Here's a tragicomic anecdote about the new PM as reported in the FT:
<blockquote><http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2a18ead2-43b7-11db-8965-0000779e2340.html> The son also rises
By David Pilling
Published: September 15 2006 14:18 | Last updated: September 15 2006 14:18
The most vivid childhood memory of the man who will soon become Japan's 57th prime minister places him squarely on the lap of his grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi, the 37th person to hold that office. Shinzo Abe was five years old and Japan was in the throes of violent demonstrations. Angry crowds had surrounded prime minister Kishi's home in the fashionable Tokyo district of Shibuya, shouting abuse at the grandfatherly figure bouncing the young Shinzo on his knee.
The year was 1960. Kishi was about to revise the 1951 US-Japan Security Treaty, strengthening Washington's responsibility for the defence of a Japan formally stripped of its military capability. The revision was hated by those on the left, many of whom wanted Japan to become a neutral power, not Washington's unsinkable aircraft carrier in the Pacific. There had been a month of riots in which at least 500 people had been injured.
The crowd outside Kishi's house was chanting "Down with Ampo," using the Japanese abbreviation for the US-Japan treaty. As one of Abe's friends tells it, the young boy began to repeat the catchy slogan: "Down with Ampo. Down with Ampo." His grandfather chuckled, explaining that the protesters had got it wrong. Little Abe must say: "Yes to Ampo. Yes to Ampo."</blockquote>
-- Yoshie <http://montages.blogspot.com/> <http://mrzine.org> <http://monthlyreview.org/>