The outspoken governor of Tokyo, Shintaro Ishihara, is to launch a political party, raising the possibility that a new rightwing force in Japanese politics will emerge in time for a general election due by next August.
Ishihara, an unabashed nationalist, sparked a diplomatic crisis with China in April when he announced plans to buy the Senkaku islands – which are claimed by both countries – and bring them under the control of the Tokyo metropolitan government.
The move forced Japan's prime minister, Yoshihiko Noda, to offer a rival bid to buy the islands from their private Japanese owners and prevent them from falling into Ishihara's hands.
Ishihara is unrivaled in his ability to antagonise Japan's neighbours. He has described the Japanese army's slaughter of as many as 300,000 civilians in Nanjing in 1937 as a fabrication, and called on Japan to develop a nuclear deterrent against China and North Korea.
Last year he drew widespread criticism after describing the 11 March earthquake and tsunami, in which almost 20,000 people died, as divine punishment for the "egotism" of the Japanese people.
During his term as governor, he has made derogatory remarks about women and foreigners, and insulted Francophones by dismissing French as a "failed international language". In 2010 he suggested gay people were "deficient", after watching same-sex couples take part in a parade in San Francisco.
I'm sure he would have been right at home in America's Klu Klux Klan or any right wing racist party in Europe.
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