Abe Tempers Japan Nationalist Plans as China Trade Revives
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Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s failure to secure summits with the leaders of China and South Korea has masked a scaling down of Japanese nationalist proposals that’s allowing a nascent recovery in business ties.
Abe, 59, came into office almost a year ago with plans to alter past apologies for wartime offenses and revise the U.S.- imposed pacifist constitution to more freely deploy military assets. With the first postwar national security strategy to be revealed next month, Abe hasn’t followed through on either idea, and has avoided a national shrine for war dead seen by many in Asia as a symbol of past Japanese aggression.