Shinzō Abe 2007 commented for instance: What part of 'Japanese Army sex slaves' does Japan's prime minister, Shinzo Abe, have so much trouble understanding and apologizing for? ... These were not commercial brothels. Force, explicit and implicit, was used in recruiting these women. What went on in them was serial rape, not prostitution. The Japanese Army's involvement is documented in the government's own defense files. A senior Tokyo official more or less apologized for this horrific crime in 1993 ... Yesterday, [Abe] grudgingly acknowledged the 1993 quasi-apology, but only as part of a pre-emptive declaration that his government would reject the call,
Kozo Yamamoto appointed his ministerships in 2016. Yamamoto is a known advocate of reflation policies, and is one of the first to argue for using monetary easing tools to overcome deflation in Japan. As a longtime critic of the Bank of Japan's monetary tightening policies in the Diet, he chaired multiple study groups on monetary policy when the LDP was out of power, and appealed to Shinzo Abe the need for quantitative easing. Yamamoto proposed the consumption tax increase of April 2014 to Abe Shinzo, and advised swift action. He also advocated for basic allowances and various public-works projects for low-income earners