Abe has long championed a beautifying of Japan's history inconsistent with established facts and seeks to promote patriotic education.

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Voters are anyway underwhelmed by his penchant since taking office for pursuing pet right-wing themes such as changing Japan's pacifist constitution and instilling more patriotic education in schools over issues of livelihood.

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And while we expressed concern at the time that Mr. Leung's policies on education, health care, land reform and the judiciary might eventually turn Hong Kong into just another Chinese city, he surprised us by advising Beijing against implementing a "patriotic education" curriculum in Hong Kong's state-funded schools, and we praised him for it.

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China responded by deploying thousands of armed police, locking down monasteries, pressuring many monks to undergo "patriotic re-education", and shipping hundreds more away to an unknown fate.

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But it was due also to effective organisation: after the National Electoral Council ruled that the ballot would not show any party symbols, the Patriotic Pole organised a huge voter-education drive, passing out millions of cribsheets telling supporters which of the more than 1, 100 candidates to back.

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