New National Stadium (Tokyo) stadium in Beijing. The Japanese government reached an agreement in June 2015 with Taisei Corporation and Takenaka Corporation to complete the stadium for a total cost of around 250 billion yen. The final agreed plan maintained the steel arch design while reducing the permanent capacity of the stadium to 65,000 in track mode with an additional 15,000 simple temporary seats available, allowing for an 80,000 capacity for football and the 2019 Rugby World Cup. On July 17, 2015, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced that plans to build the new National Stadium would be scrapped and rebid on amid public
Shinzō Abe now pending in the United States Congress, for an official apology. America isn't the only country interested in seeing Japan belatedly accept full responsibility. [South] Korea and China are also infuriated by years of Japanese equivocations over the issue. A 2007 "Washington Post" editorial, "Shinzo Abe's Double Talk" also criticized him: "he's passionate about Japanese victims of North Korea—and blind to Japan's own war crimes". In "The New York Times" in 2014, an editorial called Abe a "nationalist" who is a profound threat to American–Japanese relations, and an opinion piece labeled Abe's position on the subject of comfort women a