On the First Anniversary of the Death of Former Prime Minister Abe

On the First Anniversary of the Death of Former Prime Minister Abe　
Prime Minister who awakened the spirit of self-reliance and self-respect　
Nobukatsu Kanehara, former Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary and Visiting Professor at Doshisha University

Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe

A short time after the death of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, I visited his home in Tomigaya, Tokyo, and laid my hands on his soul.
As I stood before the urn wrapped in a dark blue cloth, I felt tears welling in my eyes as I thought, "Oh, how small he has become."
On the wall behind the large orchid swaying in the air was a gold-plated Hannya Shingyo (Heart Sutra) on a blue background, which his grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi, had copied more than 1,000 times in his later years.
I lost an irreplaceable person.
The thought still tingles in the back of my mind.

Nobukatsu Kanehara

The shape of the country changed drastically.

He was a man who tried to create a new Japan.
He was a fierce man.
He was a kind man.
And he was selfless.
That is why everyone in the prime minister's office was on fire.
We will follow him to the end.
Everyone thought so.
The will of one person at the top moved the entire country.
The shape of the country was changing rapidly.

He was the prime minister who turned the sky around, changed the times, and revived the nation's waning momentum.
He demonstrated the new identity of the Japanese people with his own body.
Until then, the Japanese people had leaned on the United States for security, passed the bill for social security on to future generations, dragged their defeated nation complex with them, and suffered from the ideological divide caused by the Cold War.
They had lost sight of their true selves, and their zest for life had waned.

The 70th anniversary of the war's end has restored pride and confidence to the young people who will lead Japan in the future. 
Japan is a member of the leaders of a free society.
It is a country that stands on the crest of the waves of world history.
That was the belief.
For this to happen, the Western nations must have a narrative of world history that can be shared with the people of the Global South.

The world has matured ethically over the century of the 20th century.
War has been repudiated.
Racism and all other forms of discrimination have been denied.
Colonial rule was dragged down, which had spread to Asia and Africa.
There are Martyred saints like Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.
At the end of the 20th century, communist dictatorships in Eastern Europe, led by the Soviet Union, collapsed one after another.
Many lives of famous and unknown people were sacrificed to make today's liberal society possible.

The belief that one's own country can be protected by oneself

What has motivated people around the world is a simple truth.
All people are born equal.
People are entitled to their own lives, freedom, and happiness.
The government is established for this purpose.
The legitimacy of government is based on the consent of the people.
The first few lines of the American Declaration of Independence are no different from the essence of Eastern thought that the will of heaven is the will of the people.

The world has changed over the last 100 years of the 20th century," Abe used to say when discussing historical issues.
Liberal society has finally emerged on a global scale in the 21st century.
Japan will be its leader.
This determination gave birth to the "Free and Open Indo-Pacific" concept, the "Quad" concept, and propelled Japan to the heights of global politics.
ODA (Official Development Assistance) diplomacy in the 1980s, international contribution diplomacy by the Self-Defense Forces in the 1990s, and values diplomacy in the 21st century have returned Japan to the position of leader in the international community.
It is not just about money.
It is not only about military power.
It is because it has developed diplomacy equipped with conviction and leadership.

Mr. Abe has also awakened the samurai spirit of self-reliance and self-respect that lies dormant within the Japanese people.
Do not lean on the United States.
He will defend his country by himself.
The U.S.-Japan alliance is to make up for what we lack.
Be self-reliant.
And awaken our survival instinct as a nation.
This belief has shaken Japan out of its deep slumber of peace.
Xi Jinping's increasingly autocratic China, with an economy three times the size of Japan's, is already preparing for the armed annexation of Taiwan, now an island of freedom.
The threat will come suddenly.

The Inheritance

As prime minister, he moved quickly.
He established the National Security Council (NSC), formulated the National Security Strategy, changed the interpretation of the Constitution, endorsed the exercise of the right of collective self-defense, and enacted the Specified Secret Protection Law, all in rapid succession.
During his eight years in office, he increased defense expenditures by over 1 trillion yen, including supplementary budgets.
At the same time, he raised the consumption tax twice and secured more than 10 trillion yen in tax revenues.

After leaving office, he continued to speak out actively.
The Taiwan contingency is a Japan contingency.
Japan should put the sharing of nuclear weapons with the U.S. on the chopping block of national debate.
How frustrated he must have felt in the face of the Japanese people's unwillingness to react to the crisis that lay before them.
The Japanese people's survival instincts, intoxicated by smug pacifism, began to awaken little by little from the depths of their deep, dark doldrums in response to the passionate call.

In the final stage of the Abe administration, in the wake of the U.S.-China  power competition, security interests began to sprout even among monetary authorities and business circles, which had consistently avoided military affairs since the end of World War II.
Prime Ministers Suga Yoshihide and Kishida Fumio, who followed in his footsteps, enacted many economic security legislation.
Now, they are trying to take it to a higher level by increasing defense spending to 2% of GDP.

A nation lives in heartache and dies in peace (Mencius).
Now that Mr. Abe has awakened the nation's survival instincts, Japan appears to be trembling like a lion that has finally risen from the water.
（Nobukatsu Kanehara)

2023 on May, in Osaka