Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will likely pick ruling party policy chief Tomomi Inada as defence minister in a new cabinet, the Asahi newspaper said on Tuesday, which could upset China and South Korea given her conservative views on wartime history. Sino-Japanese ties have also been strained by a dispute over tiny isles in the East China Sea and China's growing military assertiveness in the South China Sea. Japan's relations with both Beijing and Seoul have often been frayed by the legacy of Japan's military aggression before and during World War Two. Ms. Inada (57), is a close ally of Mr. Abe and shares his goal of revising the post-war, pacifist constitution, seen by some conservatives as a humiliating symbol of Japan's World War Two defeat. Ms. Inada served as minister for administrative reform in an earlier Abe cabinet before being appointed as the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's (LDP) policy chief in 2014.

Source: The Hindu August 02, 2016 06:33 UTC