TOKYO - TARO Aso, the front-runner to become Japan's next prime minister, said unabashedly on Friday he was a hawk.

'I'm a hawk in the sense that I'm resolved to sacrifice myself for Japan's role in bringing peace and stability and to protect the national interest,' said Mr Aso, an outspoken former foreign minister.

He made the comment during a debate with his four rivals in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, which votes on Monday on who will replace unpopular Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda.

Mr Aso has faced controversy throughout his career for gaffes and remarks praising Japan's past imperialism, in contrast to the dovish Mr Fukuda, who is known for efforts to reconcile with other Asian nations.

Mr Aso said Japan would inevitably have more problems in future with its neighbours, but played down the significance.

'With regard to China and South Korea, I think that various problems will emerge. We don't have to get flustered as Japan, China and South Korea are all destined to prosper together,' Mr Aso said.

He said the alliance with the United States would become even more important amid the current world financial turmoil.

He called for stronger relations with other countries and regional groupings he sees as like-minded, including Australia, India and the European Union.

'It is completely natural to talk with friends when the future gets hard to predict,' he said.

Japan's relations with its neighbours hit rock-bottom during the 2001-2006 premiership of Junichiro Koizumi due to his annual visits to the Yasukuni shrine, which honours 2.5 million Japanese war dead, including war criminals.

Mr Fukuda was an outspoken opponent of Mr Koizumi's visits to the shrine, seen by critics as a symbol of Japan's past imperialism.

Mr Aso declined to say if he would go to the shrine, telling reporters to read a document he wrote on the topic.

In a paper he issued in August 2006, Mr Aso said it would be 'perverse' to remove the names of war criminals from the Shinto shrine.

Mr Aso, a Roman Catholic, has visited the shrine in the past but has also called for a secular alternative.

Among Mr Aso's rivals, only Mr Kaoru Yosano, the minister for economic and fiscal policy, said clearly that he would shun the shrine.

Mr Yosano has made the economy a central plank of his candidacy, accusing Mr Aso of supporting wasteful spending and calling for Japan to be fiscally responsible to trim its huge public debt.

Former defence minister Yuriko Koike, who is vying to be Japan's first woman leader, said she went to the Yasukuni shrine last month on the anniversary of Japan's surrender 'to pledge that war won't be repeated'. -- AFP