Fresh off of his overwhelming win in Japan’s parliamentary elections of the weekend, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is vowing to try to convince a skeptical Japanese public about what he sees as the need to revise the pacifist constitution to fit his nationalist agenda.  The move risks splitting the nation and alienating Japan’s neighbors.

“We hope Japan can deeply learn lessons from history.. respect legitimate and reasonable security concerns of regional countries and follow the path of peaceful development,” said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang of Japan’s election.  But Abe will push ahead.

“Revising the constitution.. has always been an objective since the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) was launched,” Abe told reporters.  “I will work hard to deepen people’s understanding and receive wider support from the public.”

With a record low voter turnout of around 53 percent, many argue he hasn’t earned that in the first place.

“It’s not really LDP’s victory.  The problem lies in how the opposition couldn’t present itself as an alternative for voters critical of the LDP or Abenomics.  Instead, the Japanese Communist Party took the hardcore protest votes,” said Yasunori Sone, a political science professor at Keio University.

Japan’s minor conservative parties were wiped out.  The Democrats and the Communists each picked up seats, but Abe’s ruling conservative coalition of his own LDP and the Komeito Party, backed by the Soka Gakkai Buddhist movement, have more than a two-thirds majority to get his agenda passed.  Komeito has long supported the pacifist constitution, and talked Abe into dropping his first attempt to rewrite it earlier this year, which Abe due to lack of support within his own LDP.

With tensions over the ownership of islands with both China and South Korea, not to mention Japanese nationalists’ attempts to play down the enslavement of Asian women in Japanese brothels during World War II, many across Asia hope that Abe can be persuaded a second time.

“I think northeast Asia – China, South Korea, and Japan  - is not ready to view history objectively,” said Political science professor Park Hwee-rhak, at South Korea’s Kookmin University.  “So I hope Abe will emphasize practical policies which can guarantee peace or mutual prosperity in northeast Asia, and not focus on the history.”