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In a dramatic reframing of Japan’s geopolitics, Shinzo Abe articulated the idea of the “Indo-Pacific” in his address to the Indian Parliament in August 2007 and also called for the creation of a coalition of Asian democracies. The assassination, Friday, of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has taken away one of the tallest world leaders of our time. Abe radically altered the geopolitical trajectory of Japan, re-imagined the regional future by inventing the “Indo-Pacific” as well as the Quadrilateral security forum, and built a strong strategic partnership with India. What makes the assassination even more shocking has been the traditionally tranquil ethos of Japan that has largely been alien to the gun culture and political violence that has rocked other Asian and western societies. Abe, who had two stints at the helm during 2006-07 and 2012-20, was the longest serving prime minister since the Second World War in a country that saw a frequent turnover of the top leadership. Abe will be remembered not just for the length of time he served as prime minister. He will be recalled for his bold leadership that actively sought to shake Japan out of its post-War political passivity and turn it into a “normal nation” ready to pursue its national interests unapologetically and reclaim regional leadership.
After the Second World War, Japan focused on keeping its head down, rebuilding its shattered economy, and atoning for the nation’s sins in the imperial era. Since the end of the Cold War, there have been mounting pressures on Japan — which had become the world’s second largest economy — to take a larger responsibility for shaping Asian and global affairs. While most leaders ducked that call, Abe stepped out boldly to reboot Japan’s role. Losing second place in the global economic hierarchy to China in 2010 and Beijing’s growing political clout convinced Abe to radically rethink Japan’s policies. Although he could not revise the terms of the post-War “peace constitution” that severely crimped Japan’s regional military role, Abe took a number of steps to modernise its national security establishment, widened the set of military actions that Japan’s self-defence forces could undertake, strengthened the military alliance with the US, and created the basis for stronger security cooperation with other Asian nations like Australia and India.
In Japan’s traditional political imagination, Asia largely meant “East Asia”. In a dramatic reframing of Japan’s geopolitics, Abe articulated the idea of the “Indo-Pacific” in his address to the Indian Parliament in August 2007 and also called for the creation of a coalition of Asian democracies. When he returned to power in 2012, Abe took the lead in convincing the US, India and others in the region to adopt the Indo-Pacific construct and develop the Quad into a vehicle to promote regional peace and security. Abe inherited a special affinity for India from his maternal grandfather Nobusuke Kishi who served as Japan’s Prime Minister during 1957-60. Kishi had sought to build a special partnership with Nehru’s India, but bilateral relations steadily lost political vigour after the 1960s. Abe moved Japan-India ties away from a narrow financial assistance paradigm to developing a vision for shared leadership in the vast Indo-Pacific region stretching from the South China Sea to the Suez and the east coast of Africa. It is a legacy that the Indian political class will not forget for a long time.
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