Japanese PM Abe vows to step up China ties... but bolster defense

Tokyo: Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has pledged to further expand Japan's already improving ties with China but stressed the need to bolster defense capability as far as space amid concern about China's military activity.

Abe's comments came in a policy speech at the start of the parliamentary session Monday. He said bilateral relations have returned to "normal" since he visited Beijing in October and that Japan wants to further elevate Japanese-Chinese cooperation in trade and other areas.

He said Japan however needs to expand its defense capability against the potential threat of space and cyber wars as China rapidly advances its aerospace technology.

Abe is hoping to lead his party to win parliamentary elections in July and strengthen his grip on power until 2021 or possibly beyond.

Last week Abe asked world leaders to rebuild trust in the international trading system and urged countries like the US, China and India to breathe fresh life into the WTO.

He also cited the example of his own country for creating a new hope-driven economy, asserting that Japan has "defeated the defeatism" by pushing 'womenomics' to tackle the problem of its ageing population.

As the new Chair of G20, he also said Japan is committed to preserving and enhancing the free, open, and rules-based international order.

In a special address here at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2019, Abe said when he came back to office as prime minister in 2012, many were thinking Japan was doomed and the argument was its population was ageing and it could not grow.

"It was a wall of despair, a wall of Japan pessimism. Since that time, our working-age population has dropped by 4.5 million people. We have responded by pushing hard for 'womenomics', encouraging more and then still more women to work, while lessening the burden on women's shoulder," he said. As a result, the country now has 2 million more women employed, the rate of female labour participation has hit 67 per cent, an all-time high for Japan, and higher than, say, in the US, he said.

All of this has "defeated defeatism", Abe added.

"Meanwhile, the number of people over 65 still actively working has also increased by 2 million, thanks to our policies that enable them to keep working... Out of every 100 college graduates looking to work, 98 find employment, also a record number," he said.

Abe said companies have raised the wages and the country's GDP has grown strongly in the last six years.

He said he sees Japan hosting the G20 Summit in June as a chance to regain optimism for the future, providing reassurance that it is possible to achieve a hope-driven economy like in Japan."I would like Osaka G20 to be long remembered as the summit that started world-wide data governance," he said.