Born into a prominent political family, former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe, who was shot dead at a campaign event in western Japan yesterday, had been the country’s longest-serving leader since World War II.
While credited with bringing a degree of stability to Japan following a period of economic malaise, Abe angered neighbors South Korea and China — along with many Japanese — with a rhetoric many deemed nationalistic and calls to revise the country’s pacifist constitution.
Abe was born in Tokyo on Sept. 21, 1954, the son of Shintaro Abe, who served as Japanese minister of foreign affairs from 1982 to 1986, and grandson of former Japanese prime minister Nobusuke Kishi.
Photo: AFP
He in 1977 graduated from Tokyo’s Seikei University with a degree in political science, after which he moved to the US to study public policy at the University of Southern California.
After returning to Japan and working in the management of a steel manufacturer for three years, he started to pursue a career at the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Running for the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), he was in 1993 elected to parliament, representing the southwestern prefecture of Yamaguchi. Shinzo Abe, already viewed as a conservative at the time, was a member of the party’s Mori faction, which had once been headed by his father, who died in 1991.
Abe was in 2005 appointed Japanese chief cabinet secretary under then-Japanese prime minister Junichiro Koizumi. After leading negotiations to return Japanese abducted to North Korea, he was the same year elected head of the LDP.
On Sept. 26, 2006, he became prime minister for the first time, overseeing economic reforms while taking a hard line on North Korea and seeking to engage with South Korea and China.
Following electoral defeats that saw the LDP lose control of the legislature for the first time in 52 years, Abe in 2007 resigned as prime minister, citing health reasons.
In 2012, Abe became prime minister for a second time and a year later launched economic reforms dubbed “Abenomics.”
He served four terms, seeking closer ties with Western powers and distancing the country form China.
On Aug. 28, 2020, he announced that he would step down, again citing health reasons.
Despite leaving office, Abe in 2020 showed that he can still rile up Beijing with comments on Taiwan, warning that “military adventure would lead to economic suicide.”
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