The Bequest of Japan’s Longest Serving Prime Minister
Posted on : August 3, 2022Author : Oishe Ghosh
Undeterred by the ravages of time or the grave circumstances; PM Shinzo Abe’s legacy will never evanesce.
Abstract: July 8th, 2022 will be remembered as a day of dismal vehemence in the life of every Japanese, as the nation’s former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe departed his life on this day. Shinzo Abe was a member of the Liberal Democratic Party and had been serving as a member of the House of Representatives (Lower house of the Diet). He was born in a prominent political family and his predecessors and successors have all been majorly involved in and serving the nation from a political standpoint. He was elected as the head of the Liberal Democratic Party when he was 52 and became the youngest post second world war Prime Minister. This writing analyses the contrasting responses to the death of Shinzo Abe and the reasons behind so.
Prior to delving more into the incident, we need to contemplate the precedents and the antecedents involved. PM Shinzo Abe was lethally shot twice while campaigning in Nara city outside a train station. As he spoke to the crowd which had gathered, his back was exposed which provided an opportunity for the attacker to bring the assassination to fruition. After suffering two bullet wounds to his heart and neck, his conditions deteriorated prior to getting transferred for treatment. Japan is proud of its democratic system that is both open and well-organized in the post war era. Senior Japanese politicians frequently interact with the public, even when they are escorted by armed security personnel. This is especially true when they are campaigning for office and giving speeches to the public on the side of the road. The unfolding of this incident is a major blot on such a claim
This event is a staggering one and certainly there are several reasons for it. The perpetrator Yamagami Tetsuya admitted to committing the crime of shooting Abe with a home-made gun and several other such homemade weapons were found and confiscated after an inspection into the perpetrator’s home. Gun violence has been extremely rare in Japan with only six reported cases in 2014 and some like the 2007 Nagasaki shooting which members of the Yakuza had committed. Therefore, the security was not considerably tight even with the presence of a security team which led to the successful attempt of the assassination.
Nonetheless, he unfolding of the act is very dubious. Owing to the factors mentioned above it sounds extremely cryptic when the perpetrator involved admitted that there was no political motive behind his actions. Presuming that there might have been more than one actors involved, the conspirators were extremely cautious to not supply any legal means of arms to the executor (Yamagami Tetsuya in this case). Yamagami in his statement mentioned that his resentment was not related to Abe’s political ideologies. He interpolated that his mother was involved in a religious group allegedly promoted and supported by Shinzo Abe and the indignation due to his mother going bankrupt had led him to commit the crime. From this statement, we can form certain speculation. The perpetrator could have targeted the leader of the religious group instead of Mr Shinzo Abe himself when it is well within the knowledge of a common citizen that such an act can cause mass hysteria and scepticism across the nation. The use of a home-made gun which takes two to three days to forge from scratch and acquiring or making of home-made bullets indicates that the blue print of the planning might have been created way ahead of time.
The incident had been condemned by the South Korean President who tagged it as an unacceptable act of crime. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida enumerated that this kind of barbarous and malicious act cannot be tolerated. The spokesperson of the Chinese Foreign Ministry added that the incident was unacceptable and unexpected, which was an overture to the Sino-Japanese relationship. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had eulogized him as an Outstanding Leader and a Global Statesman and that he was saddened by the incident.
To the citizens who held high respect for their former leader, this incident was extremely inadmissible. Public sentiments have for long driven political innovation in Japan and this incident has surely disquieted not just the Japanese but the global citizens as well. The hashtag ‘We want Democracy Not Justice’ had been trending all over the internet. Leaders from nations around the world showed concern for the same.
Although the politicians had a different say on this matter, the Korean and Chinese nationalists did not respond similarly. They had been celebrating the death of Mr Abe without any dissimulation. One might wonder, “Why the death of such an imminent personality is getting such contrasting responses”.
Historically the relationship between China and Korea with Japan has not been commendatory. The sour relationship between the east Asian nations owes its origins to the aggressive imperialist period of Japan which had risen as a formidable colonial power much to the consternation of its western counterparts. This era began from the developments during the 1870s which marked the end of the Edo period and a revolution which led to the coronation of the Meiji emperor. Japan after turning into a threshold of power militarily and economically, began its attempt to aggressive colonization under Shinzo Abe’s maternal grandfather Nobusuke Kishi’s decisions to enter the war, which led to the loss of lives of the masses predominantly in China and Korea and other territories conquered by Japan (like Formosa; modern-day Taiwan) with a brutal modus operandi. The imperialist and ultra-nationalist approach of the Empire of Japan seized to exist with the end of the 2nd World War.
Shinzo Abe is a leader who brought mass changes to the foreign and defence policies of Japan, which certainly has a hint of an aggressive stance to it. The resentment of the Chinese and the Koreans can be understood if we examine the approach Shinzo Abe had taken to politically, economically, and militarily (referring to defence) to empower Japan. The Liberal Democratic Party of Japan has been in the vicissitudes of power play politically from the times of its origins till date. Nobusuke Kishi in the year 1955 had played a significant role in the formation of the Liberal Democratic Party, the political party Shinzo Abe belonged to and had heretofore been leading. Shinzo Abe’s predecessors had formed a dynasty of political patrons. Eisaku Sato, the great uncle of Shinzo Abe and Abe Kan, the paternal grandfather and the father of Abe had also served as Japan’s political leaders and defence strategists. The two leaders we might need to focus on, to ultimately understand Shinzo Abe’s approach to policy formulation are Nobusuke Kishi and Kan Abe. These two former leaders although they belonged to the same family tree, had extremely divergent political ideologies. We can relate their ideologies to a hawk; bellicose and agile and a dove, peaceful and passive respectively. Kan actively opposed a military government and actively protested against the involvement of Japan in World War II. We can form a cardinal imagery through his stance that if Japan had not participated in the 2nd World War, the Japanese bombing of pearl harbour and the ultimate response of the United States in the form of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings could have been prevented. On the other hand, Nobusuke Kishi, Abe’s maternal grandfather had been serving under the Showa emperor and had been nicknamed, the “Monster of the Showa era”. He had also signed the Declaration of war against the United States on 7th December 1941. Ultimately the query arises as to whose steps Abe had followed. His aggressive stance points fingers toward Nobusuke Kishi. After the 2nd World War, Japan’s constitution was reframed and Article 9 was included as a strategy to prohibit Japan militarily, under which Japan had to ‘forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation’. This has also been the reason for an ebb in Abe’s popularity in the eyes of the Chinese and Korean nationalists. Abe takes pride in the militarist attitude of his maternal grandfather, Kishi but rarely mentions Abe Kan. One of Shinzo Abe’s greatest failures has been the preservation of the anti-military constitutional provision of Japan which would revise Article 9 by large. While other former Japanese Prime Ministers had taken an apologetic approach due to the horrors committed in the past by Japan. Abe on the other hand either negated the claims or forwent mentioning the war crimes. In 2015, Abe was criticized for failing to mention the issue of ‘comfort women’ as an amende honorable to the enslavement of Asian women. He had to bear another major controversy in 2007 in his political career when several corruption allegations had been pointed towards his governance. In the present scenario, the relationship between Japan and South Korea has worsened due to the ban on fish imports undertaken by South Korea to prevent radioactive and contaminated organic food supplies to circulate in South Korea.
Despite such events, Shinzo Abe’s reputation in a global scenario as a politician has been positive to a great extent. Shinzo Abe took several steps to revitalize Japan’s status in the global scenario through reformations and introductions to new and improvised policies. After assuming office in December 2012, he chose Southeast Asia as his first trip abroad. The major bone of contention in East Asia throughout the 21st century has been China and one of his major goals towards formulating a plan in defence against China; which has been flexing its muscles through economic’ territorial and military might, was to consolidate an adept solidarity with the ASEAN nations.
From the perspective of India, Shinzo Abe’s image had always remained positive. 9th July was marked as ‘National Mourning Day’ in India and no change of guards’ ceremony was held at Rashtrapati Bhawan on this day. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe spoke before the Indian parliament in 2007, of the “Confluence of the Two Seas”—the Indian and Pacific oceans—and the need for major democracies to preserve freedom and augment prosperity across a “broader Asia”. The reverberations of the same were felt a decade later as the Quad made a comeback in 2017. The strategic concept of the ‘Indo-Pacific’, which replaced the traditional ‘Asia Pacific’, now accommodated the revitalised Quad. Shinzo Abe’s words about India’s assistance to Japan when Japan had been in an infirm position due to post-war indemnifications and economic crises forged a positive relationship spontaneously. In this regard, Prime Minister Abe threw light on the event where Prime Minister Nehru had presented Prime Minister Kishi as Japan’s Prime Minister in front of the common masses and held high respect for him.
Immediately following his election victory in 2006, Shinzo Abe called for a permanent seat at the UN Security Council, revised Article 9 of the UN charter, and “a new diplomacy in which Japan may assume leadership and assert opinions to set world’s rules.” To that end, the Abe government in 2007 made the Defence Agency a full ministry for the first time since World War II, giving the military more budgeting power and prestige. In Abe’s words: “We have shaken off the post-war regime, and this marks a big step forward and a foundation for nation-building.” He has repeatedly reaffirmed his revisionist stance since taking power in 2012 and pursued policies aimed at achieving its goals, including removing or dramatically reinterpreting Article 9. As part of Abe’s successful efforts to push through two contentious security bills through the Japanese Diet, a historic shift in Japan’s pacifist post-war defence posture was heralded. A decision by the cabinet to lift those restraints was announced in 2014, subject to three conditions: Japan may use its military to assist an ally with whom it has a ‘very close relationship’ if constitutional rights to life, liberty, and happiness are at risk; Neither diplomatic nor negotiated means can protect that nation and its citizens unless military force is used and military involvement should take place sparingly. From the year 2007 till 2012, Japan lost its position as “Asia’s largest economy” to India and China. He crafted some drastic and coherent tactics which resulted to the reinvigoration of Japan’s economy structurally. This strategy also known as ‘Abenomics’ had been moulded into shape by Abe in order to support assertive and energetic foreign and security policies and to arouse a sense of responsibility in Japan, not only to fund his economic program but to reawaken its people to their potential, encouraging senior citizens and women to participate in nation building.
By large, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had left behind an affluent legacy resulting in irrefutable economic growth, lower rates of unemployment and a sense of honour towards their former leader from the citizens.
Oishe Ghosh
Intern, Asia in Global Affairs
References
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