What did Shinzo Abe mean to Japan?

Japan has witnessed an extraordinary outpouring of grief and despair for former excellent minister Shinzo Abe who was assassinated within the city of Nara upon Friday.

The country has observed nothing like it because the death of Emperor Hirohito in 1989.

Abe, the particular country’s longest offering post-war prime minister, inspired respect rather than love.

Actually opinion polls repeatedly showed that most Japanese weren’t overly fond of him, even though they kept voting just for him.

What exactly is behind their grief?

It’s partly driven by shock at the method he died – gunned down while delivering a presentation at a campaign event. There’s an failure to comprehend that this kind of outrageous death can take place in Japan, where gun crimes and political violence are so rare.

Using his death, there is also a growing realisation of what Abe gave Japan.

First and foremost, that was stability plus security.

Before Abe returned to strength in 2012, Japan experienced just suffered its biggest trauma since World War 2 – a massive earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown at Fukushima.

The governing coalition was in turmoil. The Japanese economy got still not recovered from its 1992 stock exchange collapse, and over the previous two decades, The japanese had seen fourteen prime ministers come and go. One of these lasted just 64 days.

Abe swept back into workplace with a real feeling of energy, and most importantly, an economic plan that he conveniently dubbed “Abenomics”.

He declared “Japan is back”. He announced a “big bazooka” of cash that would flood the financial markets with liquidity and force costs upwards even as interest rates were dropped below zero.

As prices rose, and with nowhere to put their cash, people were required to spend, creating growth, and pushing up wages.

Did “Abenomics” work? Not really. But the stock market jumped, employment picked up as well as the man in the primary minister’s office appeared to know what he was doing.

Economics was actually never ever Abe’s strong suit. His lifelong infatuation was national security. And that’s where their true legacy lies.

Abe sought to build a good alliance of exactly what he called “like-minded democracies”, including India and Australia. He was also instrumental within the founding of the Quad, an alliance involving the US, Japan, Indian and Australia.

But the key in order to Japan’s security policy is “Article 9” – in The japanese, everybody knows what you indicate when you say the words.

It’s an important part of the constitution that makes Japan a “pacifist nation”. It was put there by the successful Americans after Globe War Two, and Japanese nationalists happen to be railing against it ever since. They declare it makes Japan poor, unable to stand up for itself or defend its allies.

In a post-Cold War world, with the threat from China and North Korea rising, Abe was confirmed that Article nine had to go.

“The idea of the constitution was that Japan should rely on the goodwill of the planet for its security, inch says Kazuhiko Togo, a former senior diplomat and friend of Abe.

“It’s nonsense. So , Abe wanted to get out from this fallacy, ” he or she adds.

But how?

Modifying Japan’s constitution is extremely hard. It needs a two-thirds majority both in houses of parliament, and the support of the national referendum.

Abe knew that was all but impossible. Therefore , he came up with one more solution – he’d pass a legislation “re-interpreting” the meaning of Article 9.

To Mr Togo that was a cerebrovascular accident of genius.

“He changed the model of Article 9, so that if the United states of america is attacking in the vicinity of Japan then that it is as if Japan is usually attacked, and that would allow us to assert our own right to collective self-defence. The implication can be huge, ” this individual explains.

That is, if the United States enters the war to, let’s imagine, defend Taiwan towards a Chinese invasion, Japan can sign up for as well.

Abe’s critics agree how the implications are massive, but they also see them as worrying.

“I believe Mr Abe’s argument [about Article 9] would have been more convincing if he previously the courage and honesty to do it in the front door rather than performing everything through the back door, ” says Professor Koichi Nakano, a political scientist.

“It’s like Article 9 was trashed of the window without having even been formally discussed and formally amended. ”

Even Abe’s supporters admit their was an incomplete legacy.

Yet after Sunday’s election, his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) might now be in a position to push through the constitutional change he had always wanted.

The regulating coalition led simply by LDP already had a two-thirds majority within the lower house. And yes it slightly increased its majority in the upper house in polls held two days after Abe’s killing.

But more importantly, a right-wing party, Ishin no Kai, has significantly upped its share of seats in the upper home. While it’s not a coalition partner, it supports constitutional revising and would thus vote in favour of this.

That vote would cement Abe’s legacy.

In some ways, Abe was ahead of their time. Since he stepped down within 2020 for health reasons, Russia offers invaded Ukraine plus China’s intentions in the direction of Taiwan have become actually clearer.

The japanese is now concerned each at China’s increasingly aggressive and regular intrusions in to Japanese-controlled waters around the Senkaku islands (which Tiongkok also claims), and Beijing’s air plus naval activity about Taiwan.

Taiwan’s northern coast is just 100km south of Japan’s southernmost ocean border. So The japanese is also aware of the possibility that any conflict more than Taiwan would inevitably draw in the United States — and due to the large US military facets in Japan, impact Japan directly too.

All of this has led to shift within Japanese public opinion – a majority of the people now support an increase in defence investing.

Perhaps it is finally time regarding Japan to have that honest conversation regarding Article 9.