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What drives Shinzo Abe?

Reading Time: 3 mins
  • Richard Katz

    Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs

In Brief

Around the world, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is perhaps most famous for his ‘Abenomics’ program to revive Japan’s economy. So far, it has not worked — mainly because it hasn’t really been tried. Only the first of the famous ‘three arrows’ — monetary stimulus — has been fired. The indispensable third arrow, structural reform, remains lots of nice-sounding targets but little strategy to achieve them.

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Abe became prime minister to institute the policies he cares about. But his heart does not beat to the rhythm of reform and revival. Rather, his pulse races to the tunes of military security, overturning history’s verdict on Japan’s wartime actions in the 1930s and 1940s, and revising the constitution.

Achieving at least the appearance of good economic performance is a means to keep up his approval ratings in order to achieve policy dominance. Abe is one of just two prime ministers in the past 25 years to serve more than two years consecutively. His 50 per cent approval rating is the highest of any long-serving prime minister since Junichiro Koizumi in the 2000s and, before that, Yasuhiro Nakasone in the 1980s.

Politics is about building up political capital and then choosing how to spend it. It is hard to think of a single major economic issue on which Abe has been willing to spend his political capital to really challenge a powerful domestic constituency. Instead, he is risking his approval ratings on issues of security and history.

There are two groups of politicians who wish to have Japan take an active role in collective self-defence and constitutional revision. The first group is motivated by cool consideration of present-day threat assessments. Abe, however, belongs to the second group, which is driven not just by present-day realities, but also by a romanticised view of the 1930s and 1940s. Abe in particular is devoted to restoring the ‘honour’ of his beloved grandfather and role model, Nobusuke Kishi, as well as the entire generation of wartime leaders.

Kishi served in Tojo’s wartime cabinet, spent three years in Sugamo Prison as a suspected Class-A war criminal, and became prime minister in the late 1950s. Upon being elected to the Japanese Diet in 1993, Abe joined an Liberal Democratic Party ‘study group’ that published a book in 1995 calling the World War II a war for self-defence and denying that Japan committed war crimes like the Nanking Massacre and the forced recruitment of ‘comfort women’ (sex slaves). In February 1997, Abe formed another group of Diet members with similar views and became its executive director. Half of his cabinet ministers are members. He is forcing through changes in school textbooks to better reflect his revisionist view of history.

Despite all this, the accusation from some in Asia that Abe wants to — or could — lead Japan back to militarism akin to the 1930s is completely outlandish. Japan’s actions back then were an artefact of that era in world history and Japan’s own status as a traditional, rural, pre-democratic society. Today, Japan is a modern democratic society in alliance with the United States. There is no going back.

Richard Katz is Editor of the Oriental Economist Report.

This article appeared in the most recent edition of the East Asia Forum Quarterly, ‘Leadership in the region.

6 responses to “What drives Shinzo Abe?”

  1. The author, Mr Richard Katz, states the following as the last two paragraphs:
    “There are two groups of politicians who wish to have Japan take an active role in collective self-defence and constitutional revision. The first group is motivated by cool consideration of present-day threat assessments. Abe, however, belongs to the second group, which is driven not just by present-day realities, but also by a romanticised view of the 1930s and 1940s. Abe in particular is devoted to restoring the ‘honour’ of his beloved grandfather and role model, Nobuo Kishi, as well as the entire generation of wartime leaders.

    Kishi served in Tojo’s wartime cabinet, spent three years in Sugamo Prison as a suspected Class-A war criminal, and became prime minister in the late 1950s. Upon being elected to the Japanese Diet in 1993, Abe joined an Liberal Democratic Party ‘study group’ that published a book in 1995 calling the World War II a war for self-defence and denying that Japan committed war crimes like the Nanking Massacre and the forced recruitment of ‘comfort women’ (sex slaves). In February 1997, Abe formed another group of Diet members with similar views and became its executive director. Half of his cabinet ministers are members. He is forcing through changes in school textbooks to better reflect his revisionist view of history.

    Despite all this, the accusation from some in Asia that Abe wants to — or could — lead Japan back to militarism akin to the 1930s is completely outlandish. Japan’s actions back then were an artefact of that era in world history and Japan’s own status as a traditional, rural, pre-democratic society. Today, Japan is a modern democratic society in alliance with the United States. There is no going back.”
    I have the following comment on them:
    The last paragraph appears to imply that a modern democratic society, as Japan is at the moment, can not go back to or become militarism. In another word, that assumes, in its bare logic, that the majority of any society can not become militarism. I would argue that that assumption is wrong and that some societies can become militarism with the support of a majority. That is the danger of the history revisionists who deny its country’s past wrong doing and war crimes committed to other nations. For example, I would argue that Hitler had majority support of Germany at some time. We all know what that support developed into.
    Secondly, while I don’t know for sure what Abe wants to do with his “romanticised view of the 1930s and 1940s” of Japan, one thing for sure is that the relative international strengths have changed and that Japan, though having very strong capacities in many sectors, does not have its absolute power in Asia as it had during the 1930s and 1940s, irrespective its alliance with the US or not, or wether its has majority domestic support or not. For one thing for sure, China, as well as other East Asian countries, is/are much more powerful and Japan is and will no longer be allowed to do what it did in the 1930s and 1940s.
    Thirdly, as long as the Japanese government has the view of Abe’s regarding Japan’s 1930s and 1940s, it will have difficulty relationships with its East Asian counterparts. And that damages and will damage its own national interests.
    The days of 1930s and 1940s of Japan have long gone forever and any attempts to bring that back by any Japanese politicians will be futile and down right stupid.

  2. Kishi’s given name was Nobusuke, not Nobuo. Sometimes the Chinese reading, Shinsuke, was used.

  3. After some long paragraphs of criticisms against Abe’s historical revisionism, the last paragraph takes a sudden turn to suggest that militarism is impossible in a modern democratic Japan.

    Apparently, Abe’s ideology, when it is staged in contrast with Japan’s identity as a Peaceful Country, causes confusion for observers, since a popular prime minister with militaristic, historical revisionist ideology seems irreconcilable with the postwar Japan we perceive.

    So the real question is: what will reconcile these two seemingly irreconcilable identities?

    • I understand the confusion. But, in my view, the voters chose Abe, and initially supported him in overwhelming numbers, not BECAUSE of his nationalist/revisionist views, but DESPITE them. Their main concern was their hope that he could come through on his promise to revive the economy. We see now how Abe’s approval rating is plunging precisely because of his attempt to ram relatively mild collective self-defense bills through the Diet. In the recent Mainichi speech, for the first time, more people (43%) disapproved of Abe than approve of him (42%), largely because of this issue. Abe had told the US Congress in an April 29 speech that he could get them passed by summer. Now, it looks like it might take until September, and he might have to use a rarely-used provision of the Constitution that allows the Lower House to pass it by itself (without the Upper House) via a two-thirds majority. Some backbenchers in the party, despite their own hawkish views, complain that Abe’s insistence is hurting their reelection chances. I hope this clears things up.

  4. “Romanticized view” is a good choice of words. Mr. Abe is indeed a revisionist according to international standards and I understand the concern about him to be going for a revived militarism of the wartime past; however, I doubt that he even knows what he is doing himself.

    To me, he looks more like an “ungrown adult”, with a kind of innocent omnipotence. He looks as if he is identifying himself with his country, reflecting his childish “I am right, strong, beautiful and therefore I deserve to be admired” feeling on his “patriotic” policies. And it happens that his “romantic” policies are convenient for some realistic and calculating “adults”, accounting for the high approval rate.

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