While Abe wisely visited China and smoothed over relations ruffled by his predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi, who repeatedly visited the Yasukuni Shrine (where 14 class A war criminals from WWII are interred), many people are uncertain about his long-term vision. As one well-known Japanese intellectual told me during a recent visit to Tokyo, “I can accept constitutional revision in the long run, but not while Abe is prime minister.”