Japan's Abe seeks to burnish legacy ahead of election

Tokyo

"Challenges, challenges and still more challenges," Abe said in summing up the coming year in a nationally televised news conference today.

Abe said he expects to make progress on sweeping reforms he has promised, likening himself to the 18th-century "Abarenbo Shogun," or "Rogue General" Tokugawa Yoshimune, a national leader renowned for his efforts to reduce waste, clean up corruption and instill samurai values of discipline and leadership.

Until July, Abe's focus is bound to be on ensuring victory in the election for the Upper House of parliament in July, said Michael Cucek, an expert on Japanese politics who teaches at Tokyo's Waseda University.

Abe's position is strong, with backing by the coalition partner Komeito, and the opposition has failed to regain much traction after a resounding loss of power to Abe's conservative Liberal Democrats in December 2012.

But local political superstition holds that every nine years a setback in Upper House elections forces the prime minister to step down. "Observers will be watching closely to see whether he is able to break the jinx," the Jiji news agency said in a commentary today.

Given the slow pace of the economic recovery so far, with inflation still nowhere near the government's 2 percent goal and wages and spending still in the doldrums, Abe has been highlighting more obvious progress on the diplomatic front.

Three years of relentless overseas travel have helped restore some of the stature Japan ceded during the past two decades of economic malaise, winning Abe widespread respect at home.

In an address to parliament's opening session today, Abe pointed to concrete results from those travels, including the recent sale of Japanese high-speed train technology to India.

Last week, the government reached an agreement with neighboring South Korea on the issue of women forced into sexual slavery for Japanese troops during World War II. Abe also said today that he hoped for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on a territorial dispute that, 70 years after the war's end, is still preventing Tokyo and Moscow from signing a peace treaty.

Abe said he hoped Japan's hosting in May of the summit of the Group of Seven industrial nations in Ise, scenic islands in central Japan, would prove a turning point for the global economy.