Former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe was fatally shot while delivering a campaign speech in Nara, Japan, on the eve of the Japanese House of Councilors elections. The tragic news shocked the world. Abe, who had always been a strong supporter of Taiwan, gained much respect from Taiwanese, who grieve his passing.
Abe was born to a prominent political family. His maternal grandfather Nobusuke Kishi and his great-uncle Eisaku Sato had served as prime ministers, while his father, Shintaro Abe, was a foreign minister.
Shinzo Abe was himself a legendary figure in Japanese politics. When he first took office in 2006 at the age of 52, he was the first prime minister born after World War II and the youngest in the post-war era.
He was also the only politician to have served twice as prime minister since the Heisei era. He was in office for a total of 3,188 days from 2006 to 2007 and 2012 to 2020, making him Japan’s longest-serving prime minister.
When the Great East Japan Earthquake devastated the country in 2011, the then-ruling Democratic Party of Japan was at a loss for what to do. Public anger grew, and a year later it finally erupted.
At a memorial service in 2012 on the first anniversary of the earthquake, Taiwan was not mentioned when the Japanese government expressed appreciation to foreign countries for their assistance. Even though Taiwan made the largest monetary donation of any country, its representative to Japan was not allowed to present flowers on the stage.
The actions drew a public backlash, forcing then-Japanese prime minister Yoshihiko Noda to apologize. Nine months later, Shinzo Abe staged a comeback and returned as prime minister.
After returning to office, Shinzo Abe introduced his “three arrows” economic policy — fiscal stimulus, loose money and structural reform — and revitalized Japan’s stagnant economy. The number of tourists visiting the country surged from a few million per year to more than 30 million in 2019.
In foreign relations, he leaned toward the US and expressed support for Taiwan, while promoting his “prime minister diplomacy,” traveling to nearly 100 countries.
He tried to improve Taiwan-Japan relations despite doubts, and built friendships with former and current Taiwanese presidents, reportedly viewing former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) as a mentor and President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) as a friend. After he left office in 2020, he still made maintaining stability in the Taiwan Strait his responsibility.
Late last year, Shinzo Abe said that “a Taiwanese emergency is a Japanese emergency, and therefore an emergency for the Japan-US alliance.” On April 12, he also wrote an article in the Los Angeles Times, calling the US’ policy of strategic ambiguity on Taiwan outdated.
In May, US President Joe Biden acknowledged Shinzo Abe’s views after he met with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in Tokyo. It seems that a Taiwan policy proposed by Shinzo Abe, echoed by Biden and followed by Kishida is taking shape.
This September marks the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Japan and China. When Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) congratulated Kishida on his election in October last year, he expressed his hope that the two sides could welcome the historic moment together. The Kishida administration was in a dilemma as Shinzo Abe had reconstructed the triangular relationship among Taiwan, Japan and the US.
We must continue to observe whether Kishida will continue Shinzo Abe’s line after the sudden death of the “shadow warrior.”
Wang Hui-sheng is chief director of the Kisei Ladies’ and Children’s Hospital in Japan.
Translated by Eddy Chang
US aerospace company Boeing Co has in recent years been involved in numerous safety incidents, including crashes of its 737 Max airliners, which have caused widespread concern about the company’s safety record. It has recently come to light that titanium jet engine parts used by Boeing and its European competitor Airbus SE were sold with falsified documentation. The source of the titanium used in these parts has been traced back to an unknown Chinese company. It is clear that China is trying to sneak questionable titanium materials into the supply chain and use any ensuing problems as an opportunity to
It’s not every month that the US Department of State sends two deputy assistant secretary-level officials to Taiwan, together. Its rarer still that such senior State Department policy officers, once on the ground in Taipei, make a point of huddling with fellow diplomats from “like-minded” NATO, ANZUS and Japanese governments to coordinate their multilateral Taiwan policies. The State Department issued a press release on June 22 admitting that the two American “representatives” had “hosted consultations in Taipei” with their counterparts from the “Taiwan Ministry of Foreign Affairs.” The consultations were blandly dubbed the “US-Taiwan Working Group on International Organizations.” The State
The Chinese Supreme People’s Court and other government agencies released new legal guidelines criminalizing “Taiwan independence diehard separatists.” While mostly symbolic — the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has never had jurisdiction over Taiwan — Tamkang University Graduate Institute of China Studies associate professor Chang Wu-ueh (張五岳), an expert on cross-strait relations, said: “They aim to explain domestically how they are countering ‘Taiwan independence,’ they aim to declare internationally their claimed jurisdiction over Taiwan and they aim to deter Taiwanese.” Analysts do not know for sure why Beijing is propagating these guidelines now. Under Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), deciphering the
Many local news media last week reported that COVID-19 is back, citing doctors’ observations and the Centers for Disease Control’s (CDC) statistics. The CDC said that cases would peak this month and urged people to take preventive measures. Although COVID-19 has never been eliminated, it has become more manageable, and restrictions were dropped, enabling people to return to their normal way of life due to decreasing hospitalizations and deaths. In Taiwan, mandatory reporting of confirmed cases and home isolation ended in March last year, while the mask mandate at hospitals and healthcare facilities stopped in May. However, the CDC last week said the number