Source: Global Times
Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's state funeral ceremony will be held in Tokyo today. About 3,600 domestic guests and 700 overseas people will attend his funeral, but more than 60 percent of Japanese oppose holding a state funeral for him, according to Japan's Kyodo News Agency, for reasons including sky-high state funeral costs of nearly $12 million, complex evaluations of Abe's political legacy, and Japan's Liberal Democratic Party's unclear involvement with the "Unification Religion." The US Bloomberg News Agency said on the 26th that in July, when Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio decided to hold a state funeral for Abe, it was likely to allow Japan to have a "moment of unity". But he should not have expected that just over two months later, sympathy for Abe's assassination not only failed to translate into an increase in LDP's approval ratings, but the public even began to sympathize with Abe's assassin, and a state funeral overdrew Abe's "legacy" left to the LDP. Reuters said on the 26th that opposition to Abe's funeral reflects the degree of division of Japanese society. Although Abe's hard-line security and economic policies, Japan's longest-serving postwar prime minister, are revered by nationalists and right-wingers, while being reviled by those who want Japan to maintain a peaceful constitution.
"It's hard to say that the luxury lineup"
According to Japanese media reports, the state funeral ceremony for Shinzo Abe will officially begin at 2 p.m. local time on the 27th. Nearly 1,400 SDF members will perform tasks such as "condolence salute" and "music play" at the state funeral ceremony. Among them, the condolence salute will follow the custom, firing 19 rounds.
The Japan Broadcasting Association (NHK) television reported that in order to ensure the safety of the area around the Nippon Budokan, the site of the state funeral ceremony, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department mobilized about 20,000 police officers to participate in the national funeral guard, leaving all parts of Tokyo in a state of waiting. This includes allowing divers to dive into the moat to find out if there are suspicious items, and the surrounding manholes are also opened one by one to conduct security checks on the inside.
People gathered in front of Shinjuku Station in Tokyo, Japan, on September 19 to protest Abe's state funeral. (Visual China)
On the afternoon of the 26th, with the arrival of US Vice President Harris in Japan, the Metropolitan Police Department began to implement traffic control in Tokyo. The Global Times reporter in Tokyo saw in the city on the same day that there were a large number of police forces on duty at the entrance of the urban highway, and the road congestion increased significantly compared with usual. On the 27th, the Tokyo Central Expressway will also implement a ban on traffic for about 9 hours on a large scale. According to the BBC, the Japanese government will spend about $12 million on funeral costs, half of which will be used for security and 1/3 for receiving foreign guests.
According to the Associated Press, Kishida met with US Vice President Harris, Vietnamese President Nguyen Xuan Phuc, Philippine Vice President Sarah Duterte and other foreign dignitaries who came to attend the funeral.
On the day of the state funeral on the 27th, Kishida plans to meet with Indian Prime Minister Modi and Australian Prime Minister Albanese and so on, and on the 28th, he will meet with South Korean Prime Minister Han Deok-so and Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen.
South Korea's YTN TV reported on the 26th that although the Japanese government has repeatedly emphasized the "significance" of Abe's state funeral, in the end, none of the heads of state of the Group of Seven (G7) countries came to the scene. Kishida Fumio stressed that the use of this state funeral as an opportunity to launch "condolence diplomacy" may actually be difficult to meet the original expectations.
According to the Kyodo News Agency, after Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau urgently cancelled his trip in response to the hurricane disaster, Harris became the only G7 current head of state to attend Abe's state funeral. According to the report, when it comes to the attendance list, the Japanese prime minister's official residence people smiled bitterly: "At best, there is no bright color." It's hard to say it's a deluxe lineup. ”
On the 26th, a demonstration broke out in South Korea against the government's sending of senior officials to Abe's funeral. "Korean National News" reported on the 26th that South Korean citizens' groups held a demonstration in front of the presidential office of Yongsan on the same day to demand "immediate interruption" of the dispatch of Prime Minister Han Deok-so to Japan to attend Abe's funeral. The demonstrators chanted: "Immediately stop humiliating diplomacy with Japan." "Paying respects to the Yasukuni Shrine, making false remarks about the 'comfort women,' and demanding that South Korea remove the statue of the 'comfort women' are all things that happened during Abe's tenure."
On the 27th, Wan Gang, vice chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, will attend Abe's funeral as a representative of the Chinese government.
State funeral turned into a "referendum"
At the same time, people who oppose Abe's state funeral plan to continue rallies across Japan on the 27th. Japan's main opposition parties, the Democratic Party and the Communist Party, all boycotted the funeral. Kyodo News Agency recently released a poll showing that more than 60% of the Japanese people oppose the government's huge spending on holding a state funeral for Abe.
The film "REVOLUTION+1," based on the suspect Totsuya Yamamoyama, who was arrested for assassinating Abe, will be released in Tokyo and other places from September 26 to 29. The film depicts the growth of the mountain and the assassination process. These three days coincided with the Japanese government's state funeral for Abe. The script of the film was written in only 3 days, and after 8 days of shooting, it went into editing. The screening is a special 50-minute edition that is still in editing, and tickets for the film in theaters in Tokyo, Osaka, Ibaraki and other places have been pre-sold.
At about 6:00 p.m. on the 26th, a public group held a rally near Shinjuku Station, saying that "Abe's achievements do not deserve the respect and condolences of all citizens" and shouting against the state funeral. The citizens held aloft placards with the words "No forced condolences allowed" and called in unison to the Japanese government to "listen to the opposition."
On the afternoon of the same day, the Japanese civic group "Opposition to the State Funeral of Former Prime Minister Abe" held a "Great Assembly Against State Funeral" at the House of Representatives in Tokyo. A number of opposition lawmakers, media commentators, legal experts, etc. spoke at the rally to criticize the legitimacy of the Kishida regime's state funeral of Shinzo Abe.
Masakatsu Adachi, professor emeritus of Kanto Gakuin University, believes that there is no legal basis for Abe's state funeral. It is true that there was a "state funeral order" in Japan's pre-war law, but with Japan's defeat in the war, the state funeral order has lost its legal effect. Japanese House of Representatives member Ishiokawa Tetsu said that so many people in Japan have died from the new crown pneumonia epidemic, and there is no ordinary funeral, why should Abe be given special treatment and use the national tax to hold state funerals? In addition, Abe had close ties with the "Unification Religion" during his lifetime, so why did Kishida Fumio say that he wanted to break off relations with the "Unification Religion"? This is completely paradoxical. He believes that now is not the time to hold a state funeral for Abe, but a time to summarize and reflect on the consequences of Abe's administration.
Constitutional expert Kobayashi pointed out that there are two necessary conditions for holding a state funeral, one is that it must obtain a resolution from the highest organ of state power, that is, the National Assembly, and the decision on the state funeral is only in the form of a cabinet resolution, which can only be called a "cabinet funeral" at most. Second, it is necessary to form a consensus among the people that "it is worth a state burial". In domestic affairs, "Abenomics" has destroyed Japan's economy and welfare system, solidified the gap between rich and poor, and reduced national happiness. In terms of diplomacy, in addition to increasing diplomatic expenses, the Abe administration has not achieved any results on important issues such as the "four northern islands" (Russia's South Kuril Islands) issue and membership in the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council.
The New York Times said that the reaction of the Japanese people to Abe's state funeral was like a "referendum" on his political achievements. The report quoted an honorary professor at Yamaguchi University as saying that Abe's political philosophy is not only to get rid of the peaceful constitutional system established by Japan after the defeat in World War II, but also to return Japan to the pre-war militaristic political system. The state funeral of such a politician is impossible to agree with in any way.
The Kishida cabinet lost points due to the "state funeral"
South Korea's "National Daily" said on the 26th that in fact, there is a strong controversy over Abe's historical merits. Abe was first elected Prime Minister of Japan in 2006 and has since been re-elected three times in a row from 2012 to 2020. During his tenure, he was seen as playing a major role in rallying the "quadrilateral mechanism" between the United States, Japan, India, and Australia, which was regarded as the "Asian version of NATO" whose main purpose was to contain China. After Abe's death, the LDP's close ties to the "Unification Religion" were exposed, further worsening the Japanese people's perception of Abe's state funeral.
Shuntaro Towagoshi, a well-known Japanese news commentator, believes that during his administration, Abe established the so-called "new security system" and lifted the ban on collective self-defense, and has since further put forward the idea of "nuclear sharing" with the United States, "he is the prime minister who has brought Japan closest to war in any postwar cabinet." The BBC reported on the 26th that thousands of people marched in Tokyo against the state funeral, accusing Abe of leading Japan to war. Tokyo citizen Makiko said: "Abe passed the Collective Self-Defense Right Act, which means that Japan will fight alongside the Americans, which means that he can let Japan go to war again, which is why I oppose the state funeral." ”
NBC quoted Koichi Nakano, a professor of political science at Sophia University in Tokyo, as saying that Abe's supporters would have had a hard time ensuring that history would rate him positively, and that "Kishida may have hoped to cover up the intricacies of history by hosting a state funeral and deifying Abe, but that didn't happen." Bloomberg commented that Kishida's cabinet clearly mishandled the situation. Emotions were so high that a man set himself on fire in protest. "Opposing Abe's state funeral is an opportunity for Abe's political opponents to score points after his death in the event that he failed to bring him down while he was alive. This debate highlights how post-Abe Japan will struggle to get by." (Yue Linwei, special correspondent of the Global Times in Japan, Zhang Jing, special correspondent of the Global Times in South Korea, Ren Zhong)