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December 30, 2013

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Poll: Most Japanese want Abe to heed visit fallout

Source: AFP | December 30, 2013, Monday | Print Edition

A majority of Japanese voters want Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to heed the diplomatic fallout after his visit to a controversial war shrine, a poll showed yesterday.

In a telephone survey taken by Kyodo News on Saturday and yesterday, 69.8 percent of respondents said the conservative leader should pay attention to the implications of his recent surprise visit to the Yasukuni shrine.

It also showed that 47.1 percent said it was “not good” that Abe visited the shrine.

Kyodo did not immediately release details of the nationwide survey, such as the number of participants.

Abe last Thursday visited the Yasukuni Shrine, which also houses several high-level criminals executed for war crimes after World War II.

The visit prompted an angry protest from China, which sees the shrine as a symbol of Japan’s war-time militarism.

South Korea also reacted angrily to Abe’s visit to the shrine, while Japan’s ally the United States said it was “disappointed” by Abe’s decision as it will raise regional tensions.

Japanese pundits also voiced worries that the visit could damage Tokyo’s already strained ties with the key neighboring trade partners.

Despite the diplomatic concerns, Abe’s Cabinet retained a solid 55 percent approval rating even after the controversial visit, the survey showed.

The approval rating remained unchanged from a similar survey taken a week ago, a few days before Abe went to Yasukuni, Kyodo said, while the disapproval rating for Abe’s Cabinet slightly fell to 32.6 percent from 33.0 percent.

The survey also found that 71.2 percent of respondents said that prefectures outside of Okinawa should host military drills involving the US Marine Corps’ accident-prone Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft, currently deployed at Futenma Air Station in the southern island prefecture.

 

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