Shinzo Abe

Be careful who you praise and the degree of zeal you do it with. The slain Shinzo Abe, shot dead in Nara on July 8, towered over Japanese politics.

“Nobody was willing to investigate the Unification Church and the close ties with Japanese politicians because the constitution guarantees freedom of religion.” These included the impoverishment of his family at the hands of the Moonies. The special treatment offered this excommunicated Presbyterian minister was emblematic of the broader approach to religious groups in Japan. Kishida justified the decision on the basis of political longevity: Abe had proven to be Japan’s longest serving leader. The decision has stirred a rash of demonstrations, even encouraging an attempt at self-immolation. “Mr Abe was a remarkable leader, a catalyst for change in Japan and the region, a true friend of Australia,” A number of citizens even went so far as to argue against its legality, petitioning the Tokyo District Court to block the event. The claimants in that case also argued that the measure would propagate a situation obligating the public to mourn Abe’s death. Several opposition politicians are also irate about the way the decision to hold a state funeral was reached. His “great leader” credentials might be celebrated in some circles, “but his personal vision for rewriting Japanese history, of a glorious past, created a real problem in East Asia”. In her effusion, the US Secretary of State had ignored Abe’s problematic position on Japan’s use of “comfort women” or sex slaves during the Second World War. The tribute was a classic reminder of how the late Japanese leader could mislead, in this case on the rights of women and the policy of “Womenomics”.

TOKYO — Vice President Harris joined world leaders in Tokyo on Tuesday to commemorate the life of Shinzo Abe, Japan's longest-serving prime minister, ...

“As you have said, the alliance between Japan and the United States is a cornerstone of what we believe is integral to peace, stability and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region,” Harris told Kishida on Monday. But the White House shifted its plans after the deaths of Abe in July and Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II on Sept. midterm elections weeks away, both President Biden and Harris had intended to limit their travel to places in the United States, touting wins under their administration and campaigning and fundraising for Democrats. commitment to the ROK’s defense is ironclad,” the White House said, using an abbreviation for the Republic of Korea, the formal name for South Korea. In a statement, the White House said Harris would tour sites at the DMZ, which separates the two Koreas, meet with service members and receive an operational briefing from U.S. Harris heads to South Korea later this week, where she plans to visit the demilitarized zone, Han announced at the beginning of his meeting with the U.S.

The ceremony for the assassinated former prime minister marks the end of an era. September 26, 2022, 3:20 PM.

The salarymen fired from their jobs, still dressed in suits and reading newspapers on park benches, unwilling to tell their kin or neighbors that they were let go; [the rising suicide rates in the late 1990s](https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-016-3020-2); [netto-uyoku](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netto-uyoku) and [chan culture](https://gnet-research.org/2019/12/31/chan-culture-and-violent-extremism-past-present-and-future/); [hikikomori](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hikikomori)—all perhaps symptoms of the collapse. And two days after the shooting, in [an interview with the Asahi Shimbun](https://digital.asahi.com/articles/ASQ795TGYQ78UCVL032.html), and speaking on that assumption, he had warned that assassinations in the prewar had been followed by a “chain of violence.” Hosaka reminded readers of Prime Minister Hamaguchi Osachi, who was shot at Tokyo Station in 1930, and the so-called May 15 Incident, in 1932, when young military officers—members of an ultranationalist group—launched a failed coup, killing the prime minister. Later, in English, they were nicknamed the [“Lost Generation.”](https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2020-japan-lost-generation/) Lost in what way? [Bungei Shunju](https://bungeishunju.com/n/n3af8d4223a04#7IFuI), at first, he had assumed the shooter was a far-left or far-right critic of Abe. “A state funeral must not be a funeral for democracy,” a crowd of [reportedly](https://www.tokyo-np.co.jp/article/199156) 4,000 chanted at the foot of the Diet on Aug. [wrote Shingo Usui](https://www.sankei.com/article/20220728-FEMEZ3RCYJJ3POZ3UQ4MK6OVGM/) in the Sankei Shimbun. State funerals mark the “destruction of democracy,” [wrote](https://www.nikkan-gendai.com/articles/view/news/308826) economics professor Masaru Kaneko, arguing that the use of taxpayer’s funds, amounting to [roughly $12 million](https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2022/09/06/national/abe-state-funeral-cost-increase/), for mourning is undemocratic, especially for a ceremony with ambiguous legal grounding. Yet Kaoru Iokibe, a professor of Japanese politics and diplomatic history at the University of Tokyo, wrote in [argued](https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14675015) a writer at the Asahi Shimbun in the paper’s daily column, “I think it is closer to the truth to say that after Yoshida, state funerals were considered defunct for good.” In 1975, Sato died, and his supporters sought to honor him with a state funeral. In recent months, [a civic group requested an injunction](https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2022/07/e58a3cb2e28f-civic-group-asks-court-to-halt-state-funeral-for-ex-pm-abe.html) against the use of state funds for the ceremony, and thousands of people have taken to the streets of Tokyo, protesting against what they see as a ceremony the public had no say in. [Critics](https://diamond.jp/articles/-/306737) questioned the justifications for a state funeral and denounced the arbitrary legal basis, arguing that the ceremony was a vestige of the imperial past, better left dead. “And in itself,” the historian John Dower [wrote](https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674251267), “the death wrote the final sentence to the chapter called ‘postwar,’ which Yoshida more than any other single Japanese personified.”

Japanese political leaders remembered former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at a state funeral as a statesman who steadily led Japan during his record run as ...

Anthony Albanese has paid respect to late Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe during a visit to Tokyo for his funeral.

“We are here to celebrate the life of Shinzo Abe. “That will be to the benefit of the people of our respective nations and to the benefit of people around the world.” “The work that we will continue to do to ensure that we are guided by what we are joined in terms of international rules and norms around the importance of peace, security and prosperity,” she said.

People leave flowers and pay their respects to former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe outside the Nippon Budokan in Tokyo on September 27. Yuichi Yamazaki/ ...

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has tried to appease the public, saying a state funeral for Abe was “fitting” given his achievements as former leader. Some crowds chanted slogans as they marched near the funeral venue, waving banners that urged a stop to the proceedings. Television screens show Abe as he announces his resignation as prime minister in 2007. He continued to campaign for his party's candidates until his assassination in July 2022. US Vice President Mike Pence is flanked by his wife, Karen, and Abe during the opening ceremony of the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea. After giving speeches at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii in 2016, Abe and US President Barack Obama talk with veterans who survived the Japanese attack there in 1941. Abe's visit to Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine in 2013 inflamed tensions with China and South Korea. They were accompanied by former Japanese Prime Minister Takeo Fukuda and his wife, Mie. In 2006, Abe meets with Sakie Yokota and her husband, Shigeru, whose daughter Megumi was kidnapped in 1977 by North Korean agents. Abe, far left, stands with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, center, and other members of the general council of the Liberal Democratic Party in 2003. Abe at the time was Japan's chief cabinet secretary. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida then delivered a memorial address, praising Abe’s “courage” and dedication.

Japan has paid tribute to assassinated former prime minister Shinzo Abe, but many opposed having a state funeral for him.

Nearby, a wall of photos showed him strolling with G7 leaders, holding hands with children and visiting disaster areas. Even without the recent revelations about the Unification Church, it would be hard to imagine any circumstances where a majority of Japanese would favour honouring Mr Abe with a state funeral, said Tobias Harris, a senior fellow at the Centre for American Progress and the author of a biography of the former premier. With flowers, prayers and a 19-gun salute, Japan has honoured slain former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at the first state funeral for a former premier in 55 years - a ceremony that has become as divisive as he was in life.

Japan bid farewell to Shinzo Abe, who was assassinated in July, with a rare state funeral that has divided the nation.

Nearby, a wall of photos showed him strolling with G7 leaders, holding hands with children and visiting disaster areas. Opposition to honouring Abe with a state funeral, the first such event since 1967, has persisted, fed by an $11.5m price tag to be borne by the state at a time of economic pain for its citizens. The ceremony started at 2:00pm (05:00 GMT) on Tuesday, with Abe’s ashes carried into the Nippon Budokan Hall in central Tokyo by his widow, Akie, to music from a military band and the booms of the honour-guard salute, which echoed inside the hall.

Demonstrators marched on Japan's parliament on Tuesday to protest against the state funeral of Shinzo Abe, while tens of thousands of supporters queued ...

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has said the publicly financed ceremony was a deserved honor for Japan's longest-serving modern political leader, but it has deeply ...

Opponents say holding a state funeral for Abe is equivalent to an endorsement of ruling party ties to the Unification Church. Footage included his 2006 parliamentary speech vowing to build a "beautiful Japan" and his "Toward the Alliance of Hope" speech at the U.S. Kishida has been criticized for forcing through the costly event and over the widening controversy about Abe's and the governing party's decades of close ties with the ultra-conservative Unification Church, accused of raking in huge donations by brainwashing adherents. ambassador to Japan, during the ceremony, and they later joined others by placing a branch of chrysanthemum flowers on a table set before the pedestal. "I'm emotionally attached to him and I've been supporting the LDP, too," Masayuki Aoki, a 70-year-old business owner, said, recalling that he had shared a fist bump with Abe at a campaign stop in Yokohama days before his assassination. Soldiers in white uniforms took Abe's ashes and placed them on a pedestal filled with white and yellow chrysanthemum flowers and decorations.