Shinzo Abe

Shinzo Abe ( ; ja, 安倍 晋三, Hepburn: , ; 21 September 1954 – 8 July 2022) was a Japanese politician who served as Prime Minister of Japan and President of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) from 2006 to 2007 and again from 2012 to 2020. He was the longest-serving prime minister in Japanese history. Abe also served as Chief Cabinet Secretary from 2005 to 2006 under Junichiro Koizumi and was briefly the opposition leader in 2012.

Abe was born into a prominent political family in Tokyo and was the grandson of Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi. After graduating from Seikei University and briefly attending the University of Southern California, Abe was elected to the House of Representatives in the 1993 election. Abe was appointed Chief Cabinet Secretary by Prime Minister Koizumi in 2005 before replacing him as prime minister and LDP president the following year. Confirmed by the National Diet, Abe became Japan's youngest post-war prime minister and the first born after World War II. Abe resigned as prime minister after one year due to ulcerative colitis and his party's recent election losses. After recovering, Abe staged an unexpected political comeback by defeating Shigeru Ishiba, the former defense minister, to become LDP president in 2012. Following the LDP's landslide victory in that year's general election, Abe became the first former prime minister to return to the office since Shigeru Yoshida in 1948. He led the LDP to further victories in the 2014 and 2017 elections, becoming Japan's longest-serving prime minister. In 2020, Abe again resigned as prime minister, citing a relapse of his colitis, and was succeeded by Yoshihide Suga.

Abe was a staunch conservative whom political commentators had described as a right-wing Japanese nationalist. Associated with the Nippon Kaigi, he held negationist views on Japanese history, including denying the role of government coercion in the recruitment of comfort women during World War II, a position which caused tensions particularly with South Korea. Under his premiership, relations further strained in 2019 over disputes about reparations. Earlier that same year, Abe's government initiated a trade dispute with South Korea after the South Korean Supreme Court ruled that reparations be made by Japanese companies who had benefited from forced labor. Abe was considered a hard-liner with respect to Japan's military policies. In 2007, he initiated the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue during his first tenure as prime minister, aimed at resisting China's rise as a superpower. He advocated reforming the Japan Self-Defense Forces (JSDF) by revising Article 9 of the Japanese constitution that outlawed declarations of war.BBC websit
Japan upgrades its defence agency
, BBC, 9 January 2007. He enacted military reforms in 2015 that allowed Japan to exercise collective security by allowing JSDF deployments overseas, the passage of which was controversial and met with protests. Economically, Abe attempted to counter Japan's economic stagnation with "Abenomics", with mixed results. Abe was also credited with reinstating the Trans-Pacific Partnership with the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Abe was assassinated on 8 July 2022 while delivering a campaign speech in Nara two days before the 10 July upper house elections. The suspect, who was arrested directly by police, confessed to targeting the former prime minister because of Abe's ties with the Unification Church. Abe's assassination was the first assassination of a former Japanese prime minister since 1936. A polarizing figure in Japanese politics, Abe was described by his supporters as a patriot who worked to strengthen Japan's security and international stature, while his opponents described his nationalistic policies and negationist views on history as threatening Japanese pacifism and damaging relations with East Asian neighbors China and South Korea. Commentators have said that his legacy pushed Japan towards more proactive military spending, security, and economic policies.

Early life

Family

Shinzo Abe was born on 21 September 1954 to a prominent political family in Shinjuku, Tokyo. Although as a boy he aspired to become a filmmaker, Abe's family history led him upon a political path. His father Shintaro Abe served in the House of Representatives from 1958 to 1991, with stints as Chief Cabinet Secretary, Minister for International Trade and Industry, and Minister for Foreign Affairs. During World War II, Shintaro volunteered to be a kamikaze pilot but the war ended before he completed training.

Abe's maternal grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi, was the ''de facto'' "economic king" of occupied China and Manchukuo, a Japanese puppet state in Northern China established after the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in the lead-up to the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II. During the war, Kishi served as Vice Minister of Munitions in the cabinet of Prime Minister Hideki Tojo. At the end of the war, Kishi was imprisoned as a suspected "Class-A" war criminal by the US military occupation of Japan, but was released and later de-purged as part of the Occupation's "reverse course" due to the Cold War. Kishi helped found the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in 1955 and served as Prime Minister of Japan from 1957 until his 1960 resignation following the Anpo protests. The BBC speculated that Abe's aversion to protests may have originated as a result. Abe viewed Kishi as his "No 1 role model" and was influenced by many of his beliefs, like Kishi's hawkish stance on Communist China. Regarding Kishi, Abe later wrote: "Some people used to point to my grandfather as a 'Class-A war criminal suspect,' and I felt strong repulsion. Because of that experience, I may have become emotionally attached to 'conservatism,' on the contrary".

Abe's paternal grandfather, Kan Abe, was a Yamaguchi landowner who served in the House of Representatives during World War II. In contrast to Kishi, Kan Abe was a stalwart pacifist who opposed the Tojo government and war in East Asia.

Education and early career

Abe attended Seikei Elementary School and Seikei Junior and Senior High School (成蹊中学校・高等学校). He studied public administration and graduated with a bachelor's degree in political science from Seikei University in 1977. From 1978 to 1979, Abe attended the University of Southern California where he studied English as a visiting student. After taking courses in history, international relations, and political science for three semesters, Abe left. Abe is reported to have been an average student.

In April 1979, Abe began working for Kobe Steel. He left the company in 1982 and pursued a number of government positions including executive assistant to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, private secretary to the chairperson of the LDP General Council, and private secretary to the LDP secretary-general. Abe worked as a secretary for his father who visited 81 countries in the 1980s. These travels imparted to Abe the importance of building relations with foreign leaders.

Member of the House of Representatives

Abe was elected to the in 1993 after his father's 1991 death, winning the most votes of the four Representatives elected in the SNTV multi-member district. In 1999, he became Director of the Social Affairs Division. He was Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary in the Yoshirō Mori and Junichiro Koizumi Cabinets from 2000 to 2003, after which he was appointed Secretary-General of the Liberal Democratic Party.

Abe was a member of the Mori Faction (formally, the Seiwa Seisaku Kenkyū-kai) of the Liberal Democratic Party. This faction is headed by former prime minister Yoshirō Mori. Junichiro Koizumi was a member of the Mori Faction, but left it, as is the custom when accepting a high party post. From 1986 to 1991, Abe's father, Shintaro, headed the same faction.

In 2000, Abe's home and the office of his supporters in Shimonoseki, in Yamaguchi Prefecture, were attacked with Molotov cocktails on numerous occasions. The perpetrators were several Yakuza members belonging to the Kudo-kai, a Kitakyushu-based designated boryokudan syndicate. The reason for the attacks was believed to be that Abe's local aide refused to give cash to a Shimonoseki real estate broker in return for supporting a Shimonoseki mayoral candidate in 1999.

Abe was the chief negotiator for the Japanese government on behalf of the families of Japanese abductees taken to North Korea. As a part of the effort, he accompanied Koizumi to meet Kim Jong‑il in 2002. He gained national popularity when he demanded that Japanese abductees visiting Japan remain in the country, in defiance of North Korea.

He was the leader of a project team within the LDP that conducted a survey on "excessive sexual education and gender-free education". Among the items to which this team raised objections were anatomical dolls and other curricular materials "not taking into consideration the age of children", school policies banning traditional boys' and girls' festivals, and mixed-gender physical education. The team sought to provide a contrast to the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), which it alleged supported such policies.''Kodomo wa shakai no takara, kuni no takara desu''
jimin.jp (LDP site)

On 23 April 2006, Abe was elected as the president of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.Shinzo Abe to Succeed Koizumi as Japan's Next Prime Minister
Bloomberg L.P. His chief competitors for the position were Sadakazu Tanigaki and Tarō Asō. Yasuo Fukuda was a leading early contender but ultimately chose not to run. Former prime minister Yoshirō Mori, to whose faction both Abe and Fukuda belonged, stated that the faction strongly leant toward Abe.Mori faction unease mounts / Ex-premier stumped over Abe, Fukuda and party leadership race
Daily Yomiuri

First term as prime minister (2006–2007)

Inauguration and cabinet

On 26 September 2006, Abe was inaugurated as Japanese prime minister. Elected at age 52, he was the youngest prime minister since Fumimaro Konoe in 1941. He was also the first prime minister born after World War II. Abe's first cabinet was announced on 26 September 2006. The only minister retained in his position from the previous Koizumi cabinet was Foreign Minister Tarō Asō, who had been one of Abe's competitors for the LDP presidency. In addition to the cabinet positions existing under Koizumi, Abe created five new "advisor" positions.
He reshuffled his cabinet on 27 August 2007. Commentators noted that these changes seemed to effort by Abe to organize the Prime Minister's office into something more akin to the White House.

''The New York Times'' noted that his cabinet appeared to place a larger emphasis on foreign policy and national security instead of domestic concerns like economic policy. It also speculated that Abe's primary goal may have been to revise the pacifist constitution.

Domestic policy

Abe expressed a general commitment to the reforms instituted by his predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi. He took some steps toward balancing the Japanese budget, such as appointing a tax policy expert, Kōji Omi, as Minister of Finance. Omi previously supported increases in the national consumption tax, although Abe distanced himself from this policy and sought to achieve much of his budget-balancing through spending cuts."Japan's Abe Unexpectedly Names Omi Finance Minister"
, Bloomberg L.P., 26 September 2006.

Since 1997, as the bureau chief of the "Institute of Junior Assembly Members Who Think About the Outlook of Japan and History Education", Abe supported the controversial Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform and the ''New History Textbook''. In March 2007, Abe, along with right-wing politicians, proposed a bill to encourage nationalism and a "love for one's country and hometown" among the Japanese youth (specific wording from the revised "Fundamental Law of Education" , which was revised to include "love of country").

In March 2007, Abe stated that there was no evidence that the Japanese military had forced women into sexual slavery during World War II, which the Japanese government had admitted and apologized for in the 1992 Kono Statement. Responding to a potential motion by the US Congress encouraging Japan to acknowledge the atrocity, Abe stated that the Japanese government would not apologize again.

Abe held conservative views in the Japanese succession controversy, and shortly after the birth of Prince Hisahito of Akishino he abandoned a proposed legislative amendment to permit women to inherit the Chrysanthemum Throne.

Foreign policy

North Korea

Abe generally took a hard-line stance on North Korea, especially regarding the North Korean abductions of Japanese citizens.

In 2002 negotiations between Japan and North Korea, Prime Minister Koizumi and general secretary Kim Jong-il agreed to give abductees permission to visit Japan. A few weeks into the visit, the Japanese government decided that the abductees would be restricted from returning to North Korea where their families live. Abe took credit for this policy decision in his bestselling book, . North Korea criticized this Japanese decision as a breach of a diplomatic promise, and the negotiations were aborted.

East and Southeast Asia

Abe publicly recognized the need for improved relations with the People's Republic of China (PRC) and, along with Foreign Minister Tarō Asō, sought an eventual summit meeting with former PRC paramount leader Hu Jintao. Abe also said that China–Japan relations should not continue to be based on "emotions".Japan's Abe Says Talks Needed to Improve Ties With China, South Korea
VOA News

Abe was respected among some politicians in the Republic of China (ROC, Taiwan), most notably those who are part of the Pan-Green Coalition seeking Taiwanese independence. Chen Shui-bian welcomed Abe's ministership.安倍新政権に期待　親台派の印象強く
''Mainichi Shimbun'', 26 September 2006. Part of Abe's appeal in Taiwan was historical; his grandfather Nobusuke Kishi was an anti-communist who supported Chiang Kai-shek's government after the government retreated to the island, and his great-uncle Eisaku Satō was the last prime minister to visit Taiwan while in office.

Abe expressed the need to strengthen political, security, and economic ties with Southeast Asian countries. Although the PRC is not within the Southeast Asian region, Japan has also sought its support. However, relations with the PRC and the ROC continue to be tarnished by the Senkaku Islands dispute and Abe's visits to the Yasukuni Shrine.

India

Abe, in his four terms as the prime minister of Japan, sought to upgrade the strategic Japan–India relationship. Abe initiated the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue between Japan, the United States, Australia, and India in 2007. His three-day visit to India in August 2007 inaugurated a new bilateral Asian alliance, building on the long history of friendly bilateral relations between India and Japan. Abe's initiative was to establish the "fifth" bilateral link in an emerging scenario, whereby, the US–Australia, US–Japan, Japan–Australia, and the US–India links are supportive strategic alignments. A sixth link of India-Australia would be the logical corollary, formalized as a new quadrilateral of a strategic bulwark. The eventual expansion to include Vietnam, South Korea, the Philippines, and Indonesia in this arrangement has been speculated in the media of those states. Chinese strategic experts have labeled the evolving geo-strategic paradigm, the "Asian NATO". Abe's pragmatic India foreign policy was to boost Japan's resurgent economic indicators while gaining a crucial partner in Asia.

Defense

Abe sought to revise or broaden the interpretation of Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution in order to permit Japan to maintain de jure military forces. He stated that "we are reaching the limit in narrowing down differences between Japan's security and the interpretation of our constitution".New Japanese Leader Looks to Expand Nation's Military
, ''NewsHour'', 20 September 2006. During his first period as prime minister, he upgraded the Japan Defense Agency to full ministry status. Like his predecessors, he supported the Japanese alliance with the United States. Abe supported the US-led war in Iraq.

Resignation

In the leadup to the July election, Abe's Agriculture Minister Toshikatsu Matsuoka committed suicide following a series of political funding scandals. He was the first cabinet member to commit suicide since World War II. Abe's ruling Liberal Democratic Party suffered great losses in the upper house election, losing control for the first time in 52 years. Agricultural minister, Norihiko Akagi, involved in a political funding scandal, resigned after the election. Additionally, Abe's rejection of a possible female Japanese monarch, which led to the Japanese succession controversy, diminished his support base.

In an attempt to revive his administration, Abe announced a new cabinet in August 2007. Support for Abe rose by 10 percent as a result. However, the new agricultural minister Takehiko Endo, involved in a finance scandal, resigned only seven days later.

On 12 September 2007, only three days after a new parliamentary session had begun, Abe announced his intention to resign his position as prime minister at an unscheduled press conference. The announcement came just minutes before opposition leaders were scheduled to question him in Parliament and shocked many. Abe had described himself as a "politician who fights" and previously pledged not to resign. Abe explained that his unpopularity was hindering the passage of an anti-terrorism law, involving among other things Japan's continued military presence in Afghanistan. Party officials also said the embattled prime minister was suffering from poor health.

Abe remained in the National Diet following his resignation as prime minister. He was re-elected to his Yamaguchi 4th district seat in the 2009 election, when the Liberal Democratic Party lost power to the DPJ.

While serving as a member of the Japanese Diet, Abe visited Taiwan in 2010 and 2011. There he met with president Ma Ying-jeou, former president Lee Teng-hui and future president Tsai Ing-wen, who was then the leader of the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party. Ma described Abe as "the ROC's best friend" and said Abe was the third generation of his family to have close ties with the Republic of China. Abe also visited the National Revolutionary Martyrs' Shrine, a shrine dedicated to the war dead of the Republic of China, including those who died in the Second Sino-Japanese War.

Abe later revealed that the illness that contributed to ending his first term as prime minister was ulcerative colitis, but that he recovered due to access to a drug, Asacol, that was previously unavailable in Japan.

Second LDP presidency and 2012 general election

Following the resignation of LDP president Sadakazu Tanigaki, Abe was re-elected as president of the party on 26 September 2012, coming in second out of five candidates in the first round of voting, but defeating former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba in a runoff vote by 108 votes to 89.

Abe returned to the LDP leadership at a time of political turmoil, as the governing DPJ had lost its majority in the lower house due to party splits over nuclear policies and the cabinet's move to raise the consumption tax from 5 to 10 percent. Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda was forced to rely on the LDP to pass the consumption tax bill and in return was pressured by Abe and the opposition parties to hold a snap general election. Noda agreed to this on the conditions that the LDP passed a bond-financing bill and would support a commission to reform the social security system and address electoral malapportionment in the next diet session.

On 16 November 2012, Prime Minister Noda announced the dissolution of the lower house and that the general election would be held on 16 December. Abe campaigned using the slogan ''"Nippon o Torimodosu"'' (''"''Take back Japan''"''), promising economic revival through monetary easing, higher public spending and the continued use of nuclear energy, and a tough line in territorial disputes.

In the elections on 16 December 2012, the LDP won 294 seats in the 480-seat House of Representatives. Together with the New Komeito Party (which partnered with the LDP since the late 1990s), Abe was able to form a coalition government that controlled a two-thirds majority in the lower house, allowing it to override the upper house's veto.

Second term as prime minister (2012–2014)

On 26 December 2012, Abe was formally elected as prime minister by the Diet, with the support of 328 out of 480 members of the House of Representatives. He and his second cabinet, which he called a "crisis-busting cabinet", were sworn in later that day. The new government included LDP heavyweights such as former prime minister Tarō Asō as Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister, Yoshihide Suga as Chief Cabinet Secretary and Akira Amari as Economy Minister. Following his victory, Abe said, "With the strength of my entire cabinet, I will implement bold monetary policy, flexible fiscal policy and a growth strategy that encourages private investment, and with these three policy pillars, achieve results."

In February 2013 Abe gave an address at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., in which he explained his economic and diplomatic objectives, and that he had returned to the prime ministership to prevent Japan becoming a "Tier Two Nation", declaring that "Japan is back".

Economic policy

The Second Abe cabinet revived the Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy (CEFP) that had played a key role in formulating economic policy during the Koizumi cabinet, but had been abandoned by the 2009–2012 DPJ administrations.

Abe declared in his January 2013 policy speech to the Diet that economic revival and escaping deflation was "the greatest and urgent issue" facing Japan. His economic strategy, referred to as Abenomics, consisted of the so-called "three arrows" (an allusion to an old Japanese story) of policy. The first arrow was monetary expansion aimed at achieving a 2% inflation target, the second a flexible fiscal policy to act as an economic stimulus in the short term, then achieve a budget surplus, and the third a growth strategy focusing on structural reform and private sector investment to achieve long-term growth.

In 2019, it was reported that 40% of key economic statistics collected from 2005 to 2017 contained errors, casting doubt on the effectiveness of Abe's economic program and the reliability of Japanese economic statistics. It was discovered that the labor ministry did not follow protocol by only surveying about one-third of all the large Japanese businesses it was supposed to survey. The data was eventually corrected, and it was discovered that the faulty data presented Japanese economic statistics more favorably than the corrected data. The faulty data costed 19.7 million people about 53.7 billion yen in unpaid benefits, and costed the Japanese government 650 million yen to correct the error. Opposition politicians criticized the governments response; one lawmaker called Abe's economic program a fraud, with many journalists labeling the event as a data scandal.

"First Arrow": Monetary policy

At the first CEFP meeting in January 2013, Abe declared that the Bank of Japan should follow a policy of monetary easing to achieve a target of 2 percent inflation. Abe maintained pressure on the Bank's governor, Masaaki Shirakawa, who was reluctant to set specific targets, into agreeing to the policy. In February, after Abe publicly speculated that the government could legislate to strip the bank of independence, Shirakawa announced he was leaving office prematurely before his term expired. Abe then appointed Haruhiko Kuroda as governor, who had previously advocated inflation targets, and who has pursued the government's policies of monetary easing.

After the first meeting of the Bank's monetary policy committee after he had taken office in April, Kuroda announced an aggressive program of easing intended to double the money supply and achieve the 2 percent inflation target at "the earliest possible time". Over the first six months of the second Abe Cabinet, the Yen fell from a high of ¥77 to the dollar to ¥101.8, and the Nikkei 225 rose by 70 percent.

In a surprise move in October 2014, Kuroda announced that the BOJ would boost the monetary easing program and accelerate asset purchases, the monetary policy committee split by five votes to four but supported the policy. This was interpreted as a response to disappointing economic figures in the aftermath of the increase in the consumption tax to 8 percent, inflation has fallen to 1 percent from its peak of 1.5 percent in April.

"Second Arrow": Fiscal policy

The Abe Cabinet's first budget included a 10.3 trillion yen stimulus package, composed of public works spending, aid for small businesses and investment incentives, that aimed to increase growth by 2 percent. The budget also increased defense spending and manpower while reducing foreign aid.

In Autumn 2013, Abe decided to proceed with the first stage of the increase in the consumption tax from 5 to 8 percent in April 2014 (with a second stage envisaged raising it to 10 percent in October 2015). The bill to raise the tax had been passed under the previous DPJ government, but the final decision lay with the Prime Minister. He and Finance Minister Tarō Asō explained that the tax would be increased to provide a "sustainable" basis for future social spending and to avoid the need to finance future stimulus by issuing government bonds. While this was expected to affect economic growth in the quarter following the rise, Abe also announced a 5-trillion yen stimulus package that aimed to mitigate any effects on economic revival. After the increase in April, Japan fell into recession during the second and third quarters of 2014, leading to Abe delaying the second stage of the tax rise until April 2017 and calling a snap election . In response to the recession, Aso announced that the government would ask the Diet to pass a supplementary budget to fund a further stimulus package worth 2–3 trillion yen.

There had been some division within the Abe cabinet between "fiscal hawks", such as Finance Minister Aso, who favored fiscal consolidation through spending cuts and tax increases, and deflationists, such as Abe himself, who argued in favor of a "growth first" policy that prioritizes economic expansion and recovery over budget considerations using the slogan "no fiscal health without economic revitalization". Abe's decision to delay the consumption tax increase in November 2014 and his push for a large fiscal deficit in the 2015 budget without social security cuts was interpreted as a victory for this faction within the LDP. The government did, however, commit to a primary surplus by 2020, and pledged to review its strategy in 2018 if the primary deficit had not fallen to 1 percent of GDP by that time.

"Third Arrow": Growth strategy and structural reform

On 15 March 2013, Abe announced that Japan was entering negotiations to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). This was interpreted by analysts as a means through which the government could enact reforms to liberalize certain sectors of the Japanese economy, most notably agriculture, and was criticized by farm lobbies and some sections of the LDP. Economist Yoshizaki Tatsuhiko described the TPP as having the potential to act as the "linchpin of Abe's economic revitalization strategy" by making Japan more competitive through free trade. In February 2015 the Abe government struck a deal to limit the power of the JA-Zenchu body to supervise and audit Japan's agricultural co-operatives, in a move designed to facilitate TPP negotiations, improve the competitiveness of Japan's farming sector and curtail the influence of the agriculture lobby.

Abe revealed the first measures related to the "third arrow" policies in June 2013, which included plans to establish deregulated economic zones and allow the sale of drugs online, but did not include substantial measures related to the labor market or business reform. These measures were less well-received than the first two arrows had been since Abe took office, with the stock market falling slightly and critics arguing that they lacked detail; ''The Economist'', for example, judged the announcement a "misfire". Analysts did note, however, that Abe was waiting until after the July Upper House elections to reveal further details, to avoid an adverse reaction by voters to potentially unpopular reforms. At the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos in 2014 Abe announced that he was ready to act as a "drill bit" to break through the rock of vested interests and "red tape" to achieve structural reforms of the economy. He cited reforms in agriculture, energy and health sectors as evidence of this, and pledged to push forward with the TPP, a Japan–EU trade deal and tax, corporate governance and planning reforms.

Abe announced a package of structural reforms in June 2014, that ''The Economist'' described as "less a single arrow than a 1,000-strong bundle" and compared favorably to the 2013 announcement. These new measures included corporate governance reform, the easing of restrictions on hiring foreign staff in special economic zones, liberalizing the health sector, and measures to help foreign and local entrepreneurs. The plans also included a cut in corporation tax to below 30 percent, an expansion of childcare to encourage women to join the workforce, and the loosening of restrictions on overtime. In December 2015, the government announced corporation tax would be reduced to 29.97 percent in 2016, bringing the cut forward one year ahead of schedule.

In September 2013 Abe called for a "society in which all women can shine", setting a target that 30 percent of leadership positions should be held by women by 2020. Abe cited the "womenomics" ideas of Kathy Matsui that greater participation by women in the workforce, which is relatively low in Japan, especially in leadership roles, could improve Japan's GDP and potentially fertility rates, despite declining population figures. The Abe cabinet introduced measures to expand childcare and legislation to force public and private organizations to publish data on the number of women they employ, and what positions they hold.

In November 2013 the Abe cabinet passed a bill to liberalize Japan's electricity market by abolishing price controls, breaking up regional monopolies, and separating power transmission from generation by creating a national grid company. This move was partly in response to the 2011 Fukushima disaster, and the bill faced little opposition in the Diet. By March 2015, more than 500 companies had applied to the Economy Ministry to enter the electricity retail market and the electricity industry was expected to be fully liberalized by 2016, with gas utilities expected to follow suit by 2017. Abe had also said he favored the re-building of Japan's nuclear reactors following the Fukushima disaster (though much of the authority to restart nuclear plants lies with local governments) and planned to strengthen relations with the United States.

In 2013 the Eurekahedge Japan Hedge Fund Index posted a record 28-percent return, which was credited to the unprecedented actions of the Abe government. In July 2015 the IMF reported that, while the structural reforms had "modestly" improved growth prospects, "further high-impact structural reforms are needed to lift growth" and prevent over-reliance on yen depreciation.

2013 Upper House election

When Abe returned to office, although neither party had controlled the House of Councillors (the upper house of the Diet) since the 2007 election, the opposition DPJ was the largest party. The governing coalition enjoyed a two-thirds majority in the lower house, allowing it to override the upper house's veto, but this requires a delay of 90 days. This situation, known as the "Twisted Diet", had contributed to political gridlock and the "revolving door" of prime ministers since 2007. Abe's campaign for the 2013 election focused on themes of economic revival, asking voters to give him a stable mandate in both houses to pursue reforms, and took a more moderate tone on defense and constitutional matters.

In the 2013 upper house election, the LDP emerged as the largest party with 115 seats (a gain of 31) and the Komeito with 20 (a gain of 1), giving Abe's coalition control of both houses of the Diet, but not the two-thirds majority in the upper house that would allow for constitutional revision. With no national elections due until 2016, this result was described as giving Abe the opportunity of "three golden years" of parliamentary stability in which to implement his policies.

Domestic policy

Abe's return to the prime ministership saw a renewed attempt to downplay Japan's wartime atrocities in school textbooks, an issue that had contributed to his earlier downfall. In 2013, Abe supported the creation of the Top Global University Project program. This is a ten-year program to increase international student attendance in Japanese universities and hire more foreign faculty. There is also funding for selected universities to create English-only undergraduate programs.

In 2014, Abe allocated millions of dollars of the fiscal budget to help programs that help single individuals in Japan find potential mates. These programs entitled "Marriage support programs" were started in hopes of raising Japan's declining birthrate which was half of what it was six decades prior.

Foreign policy

Shortly after taking office Abe signaled a "drastic reshaping" of foreign policy and promised to pursue diplomacy with a global, rather than a regional or bilateral outlook based on "the fundamental values of freedom, democracy, basic human rights, and the rule of law". His choice of Fumio Kishida as foreign minister was interpreted as a sign that he would pursue a more moderate line compared to his hawkish stance in the run-up to the general election. His first visit overseas after becoming prime minister once again was to various countries in Southeast Asia. Abe increased its allies in its international campaign to counter a North Korean nuclear threat. Abe often visited countries such as Singapore, Japan's largest Asian investor and vice-versa.

Within weeks of returning to power, the Second Abe cabinet faced the In Amenas hostage crisis of 2013 in which 10 Japanese citizens were killed. Abe condemned the killings as "absolutely unforgivable" and confirmed that Japan and Britain had co-operated over the incident. Abe believed that this incident demonstrated the need for the creation of a Japanese National Security Council , and convened a panel to consider its creation soon after the crisis.

Abe was unusually active in the field of foreign affairs for a Japanese prime minister, making visits to 49 countries between December 2012 and September 2014, a number that was described as "unprecedented" (by contrast, his immediate two predecessors Naoto Kan and Yoshihiko Noda visited a combined total of 18 countries between June 2010 and December 2012). This was interpreted as a means to offset poor relations with the PRC and the Koreas by increasing Japan's profile on the world stage and improving bilateral ties with other countries in the region. Southeast Asian nations, Australia, and India were significant and frequent destinations for Abe, who visited all 10 ASEAN countries in his first year in office. The diplomatic tours also functioned as another element of Abenomics by promoting Japan to the international business community and opening up avenues for trade, energy, and defense procurement deals (for example, business executives often travel with Abe on these visits).

In September 2013, Abe intervened to aid Tokyo's bid to host the 2020 Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games, giving a speech in English at the IOC session in Buenos Aires, in which he extolled the role of sport in Japan and sought to reassure the committee that any ongoing issues with the Fukushima plant were under control. After the bid was successful, Abe sought to portray the games as symbolic of his Abenomics economic revitalization programme, saying, "I want to make the Olympics a trigger for sweeping away 15 years of deflation and economic decline." In 2014 he said that he hoped a "robot olympics" would be held at the same time, to promote the robotics industry.

Abe's foreign policy moved Japan away from its traditional focus on the "big three" bilateral relationships with the United States, PRC, and South Korea, and sought to increase Japan's international profile by expanding ties with NATO, the European Union, and other organizations beyond the Asia-Pacific region. In 2014, Abe and British prime minister David Cameron agreed to establish a "2 + 2 framework" of annual consultations between the British and Japanese foreign and defense ministries, with Abe calling for greater co-operation on issues "from peace of the seas to the security of the skies, space and cyberspace". This followed a similar agreement with French ministers in Tokyo earlier in the year.

Abe concluded the Japan–Australia Economic Partnership Agreement with Australia's Abbott government in 2014 and addressed a joint sitting of the Australian Parliament in July. In heralding the agreement, he also offered condolences for the suffering of Australians during World War II – singling out the Kokoda Track campaign and Sandakan Death Marches.
He was the first Japanese PM to address the Australian parliament.

In January 2014, Abe became the first Japanese leader to attend India's Republic Day Parade in Delhi as chief guest, during a three-day visit where he and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh agreed to increase co-operation over economic, defense and security issues and signed trade agreements related to energy, tourism and telecoms. A close relationship was anticipated between Abe and Narendra Modi after the latter's election as Prime Minister of India in May 2014, when it was noted that they had established ties from at least seven years previously when Modi was still Chief Minister of Gujarat and that Modi was one of three people Abe "followed" on Twitter. The two men exchanged congratulatory messages after the election. Modi made his first major foreign visit to Japan in autumn of 2014, where he and Abe discussed agreements on nuclear co-operation, rare-earth elements, and joint maritime exercises. During the visit Abe invited Modi to become the first Indian leader to stay at the Imperial State Guest House in Kyoto.

On 30 May 2014, Abe told officials from the ASEAN countries, the United States, and Australia, that Japan wanted to play a major role in maintaining regional security, a departure from the passiveness it has displayed since World War II. He offered Japan's support to other countries in resolving territorial disputes.

Relations between Japan and its immediate neighbors, the PRC and South Korea, remained poor after Abe's return to office. While he declared that the "doors are always open on my side", no bilateral meetings between Abe and the PRC leadership took place for the first 23 months of his second term. Neither did Abe hold any meetings with President Park Geun-hye of South Korea during his 2012 to 2014 term of office. Both countries criticized Abe's visit to the Yasukuni Shrine in December 2013, with the PRC'S Foreign Minister describing the action as moving Japan in an "extremely dangerous" direction. In addition the PRC continued to criticize Abe's defense reform policies, warning that Japan should not abandon its post-war policy of pacifism. Abe's speech at the WEF in 2014 was interpreted as a criticism of PRC foreign and defense policy when he said that "the dividends of growth in Asia must not be wasted on military expansion" and called for greater preservation of the freedom of the seas under the rule of law, although he did not specifically refer to any one country during his remarks.

In November 2014, Abe met PRC president Xi Jinping at the APEC meeting in Beijing for the first time since either had taken office, after a photocall that was described as "awkward" by the press. Abe later told reporters that during the meeting he suggested establishing a hotline between Tokyo and Beijing to help resolve any maritime clashes and that the "first step" had been taken to improve relations.

Defense and security policy

Abe tried to centralize security policy in the Prime Minister's office by creating the National Security Council to better coordinate national security policy, and by ordering the first National Security Strategy in Japan's history. Based upon the American body of the same name, the law to create the NSC was passed in November 2013 and began operating the following month when Abe appointed Shotaro Yachi as Japan's first National Security Advisor.

In December 2013, Abe announced a five-year plan of military expansion. He described this as "proactive pacificism", with the goal of making Japan a more "normal" country, able to defend itself. This was in reaction to a PRC buildup and a decreased American influence in the region.

In the same month, the Diet passed the Abe cabinet's State Secrecy Law, which took effect in December 2014. The law expanded the scope for the government to designate what information constitutes a state secret and increased penalties for bureaucrats and journalists who leak such information to up to 10 years in prison and a 10-million-yen fine. The passage of the law proved controversial, with thousands protesting the bill in Tokyo and the cabinet's approval rating falling below 50 percent for the first time in some polls. Detractors argued that the law was ambiguous and therefore gave the government too much freedom to decide which information to classify, that it could curtail freedom of the press, and that the cabinet had rushed the legislation without including any corresponding freedom of information guarantees. Abe argued that the law was necessary and applied only in cases of national security, diplomacy, public safety and counter-terrorism, saying, "If the law prevents films from being made, or weakens freedom of the press, I'll resign." However he did concede that, in retrospect, the government should have explained the details of the bill more carefully to the public.

In July 2014 the Abe cabinet decided to re-interpret Japan's constitution to allow for the right of "Collective Self-Defense". This would allow the Self Defense Forces to come to the aid of, and defend, an ally under attack, whereas the previous interpretation of the constitution was strictly pacifist and allowed for the force to be used only in absolute self-defence. The decision was supported by the United States, which has argued for greater scope for action by Japan as a regional ally, and led to a revision of the US-Japan defense cooperation guidelines in 2015. In response the PRC Foreign Ministry said the decision "raised doubts" about Japan's commitment to peace, and argued that the Japanese public is opposed to the concept of collective self-defense. Abe argued that the move would not lead to Japan becoming involved in "foreign wars" such as the Gulf or Iraq War, but instead would secure peace through deterrence. This led to the introduction of the 2015 security legislation to give legal effect to the cabinet's decision .

2014 cabinet reshuffle

The cabinet inaugurated in December 2012 was the longest-serving and most stable in post-war Japanese history, lasting 617 days without a change in personnel until Abe conducted a reshuffle in September 2014, with the stated aim of promoting more women into ministerial posts. The reshuffled cabinet tied the record of five women ministers set by the first Koizumi cabinet. Most key figures, such as Deputy Prime Minister Aso and Chief Cabinet Secretary Suga, were kept in their posts although Abe moved Justice Minister Sadakazu Tanigaki out of the cabinet to become Secretary-General of the LDP. However, on 20 October two of the women promoted in the reshuffle, Justice Minister Midori Matsushima and Trade Minister Yūko Obuchi, were forced to resign in separate election finance scandals. Abe told the press, "As prime minister, I bear full responsibility for having appointed them, and I apologize deeply to the people of Japan."

2014 general election

In November 2014, while Abe was attending the APEC forum meeting in the PRC and the G20 Summit in Australia, rumors began appearing in the press that he was planning to call a snap election in the event that he decided to delay the second stage of the consumption tax increase. It was speculated that Abe planned to do this to "reset" Diet business after it had become gridlocked due to the fallout from ministerial resignations in October, or because the political situation would be less favorable to re-election in 2015 and 2016.

On 17 November GDP figures were released that showed Japan had fallen into recession as per the two-quarters of negative growth following the first stage of the consumption tax rise in April. Abe held a press conference on 21 November and announced that he was delaying the rise in the consumption tax by 18 months, from October 2015 to April 2017, and calling a snap general election for 14 December. Abe described the election as the "Abenomics Dissolution" and asked the voters to pass judgment on his economic policies. Abe's popularity fell slightly with the announcement and he declared that he would resign if his coalition did not win a simple majority, though analysts agreed this was highly unlikely due to the weak state of the opposition. The opposition parties attempted to field a united front in opposition to Abe's policies, but found themselves divided on them.

In the elections, the LDP won 291 seats, a loss of 3, but the Komeito gained 4 to win 35. Therefore, the governing coalition maintained its two-thirds majority in a slightly reduced lower house of 475.

Third term as prime minister (2014–2017)

On 24 December 2014 Abe was re-elected to the position of Prime Minister by the House of Representatives. The only change he made when introducing his third cabinet was replacing defense minister Akinori Eto, who was also involved in a political funding controversy, with Gen Nakatani. In his February policy speech, as the Cabinet weathered a Moritomo Gakuen school scandal, Abe called upon the new Diet to enact "most drastic reforms since the end of World War II" in the sectors of the economy, agriculture, healthcare and others.

Foreign policy

On a tour of the Middle East in January 2015, Abe announced that Japan would provide 200 million dollars in non-military assistance to countries fighting against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant as part of a 2.5-billion-dollar aid package. Shortly after this, ISIL released a video in which a masked figure (identified as Mohammed Emwazi or " Jihadi John") threatened to kill two Japanese hostages, Kenji Goto and Haruna Yukawa, in retaliation for the move unless Abe's government paid 200 million dollars of ransom money. Abe cut short his trip to deal with the crisis, declared that such acts of terrorism were "unforgivable" and promised to save the hostages while refusing to pay the ransom. The Abe cabinet worked with the Jordanian government to attempt to secure the release of both hostages, after further videos were released by ISIL linking their fate to that of the pilot Muath al-Kasasbeh, with deputy foreign minister Yasuhide Nakayama conducting negotiations in Amman. Both hostages were killed with ISIL releasing news of Yukawa's death on 24 January and Goto's on 31 January. Abe condemned the killings as a "heinous act", declared that Japan would "not give in to terrorism" and pledged to work with the international community to bring the killers to justice. There was some criticism of Abe for his move to pledge aid against ISIL while they were holding Japanese citizens hostage, but polls showed support for his administration increasing in the aftermath of the crisis. He later used the example of the hostage crisis to argue the case for the collective self-defense legislation that his government introduced in the summer of 2015 .

In April 2015, Abe addressed a joint session of the United States Congress, the first Japanese prime minister to do so. In his speech he referred to the Japan–US Alliance as the "Alliance of Hope", promised that Japan would play a more active security and defense role in the alliance and argued that the TPP would bring both economic and security benefits to the Asia-Pacific region.Ministry of Foreign Affairs: Address by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to a Joint Meeting of the U.S. Congress "Toward an Alliance of Hope" (April 29, 2015)
Retrieved 4 May 2015 The address served as part of a state visit to the United States, the eighth of the Obama Presidency, which President Obama referred to as a "celebration of the ties of friendship" between America and Japan. During the visit, Abe attended a state dinner at the White House.

Like his predecessors Tomiichi Murayama and Junichiro Koizumi, Abe issued a statement commemorating the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II

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