Abe's dastardly antics backfired at Davos

As the four-day annual jamboree of ideas and opinions wound down in Davos, Switzerland on Saturday, the general verdict on the diplomatic offensive of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was it had failed.

Abe attended the event seeking to convince global opinion leaders that he had done nothing wrong in visiting the Yasukuni Shrine where 14 Class-A war criminals are enshrined and tried to sell them his vision of a Chinese bogeyman.

Without the necessity of having any others among more than 2,500 World Economic Forum participants comment, many of the Japanese journalists reporting on the Davos meeting admitted their prime minister's diplomatic grandstanding had backfired. Even Japan's ally the United States has expressed "disappointment" at Abe's action, a surefire signal that Abe crossed the line of what is acceptable.