‘The Senkaku islands are our territory’: Japanese nationalists return to power in a landslide victory

[Valin]

National Post/AP:

12/16/12

 

Japan’s conservative Liberal Democratic Party returned to power in a landslide election victory Sunday after three years in opposition, according to unofficial results, signaling a rightward shift in the government that could further heighten tensions with China, a key economic partner as well as rival.

 

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“I think the results do not mean we have regained the public’s trust 100 percent. Rather, they reflect `no votes’ to the DPJ’s politics that stalled everything the past three years,” he told NHK. “Now we are facing the test of how we can live up to the public’s expectations, and we have to answer that question.”

 

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“The economy has been in dire straits these past three years, and it must be the top priority,” Abe said in a televised interview. He has repeatedly said in the past he will protect Japan’s “territory and beautiful seas” amid a territorial dispute with China over some uninhabited islands in the East China Sea that Japan calls Senkaku and China calls Daioyu.

 

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