Japan Press Weekly

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2015 October 7 - 13 [POLITICS]

Reshuffled Abe Cabinet is again full of pro-Yasukuni members

Almost all members of the Abe Cabinet which was reshuffled on October 7 are supporters of Japan’s past war of aggression, Akahata reported on October 12.

The reshuffled Cabinet consists of 20 ministers, 19 from the Liberal Democratic Party and one from the Komei Party, the LDP’s junior coalition partner. All the 19 cabinet members from the LDP belong to at least one of three lawmaker groups calling for paying a visit to the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo.

The Yasukuni Shrine, which was utilized during World War II as a spiritual prop to mobilize the general public to enthusiastically support Japan’s war of aggression, is still publicizing Japan’s war as a “just war” to liberate Asian countries from the control of the Western powers. These three lawmaker organizations have also called on the Emperor and successive prime ministers to pay official visits to the shrine.

Prime Minister Abe Shinzo is a member of all three groups and serves as a “special advisor” to one of them, which has a close relationship with the Japan Conference (Nippon Kaigi). The Japan Conference denounces in its prospectus the Tokyo Trials (the International Military Tribunal for the Far East from 1946 to 1948) which judged war crimes committed by the Japanese military, stating, “The spread of the Tokyo Tribunal-oriented view of history has led to Japan’s servile ‘apology diplomacy’.”

The true character of the Abe administration is revealed by the fact that almost all the cabinet posts are occupied by extreme rightists who are openly challenging the postwar international order.

Past related article:
> Abe forms his Cabinet with members of pro-Yasukuni parliamentarians’ group [September 6, 2014]