Why many Japanese are protesting a state funeral for assassinated ex-PM Shinzo Abe
Abe was shot at a campaign speech in July
On a humid evening in central Tokyo, Takehiko Tsukushi is chanting.
"Stop the state funeral for Shinzo Abe!"
He's among thousands of protesters holding signs and lining the street across from Japan's parliament building, while listening to fiery speeches blaring from a makeshift stage.
"It's very wasteful," said Tsukushi, referring to the hefty price tag for the upcoming ceremony meant to honour the country's longest-serving yet deeply polarizing former leader.
"He was a liar and he destroyed Japanese society, you know? He should not be the object of a national funeral."
This noisy rally is one of many that have been held around Japan over the past two months, as the movement against a state ceremony for the assassinated ex-prime minister has gathered momentum.
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A man shot and killed Abe with a homemade gun in July as he was giving an outdoor stump speech for another candidate during the national election campaign. His brazen murder shocked the country and led to an outpouring of grief around the world.
Support for state funeral evaporates
When Abe's family held a funeral service a week after his death, mourners crowded streets near the temple where it took place. But more than two months later, support for a larger public ceremony has significantly eroded.
The event on Sept. 27 would be the first such ceremony for a former Japanese leader in 55 years. Tokyo's Budokan arena is set to host 6,000 guests, including numerous foreign dignitaries.
However, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced on Saturday that he would no longer be attending after post-tropical storm Fiona struck Atlantic Canada.
Recent polls from Kyodo News and public broadcaster NHK suggest about 60 per cent of people in Japan do not approve of the funeral, with municipal assembly members and lawyers arguing there is no legal basis to hold one.
"I think he [Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida] didn't really know which monster he was awakening from the grave when he agreed to this state funeral," said Koichi Nakano, a political science professor at Sophia University in Tokyo.
He spoke at the rally, and is among many Japanese academics critical of the decision to hold the event.
Nakano says many see it as an attempt by the Kishida government to appease Abe's supporters within his ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), and cement the former leader's legacy.
He says critics also view the funeral's $16 million price tag, which includes security costs for hosting dignitaries, as an inappropriate use of taxpayer money.
"It's now increasingly looking like the Tokyo Olympics in terms of opposition by the people.
I think a lot of people feel like, OK, the government wants to do this for PR purposes, but why do we have to pay for this?"
Abe's complicated legacy
Outside Japan, Abe is remembered for his attempts to elevate Japan's global prominence.
He made 81 trips abroad during his almost nine years in power, an exceptional feat for a country otherwise known for its revolving door of prime ministers. Abe tried to strengthen relationships with Western leaders, including through a famous golf-buddy friendship with Donald Trump.
After his death, Trudeau called Abe a "dedicated, visionary leader and a close friend of Canada."
At home, however, Abe was considered one of the most divisive Japanese leaders in the postwar era.
He was credited with creating a sense of economic stability in Japan, and tried to jolt the country out of chronic deflation with his bold "Abenomics" policy, featuring easy lending and structural reforms.
On issues of national security, Abe was hawkish. He held a revisionist view of Japan's role in the Second World War and inflamed public anger by pushing to change his country's pacifist constitution to support a stronger military.
He was also dogged by cronyism scandals, even after he resigned in 2020 due to health issues.
Kishida, who served as foreign minister under Abe, has been facing growing calls to justify the need for a state-financed ceremony to honour the controversial former leader.
He said he decided to hold the event because of Abe's contributions to the country and his achievements at home and abroad.
"I humbly accept the criticism that my explanation was insufficient," Kishida told members of parliament on Sept. 8, in response to questions about the state funeral.
Controversial church links
Kishida's decision became more politically fraught since the alleged killer's motivations have come to light. Tetsuya Yamagami reportedly told police he killed Abe because of the former leader's apparent links to a South Korea-founded religious group known as the Unification Church. The 41-year-old said the group bankrupted his mother and ruined his life.
That shocking revelation kicked off investigations that uncovered ties between a significant number of ruling party lawmakers and the Unification Church, which some label a predatory cult.
Kishida vowed his party would cut ties with the group and removed seven ministers from his cabinet who disclosed connections. But the controversy has only widened, fanning the opposition to Abe's state ceremony and helping to drive the current cabinet's approval rating down to 40 per cent, the lowest since Kishida took office last year.
Masaru Kohno, a political science professor at Waseda University, believes the government might not have faced significant opposition if it had held Abe's funeral shortly after his death, when public sentiment against the brutality of his murder was running high. But Kohno says the tides have clearly turned.
"I think everyone was kind of prepared to say, 'OK, we'll mourn this occasion,' even though they were opposed to what [Abe] did and how he handled the many scandals he was allegedly involved in," said Kohno.
"However, because of this Unification Church problem, people started to recognize that maybe we should not put all of that behind us."
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Japan prepares for Shinzo Abe state funeral that few support over ruling party’s ties to Unification Church
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People hold signs and chant slogans during the march to protest against Shinzo Abe's State Funeral on Sept. 25, in Tokyo, Japan. Groups of protesters gathered to denounce the state funeral that will be held on Tuesday for Japan's former prime minister Shinzo Abe, who was assassinated in July.
The shocking murder of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe initially seemed like the kind of event that pulls a country together, unifying the political spectrum in defence of the country’s democracy.
At first, that was what happened, but revelations in the wake of Mr. Abe’s murder about his and the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s ties to the Unification Church – ties that allegedly motivated assassin Tetsuya Yamagami – have seen support for the government plummet and sparked protests over plans to hold a state funeral for Japan’s longest-serving prime minister.
Last week, a man in his 70s set himself on fire near a government office in Tokyo. A letter expressing “strong opposition” to the state funeral was found nearby.
Numerous polls show a majority of Japanese feel the same, while support for Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s LDP – which has been in power since 2012 and run Japan for most of the past six decades – has dropped as low as 23 per cent.
“This is a natural response to just how poorly the LDP has responded to concerns about the church,” said Jeffrey Hall, special lecturer in Japanese studies at Japan’s Kanda University of International Studies. “This scandal is affecting the Abe faction, the most conservative members of the LDP, so it’s inevitably going to be tied into opinions about the state funeral.”
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In interviews with police after he shot Mr. Abe in the western Japanese city of Nara in July, Mr. Yamagami reportedly said he was motivated by the former leader’s ties to the Unification Church – whose members are known as “Moonies” – a group he blamed for ruining his mother financially and breaking up their family.
Now officially the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, the church was founded by the late South Korean pastor Sun Myung Moon in 1954. It claims around 10 million followers globally, with some 600,000 members in Japan.
The Moonies are known for cultivating ties with conservative politicians around the world. In the U.S., it owns the right-wing Washington Times, and former president Donald Trump has spoken at church events.
In Japan, ties between the LDP and the church go back decades, including to Mr. Abe’s father, former Japanese foreign minister Shintaro Abe. The LDP benefited from the avowedly anti-Communist group’s support at election times, with church members forming a reliable conservative bloc for candidates across the country.
But while this connection was not secret, it was also not widely reported, particularly by the mainstream Japanese press. After Mr. Abe’s murder, the media has seized on the story, to the shock of many Japanese who were largely unaware of the church’s influence.
“The LDP tried very hard to avoid being publicly known as friends of the church,” Mr. Hall said. “Even since the start of this scandal they’ve only admitted to documented meetings with the church that are impossible to deny.”
This has caused significant embarrassment for many leading LDP politicians, who have denied links only to have to backtrack after evidence emerged. Earlier this month, amid intense pressure, the LDP conducted a survey of its 379 lawmakers, which it said found almost half had some form of interaction with the church, and at least 17 received election help.
“We take these results very seriously,” said Toshimitsu Motegi, the party’s secretary-general. “From now on, we will take thorough steps within the party to make sure nobody has connections with the Unification Church.”
The church said its political arm, the Universal Peace Federation, had courted lawmakers in the past, most of whom were from the LDP because of ideological proximity, but denied having any direct affiliation with the party.
Mr. Hall said the LDP survey was widely seen as “half-hearted,” relying as it did on self-reporting by politicians keen to avoid a scandal. And there is evidence that beyond depending on church volunteers, the connection to the Moonies may have pushed the already conservative LDP further to the right on key social issues such as sex education and gender rights.
Growing anger with the LDP has translated into opposition to commemorating Mr. Abe, particularly after the government said his funeral would be fully funded by the state, instead of split with his political party as in the case of previous leaders’ funerals.
Latest estimates put the total cost at around the equivalent of $15.6-million, which includes security and receptions.
Mr. Kishida has defended this decision repeatedly, pointing to Mr. Abe’s influence globally and the presence of foreign dignitaries at the event, but most voters remain unconvinced, with many questioning the need to hold such an expensive ceremony at a time of growing economic pain for ordinary citizens. Last week, Japan’s central bank intervened to prop up the yen for the first time since 1998, after the currency plummeted in value amid high inflation.
World leaders such as India’s Narendra Modi, and Australia’s Anthony Albanese are expected to attend the event on Tuesday, but many Japanese opposition lawmakers will stay away, as will the governors of Okinawa, Shizuoka and Nagano prefectures, according to local media.
Federal Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne will represent Canada at the state funeral. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had been scheduled to go, but cancelled those plans to oversee recovery efforts after post-tropical storm Fiona ravaged much of Eastern Canada and parts of Quebec.
Mr. Hall said the fallout of the revelations about the church could continue to dog the LDP long after Mr. Abe’s funeral. And while the next election is not until 2025, poor support could prevent Mr. Kishida’s administration from pursuing key goals such as reforming Japan’s pacifist constitution.
“Unless they take some kind of substantial action about the Unification Church, such as having certain politicians resign, potentially even including Kishida, this unpopularity will continue,” Mr. Hall said.
With a report from Reuters
Shinzo Abe: Why a state funeral for slain ex-PM is controversial
Rupert Wingfield-Hayes - BBC News, Tokyo
Sun, September 25, 2022
Shinzo Abe reshaped Japan's foreign policy, which won him both supporters and detractors
A week ago, the global "great and good" were gathered in London for the state funeral of Britain's Queen Elizabeth II. Now many of them are heading to the other side of the world for another state funeral - for Japan's slain former prime minister Shinzo Abe.
But the Japanese, it appears, are not thrilled about it - not least because it's estimated to cost $11.4m (1.65bn yen; £10.1m).
In the last few weeks opposition to the state funeral has been growing. Polls suggest more than half of the country's population is now against holding it.
Earlier this week, a man set himself on fire near the prime minister's office in Tokyo. And on Monday around 10,000 protestors marched through the streets of the capital demanding the funeral be called off.
But, on the other hand, the event is drawing Japan's allies from across the globe. US President Joe Biden will not attend, but his vice-president Kamala Harris will. Singapore's prime minister Lee Hsien Loong is coming.
So is Australian PM Anthony Albanese, along with three of his predecessors. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi skipped the Queen's funeral but is flying to Tokyo to pay his respects to Abe.
What does it say about Abe that - even as world leaders gather for his funeral - many in his own country are opposed to it?
First off, this is not a normal event. In Japan, state funerals are reserved for members of the Imperial Family. Only once, since World War Two, has a politician been given this honour, and that was all the way back in 1967. So, the fact that Abe is being given a state funeral is a big deal.
In part it's because of the way he died - he was gunned down at an election rally in July. And Japan mourned for him. He had never been hugely popular, according to opinion polls, but few would deny that he brought the country stability and security.
So the decision to hold a state funeral for him is also a reflection of his stature. No-one served longer in the prime minister's office and, arguably, no other post-war politician had such an impact on Japan's position in the world.
Abe's shocking death drew thousands mourners
"He was ahead of his time," says Professor Kazuto Suzuki, a political scientist and former Abe advisor.
"He understood the changing balance of power. That a rising China will, of course, distort the balance of power and reshape the order in the region. So, he wanted to take leadership."
Professor Suzuki points to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), President Barack Obama's big plan to bring all of America's allies in the Asia Pacific together in one giant free trade zone.
In 2016, when Donald Trump pulled the US out of the TPP, everyone expected it to collapse. But it didn't.
Abe took over leadership and created the even more confusingly named Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific partnership, or CPTPP.
It's a terrible name but it signalled a new willingness for Japan to take the lead in Asia. He also played a key role in the creation of Quad, an alliance between the US, Japan, India and Australia.
Even more significant are the changes Abe made to Japan's military.
In 2014 the then prime minister forced through legislation that "re-interpreted" Japan's pacifist post war constitution.
It allowed Japan to exercise "collective self-defence". That means for the first time since World War two, Japan is able to join its US ally in military action beyond its own borders.
The legislation was hugely controversial, and the ripples are still being felt today. The thousands who marched in Tokyo against the state funeral accuse Abe of leading Japan towards war.
"Abe passed the collective self-defense bill," protestor Machiko Takumi said. "It means Japan will fight with the Americans, which means he made Japan able to go to war again, that's why I oppose a state funeral."
Japan is a country traumatised by war. But it's not just memories of atom bombs that make people angry about Abe.
Those opposing the state funeral say Abe was a warmonger
Japan's post-war constitution clearly states that the country "renounces the right to wage war". If he wanted to change that Abe should have called a referendum. But he knew he would lose. Instead, his law "re-interpreted" the meaning of the constitution.
"Abe is seen as somebody who was not accountable to the people," says Professor Koichi Nakano, of Tokyo's Sophia University. "Whatever he did, he did it against the constitutional principles. He did it against the principles of democracy."
But to his supporters all of this misses the point. Before any other world leader, Abe saw the rising threat from China, and decided Japan had to become a fully paid-up member of the US-Japan alliance.
"Abe had a very futuristic vision," says his former advisor Mr Suzuki. "He saw that China will rise, and the United States will retreat from the region. In order to keep the United States involved in this region, he realised we need to have the power to defend ourselves."
A rearmed and capable Japan is certainly welcomed by Washington, and by many other countries in Asia, who are equally worried about China.
Abe found willing partners in Canberra and Delhi. When he was killed, Mr Modi declared a national day of mourning in India.
But there is one place where Abe is not being mourned - where he was repeatedly condemned as a warmonger and revisionist.
That place is China. It may explain why Beijing sent vice president Wang Qishan to London but is sending a former science and technology minister no-one outside of China has ever heard of to Tokyo.
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