A few issues ago I put in an episode titled “Abe Stepped Aside”, in which I suggested his departure would inevitably ignite a political change of course in Japan.

“Japan is undergoing a major political shift as the LDP’s leadership changes from the outgoing PM Abe Shinzo to his cabinet secretary Yoshihide Suga. It is a shift grand enough to affect the general course of Japan’s political moves at large.”

Abe was abruptly gunned down on July 8. The incident ironically sped up such a process and is consequently exposing a grave struggle of power within the leading Liberal Democratic Party. The following is my observation, mark you, my personal analysis, free of authentic views expressed by popular critics, of what’s likely happening within the party and the course it is taking toward its own possible demise in time as Japan’s leading political party.

Abe-Suga-Kishida

The shift of power from Abe to Yoshihide Suga, then his cabinet secretary, reportedly due to Abe’s aggravating health, was significant in that Abe’s political points of view were basically honored and some key decisions laid out by Abe relayed to survive, e.g. the appointment issue of the Science Council of Japan and similar issues featuring the solid conservative Abe. PM Suga played his role of de facto chief of the shadow Abe cabinet for a brief period and abruptly terminated his role as PM, thus opening the way for Kishida to target anew the new LDP leadership. 

Kishi and Abe

Allow me an extra moment to feed you with a few basic pieces of info I believe helpful to unwind the riddle leading to the passing of Shinzo Abe. I trust you remember a former Japanese prime minister Nobusuke Kishi who inked the Japan-US Security Treaty back in 1960 and had to forsake his cabinet on its account. Kishi paid the price, so to say, of a mutual security deal with the US with his own political life. 

Shinzo Abe is, by the way, a grandson of Kishi; the two men are solid conservatives and ardent nationalists who led the land of the Rising Sun each at his own time when Japan’s nationalism was gravely at stake. The only difference is that the grandfather had staked his political life for a grand cause of formulating the basis of Japan’s national security, while the grandson lost his physical life on account of some seemingly petty cause – at least it so seems, pending further investigation on the circumstances leading to his death.

Toitsu Kyokai (Unification Church)

Now, here’s a delicate element that links the two men, Kishi and Abe: Kishi and his party, LDP (Liberal Democratic Party), had in his time (and still this very day) a link with the Korea-based religious body Toitsu Kyokai (Unification Church) and Abe with its modern version “Family Federation for World Peace and Unification”(FFWPU). Politics and religion are often associated by way of electioneering not only here in Japan but elsewhere and this, for better or worse, is the case in point. 

Why killed Abe?

Well, it is utterly disgusting to learn that the assassin who gunned the popularly respected statesman to death is identified so far to be a mere hooligan who reportedly chose to kill Abe for a remotely political reason associated with this FFWPU of which his mother was a member. His mother was so ardent a believer of the sect that she had diligently contributed to the religious body to the point of her family bankruptcy. 

According to the news source so far available, Shinzo Abe had more often than not contributed certain video messages to FFWPU to reportedly upset the hooligan to the extent of assassinating Abe. He had conceived the plan a year ago and often practiced his handmade gun up in some woods, they say.

So, the tragedy did take place and a high price was paid for such petty and meaningless conduct. It is miserably regrettable that our dear Shinzo Abe had to go for so slight a reason. What a pity predicament!

On LDP

The loss of Shinzo Abe is gravely mourned far and wide. His loss itself means that of nationalism and healthy conservatism in Japan. A brief history of the hitherto leading political party LDP is due here.

LDP is often called the “People’s Party” for its function of somehow representing the broad view of the Japanese public. Somehow – for a good reason: the party has a built-in mechanism of loosely representing both wings of political life, “uyoku” and “sayoku” (right and left), by embodying within itself a group of mild leftists side by side with the authentic right-wing conservatives. LDP may be said to have had an “opposition party” within itself to cater to the occasional needs of silencing external leftist outcries. In the initial phase, the party was predominantly conservative with little trace of left-wing ideology; in the intermediate period 60-40%; but in the recent phase up till today nationalist conservatism within LDP has reportedly lost ground to the leftists down to as little as 18%-82% against the intra-party liberals.

The trend is due predominantly to Japan’s fast drifting China-bound. Shinzo Abe was a key nationalist claiming to rectify the basics of the Constitution but had to regulate his moves toward the last few years of leadership in deference to pro-Chinese elements in the financial and industrial sectors. 

In case you are unaware, the current PM Kishida stood miles away from Abe’s political stance. Abe posted him to the foreign affairs ministership merely to maintain factional balance within LDP, being fully aware that Kishida leads faction favoring Japan’s drift China-bound.

Trump and Abe

You recall Trump and Abe were rather close not only in terms of mutual friendship but in basic political stance – nationalism. Both were close in national security policies, Abe promoting Japan’s own defense capabilities and Trump favoring Japan’s access to nuclear weaponry (recall his remarks to that extent in his comment in one of his earlier statements, though he quickly reversed his position). 

Why, why, why.?

Only recently, a week before Abe’s passing, Kishida sucked a key official in the Defense Ministry in favor of his own choice to openly declare his position on national defense contrary to Abe’s own. Why Kishida took that action at that moment is a riddle; why Abe had to be gunned down at that very moment is a mystery; why Abe had to be left practically unguarded at the moment of gunning is a gross suspicion, and lastly why the remains of Abe had to be so hurriedly cremated is utterly dubious. 

I hesitate to elaborate any further for lack of evidence and restrain myself for a moment only to merely state that the assassination of Shinzo Abe had to be an outcome of some deep-set design to undermine Japan’s inevitable recursion to nationalism. A fully comprehensive investigation is desperately due to clear every why in the assassination of Shinzo Abe and what it all amounts to, for the sake of justice in the Land of the Rising Sun.

LDP’s breakup inevitable

As earlier mentioned, LDP is today geared farther to the left than ever before, and the presence of Shinzo Abe was said to be the last torch of conservatism in that party. His departure then will in due course signal a drastic change in the party’s stance on Japan’s political scene, leading possibly, if not inevitably, to the disintegration of LDP and the end of the current LDP-Komeito coalition. 

Lastly, the advance of the new conservative party, Sanseito, coming as it did simultaneously with a signal of LDP’s inevitable breakup after the passing of Shinzo Abe, could turn out a timely impetus to help reorient Japan’s political climate away from Beijing and engineer a fresh platform for upgrading the mutual security tie with the United States. Kindly be reminded that all this is my personal and hopefully meaningful analysis for your scrutiny of a political gale currently blowing in Japan. 

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