Shinzo Abe was a political blueblood groomed for power. Japan's longest serving prime minister, he was also perhaps the most polarising, complex politician in recent Japanese history. 9News
was a political blueblood groomed for power. Japan's longest serving prime minister, he was also perhaps the most polarising, complex politician in recent Japanese history.
"He's the most towering political figure in Japan over the past couple of decades," said Dave Leheny, a political scientist at Waseda University. Abe was a darling of conservatives but reviled by many liberals in Japan. And no policy was more divisive than his cherished, ultimately unsuccessful dream to revise Japan's war-renouncing constitution. His ultra-nationalism also angered the Koreas and China, both wartime victims of Japan.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, right, reviews members of Japan Self-Defense Forces during the Self-Defense Forces Day at Asaka Base, north of Tokyo on Oct. 27, 2013. Supporters point to his efforts to raise Japan's profile on the international stage, and his proposal for a new order of like-minded democracies as a counter to China's rise, something Washington and others soon endorsed.
Then Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe removes a face mask before speaking at a press conference at his official residence in Tokyo May 4, 2020In addition to the failure on constitutional revision, he was also unable to settle several other unfinished legacies of the war, including normalising ties with North Korea, settling island disputes with neighbours and signing a peace treaty with Russia formally ending their hostilities in World War II.
But there has always been general public support for the pacifist constitution and divided views on amendments within Abe's governing party. Many lawmakers preferred to focus on economic growth.
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