Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was regarded as "the prime minister who is most supportive of Taiwan", was shot dead on the morning of the 8th while campaigning in Nara. Even though support for Taiwan has long been the norm in Japanese politics, Abe's sudden death threatens to deprive it of an important spiritual leader.

Abe was the longest-serving prime minister in Japan's recent history, succeeding Junichiro Koizumi in 2007 but resigning just over a year later due to health reasons. 2012 saw him return to power with the opposition Liberal Democratic Party and serve as prime minister until 2020, when he was forced to hand over the premiership to Yoshihide Suga due to a recurrence of ulcerative colitis.

Abe helped raise Taiwan’s international status

Richard J. Samuels, director of the Center for International Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), known as a "Japanologist", once described Abe as having two faces, one as a realist and the other as a politician who adheres to conservative ideas.

In the face of the rise of China's comprehensive power, which brings both security threats and economic incentives to Japan, Abe has been a clear proponent of Taiwan since he was first elected to the Diet in 1993, countering China's expanding geopolitical ambitions.

In fact, it was Abe who first conceived the idea of the Indo-Pacific strategy, which has a great impact on Taiwan. In 2012, he put forward the concept of the "Asia's Democratic Security Diamond", hoping to unite the United States, Australia and India to defend against the rising threat of China, in which Taiwan's strategic position has been significantly enhanced.

After Trump's inauguration in 2017, the Abe administration actively participated in relevant policy discussions and proposed an Indo-Pacific strategy. The importance of anti-China strategies, Taiwan's geopolitical and technological strategic value were all seen in the Indo-Pacific Strategy Report later proposed by the Biden administration.

Advocate: If something happens to Taiwan, something happens to Japan

But Abe's influence on policy has weakened with his resignation as prime minister in 2020. Fumio Kishida, who became Prime Minister in October last year, belongs to the pacifist Liberal Democratic Party's Hongike Society, and there is a big gap between his image and that of Abe, a hawk who advocates a strong resistance against China.

A senior Japanese media figure, Tsuyoshi Nojima, said that after Fumio Kishida took office, Abe's leadership has not been as effective as expected in terms of cabinet arrangements, and there are many voices in the public and political circles worried about the decline of Abe's influence in Japan.

In addition, Kishida's foreign minister, Yoshimasa Hayashi, has long been the president of the Japan-China Friendship Council, a position that is at odds with Abe's long-standing beliefs. 

Akio Yaita, the director of Sankei Shimbun's Taipei branch, is worried that if Hayashi becomes Kishida's successor, it will gradually marginalize the pro-Taiwan conservative forces in Japan, who see Abe as their spiritual leader, and it will be a major setback to Taiwan-Japan relations.

Abe had become more direct in his statements and actions in support of Taiwan since he left office. At the end of last year, during a video conference with the Taiwan Institute for National Policy Studies, Abe even said outright that "if something happens to Taiwan, it means something happens to Japan, which is the same as something happening to the Japan-US alliance".

In April, Abe wrote to the Los Angeles Times, calling on the US to make its position on the defense of Taiwan clear, and to move away from the "strategic ambiguity" of the past to "strategic clarity".

In addition, on issues such as Taiwan's accession to the CPTPP (Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership) and the impact of the war in Ukraine on peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific, Abe has also spoken out frequently in support of Taiwan and, through his influence, asked countries to be on the alert for Chinese aggression against Taiwan.

Abe's remarks in support of Taiwan have prompted the Chinese Foreign Ministry to jump to its feet. Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin criticized Abe for "being a politician who has been spouting off on the Taiwan issue one after another, but Taiwan is China's business, not Japan's."

The fact that Abe frequently uses the Taiwan issue to create a stage is not only supported by mainstream Japanese public opinion, but also sets a yoke on the pro-Taiwan line of his arch-rival, Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi, so as not to deviate too much from the pro-Taiwan line of the Abe era.

Deepening Taiwan-Japan relations and defining an anchor foreign policy

Rumors are rife in Taiwanese and Japanese political circles that Abe intended to visit Taiwan to pay tribute to former President Lee Teng-hui on the anniversary of his death in July this year.

Before his visit, supporters in Taiwan and Japan scrambled to set up a back-up group for Abe. In Taiwan, the Friends of Shinzo Abe Association, of which Chen Tangshan, former Foreign Minister and chairman of the Vision Foundation, is the founding president, invited 60 prominent politicians, academics and entrepreneurs who know Japan, including Yuan T, Lee, former president of the Academia Sinica, and Chung-mo Cheng, former vice president of the Judicial Yuan, to form a group in early June.

On May 30, the Taiwanese business people community in Japan established the "Support Group for Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe". “He looked a bit tired, but he was still kind enough to shake hands and take pictures with every Taiwanese business person in the room, and he didn't say no," recalled Mei-Hsiang Hsieh, a prominent Taiwan businesswoman.

On that day, Abe also gave a speech to nearly 100 Taiwanese people in Japan, stressing that "if something happens to Taiwan, something happens to Japan", and asking the Taiwanese in the audience to use their influence to promote the idea that China's continuous expansion of its ambitions in the East China Sea, South China Sea, South Pacific and Taiwan Sea could become a fuse for a third world war.

Taiwanese in Japan established the "Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe Support Association" on May 30. (Courtesy of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's Support Group)

Now, with Abe's death, there are concerns about whether the pro-Taiwan forces he represented will decline in the Japanese political arena and impact Taiwan-Japan relations.

Guo Yuren, CEO of the Institute for National Policy Studies, has concluded that Abe's assassination has, on the contrary, led the Japanese government and the public to attach greater importance to the democratic values that Abe supported and emphasised, and to continue to support Taiwan. 

In the future, Japan will not only continue but also strengthen the "pro-US, pro-Taiwan, anti-China" diplomatic and defense line inherited from Abe.

However, such a course is likely to be lost with the resignation of Abe, who has a clear spokesperson.

After Abe's death, it is still not clear who will take over his political legacy and continue to speak out and campaign for Taiwan internationally, becoming the spiritual leader of the future Taiwan-Japan friendship. 

The only thing that is certain is that there will be no major changes in the pattern of friendship between Taiwan and Japan in the immediate future.

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• Abe's Battle between Head and Heart 

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