class=”float_right”ニューヨークタイムズ、ワシントンポスト、ウォールストリートジャーナル紙に続いて、フィナンシャル・タイムズ紙も、安倍首相を批判する論評を掲載しました。

Shinzo Abe’s nationalistic streak under scrutiny – FT.com

見出しは、「監視下での安倍首相の国粋主義的ばか騒ぎ」とでも訳されるのでしょうか。見出しは「安倍晋三の国粋主義的傾向が問われている」ではないかとのご指摘を頂きましたので、訂正させていただきます。

Shinzo Abe’s nationalistic streak under scrutiny

[Financial Times By Jonathan Soble in Tokyo: Last updated: April 28, 2013 5:22 pm

Shinzo Abe, Japan’s prime minister, has never hidden his nationalistic streak.

From his first stint in office in 2006-2007 to his successful campaign for a second chance last December, the conservative Mr Abe has regularly painted his country’s official pacifism as outdated, its school curriculum as insufficiently patriotic and its apologies for its early-20th century imperialism as humiliating.

But now, after four months in office during which such politically sensitive issues had taken a back seat to his popular efforts to stimulate the economy, Mr Abe’s rightward-facing world view – and its potential for complicating Japan’s relations with its neighbours – is again coming under scrutiny.

During the past week, Mr Abe has defended visits by more than 100 lawmakers from his party to a controversial war memorial loathed by China and South Korea; questioned whether Japan had “invaded” neighbouring Asian countries during the second world war; and partially disavowed an apology issued by a predecessor for Japan’s colonial conquests.

The parade of visitors to the Yasukuni war shrine, which included Taro Aso, the finance minister and deputy prime minister, along with Mr Abe’s string of statements, helped to ratchet up a confrontation with China over maritime territory. It also set back Japanese efforts to improve relations with South Korea and drew a quiet rebuke from the US.

“If anything, Abe became more nationalistic during his time out of power,” said Jun Iio, a professor at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo. “Now that he’s riding high in the polls, he feels he doesn’t have to restrain himself.”

An American official said the Obama administration had privately expressed concern to Japanese diplomats over Mr Abe’s comments. Washington is particularly worried about a possible deterioration in relations between Japan and South Korea, both crucial allies whose co-operation it deems essential to its diplomatic and security initiatives in the region, including efforts to thwart North Korea’s nuclear programme.

On Sunday, Mr Abe left for Russia for the first trip to that country by a Japanese leader in a decade. He and Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, are said to get on well personally and Mr Abe is keen to draw the two countries closer, to act as a counterweight to China’s rise and to allow more Japanese access to Russian natural gas, crucial to Japan after the Fukushima nuclear accident.

There had been talk of a possible breakthrough in resolving a territorial dispute left over from the war, when the then Soviet Union seized four Japanese-held islands to Japan’s far north. Japan demands their return, and the issue has prevented the countries from signing a formal peace treaty after nearly 70 years, but officials on both sides say a flurry of diplomacy since Mr Abe’s election has not pushed things forward decisively.

In Moscow, the leaders are likely to agree to make renewed efforts in negotiations.

Many experts in Japan had expected Mr Abe to keep a tighter grip on his nationalistic impulses and those of his Liberal Democratic party until elections for the upper house of parliament in July. The LDP does not have a majority in the chamber, and the prevailing logic has been that Mr Abe would not risk putting off moderate and liberal voters.

However, with the stock market soaring and opinion polls giving him more than 70 per cent support, Mr Abe looks to be on course for a strong victory. He may in any case see tough talk on security and diplomacy as a vote-winner rather than a risk: before leaving for Moscow on Sunday he donned military fatigues and climbed aboard a tank at an event sponsored by an online broadcaster.

“Provocations against Japan’s sovereign sea and land are continuing, but they must not be tolerated,” he said at the event, which was part of an anniversary observation of the end of the US occupation that followed the war.

China said last week’s visits to Yasukuni, where 14 convicted war criminals are honoured alongside fallen soldiers, showed Japan had failed to acknowledge its “aggressive past”. South Korea put off a visit to Tokyo by its foreign minister and protested to Japan’s ambassador to Seoul.

The incident coincided with a flare-up of Japan-China tensions over the disputed Senkaku Islands, known by the Chinese as Diaoyu. China sent eight surveillance ships, an unprecedented number, into waters claimed by Japan as a group of boats piloted by Japanese rightwing activists arrived in the area for what it said was a survey of the local fishing grounds.

In parliament, Mr Abe said his ministers were free to visit the shrine and would not “bow to threats”. In a series of exchanges with opposition lawmakers over historical issues, he declined to say whether he believed Japan had wrongly invaded its neighbours, saying there was “no international definition” of invasion.

He also withheld full endorsement of an apology issued in 1995, on the 50th anniversary of the end of the second world war, by Tomiichi Murayama, then prime minister. “The Abe cabinet is not adopting the Murayama statement exactly as is,” he said.

Meanwhile, an LDP committee on education decided to seek revision of the so-called “neighbouring country clause” in guidelines for Japanese school textbooks, another frequent history-related flash point with other Asian countries. The clause states that textbook writers should take relations with Japan’s neighbours into account when describing the war and the colonial period leading up to it.

Koichi Hagiuda, an LDP parliamentarian on the committee, said the clause had “finished playing its role”.

ということで、またまたヘッポコ訳ですが、まだ途中までです。ほんま、新聞英語って訳すのが難しい…

安倍晋三の国粋主義的傾向が問われている

[フィナンシャルタイムズ；ジョナサン・ソブル、2013年4月28日]

日本の総理大臣、安倍晋三氏は、これまで彼の国粋主義的傾向を決して隠してこなかった。

最初の任期2006〜2007年から昨年12月の2度めの成功のためのキャンペーンに至るまで、保守的な安倍氏は、しばしば日本の公式の平和主義、その教育課程を愛国心の足りないものと、20世紀初めの帝国主義にたいする謝罪を恥ずべきものと描いてきた。

しかし、政権について4ヶ月、このような政治的に微妙な問題が経済成長のたいする彼の人気ある取り組みの背後に置かれてきたあとで、安倍氏の右翼的な世界観、およびそれが秘めた日本と近隣諸国との関係を複雑にする可能性がふたたび問われてきている。

先週、安倍氏は、与党から100人以上の国会議員が参加しておこなわれた論争ある戦争記念館への訪問を擁護した。それは中国、韓国から大変嫌われた記念館で、第二次世界大戦中に日本がアジア諸国を「侵略」したかどうかに疑問を投げかけ、日本の植民地占領にたいしてかつての政権が表明した謝罪を負分的に否認している。

靖国戦争神社への参拝のパレードは、財務大臣兼副総理の麻生太郎を含み、安倍首相のメッセージを携えていたが、それは、海洋領土をめぐる中国との紛争を徐々に高めた。それば韓国との関係を改善しようとする日本の努力にも跳ね返り、アメリカから穏やかな非難をうけた。

「なんにせよ、安倍氏は権力から外れている間にいっそう国粋主義的になった」と、政策研究大学院大学教授・飯尾潤氏は語った。「いまや頂点に上り詰めて、彼は自分を抑制する必要はなくなったと感じている」

米当局者は、オバマ政権がすでに、日本の外交筋に、安倍氏の発言にたいする関心を内密に示してきたと発言した。ワシントンは、とりわけ日韓関係の関係悪化を心配している。これら決定的な両同盟国の協力は、この地域の、北朝鮮の核プログラムを阻止する努力を含む外交上安全保障上のイニシアティブにとって不可欠だ。

日曜日、安倍首相はロシアへ旅立った。日本のトップによる同国訪問はこの１０年で初めてである。彼とウラジミール・プーチン・ロシア大統領は、個人的に親密になったと言われる。安倍氏は２国間の距離を縮め、中国の台頭にたいする均衡勢力として行動すること、そして、福島原発事故の後では日本にとって決定的なロシアの天然ガスに日本がさらにアクセスすることを接近しようとした。

ソ連が日本のはるか北方にある日本が保有した４島を奪ってから、戦後残された領土問題を解決する上で可能な打開策が話し合われた。日本はそれらの返還を望んでおり、この問題は、７０年近くたっても両国間で公式の平和条約が調印されるのを妨げてきた。しかし、両国の当局者は、安倍の選出が事態を決定的に前面に押し出されてきた外交の争点だという。

モスクワでは、指導者たちが交渉の努力を再開することにほとんど同意している。

日本の多くの専門家は、