The assassination attempt is indeed tragic. As for his being a good person, many would disagree. Unfortunately, both within and without Japan, he is a controversial figure. Even if one takes his armament of Japan in a sympathetic light, his historical revisionism, courting of the ultra-right, and tone-deaf nationalism caused troubles domestically and with its neighbors.
All this is unfortunate as he genuinely boosted Japan's economy, doing much to Japan's status in the world[1]. The sibling comments here linked some blog posts calling him a "fascist" or just a patriot ("civic nationalist"). The reality is somewhere in between.
He was a far right nationalist, japan war crime negationist and inserted revisionist propaganda in history school manuals.
He was generally anti foreigners, anti equal rights. He was a member of the crazy nationalist cult Nippon Kaigai that wants a return to prewar status of the godly emperor and profess Japanese Yamato pure race superiority. Look that up.
Wikipedia :
"Shinzo Abe [0] was affiliated with the openly ultranationalist organization Nippon Kaigi (Japan Conference). He was considered a right-wing populist and ultra-conservative within the LDP, and some media and books referred to him as a far-right politician. According to Professor Dominique Tasevski, his legacy can be defined by nationalism, historical revisionism, and a deterioration in Japan-South Korea relations."
"Nippon Kaigi [1] believes that "Japan should be applauded for liberating much of East Asia from Western colonial powers; that the 1946–1948 Tokyo War Crimes tribunals were illegitimate; and that killings by Imperial Japanese troops during the 1937 Nanjing Massacre were exaggerated or fabricated". The group vigorously defends Japan's claim in its territorial dispute over the Senkaku Islands with China, and denies that Japan forced the "comfort women" during World War II. Nippon Kaigi is opposed to feminism, LGBT rights, and the 1999 Gender Equality Law."
I see a lot of vague hate for him here and biased links being posted.
What exactly is your issue with him? Without using buzzwords like "historic revisionist" or "far-right, ultra-racist".
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Mainly people are saying he's racist because he visited Yasukini Shrine that honors the dead from Japan's wars when he resigned to "inform the spirits".
It's not like visiting a "Nazi elite general" grave like another user made an analogy of.
This is all ridiculous and you people are despicable and disgusting for making slanderous claims especially at a time like this. Terrible.
He is, like many other Japanese, hell bent on rewriting Japanese history with a positive spin, completely ignoring or at best downplaying their colonisation atrocities before and during WW2. Wasn't he the one who went to a shrine to a "WW2 hero" who also just happened to be a war criminal?
Historic revisionism is an apt description, not a "buzzword".
Yasukuni Shrine isn't only for WW2 criminals, but also for who died on previous wars. As a Japanese, I don't think it's bad to go to the shrine unless denying historical fact or praising criminals. It's uncomfortable that foreign countries blames about that. Maybe WW2 criminals shouldn't be buried at the shrine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasukuni_Shrine
> Abe’s revisionism is not exactly a secret. He has expressed admiration for his grandfather Nobusuke Kishi, who was imprisoned after World War II on the charges of being a Class A war criminal. Abe was a special advisor to the group Nippon Kaigi (Japan Conference), which claims Imperial Japan should be lauded for liberating Asia from Western colonial powers, the Tokyo war crimes tribunals were illegitimate, and war crimes such as the Rape of Nanking in 1937 were exaggerated or fabricated. (In 2014, 15 out of 18 cabinet members in the Abe administration were Nippon Kaigi members.)
> In 2007, during his brief first stint as prime minister, Abe personally disavowed the 1993 Kono Statement that apologized to the World War II-era victims of systematic sexual abuse by the Japanese army, dishonestly claiming a lack of evidence. When Kan made the centennial speech accepting responsibility for Imperial Japan’s annexation of Korea, Abe yelled, “Idiot!” at Kan on live television. Upon taking office again in 2012, Abe wasted no time in showing the world where he stood on the history issues: He openly flirted with officially retracting the 1993 apology to the so-called comfort women and visited the controversial Yasukuni Shrine, which enshrines Japan’s war criminals, over strong criticisms from both South Korea and the United States.
> All of this drove South Korea-Japan relations to the brink, and then Abe’s most egregious misstep marched the relationship off the cliff.All of this drove South Korea-Japan relations to the brink, and then Abe’s most egregious misstep marched the relationship off the cliff. In order to settle the historical score, he weaponized the two countries’ trade relationship. In October 2018, South Korea’s Supreme Court issued the long-delayed opinion that Japanese corporations that used slave labor from Korea during World War II must pay reparations to surviving slave laborers. (The delay was in part because since 2013, Japan’s foreign ministry had been issuing barely disguised threats for the South Korean government to “respond appropriately” to the pending case, and the quasi-authoritarian Park Geun-hye government acquiesced and pressured the Supreme Court to delay the ruling in contravention of the most basic principles of separation of powers.)
> In response to the court’s opinion—which ordered the reparation of $89,000, a negligible amount for Japan’s largest corporations—Abe declared a trade war. The Abe administration announced export control against South Korea for three critical chemicals used in high-end display and semiconductor manufacturing, immediately after the G-20 summit in Osaka, Japan, in which the prime minister called for a free and fair trade. When confronted with the criticism that Japan was using trade for political purposes, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga (the front-runner to be the next prime minister) vaguely cited national security concerns as the reason for the export control, even as he dangled the idea that South Korea “did not offer a satisfactory solution over the issue of former workers.” So flimsy was the justification that some experts observing the issue noted that Japanese officials “haven’t provided any evidence” and “have not named companies or said how supplies may have been mismanaged.” Others went further, calling Tokyo’s excuse “duplicitous” and saying it was behaving “spuriously.”
Ideally, He could have kept a low profile regarding WW2-related issues and events just like the previous emperor. It's not a must to pay a visit to such shrines. I wonder what would happen if a politician regularly visits a church that worships Adolf Hitler and other war criminals.
> Yasukuni Shrine isn't only for WW2 criminals, but also for who died on previous wars. As a Japanese, I don't think it's bad to go to the shrine unless denying historical fact or praising criminals. It's uncomfortable that foreign countries blames about that. Maybe WW2 criminals shouldn't be buried at the shrine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasukuni_Shrine
Good man? Looking at the history it doesn't seem to be that much green. Right winged, over nationalist, corruption seems to be condoned here. He is even unpopular in japan.
