Shinzo Abe's State Funeral has received overwhelming criticism. Why is Japan's "condolence diplomacy" difficult to achieve?

On September 6, Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroichi Matsuno stated at a press conference that the Japanese government will allocate an additional 1.4 billion yen for the state funeral of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, of which 800 million yen will be used for security and 600 million yen will be used. to welcome foreign dignitaries from about 50 countries. The state funeral expenses announced by the Japanese government earlier were about 250 million yen. With this additional allocation, the budget will skyrocket to more than 1.6 billion yen. It is conceivable that this news has caused a lot of doubts in Japanese society.

First of all, the Japanese people have been quite critical of the "budgeting of state funerals". According to a poll released by the Japanese media "Yomiuri Shimbun" in early September, 56% of the respondents were against holding a state funeral, and 38% were in favor; after the state funeral budget was announced on September 6 to exceed 1.6 billion yen, the public was even worse. Like a wave, according to online voting data from Japan's Yahoo News, a whopping 76 percent of people oppose holding a state funeral, 22 percent approve, and others have no opinion. Compared with the above data, the proportion of approval and disapproval has a gradually disparate trend.

In addition, the opposition MPs roared. Junbei Anzumi, chairman of the Cadet Congressional Countermeasures Committee, said that the government originally insisted that it would only spend 250 million yen, but now it has soared to 6.6 times in one go, "It's 6.6 times or 1.6 billion yen, frankly speaking, I I don’t think this will be the final answer.” The Chairman of the Communist Party of Japan, Kazuo Shiwei, also criticized the sudden increase in state funeral funding, but there is no guarantee that it will end there. Hard-earned money, not to mention spending 1.6 billion yen." He also called for "suspending unconstitutional state funerals" online.

In addition, Mizuho Fukushima, the leader of the Social Democratic Party, also expressed his opposition to holding Abe's state funeral. "The state funeral may be unfounded by law and unconstitutional," so he and the Social Democratic Party will be absent from the state funeral. The remaining opposition parties, such as the Japanese Communist Party and the Reiwa Shinsengumi, have also indicated that they will be absent from the state funeral in principle.

But perhaps the most disgraceful thing for the Japanese government is the failure of the "condolence diplomacy". According to the plan, Abe's state funeral will be held at the Tokyo Budokan on September 27, but as of now, U.S. President Joe Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron (also translated as Macron), former German Chancellor Angela Merkel (Angela) Merkel, also translated as Merkel), German Chancellor Scholz (Olaf Scholz, also translated as Scholz), Russian President Vladimir Putin (also translated as Putin or Putin) have all indicated that they will not attend. Looking at the Group of Seven (G7), Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (also translated as Trudeau) is the only current G7 leader who will participate, but the scene of gathering dignitaries and leaders from various countries has been determined to be greatly reduced.

The failure of "condolence diplomacy" reflects the world's true perception of Japan and Abe.

Japan's "true status"

First of all, the reason why Abe's state funeral is described as "diplomacy of condolences" is because this event was originally a special arrangement deliberately made by Fumio Kishida's cabinet under political considerations.

Looking back at the past, after the war, Japan abolished the old constitution, and the "state funeral order" was also abolished. Under the model of the royal family, only the death of the emperor can hold a big funeral (meaning a state funeral). The only isolated example of a prime minister holding a state funeral was the state funeral of Shigeru Yoshida in 1967. At that time, the Japanese political circle gave Shigeru Yoshida an unprecedented honor for his political achievements in leading the country out of the post-war predicament, establishing the direction of development and laying the economic foundation. Of course, from a political point of view, Shigeru Yoshida has been in control of Japanese politics for many years after he stepped down as prime minister and acted as a "shadow warrior" who manipulated the prime minister, which is also one of the reasons why he received this courtesy.

When former Prime Minister Eisaku Sato died in 1975, Japan held the only post-war "national funeral" for him, that is, the state paid part of the funeral expenses, and then the government, political parties and other groups paid the rest. However, excluding Shigeru Yoshida and Eisaku Sato, the post-war prime ministers who died after the war were all "contract funerals", that is, jointly organized by the Cabinet, the Diet or their affiliated parties and bereaved families, and the cost did not involve state funds. Now that Abe has suddenly been elevated to a state funeral, Kishida's intentions are clear: he hopes to unite the political unity of the right-wing and the constitutional revisionists, and at the same time absorb the political energy left by Abe, and invite G7 and other leaders of many countries to come to the state funeral to create He is good at diplomacy and fills the image of Japan's "big country face".

But from the perspective of the global power distribution structure, today's Japan is not at its peak in the 1980s. In the economic field, Japan's economic miracle ended when it lost its status as the second largest economy; after missing the Internet industry, Japan can only continue to rely on the remaining dividends of automobiles, steel, machinery manufacturing, optics, and tourism. The industry has been continuously overtaken by China and South Korea, and it is difficult to return to the past glory.

In the political field, Japan's embarrassing status is even more difficult to describe. The global status of a country is closely linked to its economic status. Japan, which is in economic recession, can no longer enjoy the "great power" of the past. The reason why it has frequently jumped into the international news page in recent years is because of the intensified competition between China and the United States, Japan has chosen to cooperate with the United States. The Indo-Pacific strategic mobilization has frequently hyped up issues such as "intervention of the security system in the Taiwan Strait", military expansion and revision of the constitution, as if he has returned to the "lost 20 years", and even has a Meiji complex of "leaving Asia into Europe".

However, just relying on the Indo-Pacific strategy and the topic of the Taiwan Strait will not help to innovate its aging industrial structure, stimulate the slowdown in development, and it will not be able to effectively enhance Japan's substantial status. Whether the "condolence diplomacy" of Abe's state funeral will be successful or not is similar to Japan's actual situation in the Indo-Pacific strategy: the dynamics of the United States are the key. If Biden takes the lead in attending, the rest of the G7 leaders should have a high probability of "participating in the grand event". Naturally, the main purpose is not to mourn Abe or recognize Japan's "great power status", but to make Abe's state funeral another one The G7 summit is to maintain the strategic tacit understanding and interaction between the national groups, and perhaps increase the personal exposure of political elites through speeches and statements. However, after it was discovered that Biden had no intention of attending, the aforementioned political goals of the remaining G7 leaders could not be achieved, and their willingness to participate in Abe's state funeral naturally declined a lot.

In addition, the main topics of international politics today are the Russian-Ukrainian conflict and the related Eurasian geopolitics, energy security and food crisis. In contrast, a weakened former world’s second largest economy needs to be a former prime minister. Holding a state funeral appears to be a relatively insignificant political event.

Abe Shinzo in the vortex of controversy

In addition to the decline of Japan's international status, Abe's controversial image will also reduce the willingness of leaders of other countries to attend.

First of all, although Abe had contributed to the stability of Sino-Japanese relations during his tenure in office, his position was indeed that of the post-war prime minister with the most "right-wing" color. Compared with Germany, Japan was not as thorough in responding to the responsibility of the war as the former. Therefore, this state funeral event will inevitably have the color of World War II militarism.

In the early postwar period, Japan did deeply reflect on its crimes of aggression and regretted being the "perpetrator". In 1947, "peace" was enshrined in the constitution as a concept, which established today's "Peace Constitution" system; Historical facts such as the nuclear bombing of Nagasaki and the occupation of Japan by the Allied forces (1945-1952) gave the Japanese people a sense of "victim" and made their interpretation of the war increasingly complicated. When Japan's wartime emperor Hirohito died in 1989, there was a growing public opinion in Japanese society that "a new discourse of war responsibility should be constructed", and young people were even more indifferent to "reflection on historical responsibility". The taboo challenge of the problem.

For example, the issue of visiting the Yasukuni Shrine has repeatedly appeared in the Japanese political arena in recent years, and pretentious words refuting the existence of comfort women have emerged in an endless stream, and the "rhetorical" war discourse is also not too much, and the official apology in the 1990s also Continued to be circumvented by conservative LDP leaders. The direct result of this operation is to promote Japan's national image of "avoiding responsibility for World War II". Under such circumstances, foreign leaders may be worried that, given Abe's "right-wing" color, if militarism-related groups or elements appear at the state funeral, it should be harmful to their own frame, especially Germany has tried its best to To get rid of the shadow of the Nazis, you should want to avoid contamination with the unfortunate past of the Axis powers in World War II.

In addition, Abe's scandal with the "Unification Church" also casts dust on his state funeral. After Abe was assassinated in Nara on July 8, the gunman Toru Yamagami also confessed that because his mother was addicted to the "Unification Church" and caused the whole family to suffer, he decided to assassinate Abe who was closely related to the "Unification Church" when he could not get close to the sect leader. This case triggered a storm of public opinion, so Fumio Kishida announced an early cabinet reshuffle on August 10, hoping to clear the relationship between senior officials of the Liberal Democratic Party and the "Unification Church". However, according to the "Mainichi Shimbun", Foreign Minister Lin Fangzheng, Minister of Economic and Security Minister Takaichi Sanae, Minister of Local Development Naoki Okada, Minister of Environment Akihiro Nishimura, Minister of Health and Welfare Kato Katsunobu, Minister of Internal Affairs Minoru Terada, Minister of Economic Regeneration Yamaji Daishiro, etc. He has contacts with the "Unification Church", and Kishida has long been aware of it.

Since then, the number of people has been accumulating. According to the last update of the Japanese media, there are 106 members of Congress in the current parliament who are related to the "Unification Church", of which the Liberal Democratic Party accounts for 80%, and as many as 30 people in the new cabinet of Kishida are related to the Unification Church. . This result detonated soaring public grievances. The Liberal Democratic Party said on August 26 that it would actively investigate the relationship between party personnel and the "Unification Church", and was expected to announce the results of the investigation as soon as September 6, apparently intending to save the sluggish support. Spend. Under this circumstance, foreign leaders may be worried that going to Japan to participate in Abe's state funeral at this time is equivalent to taking the initiative to be involved in the dispute between the Liberal Democratic Party and the "Unification Church" on the cusp of politics.

To sum up, when Japan's international status is no longer glorious and the United States has no intention of participating, leaders of various countries are not willing to attend Abe's state funeral. dispute. The "condolence diplomacy" that Fumio Kishida originally wanted to do through this, was also in parallel with the changes in the international situation and political disputes.

Original published URL:

2022.9.8

Why is Japan's "condolence diplomacy" so difficult to achieve? | Hong Kong 01 https://www.hk01.com/sns/article/812426?utm_source=01articlecopy&utm_medium=referral