Abe’s support hits two-year high after N Korea nuclear test

Support for Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s cabinet has risen to a two-year high in separate opinion polls published this week by public broadcaster NHK and the Yomiuri newspaper.
The Abe administration had the support of 62 percent of respondents in a survey by the Yomiuri conducted between Sept. 9 and 11, up eight percentage points from a month earlier. A survey published by NHK Monday put support at 57 percent, up four percentage points on the previous month. Another poll published by the Asahi newspaper found his support had risen to 52 percent.
One factor in the improving perceptions of Abe, who has increased the defense budget and sought to expand the role of the military, may have been North Korea’s fifth nuclear weapons test last week. About 81 percent of respondents to the Yomiuri survey said Japan should step up sanctions against its unpredictable neighbor.
Some 68 percent of respondents to the NHK poll said they supported an agreement between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Abe at a meeting earlier this month for Asia’s two biggest economies to persevere with dialogue to prevent any incidents around disputed islands in the East China Sea. Even so, a majority of respondents to the Asahi survey said they didn’t have high expectations that the meeting would relieve tensions. Bloomberg