Friday’s assassination of Shinzo Abe, on the eve of national elections for the upper house of the Diet, threatens to roil Japan, perhaps for years.
There is already internal turmoil in the U.S. China, Russia and the United Kingdom. Now add Japan to the list. What will the world look like with so many major powers in a state of flux?
Abe’s eight-year second term made him Japan’s longest-serving prime minister. His return to power in 2012 ended a period of revolving-door leaders. Since he resigned in 2020 due to poor health, the country has had two prime ministers, suggesting the political system has yet to regain footing.
Abe remained a powerful figure in the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) after stepping down. He was, most importantly, the leader of the largest faction in the governing party. With over 90 members, Abe headed a group more than twice as large as Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s.
It is not clear whether any politician can keep Abe’s faction together, and no one is sure how the tragedy will affect Japan long-term. Despite triggering a sympathy vote in Sunday’s election, some see renewed infighting and a return to ineffectual leadership.
In short, the biggest beneficiary of the murder could be China. Abe was a towering figure, arguing for decades that free societies had to confront the Chinese Communist Party.
The first major world leader to say the Chinese regime was fomenting nationalism to bolster legitimacy, Abe championed “values diplomacy” instead of the prevailing “engagement.” In 2012, he proposed the “Democratic Security Diamond” of India, Japan, the U.S. and Australia, which reinvigorated the then-dormant Quadrilateral Security Dialogue. Abe believed in a strong Japan and close relationships with partners, especially the U.S. When he died, he was pushing Japan to stand with neighbor Taiwan.
On her Sunday Fox News Show, Maria Bartiromo raised the possibility that Beijing was involved in the assassination. Some Chinese and others believe the killing was a warning to Tokyo. Yet whatever the truth about China’s involvement, Beijing has made it clear it intends to break apart Japan. Last week, Chinese vessels intruded into Japanese territorial waters around Japan’s Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea.
Japan administers the outcroppings, but Beijing, which calls them the Diaoyu Islands, claim them as well. The claim of the People’s Republic appears weak as a matter of international law: Beijing acknowledged they were Japanese until 1971. Chinese ambitions are expanding. State institutions are currently arguing that Beijing should claim Japan’s Okinawa and the rest of the Ryukyu chain.
China’s animosity toward Japan is mostly a reflection of Communist Party insecurity. During the eras of Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping, the first two leaders of the People’s Republic, relations with Tokyo were cordial. China needed Japanese money and technology, but more important, Mao and Deng were sure of their legitimacy. The precariousness of the Chinese political system under current ruler Xi Jinping does not allow good relations with Tokyo.
The Chinese are acting like classic aggressors. They bombard Tokyo daily with propaganda and are taking advantage of Friday’s assassination. The CCP has allowed in Chinese social media vile comments about Abe’s killing, and it appears Beijing has been flooding sites abroad. A friend, Jonathan Bass, told me sites in Bahrain, Morocco and Nigeria have been flooded with similar postings from Chinese parties.
Today, the world’s three most-powerful states — the U.S., Russia and China — are all experiencing internal turmoil. There is the failure of the center in America, widespread opposition in Russia to the Ukraine war and simmering unrest aggravated by a severe economic downturn in China. At the same time, there is uncertainty during the long transition from Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who is stepping down, in Britain.
Transitions during a period of war and hardship around the world make all four countries less predictable in their external relations. Abe’s assassination could weaken the leadership there over the long term.
In 1914, the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the presumptive heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, plunged Europe into war. The descent into chaos was fast, in part because the assassination occurred during a time when great-power moves were especially hard to predict and manage.
The bipolarity of the Cold War, in contrast, made it possible for American and Soviet leaders to control allies, proxies and friends. With the world changing so fast at this moment, however, it is difficult for the great powers to keep order. Russia and its de facto ally China have grand territorial ambitions and, like 1914, are fast taking apart the existing international system.
The killing of Shinzo Abe destabilizes Japan — and the world — at perhaps the worst possible moment.
Gordon G. Chang is the author of “The Coming Collapse of China.” Follow him on Twitter @GordonGChang.