The Irony Is In The Name: Ishihara, old guard launch Next Generation Party

Shintaro Ishihara the former governor of Tokyo has formed yet another political party given the appropriate name Next Generation.  Ishihara is 81 and the other founding members are all over 70 yet they represent the "Next Generation."

Ishihara's previous party Japan Restoration was formed with Osaka Toru Hashimoto who is a younger version of Ishihara.  Racist, ultra nationalist and historical revisionist.

Next Generation Party (次世代の党).
The 81-year-old Ishihara, a fixture on the fringes of government for decades, has been in search of a new moniker for his party of mostly-elderly men since falling out with Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto, with whom he jointly led the Japan Restoration Party.
The grouping of about 20 lawmakers include sworn allies, 74-year-old Takeo Hiranuma, Hiroyuki Sonoda, 72, and Nariaki Nakayama, 71, as well as wrestler-turned-politician Antonio Inoki, 71.
At a press event to reveal the party’s name, whose official English translation has not yet been decided, the firebrand Ishihara noted: “The situation that faces young people today is different from what we experienced.”

He's partly responsible for the current diplomatic chill between China and Japan when in February of 2012 he began soliciting private funds to purchase the Senkaku island from their private owner living in Saitama.  

Could Shin Abe's visit to Yasukuni Shrine result in armed conflict with China?

That's a question that should be asked given the state of diplomatic  relations between the world's second and third largest economies.

Simply stated Shinzo Abe's visit to Yasukuni Shrine wasn't meant as his way of praying for peace and non aggression the purpose was to show China's leaders that no matter how much they complained about Japanese foreign or military policy, he Abe was going follow his beliefs which are strongly nationalistic.

Already-frayed ties in the region will be further damaged by what Abe claimed was a pledge against war, but what one-time victims of Japan’s aggression see as a glorification of past militarism.
Abe’s forthright views on history—he has previously questioned the definition of “invade” in relation to Japan’s military adventurism last century—have raised fears over the direction he wants to take officially-pacifist Japan.
“His ultimate goal is to revise the (pacifist) constitution,” said Tetsuro Kato, professor emeritus at Tokyo’s Hitotsubashi University. He is “arrogant and running out of control”.

He questioned the meaning of invade?  When one nation uses its military to take control of another country without provocation that's usually summed up in the word invasion. Shinzo Abe isn't alone in these types of revisionist beliefs a majority of the members of his party the Liberal Democrats  share his views on history.

He sent shock waves around the region when he went to pray at Yasukuni Shrine on Thursday, the anniversary of his coming to power and just days after approving the second consecutive annual budget rise for Japan’s military.
Partly, the money will be used to buy stealth fighters and amphibious vehicles intended to boost Japan’s ability to defend remote islands, the government said, citing fears over Beijing’s behavior in a row over the sovereignty of an East China Sea archipelago.

Japan and China have been at odds over the Senkaku Islands since the 1970's when the prospect of large amounts of natural gas and oil might be present in the waters surrounding the islands.  It was never overt just a quiet diplomatic  dispute.   That all changed in 2012 when the former governor of Tokyo Shintaro Ishihara proposed  the creation of a private fund to purchase the islands from their private owners.  Because Shintaro Ishihara is an ultra nationalist and a  racist his proposed purchase of those islands set off a firestorm of protests from the Chinese government.

What followed was attempts by  nationalists from China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan to land on the islands claiming them as their nations  sovereign territory.  In September of that year the Japanese government announced the purchase of the islands from their private owner and nationalized them in bid to keep nationalists from the various nations claiming the islands from landing on them.

China's response.  The government began sending Coast Guard ships into the waters around the islands along with over flights by military aircraft. As a counter move Japan has increased its own Coast Guards presence in the area along with the repositioning of Ground Self  Defense Forces equipment and personnel to Kyushu and Okinawa.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe wants to return Japan to its glorified past when it wasn't just an economic power but a military one as well.  Here's the problem Abe views this past through rose colored glasses failing to acknowledge the harm caused by Japan's imperialist adventures in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Could there be armed conflict between Japan and China? Sure anything is possible but its more likely to take the form of those which occur between North and South Korea if they happen at all. Both sides would lose in any military action taken by the other as it would not only disrupt their economies but the social fabric of both nations.

Tokyo's racist governor resigns to form racist rigthwing party

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.

Governor of Tokyo is working to escalate tensions with China over Senkaku islands

Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara, a fiery nationalist whose failed bid to buy a group of disputed islands ignited a crisis with China, is pushing ahead with a plan to build structures there to hammer home Japan’s claim, officials involved told Reuters.

Although such a move is not imminent, it would be certain to strain Japan’s already shaky relations with China and could prompt a rebuke from the Obama administration, which has urged both sides to ease tensions by setting aside the dispute.

Ishihara’s gambit appears aimed at forcing a new showdown in the island dispute with China. It is based on the view that Japan’s main opposition—the conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)—is likely to take power in an election in the coming months and that it would be receptive to his hard-line policies, two officials close to Ishihara said.

Shintaro Ishihara is far from the euphemistic term fiery nationalist given his attitudes towards Japanese. 

Simply put Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara is xenophobic and a racist yet the voters of Tokyo continue to reelect him.   

.He decided to tell the world that the 3/11 earthquake was divine punishment for the arrogance of the Japanese people in that area. He was re-elected having said that.

 He told the Self Defence Force that in a major Tokyo earthquake their role was not search and rescue but the slaughter of the sangokujin: the Chinese and Koreans

Kicking off this entire round of senkaku problems by deciding to try and purchase land that was already Japanese, knowing this would cause danger for Japanese citizens overseas and damage to Japanese business interests and property abroad.

 “The funds will be used when something can be done together with the LDP,” said Santo, an Ishihara ally who had tried to broker Tokyo’s effort to buy the islands from the family that has owned them since the late 1970s.

Tokyo vice governor Inose added: “With an Ishiba or Abe government we could use the funds we have raised to build some kind of shelter for ships or a transmitter or lighthouse.”

What happens if following the next general election the Liberal Democratic Party regains control of the government and pursues these policies?  

How would China react?

Given what happened in September with large scale anti-Japanese protests taking place across China how long would it take before the whole saga spiraled out of control and into a situation neither government is able to control.