Tokyo governor resigns to form new party
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E-mail Xinhua, October 26, 2012
The outspoken right-winger has also long been a proponent of Japan abandoning its pacifist constitution -- in particular Article 9, which prohibits Japan from any acts of war.
"One contradiction, bigger than anything, is the Japanese constitution, which was imposed by the occupying (U.S.) army, and is rendered in ugly Japanese."
Japan's ultraconservative mouthpiece has also irked South Korea by making disparaging remarks about forced "comfort women" during Japan's colonial occupation. He stated that prostitutes could make a "decent living" in those days and that they did so "not unwillingly."
Following Japan's 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster, Ishihara shocked the nation here by saying that it was "divine punishment for the country's materialism."
As he transitions back into national politics, Ishihara will most likely seek cooperation from the Japan Restoration Party, led by Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto and along with five parliamentarians from the right-wing Sunrise Party of Japan he is associated with, to launch his new party.
"There is momentum also in Osaka and I want to join hands with them," Ishihara said today. "We'll cooperate and collaborate with Hashimoto's party," he added.
Hashimoto, a right-leaning populist who said earlier he is eager to work with Ishihara, has also been beating Japan's nationalist drum recently.
Along with Ishihara, Hashimoto also favors making revisions to Japan's pacifist constitution and his newly-formed political party depicts the Diaoyu Islands, which China claims an inherent Chinese territory, in the party's logo as part of a map of Japan.
Ishihara has said that it is his intention to build ports and docks on the Diaoyu Islands as part of a broader plan to introduce Japanese infrastructure to the area for both fiscal, territorial and martial reasons.
In the wake of Ishihara's bid to purchase the Diaoyu Islands and the ensuing row with China, exports of goods to China from Japan plummeted 14.1 percent in September from a year earlier as Chinese people took to the streets to protest the move and boycotted Japanese goods and services.
As a result, and in twine with sluggish exports to Europe, Japan logged a record trade deficit for the April-September half- year with the deficit surging 90.1 percent from a year earlier to 3.22 trillion yen (41 billion U.S. dollars), marking the worst deficit since records began in 1979.
Economists have warned that the full affects of Japan's slumping trade with China would most likely not be felt until next month, in addition they said that worsening ties between the two countries would impact Japan more than China, as China buys 20 percent of Japan's total exports, whereas Japan purchases less than 10 percent of China's.
Ishihara was first elected to Japan's upper house in 1968 and transferred to the lower house in 1972 before resigning in 1995.
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