Podcast: As Japan reels: examining Shinzo Abe’s legacy & Japan’s future with his friend and adviser

TRANSCRIPT: As Japan reels: examining Shinzo Abe’s legacy & Japan’s future with his friend and adviser

Tomohiko Taniguchi: I was working at home and my wife screamed and yelled, "Abe just got shocked." Of course, I could not believe. Who could believe such a thing? And then came a piece of news that no vital sign could be detected. So I prayed and prayed and prayed. I think the nation also did the same.

Ian Bremmer: Hello and welcome to the GZERO WORLD Podcast. This is where you'll find extended versions of my interviews on public television. I'm Ian Bremmer, and on today's show, the world reels from news that a man with a homemade gun has assassinated Japan's former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. He is the country's longest-serving Prime Minister in history. And it happened in broad daylight.

Gun deaths in Japan aren't just rare, they're nearly unheard of. According to Japan's national police agency in all of 2021, just one person was killed by gun violence in Japan. There were 45,035 US firearm deaths. That same year, just days after Abe's murder, Japan's ruling party, and its coalition made strong gains in a key parliamentary election, helped by an outpouring of sympathy for the late former Prime Minister. What will be Abe's legacy and what's in store for Japanese politics and for the country's geopolitical ambitions in the region? I'm discussing all that and more with a man who knew Abe very well. Former special advisor to the Prime Minister Tomohiko Taniguchi. He joins me from Tokyo.

Announcer 3: The GZERO World Podcast is brought to you by our founding sponsor, First Republic. First Republic, a private bank and wealth management company, places clients' needs. First by providing responsive, relevant, and customized solutions. Visit FirstRepublic.com to learn more.

In a world upended by disruptive international events, how can we rebuild? On season two of Global Reboot, a foreign policy podcast in partnership with the Doha Forum, FB editor-in-chief, Ravi Agrawal engages with world leaders and policy experts to look at old problems in new ways and identify solutions to our world's greatest challenges. Listen to season two of Global Reboot, wherever you get your podcasts.

Ian Bremmer: Tomohiko Taniguchi, thank you so much for joining us again on GZERO WORLD, and please accept my condolences for the horrible events.

Tomohiko Taniguchi: Thank you. It's been a painful couple days.

Ian Bremmer: You, of course, were very close to Prime Minister Abe before, during, after his two separate stints in office. I cannot imagine what was going through your mind personally when you heard the news. Tell me where you were on the day and how you learned, and walk me through it a little bit.

Tomohiko Taniguchi: I was working at home and my wife screamed and yelled and said, "Abe just got shot." Of course, I could not believe. Who could believe such a thing? And then came a piece of news that no vital sign could be detected. So I prayed and prayed and prayed. I think the nation also did the same. Until finally three minutes passed, 5:00 PM Japan time, we heard that Prime Minister Abe had just passed away.

I was filled with a lot of different emotions all at the same time. Disbelief, grief. The strongest emotion, of course, was anger. Anger against the suspect who is in custody. The next day, Shinzo's wife, Akie with her husband's body, came back to Tokyo's residence, and I was there. And the former first lady Akie appeared apparently devastated. I don't think she was able to shed any more drop of tears. And this evening, Tokyo time, they had the first farewell ceremony. Well, it's called "spending night with the deceased." And it draw a huge, huge number of people. And where Prime Minister Abe was shot, there's always a very, very long line of people who wish to leave flowers.

Ian Bremmer: I mean, this is so alien to Japanese society. You've had entire years where there's been no deadly gun violence, the entire nation, and then suddenly the most important, the longest serving prime minister in Japanese history gunned down and killed. I mean, it's like it's another planet all of a sudden. I'm wondering how you think the nation can process this? In the United States, it's thoughts and prayers, it's outrage. You move on to the next cycle. In Japan, it couldn't be farther from that. So I'd like you to share your thoughts on that issue.

Tomohiko Taniguchi: Ian, it's too early for me to actually chew and digest what happened. But at the same time, I don't think this is a tip of any iceberg because it's such an isolated incident. The suspect is such an isolated individual who had very few friends himself, and he was a monomaniac on a lot of things. One of which was to manufacture homemade guns. Who could prevent such an individual from resorting to unspeakable acts like that?

Certainly the police may deserve accusations because not many members of the police, it looks, were looking behind the prime minister. So one of them, or two of them, should have taken a close look at what was going on behind the scene, behind the Prime Minister Abe speaking. But yes, as you say, it's almost like a parallel world. And if in another parallel world, Shinzo Abe was alive, I would very much like to fly over there.

That's the sort of the feeling. I don't think this is going to change Japan's social fabric that much. The criminal, the suspect, he's going to be facing trial, but that trial isn't going to be anything different from the one to be given to someone who actually killed an ordinary person. So over time, this is going to be history, but people would look back at the 8th of July 2022, still with disbelief and what Shinzo Abe accomplished will stay on to form still the direction of the Japanese diplomacy and economy.

Ian Bremmer: Well, let's talk a little bit about his legacy. Because from the United States, we talk about the Quad, we see CPTPP, we see all of this new architecture both engaging with the United States as well as bringing democracies in Asia together. The first time I had ever heard about the league of democracies and that form of alignment, it came from former Prime Minister Abe. Talk to us about his legacy. How is Japan and how is the world different because of his premiership?

Tomohiko Taniguchi: Many in the United States and other parts of the world associate Japan with entrepreneurship exhibited by such individuals as founders of Sony and Honda. But those were the days that happened 40, 50 years ago. Over the last 20 plus years, until Shinzo Abe came back, there have been almost near zero growth. People in the age bracket of 30 to 55, if you like, went through absolutely no growth. And in the meantime, there's been a very much reduced sense of, let's say, self-efficacy and self-esteem. The sense that if you work hard, you could do that. The fantasy of a little engine that could no longer held in Japan. Shinzo Abe wanted to change that because unless and until you could have younger generations to be more forthcoming, it's useless, isn't it, for the nation to talk anything about building an arsenal, beefing up defense arrangements.

So the first and the second and third most important thing for Shinzo Abe was always to bolster the morale, the collective morale of the young people. And there is no silver bullet, panacea for any government to do such a thing. So he had to try a lot of things. He had to pull a lot of strings. And then in the meantime, people would feel, naturally, very much uneasy if the geographic setting around Japan remains very much shaky and unpredictable. So in order for people in Japan, especially the young people, to be feeling assured, feeling us safer about where they live, Shinzo Abe had to travel abroad to forge better alliances and robust alliances, certainly with the United States. And in addition to that, with countries such as Australia and India, which is why Shinzo Abe sometimes is called a real architect of the Quad, bringing in India and Australia to the US-Japan Alliance relationship. So that's the positive side side of the legacy. But he did not accomplish a lot of things too.

Ian Bremmer: The constitution was not changed, something he really wanted to have it happen.

Tomohiko Taniguchi: What I was trying to say, Ian, was the rapprochement between Russia and Japan. Well, it's impossible now for in any country to talk anything about that. But Shinzo Abe wished to finally have the peace treaty with Russia, aiming that by so doing, Japan could lessen the military tension that is actually coming from the north. That is to say from Russia. Because Japan, unlike any other advanced nations, is encircled by three undemocratic, militarist authoritarian nuclear regimes of Russia, North Korea, China.

So Shinzo Abe wanted to decrease the tension, at least from Russia to little avail. Now, for the first time ever in Japanese modern history, the country is faced with three different military threats from Russia and North Korea, China. But luckily because of the legislative attempts that Shinzo Abe used so much capital to carry out, now it is possible for Japan's armed forces to work more closely with US forces. So the joint collaborative deterrence capacity between the United States and Japan has become much, much more substantial. And I think that message has been well-received by Beijing, Xi Jinping and his colleagues.

Ian Bremmer: Now, Prime Minister Kishida has said that he wants to continue the legacy that Prime Minister Abe has left. Do you think that that directly includes the constitutional issue, and in a sense, normalizing the role of the Japanese military? The way, for example, that Olaf Scholz, the new chancellor of Germany has begun?

Tomohiko Taniguchi: That's my wish. That's in my wishlist. Kishida is now with a golden opportunity because over the next three years, Japan is going to have no major general national election. It's rare, and I would very much like to see Mr. Kishida growing up as a statesman to tackle some of those deep-rooted, difficult issues. Changing constitution is difficult. But it's not the only difficult issue. As I said, Japan's economy must be put on a growth trajectory more firmly. And in order for that to be made possible, I think what's important is to rewrite Japan's social contract by which it means that pulling some resources out of those given to the elderly and putting them more to the younger generations, that's easy be said, but difficult to be done. Who else could do anything like that, if Mr. Kishida couldn't do that? So I'm hoping that Mr. Kishida could do that sort of things.

Constitutional reform is very much important. However, as former Prime Minister Abe worked hard to strengthen Japanese armed forces so that they could work under peacetime more firmly with the United States forces, the necessity, the ultimate necessity of changing the Article Nine, the Famous Article Nine is not so much urgent as it was five, six years ago. However, the conventional interpretation of the constitution, believe it or not, still holds that the presence of Japanese armed forces is substantially unconstitutional. So that must be changed. And I'm saying that the Prime Minister Kishida, because he is now endowed with much more substantial political capital, should tackle these issues head on.

Ian Bremmer: Japanese geopolitics are certainly challenging today in some ways getting no easier, especially with the Russia situation as you mentioned it. But there has been movement in normalizing the relationship between Japan and South Korea. I'm wondering if you are optimistic about that and also if you could talk for a moment about the Chinese response to Abe's death, and if you see any opportunity that Japan and China might be able to work more in a more stable way going forward.

Tomohiko Taniguchi: On the future of China, Japan relationship, it's always important for Japan to maintain a very good balance, a balanced relationship with China. But China has its own agenda. In 2022, this year later, Xi Jinping is going to be elected and he is going to be given another very much rarely five-year term. So he's going to have to face the judgment five years from now, 2027. And that year just happens to be the centenary year for the People's Liberation Army.

And if I were Xi Jinping, I would be thinking that I have to use this window of five years to finalize and complete the China dream by annexing Taiwan because without annexing Taiwan, no dream would be complete. So the geographic equation cannot change even if one of the transformative Prime Ministers was assassinated, was killed. So that's about the China, Japan relationship. And that brings us back to the fundamental point that without, unless and until Japan strengthened its economy and maintains very good alliance relationship with countries such as the United States, they couldn't face up to the challenge from China.

Now, South Korea, I'm cautiously very much looking interestingly at what's going to happen in South Korea because the previous government held Japan as if Japan where their enemy number one, hypothetical enemy. And it was, if I may say absurd, because South Korea and Japan strategically must be on the same page. And there is a growing hint that Seoul is shifting its gear. However, the current president's political capital is not so much robust. The parliament is divided. The opposition party in the parliament is still pretty strong. And for them, accusing Japan is very much an easy sort of thing, always to diversify their political arguments.

That's been a recurring pattern, and I would very much like to see that the new government under the new president could see the geographic reality because if you lose, for instance, Taiwan, there's going to be anything like peaceful and stable economic development for East Asia, including Japan and South Korea. The presence of the United States forces in South Korea would be all of a sudden very much weak, if we lose Taiwan. So I'm talking about Taiwan, but Shinzo Abe, over the last several months, focused his attention very much keenly and acutely on Taiwan. If he were alive, he would perhaps try to go to Taiwan this year and see what was going on through his own eyes.

Ian Bremmer: Before we close, I mean it's hard to ask this question because you and the nation are still very much experiencing a trauma, but I'm wondering with an event of this scale inside Japan, do you think the Japanese society will change in any way? What's the effect of Abe's untimely assassination death on Japan going forward?

Tomohiko Taniguchi: When Japan was down, the just outpouring of sympathies and empathies from abroad helped a lot. If you recall, Japan underwent the triple disasters of tsunami, nuclear meltdown and earthquake 11 years ago that that was the time when people from all over the world came out and said, "carry on," to the Japanese. And that's exactly the same that's going on now. Each and every day since Friday last week, we woke up, people in Japan woke up looking at the outpouring of sympathy.

In Israel, the bridge that connects Jerusalem and the outer community had Japanese flag as a sign of showing sympathy. My hope for the future, Ian, is that Japan will change for the better because Shinzo Abe worked hard to be an accidental, in my own term, cheerleader in chief who always encouraged women to break glass ceilings and encouraged twenty something and high teens to be more ambitious. So that's the positive legacy I would very much like to see taking root among Japanese young people. And if that's going to happen really, Japan is going to be a different place in a better sense of the world.

Ian Bremmer: Tomohiko Taniguchi, I look forward to seeing you personally in better times, and thank you for joining us today.

Tomohiko Taniguchi: Thank you. Thank you very much for having me.

Announcer 3: That's it for today's edition of the GZERO WORLD Podcast. Like what you've heard? Come check us out at GZEROWORLDmedia.com and sign up for our newsletter Signal.

Announcer 4: The GZERO WORLD Podcast is brought to you by our founding sponsor, First Republic. First Republic, a private bank and wealth management company, places clients' needs first by providing responsive, relevant, and customized solutions. Visit FirstRepublic.com to learn more.

In a world upended by disruptive international events, how can we rebuild? On season two of Global Reboot a foreign policy podcast in partnership with the DOHA Forum, FP editor-in-chief, Ravi Agrawal engages with world leaders and policy experts to look at old problems in new ways and identify solutions to our world's greatest challenges. Listen to season two of Global Reboot, wherever you get your podcasts.

Subscribe to the GZERO World Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or your preferred podcast platform, to receive new episodes as soon as they're published.