Assassination of Shinzo Abe

What is the issue?

Japan’s former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was assassinated during a campaign speech in western Japan and later died of heart failure.

Abe came from a political family. His father Shintaro Abe was foreign minister (1982-86) while his grandfather Nobusuke Kishi was prime minister (1957-60).
Following their footsteps, Abe became the country’s longest serving Prime Minister.
Abe announced his resignation in 2020 due to poor health.
With this, he ended a stint at the helm of the world’s third biggest economy.
But he remained a dominant presence over the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, controlling one of its major factions.

Economy- Abe launched his “Abenomics” policies with three arrows that aimed at kick starting economic growth and higher wages - loose monetary policy, fiscal stimulus and structural economic reforms.
Defence- One of his more-controversial goals was revising Article 9 of the constitution, which stipulates that “the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation”.
He was also credited with strengthening the country’s military by bolstering defence spending.
Domestic affairs- Abe promised to shore up the country’s pension and health-insurance systems.
His government oversaw the post-quake reconstruction.
Maritime domain- He was ardinent in making Japan a leader in the rules-based order in the Indo-Pacific region.
He wanted Japan to step up to become “a guardian of the global commons” in an increasingly contested maritime domain, and to work closely with “like-minded democracies”, such as the United States, India, Australia and South Korea.

North Korea- Abe supported United Nations sanctions against North Korea following that country’s nuclear test and imposed a set of unilateral sanctions.
India- Abe was the first Japanese PM to be chief guest at India’s Republic Day parade in 2014.
China- Abe was one of the architects of Quad- an alliance aimed at countering China’s growing influence and military might.
The Abe administration managed to establish Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal even without U.S. as an economic counter to China.

Bilateral/ Multilateral platforms- The Quad, the ASEAN-led forums, the Indo Pacific Oceans Initiative, the Asia-Africa Growth Corridor and the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure all benefited from his contributions.
Indo Pacific- He transformed Japan’s strategic engagement, including in defence, connectivity, infrastructure and sustainability, across the Indo Pacific region.
Bullet train project- He championed the Ahmedabad-Mumbai bullet train project in which India uses Japanese technologies for the first such high-speed rail corridor in the country.
Japan-India Association- Recently, Abe took over as the Chair of the Japan-India Association, one of the oldest friendship associations in Japan that was established in 1903.

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