Conservatives Win Elections in Japan and South Korea

Conservatives won elections in both Japan and South Korea this month. 

In Japan, Shinzo Abe will be prime minister for a second time after the conservative party won parliamentary elections in which the liberals were ousted.  He was prime minister from 2006-2007.  Abe is taking a tough stance against Communist China in regard to the disputed Senkaku Islands claimed and occupied by Japan, but also claimed by an increasingly aggressive China.  He is resented in other Asian states for his attitude regarding Japan’s war of imperialism in the Twentieth Century.

The incoming South Korean leader, Park Geun-hye, won presidential elections to maintain conservative leadership in the Republic of Korea.  Conservatives also hold a majority in parliament.  She has taken a hard line against Communist North Korea, as opposed to the failed appeasement policies of the Hermit Kingdom by the previous liberal administrations.

Both Abe and Park are both expected to maintain good relations with the United States, upon which they depend for security in this increasingly tense region.