A government-funded Japanese think tank recently shut down an online publication edited by one of its scholars after the publication criticized Junichiro Koizumi, the outgoing prime minister. Edited by Masaru Tamamoto, a scholar at the Japan Institute of International Affairs, Commentary was created as a forum for discussing Japan's foreign policy. But after it cited Koizumi's August visit to the Yasukuni Shrine as evidence of the country’s new "hawkish nationalism," Yoshihisa Komori, editor-at-large for the conservative newspaper Sankei Shimbun, called the journal "anti-Japanese" and demanded it be closed. Less than 24 hours later, the institute caved in.

 SUBJECTS: MEDIA, JAPAN
 
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