japan’s wartime record. Mr. Abe, as the Washington Post noted, “promises an extreme version of this formula” (September 25; emphasis ours throughout).

Each of these issues is quite personal to Mr. Abe, whose grandfather Nobusuke Kishi was a member of Japan’s wartime cabinet, later to be jailed by the U.S. as a war criminal. Much along the same lines as those of his grandfather, “Abe’s views tilt further to the right than those of Koizumi,” reported Agence France Presse. Furthermore, “Abe has rejected the legitimacy of post-war trials of war criminals and hinted he feels Japan has apologized enough for its past” (September 26).

Koizumi spent his years as the leader of Japan undertaking the arduous and geopolitically sensitive task of putting Japan on the conservative and nationalist path; but now, with Japan firmly entrenched in this path and the world having grown used to its new nationalist direction, we are about to witness Abe dramatically accelerate the speed of Japan’s evolution into nationalism and militarism.

As Abe begins his tenure as prime minister, there are two specific trends we should watch.

Firstly, as has been widely reported, we can expect Abe to rewrite Japan’s pacifist Constitution, enhance the Japanese military as an offensive force and promote that military to the world as the dominant and powerful force that it is.

As Japan’s military mindset evolves from being predominantly defensive to one that is overtly offensive, it is also likely the nation will begin to develop its own cache of nuclear weapons. This idea is already circulating among Japanese statesmen and politicians and being pushed particularly by Mr. Abe. On September 5, former Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone said that given its close geographic situation to nuclear states, as well as the potential for a breakdown in relations with America, Japan needs to consider developing nuclear weapons. Nakasone’s stance on this topic, as the Chosun Ilbo noted, “more or less represents the position … of Shinzo Abe.”

Secondly, we can expect Abe to repair relations with fellow Asian states, specifically China. Though it may not seem so, this trend is just as important geopolitically as the evolution of a nationalistic Japanese military. Japan would carry a lot of weight as an independent and nationalistic military power; but consider the geopolitical influence it would possess if it were closely aligned and working in cahoots with China, and its other smaller neighbors.

This trend, often brushed over, has the potential to be exceedingly more dangerous than even the rise of a more nationalistic Japan.

On Sunday, Hidenao Nakagawa vowed that as prime minister Abe would seek to “repair damaged ties with China” (International Herald Tribune,September 24). Nakagawa, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party policy chief and a key adviser to the new pm, said that “Tokyo would lobby hard for a summit meeting with Beijing, the first since last year.” Speaking on a public talk show, Nakagawa stated “Relations [with China] will definitely begin to improve” under Abe’s leadership, and that they are moving toward a “brighter era.”

It is true that the steps toward full-scale reconciliation between China and Japan have so far been small and there is a lot of turf to cover before the two nations are bosom buddies—but the attitude, the mentality, for closer ties exists, and that is bound to lead to more concrete action.

Watch for Japan and China to draw closer under Shinzo Abe.

Much of the Western media is distracted by reports about territorial disputes and periodic offenses between China and Japan. Many people fail to see the depth of political and economic cohesion already existent between these nations. Since World War ii, the United States has been the primary economic and political partner of Japan, but today, as America’s economic influence subsides and as it becomes geopolitically isolated, and as the world (especially Asia) begins to revolve more around China, we should expect Japan to distance itself from the U.S. and align more closely with the giant next door.

Added to the growing economic and political factors pushing China and Japan together, these nations are also more aligned culturally and religiously with each other than with the United States. The tendency of nations to align with other nations of similar heritage, religion and culture is widely recognized. This is a principle of international relations discussed by Samuel Huntington in his respected book, The Clash of Civilizations: “In coping with identity crisis, what counts for people are blood and belief, faith and family. People [and nations] rally to those with similar ancestry, religion, language, values and institutions and distance themselves from those with different ones.”

Japan and China have similar ancestry, religious beliefs, values and institutions. Both share Confucian and Buddhist traditions. The religion and cultures of both nations stress values of supreme authority, hierarchical government, subordination of individual rights and interests, the importance of “saving face” and the “supremacy of the state over society and of society over the individual” (ibid.).

In addition, Huntington wrote, “Peoples and countries with different cultures are coming apart.” This phenomenon can be witnessed in present-day relations between America and the Far East. While Japan and China have many cultural and ideological similarities, few exist between these nations and the U.S. Where China and Japan stress the value of supreme authority, American values stress equality and democracy. Where China and Japan value the existence of the state over society, Americans naturally mistrust government and oppose authority.

Though relations between Japan and America appear fairly rosy, fundamental schisms exist between the American and Asian cultures. Huntington identifies another key difference between Asian and American cultures as revealed in past conflicts and subsequent relations: “The Asians … tended to regard the United States as ‘an international nanny, if not bully.’ Deep imperatives within American culture, however, impel the United States to be at least a nanny if not a bully … and as a result American expectations were increasingly at odds with Asian ones” (ibid.). Economics and politics are not enough to hold America and Japan together. Japan’s future does not lie with America!

This is why Shinzo Abe’s desire to repair relations between Japan and China is significant. We must watch for a strengthening in Sino-Japanese relations.

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