Former prime minister of Japan, assassinated on July 8th 2022 at a campaign event in Nara by Yamagami Tetsuya, who shot him twice in broad daylight with a homemade weapon constructed from pipes and duct tape. The assassination shocked Japan; the image of Abe collapsing remains etched in the public psyche.
The killing thrust the Unification Church back into the spotlight after it had faded from headlines following scandals over deceptive recruitment practices and "spiritual sales" in the 1980s and 1990s. Extensive ties between the church and members of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party were exposed within months. Seven cabinet ministers were forced to resign. The government eventually moved to strip the church of its status as a religious corporation, a demand still being contested in court. Abe had sent a congratulatory video message to a church-affiliated event, which motivated his killer.
Abe was prime minister most recently from 2012 to 2020. He raised defence spending and loosened laws that restrict the use of force by Japan's armed forces. He elevated Japan's defence agency to a fully fledged ministry and created a secretariat modelled on America's National Security Council.
Abe's economic reforms breathed fresh life into Japan Inc. In the ten years prior to the introduction of a new corporate-governance code in 2015, Japanese companies delivered a return for shareholders, including dividends, of roughly zero. Since then they have returned around 170%, comfortably outperforming their European peers. Activists flocked to Tokyo and shook management teams into selling off underperforming businesses and handing cash to shareholders through buy-backs. By 2025 listed Japanese firms generated a return on equity of 8.6%, up from an average of 6.3% between 2010 and 2015. In the past five years they have paid out dividends and buy-backs equivalent to 33% of operating cashflow.
He was a right-wing standard-bearer within the LDP. Takaichi Sanae, his ideological heir, found common cause with him on constitutional revision and historical revisionism. In 2015, ahead of the 70th anniversary of Japan's wartime defeat, Abe defied his right-wing supporters and mentioned Japan's "aggression" in an official statement, while seeking to make his apology the last.
Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when he is called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.