Shinzo Abe’s ties to the U.S. ran deep
By Terril Yue Jones —
Shinzo Abe’s links to the United States were longstanding and tight. During nine years as Japan’s prime minister he met frequently with American presidents, forging closer ties with Donald Trump than Yasuhiro Nakasone did with Ronald Reagan in the 1980s in what the Japanese media called the two leaders’ “Ron-Yasu” first-name relationship. He was a vigorous supporter of robust U.S.-Japan military ties, to counter the increased military and nuclear weapons posture of North Korea and China. His assassination by a gunman during a campaign speech in Nara stunned a nation accustomed to a low crime rate and extremely rare gun violence, as I witnessed during 12 years living in Japan.
Abe studied in the U.S., not only for three semesters at the University of Southern California as noted in numerous bios, but also for a time unmentioned in official accounts: a summer of English study at California State University, Long Beach. I met Abe there in the summer of 1977, when he was 22, spending a couple of months there with students from across Japan. Some of them respected him because his father Shintaro Abe was a former agriculture minister. They did not mention — or maybe were not aware — that his maternal grandfather was former Japanese Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi, who although accused by the U.S. of being a war criminal, had later pushed through parliament the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty in which Washington pledged to defend Japan against any foreign attack.
Abe was reasonably friendly although somewhat aloof. He seemed to feel his pedigree lent him some entitlement — when a girl on the summer program named Maki wrote me a thank-you note, Abe, who seemed a bit jealous, asked me to show it to him. Though taken aback a bit, I said “yes, later” — and then I (and, I gather he) forgot about it.
But while he came from an elite political family, Abe was friendly with Japanese very different from himself, some of them farmers from Kagoshima, at the far western end of Japan’s four main islands. He studied and partied modestly with them, and didn’t try to stand out.
Later, during nine years as a journalist in Japan, I often covered Abe’s father, who was international trade minister and then foreign minister. Shinzo Abe was a political secretary to his father, and we talked once or twice. He later ran for legislative office himself, on the road to becoming Japan’s prime minister in 2006 for a year, then again from 2012–2020.
When I was based in Beijing I covered deteriorated Japan-China relations in 2012 and into 2013 when Shinzo Abe was prime minister. He had inherited the worst Japan-China relations since the countries established diplomatic relations in 1972, sparked by a dispute over islands that continues to run deep. In 2012 Chinese protesters converged on the Japanese Embassy in Beijing, throwing thousands of eggs and water bottles. Other protesters threw rocks at buses carrying children to the Japanese School of Beijing. Relations with Beijing were Abe’s toughest international challenge.
Japan’s ties to the U.S. were the pillar of Abe’s foreign policy. He further cemented Tokyo’s tight military and diplomatic ties with Washington by hosting former President Barack Obama at Hiroshima in 2016, the first American president to visit the atomic-bombed city while in office, and then visiting Pearl Harbor with Obama later that same year as the first sitting Japanese leader to visit the USS Arizona Memorial. He stood up to North Korea, in particular regarding Japanese abducted by North Korean agents, and tried to be friendly with China and South Korea while at the same time antagonizing them with his hopes of reforming Japan’s military to be more than a purely defensive force. All three countries remain bitter over their wartime experiences with Japan.
Abe was dogged by continuing problems with the economy; political scandals; a relentlessly aging society; fewer young people choosing lifetime employment with established companies; increasing reliance on foreigners for manufacturing, agriculture, food service and fisheries jobs; and other domestic issues. He faced these as Japan’s population continued to plummet, from a high of 127 million people in 2004 to a projected 90 million by 2055 — roughly the same size as 1960, but with 40% of them older than 65, according to the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare.
During 12 years living in Japan as a child, teenager and journalist, I experienced that hallmark of Japanese society: public safety. Aside from police and the military, only a handful of hunters and a few others legally own guns. There was rarely news of guns even being fired, and if so it was usually between organized crime members. The only political assassinations in recent decades were when an ultranationalist stabbed Socialist Party leader Inejiro Asanuma in 1960 and a gangster shot Nagasaki Mayor Itcho Ito in 2007. My elementary-school children over many years walked to and from school in Tokyo without adults with them.
Abe’s shooting thus dumbfounded the nation, leaving a plethora of unanswered questions, including motives, methods and planning, and ensuring reforms over shockingly poor security, access to gun-making materials and monitoring threats. Internationally, Abe’s legacy continued that of his grandfather in prioritizing ties with Washington and Japan’s security in Asia. But while the Japan that Abe left behind will be a country where gun violence will remain rare, Japan’s reputation as a safe-haven society will never be the same.
