TOKYO — After being shot during a campaign speech on Friday, Shinzo Abe, a divisive archconservative who served as Japan’s longest-serving prime minister and continued to be a powerful and influential politician after leaving office, passed away. He was 67.
Abe was shot minutes after he began speaking at the political rally in Nara, and he was declared dead at a hospital hours later, according to medical professionals.
The attack, which shocked many in Japan, one of the safest countries in the world with some of the strictest gun control laws, was stopped by police at the scene. A double-barreled object that appeared to be a handgun was located close to the suspect.
The most divisive and complex politician in recent Japanese history, Abe was a political blueblood who was raised to carry on the political legacy of his grandfather, former Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi. With his hawkish push to modernize the military and his revisionist belief that Japan was unfairly judged by history for its brutal past, Abe enraged both liberals at home and World War II victims in Asia.
Prior to stepping down two years ago due to health issues, he led efforts to strengthen Japan’s role in Asia, revived the country’s economy, and provided a rare source of political stability.
Dave Leheny, a political scientist at Waseda University, called him “the most towering political figure in Japan over the past couple of decades.” He desired for Japan to be treated with the respect that he believed it deserved on the international stage. … He also wanted Japan to stop having to apologize for its role in World War II.
He felt that other nations should pay more attention to Japan’s post-World War II track record of economic success, peace, and international cooperation, and that the Japanese people should be proud of it.
A dramatic video of Abe speaking in front of a train station in the western city of Nara was broadcast on public television by NHK. Two gunshots were heard as he stood there raising his fist while wearing a navy blue suit.
A man in a gray shirt who was face down on the pavement was shown being tackled by security personnel. Abe held his chest after he fell, blood all over his shirt.
Tetsuya Yamagami, 41, was the suspect who was apprehended, according to the Nara prefectural police. He spent three years in the Japanese navy in the 2000s, according to NHK.
Abe was adored by conservatives in Japan but despised by many liberals. His beloved, ultimately futile dream to change Japan’s war-renouncing constitution was the divisive policy that caused the most strife. The Koreas and China, both of which were Japanese wartime victims, were also incensed by his ultra-nationalism.
He was the driving force behind the constitutional amendment. The constitution that was drafted by the United States and adopted during the American postwar occupation was hated by Abe’s grandfather, former leader Kishi. The 1947 charter represented, in Abe’s eyes at least, the unfair legacy of Japan’s defeat in the war as well as the imposition of the winners’ world order and Western values.
Despite having a fully functional, modern army, navy, and air force that collaborate closely with the United States, Japan’s foremost ally, this constitution forbids the use of force in international conflicts and restricts the use of force by the Japanese military to self-defense.
Abe’s campaign was doomed by the lack of public support for the changes, but his staunchest conservative supporters still support the objective.
Abe railed against the tribunal that adjudicated Japanese war criminals as well as postwar treaties. His political rhetoric frequently centered on transforming Japan into a “normal” and “beautiful” country with a more powerful military and a larger role in world affairs.
He was also a driving force behind Japanese conservatives’ campaigns to downplay atrocities committed during the war and demand an end to apology-giving.
Supporters cite his initiatives to boost Japan’s stature internationally and his call for a new alliance of democratic nations to check China’s rise, which Washington and others soon endorsed.
Abe also had a significant impact on the policies of the current prime minister, Fumio Kishida, by advocating for the expansion of military power, including the ability to strike first.
Abe resigned as prime minister in 2020, claiming his ulcerative colitis, which he had had since he was a teenager, had returned.
At the time, he admitted to reporters that it was “gut wrenching” to leave many of his objectives unfulfilled. In addition to failing to complete the constitutional revision, he also fell short of resolving other unfinished wartime issues, such as normalizing relations with North Korea, resolving island disputes with neighbors, and concluding a peace treaty with Russia that put a war to their World War II hostilities.
Abe received praise in Washington for his efforts to forge closer ties between the United States and Japan, which he believed would help Japan’s defense capabilities. In the midst of tensions with China and North Korea, Japan is home to 50,000 U.S. soldiers as a safety net for the area.
Because of worries about terrorism, North Korea’s pursuit of missile and nuclear weapons, and China’s military assertiveness, Abe charmed conservatives with his security policies.
However, there has always been widespread support for the pacifist constitution as well as disagreements within Abe’s ruling party over proposed amendments. Many lawmakers favored to concentrate on economic expansion.
Abe praised himself for promoting a stronger Japan-US security partnership and arranging the first trip to Hiroshima by a sitting US president. He also contributed to Tokyo winning the right to host the 2020 Olympics by falsely claiming that the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster was “under control.”
At 52 years old, Abe was elected as Japan’s youngest prime minister in 2006. However, his overly nationalistic first term came to an abrupt end a year later, also due to his health.
After that scandal-filled term came to an end, Japan underwent six years of yearly leadership changes, a period known for its unstable “revolving door” politics and lack of long-term plans.
Abe promised to revive the country and lift its economy out of its deflationary rut with his “Abenomics” formula when he took office again in 2012. This formula included fiscal stimulus, monetary easing, and structural reforms.
In order to strengthen Japan’s role in defense and its security alliance with the United States, he won six national elections and established a firmhold on power. Additionally, he increased the focus on patriotism in the classroom and improved Japan’s standing abroad.
Abe overtook his great-uncle Eisaku Sato, who held the position from 1964 to 1972 for 2,798 days, to leave office as the prime minister of Japan with the most days in office in a row.
