Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, seeking to allay concerns he would divert energy from fixing a fragile economy to revising Japan's pacifist constitution after a big election win, said on Monday changing the charter would not be easy.
Abe's coalition and allies won two-thirds of the seats in parliament's upper house in Sunday's election. That victory, with the ruling bloc's super majority in the lower house, opens the door to revising the constitution for the first time since its adoption after Japan's defeat in World War Two. China's official agency quickly warned that the victory posed a danger to regional stability. Commentaries by the Xinhua news agency are not formal government statements but often reflect official thinking in China, where memories of Japan's past militarism still spark outrage. Read more
Abe's coalition and allies won two-thirds of the seats in parliament's upper house in Sunday's election. That victory, with the ruling bloc's super majority in the lower house, opens the door to revising the constitution for the first time since its adoption after Japan's defeat in World War Two. China's official agency quickly warned that the victory posed a danger to regional stability. Commentaries by the Xinhua news agency are not formal government statements but often reflect official thinking in China, where memories of Japan's past militarism still spark outrage. Read more
