On July 8, former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was assassinated at the age of 67. This is, without a doubt, shocking news and the most sudden international political event I have witnessed so far. In addition to the shock, I kept thinking about what this incident meant. What will it bring to Japan and to the international geopolitical landscape? How will it affect the lives of each and every one of us as ordinary people?
Many people may ask why a former head encounter can bring such a huge shock to Japan and abroad, and to answer this question, you have to understand the life of Abe and the family forces behind him.
Shinzo Abe, born in 1954 in Japan into a political family, his maternal grandfather Kishi Nobusuke and his maternal grandfather Eisaku Sato served as japan's prime minister at different times, his grandfather Abe Hiroshi was also a representative of Japan's pacifist politicians during World War II, his father also became the second-in-command cabinet chief cabinet chief of Japanese politics under the support of family power, and was the quasi-heir of the Japanese prime minister, but he died prematurely due to illness and failed to do so. It can be seen that Abe's fathers and grandfathers are all high-level figures in Japanese politics, and their two generations of political operations in Japanese politics have built a huge political resource utilization system for the development of Abe's career, and thus formed the "Abe family" that has influenced japan's political pattern for more than half a century.
The feudal remnants of the Japanese emperor system have led to a country deeply influenced by the politics of the gate valve, that is, in Japan, a generation of officials can be an official, and the continuation of family political power is the basis for a person to become an official. Even civilian origins like former Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga are dependent on a political family to ascend to power, and they are constrained by the family's power. This kind of door valve tradition is widespread in Japan, therefore, Japanese society is a society with an extremely stable class order, ordinary Japanese people basically inherit their father's business, there is no such huge class flow in modern Chinese society, so to a certain extent, the social order of the Japanese country is also stable and famous in the world.
From the perspective of Japanese social tradition, Abe's growth process in this life is very prosaic, he has been designated by his maternal grandfather Kishi Nobusuke from an early age, and carefully cultivated his political literacy, paying attention to every key point in his growth process. As a result, Abe's experience in this life seems to be his fate since birth, and he can't escape or hide from it, until a gunshot in the streets of Nara yesterday.
Abe is dead, but the powerful aftermath of his political influence will not end there. After all, Abe created Japan's great development achievements after World War II. He first ascended to prime ministership in 2006 and was preparing to do so, but announced his resignation after only a year in office due to various political struggles. But he did not stop there, but quietly for 6 years, and finally won the battle in 2012, re-elected as the prime minister of Japan, opening the longest period of time in Japanese history for the prime minister's rule, until 2020 for health reasons to resign.
Abe's second term as prime minister lasted for a total of 8 years, during which he first promoted "Abenomics", which was led by short-term stimulus to promote the rapid recovery of the Japanese economy, creating a "highlight" of economic development in the last decade of the Heisei era and improving the living standards of the Japanese people. In the political field, Abe has been in power for eight consecutive years, strengthening the leadership of the prime minister in the cabinet, ending the chaos of frequent changes of Japanese prime ministers, and showing himself in front of the domestic public as a "political strongman". As a politician, Abe also has his unique two-sidedness. The trot to greet the handshake when meeting Putin and the flattery of Trump's lack of diplomatic etiquette all let us see the huge contrast between his tough attitude in the face of domestic political enemies, and according to his own words, this is "adult tiger change, gentleman leopard change", that is to say, Abe is a person who can sacrifice for the interests of the country and the nation, and have some tolerance, from this point of view, he is at least a patriot with a sense of loyalty and dedication to his country and nation.
Abe's long reign has made him a key figure in Japan's political landscape, with great political influence, and even after his retirement, he still has a certain say and even decision in the cabinet of the current Japanese government. After Abe retired, his door-valve background did not allow him to leave politics, and he must continue to exert his influence. In November 2021, Shinzo Abe returned to politics as chairman of the Largest faction in the Liberal Democratic Party, the Hosoda faction, and this street speech was also on behalf of the LDP in canvassing for votes for the upcoming Senate elections.
According to the analysis of domestic experts on Japan, Abe's sudden death may lead to new variables in the factional game within the Liberal Democratic Party, and the biggest possibility is that the trend of internal factional division will be strengthened. This is the case in any organization, when a leader with absolute authority dies, if there is no designated successor, the dormant people in the organization will have contradictions in order to inherit the highest leadership position, and the bloody struggle is inevitable.
The LDP has long held Japan's ruling position for many years, and has formed a complex factional struggle with entangled roots within itself. The current Japanese Prime Minister, Fumio Kishida, is the leader of the "Kishida faction", but his political influence is far less than that of the "Abe faction", and other factions still restrict it to a considerable extent, of which the "Abe faction" is the most serious. Once Abe dies, the political influence of the "Abe faction" will tend to be weakened by division, but it is foreseeable that this will not be achieved in the short term, because the strong family gate valve tradition will have an alienating impact on the evolution of the existing faction, and even if the "Abe faction" is divided, there will be a dominant force to inherit its main political resources and influence, and the so-called new faction will also emerge. From this analysis, we can infer that, at least in the short term, the existing inheritance of the Kishida Fumio cabinet to the domestic and foreign policies of the Ampere administration will not fundamentally change dramatically, but a certain degree of individual adjustment is foreseeable.
Next, I want to analyze the other side of Shinzo Abe, a japanese right-wing conservative.
Abe's right-wing tendencies are the most hated by Chinese, which is also the main reason why the domestic public opinion field was "schadenfreude" and "applauded" after the news of his assassination was issued. Abe's right-wing tendencies are mainly reflected in these aspects: First, it is a vague negation of the historical Japanese war of aggression against China. The second is to pay homage to the Yasukuni Shrine many times and beautify Japan's comfort women policy. The third is to vigorously promote Japan's "constitutional revision" in a vain attempt to change the nature of Japan's Self-Defense Forces and regard it as its own political goal. The fourth is to deliberately provoke territorial disputes with neighboring countries, and even make a big fuss about the internal affairs of neighboring countries. Especially after Abe's resignation, the right-wing tendencies reflected in his public speeches became more apparent.
Abe's right-wing tendencies are family-inherited. His maternal grandfather, Kishi Nobusuke, mentioned above, was a Class A war criminal in Japan during World War II and served as a key member of Hideki Tojo's cabinet, nicknamed "Showa Demon". In Japan, the "xx demon" is basically a person who is good at giving advice, which shows that the crimes committed during Japan's war of aggression against China are extremely serious. Kishi was imprisoned after the war as a "Class A war criminal," but because the United States needed to cooperate with Japan out of its own national interests at the time, Kishi nobusuke was released shortly after. Kishi Nobusuke re-entered politics after his release, visited the Yasukuni Shrine after being elected prime minister, and his far-right ideas also ran throughout his prime ministerial career, greatly influencing the evolution of Japan's post-war political policy, while Shinzo Abe grew up with Kishi Shinsuke. Abe once wrote in his book, "From a young age, My grandfather was a sincere politician who only considered the future of the country. Moreover, his resolute ability to face the criticism of the noise in society, and his calm attitude makes me fully proud of it. Kishi's younger brother Eisaku Sato is also a representative of Japan's right-wing forces and also has a certain influence on Abe. Although Abe's grandfather, Abe, was a pacifist, Abe does not appear to have inherited the tradition of the patrilineal clan, on the contrary, he has publicly claimed that his political DNA has inherited from Kishi Nobusuke.
Abe's series of right-wing tendencies have won him great support from Japanese right-wing groups, and this support is a strong resource for Abe to make a name for himself in Japanese politics. Abe's eight years in power have greatly instigated the collective rise of right-wing forces in Japan, resulting in a resurgence of fascist militarist forces in Japan. All along, this phenomenon has aroused strong dissatisfaction among the anti-fascist countries around Japan, and the resulting geopolitical conflicts have also brought trouble and interference to peace and stability in East Asia. According to professional analysis, the assassination of Abe is a huge blow to The Japanese right-wingers, they have lost an important right-wing representative figure, in order to maintain the influence of the right-wing in Japan's political arena and society, it is not excluded that there will be more extreme right-wing behavior, and the contradictions between the left and right factions in Japan may become more severe. For the entire East Asian region, the Japanese right-wing elements to the extreme, will mean the revival of Japanese fascist militarism intensified, in the long run, once the right-wing extremists on the Japanese political arena has political control, political threats or domestic contradictions intensified, then the regional situation will be more complex and changeable, and turmoil or will become an inevitable "gray rhinoceros" event.
In fact, since the Meiji Restoration, Japan has always been proud of integrating into mainstream Western society, and they have a proud national mentality in both China, South Korea and Southeast Asian countries, especially for China. In modern times, Japan has successively launched reactionary or participated in three wars against China, the first two Sino-Japanese Wars and the Eight-Power Alliance's war of aggression against China, which ended in China's defeat, and China compensated Japan with huge reparations and sold large areas of territory and related rights and interests. This has intensified Japan's contempt for Chinese, in their eyes China has always been a stupid and spineless inferior nation, even if Japan's war of aggression against China fails, they do not think that Chinese defeated Japan, but in the United States and the Soviet Union and other countries defeated Japan. Therefore, since the founding of New China, Sino-Japanese relations have also been swaying in various ways because of certain Attitudes and Practices of Japan.
After the reform and opening up, the miracle of China's rapid economic development shocked Japan, especially after 2010, China's gdp exceeded That of Japan to become the second largest in the world. In this context, the "China threat theory" and other arguments have become very popular, becoming an excuse for Japan's right-wing to attack China, disrupting China's surrounding development environment, and cooperating with the United States to suppress China's rise has become the basic attitude of the main right-wing politicians in Japan.
From the perspective of Japanese national psychology, they are the least willing to accept China's rise. In the nearly thousand years of exchange history between China and Japan, Japan has always been in a position of attachment and worship to China, and many of their cultural traditions are from China, and even the choice of the era name of the Japanese emperor must be found in ancient Chinese classics. In modern times, due to China's own weakness, Japan has occupied the position of hegemony in East Asia, and after World War II, it has become the largest economic power in East Asia. Think about it, in the face of his once-decadent big brother, now he wants to replace himself, which is still a little difficult for a person to accept, let alone an island nation like Japan.
What is Japan's current attitude toward China? Economically, we strive for cooperation, but politically we want to suppress it. Japan clearly understands that China's economic strength is a non-negligible existence, that Japan cannot completely decouple from the Chinese economy, and that japan's dependence on china's economy has been increasing in the past few decades of development, and this fact cannot be changed. In the face of such a huge economy as China, Japan has no other choice but to continue to cooperate, which is also the foothold of Abe's proposal to establish a new era of Sino-Japanese relations with China in 2019. In the political field, Japan always wants to interfere with China and restrict China. During his tenure, Abe continued to conduct diplomatic operations, actively participated in international affairs, strengthened Japan's political presence, and sought to return Japan to the world political arena. Whether it is the strengthening of the US-Japan alliance, the collusion between Japan and Taiwan, or the "constitutional revision" at home, it reflects Japan's ambition to shape an international political power. Therefore, economically striving to cooperate with China and politically hoping to suppress China is Japan's basic attitude toward China, and this attitude is determined from the perspective of Japan's historical tradition, nationality, and contemporary regional political pattern, and both Abe and other future Japanese prime ministers will maintain a certain continuity. Of course, this can also be regarded as one of the basic points for our understanding of Sino-Japanese relations.
Abe's assassination is ostensibly a sudden political event, but if we link it to other recent political events such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, and Johnson's resignation, we can find that the world is very unstable today, just as leaders say that the world has entered a new period of turbulent change. For each of us ordinary people, we cannot change and determine the turmoil and stability of this world, but this does not mean that it has nothing to do with us, and it does not mean that other things that happen in the world will not affect our lives. Just like the Russo-Ukrainian War, many people say that what do they have to do with me when they beat them, and what should I do myself? Yes, the battlefield of the Russo-Ukrainian War is far away in Eastern Europe and will not directly affect us, but it affects the stability of the supply chain of the world economy and the total amount of food exports in the world. For our country, we have been deeply integrated into the development of the world economy, is an important part of the global industrial chain supply chain, our goods need to be exported, but the supply chain in Eastern Europe is broken, which will affect the business of domestic manufacturers; We need to import food, but food production in Ukraine, one of the world's food producing regions, has been disrupted and our total food reserves are decreasing. These cascade of influences will gradually feed back into our lives, but we should be thankful that she was born in China, and she used her wealth accumulation and strong national strength to minimize the intrusion of these influences into our daily lives, which is the protection of the state for us.
Professor Liu Qing of East China Normal University has a view that we must always be prepared for a new normal, that is, for a long time to come, our daily life will always be in an unstable "temporary state". This is due to the consequences of the development of economic globalization and the disintegration of localization, and everyone is being carried forward by this era, and no one is an exception. Like the COVID-19 pandemic, which has profoundly changed everyone's life, and if it is in a closed environment, the epidemic will not be a global pandemic at all, and everyone will not be affected, which is a very clear example.
Similarly, the assassination of Abe was not a pure accident, and there was an inevitable factor behind any accident. It is understood that this suspect was a soldier in the Japanese Self-Defense Forces and is now an unemployed vagrant, what caused a former officer to fall into unemployment? What did he go through in life? Why hasn't this society provided him with adequate protection? This is not only a question that Japanese society needs to answer, but also a question that all countries in the world need to reflect on.
The development of globalization and the disintegration of localization is an unavoidable trend, and the ultimate direction of the world must be to move towards pluralism. It is a journey towards light but a bumpy road, and all countries must work together. In this process, there will be a variety of problems, either domestic problems or global problems, and these problems will eventually be reflected in the people's livelihood. Chairman Mao pointed out a century ago that what problems are the greatest in the world and the biggest problems with eating. The basic people's livelihood problem is the root cause of other problems, and solving the people's livelihood problem is the key to solving all problems. If countries cannot put the masses of the people first and solve the people's livelihood problems first, then social unrest will be inevitable, sudden assassinations will occur frequently, and international wars will continue. No country should take any chances, because today's assassinations occurred in Japan and may happen in their own countries tomorrow.
I have watched the live video of Abe's assassination more than once, and the sound of the two gunshots is muffled, accompanied by gunpowder smoke. After the gunshots, the smoke will always dissipate, but who will be the winner of this assassination in the face of the blood on the ground?