Abe likely to seize chance to improve China links
At 4pm today, when officials from the ruling Liberal Democratic party announce the result of their presidential election, the name of the winner will not be in doubt. Unless party representatives have been telling bare-faced lies about their voting intention, Shinzo Abe will be elected head of the LDP - and thus prime minister of Japan - by a landslide.
That the result has been known for weeks marks, in some ways, a return to business-as-usual. The LDP has come to a quiet consensus as to who serves its, and the nation's, interests best.
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Junichiro Koizumi, whose extraordinary five-and-a-half year term ends next Tuesday, when parliament will confirm Mr Abe's appointment, was swept to power on a wave of popular support that took the LDP's grandees by surprise. By contrast, Mr Abe's stroll into power is painfully familiar.
Yet suggestions that Mr Abe marks a return to the old days are misleading.
For a start, he is exceptionally youthful by the standards of Japanese prime ministers. He turns 52 tomorrow, making him the youngest prime minister since the war. Today, many older party members - knowing the shift to a younger generation dooms their political careers - will vote for Mr Abe with gritted teeth.
Mr Abe shot to popularity in 2002 on the back of his hardline attitude towards North Korea, whose government had admitted to kidnapping Japanese citizens. Public support has translated directly into votes by LDP parliamentarians, who need a popular leader to navigate tricky upper house elections next summer.
The test of Mr Abe's administration will come in two areas: his handling of the economy, now in its fifth year of recovery, and how he deals with diplomacy, particularly fractured relations with China.
On the economy, there has been much speculation that Mr Abe intends to roll back the Koizumi years by returning to higher spending and more redistributive policies.
"Japan is not only Tokyo. If you go to the provinces, the youth unemployment rate is high, the population is falling and the city centres are dead," says Keiichiro Nakamura, a friend. "Abe will have to open his eyes to these problems and come up with some counter-measures."
Jesper Koll, economist at Merrill Lynch, suspects Mr Abe may be tempted to spend his way out of problems, particularly given that his tenure could end abruptly if he does badly in next year's upper house election. "Bridges will be back," he says, referring to a reversal of Mr Koizumi's public spending cuts.
Yet little Mr Abe says leads to such a conclusion. In campaign speeches, he has spoken in fairly ruthless terms about the need to cut health and social security spending - for instance by paring the cost of terminal care and by slashing the prescription drugs bill.
Even his programme for addressing the needs of have-nots, his unfortunately named "re-challenge" plan, focuses more on self-help than government handouts. "I would like to establish a society where even the losers have another chance to try again," Mr Abe told the FT recently. "We should not have a society where just one segment of the population has opportunities."
Yet this is balanced with a clear preference for private-sector solutions. "We want the market to be free and full of energy," he says.
Hisahiko Okazaki, a close adviser, is blunter. "The kakusa [economic disparity] argument is very superficial, just a political slogan," he says. "The government has no intention of taking steps to equalise the situation, to take socialist steps, never. The government is still devoted to liberalisation and globalisation."
When it comes to dip-lomacy, most analysts say, an Abe administration could do with rolling back theKoizumi years by smooth-ing ties with Asian neigh-bours, particularly China.
On the face of it, Mr Abeis not the man to do this. Referred to as "Japan's Le Pen" in a French magazine, he has the reputation asa hawk, even a nationalist hothead. Many of the policies he advocates seem designed to stir, not calm, problems. He is, for example, expected to press for an early end to Japan's self-imposed restrictions on its military, and to open a debate on rewriting the pacifist constitution.
He wants schools to teach a more patriotic view of Japanese history, potentially sparking disputes with neighbours who say Japan already airbrushes out the seamier sides of its wartime history.
But early signs are that, paradoxically, an Abe administration might actually push events the other way. Advisers say he will seek an early summit with Chinese leaders, reopening a dialogue suspended throughout Mr Koizumi's tenure. He has recently moderated his language on the controversial Yasukuni shrine, a symbol of Japanese militarism, suggesting possible adjustments in the interests of better regional relations.
"Abe has got a great opportunity here," says Jeff Kingston, professor of Asian studies at Tokyo's Temple university. "Abe won't kowtow to China but he has the advantage of [former US president Richard] Nixon. No one can outflank him on the right."
安倍晋三：日本的尼克松？
今
日下午4点，执政的日本自民党(LDP)官员宣布党内总裁选举结果时，获胜者的名字不会有悬念。安倍晋三(Shinzo Abe)将以压倒性优势当选为自民党领袖，进而出任日本首相 ── 除非党代表们在投票意向上一直都在瞪眼说瞎话。
数周来这一结果已为人所共知，从某种程度上，这意味着一切已恢复老一套。对于谁最符合自民党乃至国家的利益，党内已静悄悄地达成默契。
小泉纯一郎(Junichiro Koizumi)非同寻常的5年半任期将于下周二结束，届时国会将批准对安倍晋三的任命。小泉纯一郎当时在民众支持浪潮的推动下掌权，令自民党政要感到吃惊。相反，安倍晋三的上台模式陈旧而乏味。
不过，这未必说明安倍晋三上台意味着日本回归旧时代。
首先，按照以往日本首相的标准衡量，安倍晋三格外年轻。他明天正好年满52岁，这意味着他将成为日本战后最年轻的首相。今天，很多年龄较大的党员将咬着牙为他投票――他们明白将政权移交给更年轻的一代，将意味着自身政治生涯的终结。
2002年，安倍由于对朝鲜的强硬态度而人气急升，当时朝鲜政府承认绑架了日本公民。公众支持直接转化成了自民党议员的投票，他们需要一位受欢迎的领袖人物，在明夏棘手的上院选举中一路过关。
安倍政府将面临两方面的考验：如何管理经济――日本经济正处于复苏的第五年；以及如何处理外交事务，特别是严重受损的日中关系。
在经济方面，很多人预计安倍打算通过重新实施加大支出和更多的再分配政策，逆转小泉时代的做法。
“日本不仅仅只是东京。如果你前往地方各省份，会发现年轻人失业率很高，人口数量不断下降，城市中心死气沉沉。”安倍的一位朋友Keiichiro Nakamura表示：“安倍将必须认清这些问题，并拿出一些应对措施。”
美林(Merrill Lynch)经济学家贾斯皮?科尔(Jesper Koll)怀疑，安倍晋三可能止不住通过加大支出来解决这些问题，特别是考虑到如果他在明年的上院选举中表现不佳的话，他的任期有可能突然终止。他在谈到安倍可能逆转小泉削减公共支出的做法时表示：“大桥项目可能会重新出台。”
不过，从安倍晋三的讲话中，很难推断出上述结论。在竞选演说中，他曾相当坚决地表示，需要削减医疗和社会保障方面的支出――比如削减临终关怀的支出，并大幅减少处方药费用。
连他旨在解决穷人需求、被糟糕地称为“第二次挑战”的计划，也更多地将重点放在穷人自救、而非政府救济上。“我希望建立一个即使失败者也有机会再次尝试的社会，”安倍最近向英国《金融时报》表示。“我们不应该使日本成为一个只有部分人拥有机会的社会。”
但在另一方面，安倍明显倾向于私人部门的解决方法。他表示：“我们希望有一个自由和充满活力的市场。”
安倍的心腹顾问冈崎久彦(Hisahiko Okazaki)说话更为直截了当。“kakusa（经济差距）的说法非常肤浅，只是一个政治口号而已，”他表示。“日本政府无意采取措施走向‘平等化’，永远不会采取社会主义的举措，而仍将致力于自由化和全球化进程。”
多数分析人士表示，在外交方面，安倍政府最好修复与亚洲邻国（特别是中国）的关系，逆转小泉时代的影响。
从表面上看，安倍似乎不是这种人。一本法国杂志称安倍为“日本的勒庞”(Japan’s Le Pen)，他不仅享有鹰派人物之名，甚至还被称为急切的民粹主义者。他倡导的许多政策似乎不是为了平息问题，而是要挑起事端。举例来说，预计他将迫切要求尽早结束日本自愿实施的军事限制，并开启有关修改和平宪法的讨论。
他希望学校的教育以一种更为爱国的观点看待日本历史，这可能引发与邻国的争端。这些邻国表示，日本已经对其战争历史进行了粉饰，抹去了其中的丑恶方面。
但矛盾的是，早期迹象显示，安倍政府实际上可能会让事情朝着另一个方向发展。一些顾问表示，他将寻求与中国领导人提前举行峰会，重启在整个小泉任期内被搁置的高层对话。最近，在有争议的靖国神社(Yasukuni shrine)问题上，他的言辞已有所缓和，表明他可能会做出调整，以改善地区关系。靖国神社是日本军国主义的象征。
“安倍的机遇非常好，”东京天普大学(Temple university)亚洲问题研究教授杰夫?金斯顿(Jeff Kingston)表示。“安倍不会对中国卑躬屈膝，但他拥有美国前总统理查德?尼克松(Richard Nixon)那样的优势。没有一个右翼人士能指责他不够‘保守’。”
