Shinzo Abe, barbarian-defeating shogun?November 5th, 2005 by Joe Jones |
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Now that we’ve completely trashed Foreign Minister Taro Aso’s political qualifications, it’s time to look at Shinzo Abe, the new Chief Cabinet Secretary and Minister of State for Taking Over After Koizumi, shown here in all-out “I’m gonna be a world leader someday!” mode.
Like Koizumi, Abe is a popular guy. Also like Koizumi, he enjoys ruffling feathers, whether it’s advocating a tougher defense policy or visiting Yasukuni Shrine. He is often described as “hawkish,” although I think that word is a bit loaded. He’s certainly confrontational, though: his fame comes from negotiations with North Korea over the abductee issue, in which he refused to take much crap.
Like Aso, he has a political pedigree, although it doesn’t go too far back. Abe’s father Shintaro Abe was Secretary-General of the LDP and served in the Nakasone cabinet back in the mid-80’s. His maternal grandfather Nobusuke Kishi was Prime Minister in the late 1950’s and younger brother of Prime Minister Eisaku Sato, who won the Nobel Peace Prize. Kishi and Sato were both rags-to-riches stories, so Abe’s political lineage ends there.
He started out at Kobe Steel after college, then worked his way into the bureaucracy and became his father’s secretary during the elder Abe’s tenure as Secretary-General. After his father died in 1991, he ran for the empty seat representing Yamaguchi Prefecture, won it, and slipped from the administration into the government.
The Chief Cabinet Secretary position, a combination of press secretary and chief of staff, gives Abe an excellent platform to become even more well-known to the people (many CCSes have gone on to become prime ministers, most recently the late Keizo Obuchi). But he shouldn’t need too much help: he’s already way ahead of the field in opinion polls. Abe has been getting some blogger support too: Lord Curzon is a longtime fan, for one.
Koizumi is using his great political capital to give the country a choice between a hard-ass and a wack-ass. This Yomiuri writer says it Japanese-style:
Koizumi, by including possible successors in the Cabinet, intends to let them compete with each other to come up with ideas and efforts for reform, a decision that suggests the prime minister is grooming an heir to inherit a shogunate named “reform.” ... Koizumi, in his reshuffle, made it quite clear he wants this shogunate of reform to be inherited by Abe.
The choice is pretty obvious; hopefully the obvious choice will be made, so Japan doesn’t end up with a prime minister who’s obsessed with “floppies.”
CAVEAT: It could be one of those dark horses, too, like finance minister Sadakazu Tanigaki. But Abe is who just about everyone seems to want.
November 7th, 2005 at 7:21 am
There’s also a chance, and only a chance, mind you, that Abe will get squeezed out in favor of a more pro-China guy. This would be because Keidanren needs a somewhat happy China to keep business healthy. Abe will undoubtedly visit Yasukuni as much as Koizumi or more (along with his boys in the 平和を願い新の国益を考え靖国参拝を支持する若手国会議員の会), giving China their perennial “way for the angry peasants to vent that’s not Tiananmen Square”. Hmmm. Maybe China wants a hard-ass in the PM seat to have a distraction… Never mind. Abe is in.
November 11th, 2005 at 9:59 am
[...] The Yomiuri Online has posted an portions of a transcript of an interview with newly appointed Chief Cabinet Secretary Abe Shinzo under the headline “Abe tight-lipped about political ambitions.” [...]
January 16th, 2006 at 10:44 pm
[...] Shinzo Abe, who many people believe will succeed Junichiro Koizumi as prime minister of Japan, put it very correctly. Not only do India and Japan have common interests, they are also generally well-disposed towards each other. Yet, the pace at which the bilateral relationship has grown leaves much to be desired. Fortunately he has clearly declared an interest in putting relations with India on a more important track. “We need not only to look at Japan-China relations but also to have a bird’s-eye view of the whole of Asia or the world when we engage in diplomacy with Asian nations,” he told the public broadcaster NHK on Sunday. [...]
September 20th, 2006 at 3:33 am
Today, Mr Shinzo Abe won the vote of presidency of LDP. I have just read his book, titled “Toward the Beautiful Country.” It was a fascinating book. He who would be the prime minister in quite near future wrote straightly what he thought and insisted.