Shinzo Abe

This was the first assassination of a former Japanese prime minister since 1936.

A polarizing figure in Japanese politics, Abe was described by supporters as having worked to strengthen Japan's security and international stature, while opponents described his nationalistic policies and negationist views on history as threatening Japanese pacifism and damaging relations with East Asian neighbors including China and South Korea.

Following the LDP's landslide victory in that year's general election, Abe became the first former prime minister to return to office since Shigeru Yoshida in 1948.

Shinzo Abe (安倍 晋三, Hepburn:, ; 21 September 1954 – 8 July 2022) was a Japanese politician and statesman who served as Prime Minister of Japan and President of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) from 2006 to 2007 and again from 2012 to 2020.

He was the longest-serving prime minister in Japanese history, serving for almost nine years in total.

Shinzo Abe was born on 21 September 1954 to a prominent political family in Shinjuku, Tokyo.

Although as a boy he aspired to become a filmmaker, Abe's family history led him upon a political path.

Kishi helped found the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in 1955 and served as Prime Minister of Japan from 1957 until his 1960 resignation following the Anpo protests.

The BBC speculated that Abe's aversion to protests may have originated as a result.

Abe viewed Kishi as his "No 1 role model" and was influenced by many of his beliefs, like Kishi's hawkish stance on China.

Regarding Kishi, Abe later wrote: "Some people used to point to my grandfather as a 'Class-A war criminal suspect,' and I felt strong repulsion. Because of that experience, I may have become emotionally attached to 'conservatism,' on the contrary".

His mother Yōko was a noted calligrapher.

Abe's paternal grandfather, Kan Abe, was a Yamaguchi landowner who served in the House of Representatives during World War II.

In contrast to Kishi, Kan Abe was a stalwart pacifist who opposed the Tojo government and war in East Asia.

Abe attended Seikei Elementary School and Seikei Junior and Senior High School (成蹊中学校・高等学校).

His father Shintaro Abe served in the House of Representatives from 1958 to 1991, with stints as Chief Cabinet Secretary, Minister for International Trade and Industry, and Minister for Foreign Affairs.

During World War II, Shintaro volunteered to be a kamikaze pilot but the war ended before he completed training.

Abe's maternal grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi, was the de facto "economic king" of occupied China and Manchukuo, a Japanese puppet state in Northern China established after the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in the lead-up to the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II.

During the war, Kishi served as Vice Minister of Munitions in the cabinet of Prime Minister Hideki Tojo.

At the end of the war, Kishi was imprisoned as a suspected "Class-A" war criminal by the US military occupation of Japan, but was released and later de-purged as part of the Occupation's "reverse course" due to the Cold War.

After graduating from Seikei University and briefly attending the University of Southern California, Abe was elected to the Japanese House of Representatives in the 1993 election.

Abe also served as Chief Cabinet Secretary from 2005 to 2006 under Junichiro Koizumi and was briefly the opposition leader in 2012.

Abe was born into a prominent political family in Tokyo and was the grandson of Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi.

Abe was appointed Chief Cabinet Secretary by Prime Minister Koizumi in 2005 before replacing him as prime minister and LDP president the following year.

Confirmed by the National Diet, Abe became Japan's youngest post-war prime minister and the first born after World War II.

Abe resigned as prime minister a year later due to ulcerative colitis and his party's recent election losses.

In 2007, he initiated the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue during his first tenure as prime minister, aimed at resisting China's rise as a superpower.

He advocated for amending Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution to legally codify the status of the Japan Self-Defense Forces (JSDF), however this was never achieved during his lifetime.

After recovering, Abe staged an unexpected political comeback by defeating Shigeru Ishiba, the former defense minister, to become LDP president in 2012.

He led the LDP to further victories in the 2014 and 2017 elections, becoming Japan's longest-serving prime minister.

He enacted military reforms in 2015 that allowed Japan to exercise collective security by allowing JSDF deployments overseas, the passage of which was controversial and met with protests.

Economically, Abe attempted to counter Japan's economic stagnation with "Abenomics", with mixed results.

He was also credited with reinstating the Trans-Pacific Partnership with the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership.

On 8 July 2022, Abe was assassinated while delivering a campaign speech in Nara two days before the 10 July upper house elections.

The suspect, who was immediately arrested by Japanese police, confessed to targeting the former prime minister because of Abe's reported ties with the Unification Church.

Under his premiership, Japan–South Korea relations further strained in 2019 over disputes about reparations.

Earlier that same year, Abe's government initiated a trade dispute with South Korea after the South Korean Supreme Court ruled that reparations be made by Japanese companies who had benefited from forced labor.

Abe was considered a hard-liner with respect to Japan's military policies.

In 2020, Abe again resigned as prime minister, citing a relapse of his colitis, and was succeeded by Yoshihide Suga.

Abe was a staunch conservative and associated with the Nippon Kaigi, which holds negationist views on Japanese history, including denying the role of government coercion in the recruitment of comfort women during World War II, a position which caused tensions particularly with South Korea.