Embattled Japan PM shows true colours on Asia tour

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 24 (Reuters) Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe showed his true colours during this week's Asian tour, snubbing China and paying tribute to an Indian figure revered by Japanese nationalists to woo back his conservative supporters.

Abe needs all the backing he can get after last month's defeat in upper house elections that took away the ruling bloc's majority, and he is set to reshuffle the cabinet on Monday hoping to turn fortunes around.

''He showed by action, his 'doctrine' on foreign affairs during this trip,'' said Takehiko Yamamoto, political science professor at Tokyo's Waseda University.

In India, he addressed its parliament, calling for a new partnership of democracies in a ''broader Asia'', that would include India, United States and Australia, but made no mention of China, a framework seen as reining in Beijing's growing clout.

Abe and Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh also agreed to have the Japanese navy participate, for the first time, in US-India joint exercises to be held in the Bay of Bengal in September.

''Abe's visit to India had strategic implications,'' Waseda's Yamamoto said, adding that Japan was playing its role in Washington's ''soft containment'' of China.

While Abe has improved ties with China, he has long been known for his tough talk towards Beijing, and Japanese media said he may tap a prominent conservative anti-China commentator for a cabinet position in the upcoming reshuffle.

The 52-year-old Abe, Japan's first prime minister to be born after World War Two, took office 11 months ago pledging to rewrite the country's US-drafted pacifist constitution and revive traditional Japanese values and nurture patriotism.

DEBATE OVER WARTIME PAST He surprised critics by making a fence-mending trip to Beijing and Seoul weeks after taking office and he has also stayed away from visiting Yasukuni Shrine, seen by the Asian neighbours as a symbol of Japan's past militarism.

But yesterday, Abe met in Kolkata the son of an Indian judge who opposed punishing Japanese war criminals convicted by an Allied tribunal, charging that the trial was victors' justice.

Radhabinod Pal also said there was overwhelming evidence of atrocities committed by the Japanese military, but he is a hero for Japanese nationalists and a monument dedicated to him even stands on the grounds of Yasukuni, where the convicted war criminals are honoured along with Japan's war dead.

An editorial last week in Chosun Ilbo, South Korea's biggest newspaper, said Abe's meeting with the judge's son, Prasanta Pal, was aimed at ''claiming innocence'' for the war criminals.

At the meeting, Pal showed Abe a picture of his father with Abe's grandfather, former prime minister Nobusuke Kishi, a great admirer of the judge who was listed as a war criminal but never convicted.

Abe has often said that he has ''Kishi's DNA'' in his blood, and he sprinkled his speeches in India and Indonesia with reference to his grandfather.

Kishi was a keen advocate of rewriting the constitution and beefing up the Japanese military, although he was forced te step down after forcing through a revised security treaty with the United States, which angered voters.

''I would not go as far as to call Kishi's policies as militaristic, but Abe's goal of 'departing from the post-war regime' is basically the same as Kishi's,'' Waseda's Yamamoto said.

REUTERS PD RN1636