Turning to diplomacy, Abe hopes to change channel from scandal woes

Still waiting for him to take responsibility for Moritomo Gakuen and resign

If he wants to be popular again Abe should resign.

Can't stand the sight of this bozo, with his 1950s dyed oyaji hairstyle, born with a silver spoon arrogance, and nasty nationalistic politics. When he fell over in that bunker it was great! I hope all these arrogant Nippon Kaigi tools get buried by history.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, his ratings battered by a scandal over suspected cronyism, is hoping a series of summits including one with U.S. President Donald Trump will restore his popularity ahead of a crucial ruling party leadership contest.

"Hoping". Did he actually release a press statement saying this is his plan?

Abe wanted to change channel to diplomacy as if there is a such channel. No, the channel doesn't exist. Diplomacy is about relationship, peace, interests and future. Japanese diplomacy must be in sync with Japanese interests. Based on these benchmarks, Abe has no diplomatic channel to tune.

Abe is an embarrassment.

Japan, you cannot let foreign politics decide the future of your country. Of course, you had North Korea, but now the North has shown a more conciliatory tone.

Abe’s influence is directly involved, either he ordered it or not. Abe’s power has influenced people to act on his behalf, and not on the Japanese people’s behalf. This has to end.

A prime minister who cannot control his own government, can no longer guide a country in a transparent manner!

Traveling around world and throwing out tax payers money is not diplomacy.

Did I have some strange dream about a vet school? I forgot.

And if diplomacy doesn't succeed in taking Moritomo off the headlines, some Aum members sould be executed. That should grab the headlines and give people something other than Moritomo to talk about.

trump will just say, “change your constitution and deal with NK without America , buy a s load of more expensive weapons from US! If not, I will fire you as Japanese PM!”.

Abe's sweet dream of "Headlines from Heaven": "Rocket Man" Comes to the Rescue! To Infinity and Beyond!

Yubaru - NHK will certainly take that line. Another scenario is that the people who run the media are fed up with being intimidated by Abe and the LDP and want revenge, which would explain the relatively thorough coverage at the moment. We may be seeing the bullied turn round and attack the weakened bully.

It's also possible that there's more dirt to come out, Asahi Shimbun certainly timed their revelations about the altered documents for maximum effect. It will be interesting to see how the next couple of months plays out.

@Yubaru

I kind of disagree it will be up only to the media.

The stock market fell with the announcement of tariffs, and if talks between Trump and Abe don't go well, it will certainly fall even deeper. With the tariffs and Abe being basically left out of the talks with North Korea, we can see the limits of their "friendship", so I wouldn't rule out the possibility that it just goes bad.

If he doesn't bring some real results this time, it will be hard to sell Abe as "strong and decisive" anyway.

To internal problems, external solutions!

Japan's stance, however, has been that aid can only be resumed if the two countries normalise diplomatic relations

How about Japan never giving aid to North Korea’s military regime, ever? I like that better.

Abe is hoping his diplomatic performance will distract voters from the domestic scandal.

"He's trying to change the conversation and the chances are it will work," said Gerry Curtis, an emeritus professor at New York's Columbia University.

With the USA, China, N. Korea and S. Korea taking the initiative recently there's also a chance Abe is just going to end up looking irrelevant and ineffectual. I suspect everyone knows about his ulterior motives as well.

YubaruToday  07:44 am JST

He always gets a bump in the polls after travelling overseas, after he has given away more cash, or portrayed in the Japanese media as being "strong and decisive"

Appropriate use of quotation marks there. What's amazing is that anyone would fall for that. Who in Japan among the general public ever actually benefits from Abe pretending to be a great global statesman?

It's all up to the media, what actually occurs between Trump and Abe doesn't really matter, it's how the local Japanese media portrays the discussions.

The media is going to make Abe come across as scolding Trump, or telling Trump what SHOULD be done with NK and KIM, they will attempt to make Trump look foolish or worse, and Abe as the "leader" or "mentor", if this happens, or anything even close to it, Abe's poll numbers will again rise.

He always gets a bump in the polls after travelling overseas, after he has given away more cash, or portrayed in the Japanese media as being "strong and decisive"