Abe troubles may affect US-Japan work: Experts

Washington, Aug 1: Faced with an emboldened opposition after his electoral defeat, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe may find it difficult to back US security policies, US experts said.

The pro-US conservative, whose core vision of making Japan more assertive on security issues enjoyed American support, suffered a landslide defeat on Sunday in a parliamentary upper house election.

Abe has fended off calls for his resignation and his ruling coalition still commands a majority in the more influential lower house, where elections need not be held until 2009.

But US analysts said yesterday Abe might be forced to turn inward and focus on the economy to rebuild political capital. His more ambitious security and foreign policies, which were not a focus of Sunday's election, could take a back seat, they said.

Japan expert Michael Green of the Center for Strategic and International Studies said Abe would in particular have a hard time renewing legislation that allows Japanese ships to work in the Indian Ocean to support allied war efforts in Afghanistan.

That legislation, which expires in November, as well as year-end negotiations on the billions of dollars Japan pays to host US troops'' are going to be very ripe targets for the opposition'' Democratic Party of Japan, Green said.

''Host-nation support, which the United States doesn't want to cut, is going to be very tempting as a target for the DPJ, so we have a stake in this one,'' said Green, who previously served as Asia chief of the US National Security Council.

Bruce Klingner, Northeast Asia expert at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, said Abe's diminished profile after the election loss would lead to ''less emphasis and less momentum behind a pro-U.S. view'' but not a dramatic shift in Tokyo's decades-old alliance with Washington.

''There may be constraints, but I think it's more a matter of degree than a large break from the policies that (Abe's predecessor Junichiro) Koizumi and Abe followed,'' he said.

American policy goals may meet Japanese ambivalence as a result of US moves to accommodate North Korea in nuclear talks and due to a U.S. House of Representatives resolution demanding Japan apologize for forcing thousands of women to work in World War Two brothels, the analysts said.

Green said his recent trip to Japan revealed widespread dismay at US policies toward North Korea, which Japan refuses to deal with as a diplomatic partner until Pyongyang clarifies the fate of more than a dozen Japanese kidnapped by the North.

The nonbinding resolution on the sex slaves that passed the US House on Monday ''doesn't make any of this easier for the government in respect to issues in U.S.-Japan relations,'' he said.

''Instead of causing reflection in Japan, it's causing resentment not just on the right, but in the middle,'' Green said of US lawmakers' demand for an official apology. Tokyo says it has apologized repeatedly for the women's ordeal.

Reuters>