Since coming to power in December, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his Cabinet have tread lightly in dealing with Japan's neighbors, China and South Korea, despite harboring nationalistic views about Japan's wartime past that typically raise hackles in Asia. Yet an interview with the man Mr. Abe last week tapped as education minister, given a few months before the mid-December general election, shows just how nationalist some in Mr. Abe's party are, even if the administration has proceeded cautiously so far.

"Once we recapture...