Japan’s former prime minister Shinzo Abe has died in hospital after he was shot at a political campaign event in the city of Nara.
- The suspect, named as Tetsuya Yamagami, admitted shooting Abe with a homemade gun.
- It was the first assassination of a sitting or former Japanese Premier since the days of pre-war militarism in the 1930s.
Gun violence in Japan
- Gun violence is extremely rare in Japan, where handguns are banned – and incidents of political violence are almost unheard of. In 2014, there were just six incidents of gun deaths in Japan, as compared to 33,599 in the US.
Shinzo Abe contribution
- Shinzo Abe was Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, held office in 2006 for a year and then again from 2012 to 2020, before stepping down citing health reasons.
- He later revealed that he had suffered a relapse of ulcerative colitis, an intestinal disease.
- His grandfather Nobusuke Kishi served as prime minister between 1957 and 1960, and his father, Shintaro Abe, was a former foreign minister of Japan.
- Perhaps the most high profile policy of his time in office was “Abenomics“, the economic programme that bears his name. Abe’s strategy had three “arrows” aimed at kick starting economic growth and higher wages: loose monetary policy, fiscal stimulus and structural economic reforms.
- Abe’s book Utsukushii Kuni E (Towards a Beautiful Nation) aims at Japan being viewed by the world as a place where they want to come to work and invest.
- While he failed to change Article 9 of the Constitution, under his watch, Japan amended laws that will allow its armed forces to be deployed overseas and the military for the first time took part in exercises on foreign soil.
India and Shinzo Abe
- India observed a day of mourning for former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on July 9, 2022.
- Mr. Abe visited India in 2007 during his first tenure at the invitation of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, addressed Parliament and set up several mechanisms for intensifying relations, including proposing the “Quadrilateral Strategic Dialogue” (QSD).
- Prime Minister Modi visited Japan as Gujarat Chief Minister in 2007 and discussed investment projects with Mr. Abe, and continued the close relationship when both were leaders of their countries from 2014 to 2020.
- India and Japan were able to conclude the Civil Nuclear deal, considered impossible given Japan’s nuclear sensitivities and India’s refusal to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty, only due to Mr. Abe’s persistence with his Parliament.
- In 2014, Abe became Japan’s first Prime Minister to be invited as chief guest to the Republic Day parade.
- Modi and Abe agreed to upgrade the bilateral relationship to a “Special Strategic and Global Partnership” – a relationship which encompassed issues from civilian nuclear energy to maritime security, bullet trains to quality infrastructure, Act East policy to Indo-Pacific strategy.
- Abe was the one who first proposed the concept of the arc of democracy to contain China’s assertiveness, extending it from the US to Japan, then on to Australia and India. Shinzo Abe came up with the initiative in 2006–2007, during his first brief term in office.
- In October 2017, as Chinese aggression grew in the Pacific, Indian Ocean, and India’s borders in Doklam, it was Abe’s Japan that mooted the idea of reviving the Quad.
- In 2021, the Union government awarded Mr. Abe the Padma Vibhushan, the country’s second highest civilian honour.
