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Tokyo Maverick Just One of the Crowd Now
Tokyo's governor, Shintaro Ishihara, has tempered his political ambitions.
(By Tsugufumi Matsumoto -- Associated Press)
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"Of course we feel a military threat from China," Ishihara said bluntly during a recent interview. "Suppose the U.S. and China engage in a war. The U.S. would be defeated because the Chinese do not care about the loss of human life. There is no other country in history that has killed so many of its own people."
Some analysts point to the disclosure of North Korea's nuclear weapons program as the tipping point for many Japanese -- the event that jarred them out of their pacifist stance. Ishihara, however, seems less concerned about Pyongyang. "If North Korea shot a missile at Japan, the U.S. would be obliged to retaliate, and the North Korean regime would immediately collapse," he said, wiping his hands as if to say, "Problem solved."
But it is also true that the rise of hawkish politicians in Japan mirrors the spread of anti-Japanese sentiments across East Asia and has threatened to isolate Tokyo. South Korea, for example, is arguably one of Japan's few friends in the region, but it is infuriated by what it views as Japan's negation of its militarist past.
"Ishihara is the number one far-right politician in Japan, and he and politicians like him are dangerous," said Yang Soon Im, chairwoman of the Seoul-based Association of Pacific War Victims and Bereaved Families, which has sued Ishihara and Koizumi over their visits to Yasukuni Shrine. "The far right is taking control in Japan. They are trying to justify and beautify Japan's past invasions. They do not yet grasp how this is isolating Japan from world opinion."
Many analysts no longer see a strong political future for Ishihara, however. When asked, the Tokyo governor will not even commit to saying he will seek a third term in 2007, much less vie for the prime minister's post.
Pressed further about his political ambitions, Ishihara shrugged. "You know, the sun also sets," he said.
Special correspondent Sachiko Sakamaki contributed to this report.
