Japan's former PM Shinzo Abe was assassinated during a campaign event in Nara. Video / AP
The death of former Japanese leader Shinzo Abe might prove the catalyst for the country to fulfil his dream of reforming its pacifist constitution.
As prime minister, Shinzo Abe desperately wanted to end Japan's constitutional commitment to pacifism and make it a military power once again. In death, he may very well do exactly that.
Stunned at the killing of Abe as he campaigned in Nara yesterday, the country's conservatives now anticipate an even bigger margin of victory for the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in Sunday's election for the upper house of the Diet. That might allow them to revise the constitution they say was imposed by the vengeful Allies at the end of World War II.
"I believe the LDP will now do better than expected and I hope that what has happened today will also galvanise those who win because of Abe's death to follow through on his most important policies", said Yoichi Shimada, a professor of international relations at Fukui Prefectural University and a personal friend of Abe.
Abe's political leanings are a legacy of his upbringing. His grandfather was Nobusuke Kishi, the economic master of occupied China and Manchukuo, the puppet state set up in north-east China by Tokyo in the years before World War II. During the conflict, he served as vice minister of munitions under prime minister Hideki Tojo.
With Japan's defeat, he was detained as a suspected class-A war criminal for his role in the war, but escaped prosecution and helped to set up the LDP in 1955. Kishi served as prime minister from 1957 to 1960.
Shinzo Abe, as a child in the 1950s, celebrating a birthday of his grandfather Nobusuke Kishi, who led Japan between 1957 and 1960. Photo / Shinzo Abe Office
Abe's own father, Shintaro Abe, volunteered as a kamikaze pilot but Japan surrendered before he completed his training.
The longest-serving prime minister in modern Japanese history, Abe's other signature political programme was unveiled in 2012 and quickly labelled "Abenomics". The "three arrows" of the economic revitalisation plan involved fiscal stimulus through massive government spending, monetary easing measures by the Bank of Japan and structural reforms.
The first two policies were relatively effective as GDP grew and the national debt contracted. However, attempts to bring about corporate, political and bureaucratic reforms foundered. "Womenomics", an effort to drastically increase representation of women in business and government, was one such failure.
On the world stage, Abe was one of the few world leaders to maintain consistently strong relations with Donald Trump, hosting two visits from him as US president. At home, he stayed true to nationalist roots, visiting a controversial shrine for Japan's war dead that includes war criminals, and refusing to apologise to South Korea for atrocities committed in the conflict.
Shinzo Abe with his father Shintaro, who was Japan's foreign affairs minister from 1982 to 1986. Photo / Shinzo Abe Office, AP
Abe was first elected to the Diet in 1993, from the family's safe seat in Yamaguchi prefecture, and never made any secret of his desire to rewrite sections of the constitution, which was enacted in May 1947.
Article 9 states that Japan renounces war as a sovereign right and declares that "land, sea and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained". The result of this is that Japan has what it terms "self-defence forces", although Abe proposed adding that Japan does have the right to have a military force.
Abe stated on several occasions he hoped that Japan could become a "normal nation" capable of playing a larger role on the world stage, although that usually triggered angry outbursts from China and both North and South Korea. Pyongyang, in particular, insisted that Abe had ambitions to rebuild Japan's Asian empire.
In the end, the Japanese public, still scarred by the horrors of war, were unwilling to endorse his militaristic ambitions.
Shinzo Abe meeting Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, in 2018. His defence plans for Japan would often trigger angry responses from Beijing. Photo / Li Tao/Xinhua via AP
However, Beijing has grown more aggressive still since Abe's ill health forced him to retire as prime minister in August 2020. Threats over Taiwan have grown louder. The invasion of Ukraine has dispelled any complacency over the possibility of wars of conquest in the modern era.
Even before the events of Friday, the LDP was on course to win more seats in Sunday's election than any other party. If it can secure 82 of the 124 seats that are being contested, that would give it the super-majority in the 245-seat chamber required to force a debate and vote on altering the constitution.
Professor Shimada believes a higher turnout on Sunday will favour Abe's party.
"The present prime minister, [Fumio] Kishida, has not been such a strong advocate of change as Abe, but he will now have the political support to revise the constitution," he said.
