Extracted with permission from Sanjaya Baru (Edited), The Importance of Shinzo Abe: India, Japan and the Indo-Pacific, HarperCollins, 2023.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's first priority in office was to rebuild the economy. Japan’s national budget is larger than the GDP of Saudi Arabia or Turkey. However, 70 per cent of it disappears in just three areas of expenditure: redemption of government bonds and related interest payments; subsidies to local governments; and social security expenditure, mainly on healthcare for the elderly. For long-term growth, more money must be spent on basic science research and education, but as long as the overall pie does not grow—that is to say, as long as economic growth cannot be achieved—money could not be spent on anything future-oriented, be it education or defence.

Abe’s well-known economic policy, termed ‘Abenomics’, started as a short-term demand stimulus and then began to try a series of measures to help the economy grow. This policy can be termed a success. Before the COVID-19 pandemic hit Japan and the world, Japan could achieve full employment: ninety-eight out of 100 university students could find jobs upon graduation. The same figure applied even for those looking for employment after finishing high school, with 98 per cent of such individuals finding stable work. For the first time since the bursting of the speculative bubble in the early 1990s, young people in Japan were allowed to believe that there would be hope for the future.

This email illustrated the fact that young people took Abe’s message to heart. The economy is based on human activity and people change their behaviour depending on whether they are optimistic or pessimistic about the future. Whether in Japan or India, there are only three paths through which an economy can grow: increase in labour input, increase of capital stock or increase of total factor productivity.  That much is in every economics textbook. What no textbook touches on is the fact that none of these factors could be increased without people, especially entrepreneurs, having hope for the future. Unless people believe that the future will be better than the present, nothing positive will happen.

However, economies where hope is a rare commodity are so rare that standard economics textbooks dare not mention the importance of hope. Japan was that rare exception: the economy where hope was the rarest of all scarce commodities. It was Abe’s eagerness to give young people hope for the future that led him to do all he could to attract first the Olympic Games and later the World Expo—which is to be held in 2025 at Osaka. Abe’s achievements in economic policy was to give hope to young people.

The biggest problems plaguing the country are the dwindling number of children and an ageing population. It is not an easy problem to solve. There are no textbooks to consult to help tackle this issue. Japan’s solution may well set the first such precedent in human history.  What is certain is that nothing will be resolved unless people have hope for the future. And for the Japanese people to have confidence in their country’s future, stability in the external environment is essential. Fewer people would invest in Japan—and fewer children would be born—if they think the country might become dependent on China in the future.

The challenges for Abe therefore were firstly to grow the economy, secondly to use the fruits of that growth to constantly improve defence capabilities and thirdly to expand Japan’s strategic space and neutralize Chinese coercive activities by strengthening relations with India and Australia in addition to its long-standing alliance partner, the US. These three challenges create a self-reinforcing causal loop, both positively and negatively. Prime Minister Abe was keenly aware of this dynamic. Foreign investors visiting Tokyo advised the actors in his administration to focus on the economy rather than security. But for Abe, the economy and security were as inseparable as his own vitality and health.

When Abe first met Donald Trump, who had just won the US presidential election, he persuaded him to see that the biggest challenge to the US–Japan alliance was not North Korea, but China. Tokyo’s attempts to confront the Chinese threat can only be achieved through overcoming all three of the challenges mentioned in the previous paragraph: it must strengthen its economy, build up its military and make its cooperation with Australia, India and the US as strong as possible. In the process, Abe saved the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) from the brink of oblivion and brought it to fruition. He also succeeded in forging the EU–Japan Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA).

Under Abe, Japan became the standard-bearer for a free, open and rules-based international economic order, which was unparalleled in the 150 years of the country’s modern history. He developed the arguments he made in the Indian Parliament in 2007 to create QUAD. The US–Japan alliance has grown stronger than ever through the administrations of Barack Obama and Donald Trump, and the Australia–Japan relationship has grown to become a quasi-alliance. Japan’s strategic space has expanded markedly.

Japan has a constitution that is unique in the world. Article 9, paragraph 1, states that ‘the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes’. This builds on the trend of outlawing war since World War I and is not a factor unique to the Japanese Constitution. What remains unique today is that the subsequent paragraph 2 states: ‘In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.’ Because of this section, many Japanese constitutional scholars still regard the Japanese Self-Defence Forces (SDF) as a violation of the constitution. This is also the reason why the SDF is not referred to as an army.

For many years, Japan’s actions have been constrained by the limited interpretations of its constitution, which state that the SDF ‘may not return fire, whether by missiles or artillery shells, unless it is hit by the first shot’ and that ‘whatever friendly forces are attacked, it may not join in and return fire unless it is attacked itself’. Under this interpretation, in the hypothetical situation of Taiwan coming under attack by China, the Japanese forces in the immediate vicinity will be unable to do anything about it even if their allies such as the US suffer military damage.

Abe’s efforts have led to Japan receiving 147 F-35 fifth-generation fighter jets from the US. But no matter how many superior planes Japan has, they are simply useless as long as the interpretation of its constitution remains unchanged.  If over a hundred Japanese fighter jets remain grounded despite Chinese aircraft attacking US forces, the US–Japan alliance will at once lose its significance. Japan’s security environment would deteriorate instantly and significantly.

In 2015, Abe succeeded in passing a series of legislative bills, the enactment of which changed this narrow interpretation of the constitution. For instance, in the event of a military attack by China on Taiwan, the SDF facilities on Japan’s westernmost island (Yonaguni Island) would not be unharmed. The US military would respond by mobilizing from bases in Japan to defend Taiwan. In such a situation of imminent and existential threat to Japan, the Japanese Self-Defence Forces and the US military would be able to collectively exercise their right to self-defence. Abe spent much of his political capital to pass the bills that made this possible. Now, protection of US military assets are a regular obligation for the SDF, and US military vessels and aircraft operate under ever-present SDF protection.

Despite his accomplishments in economic revitalization and strengthening of deterrence as a backdrop, Abe faced Xi Jinping of China. The Chinese Communist Party is an organisation that believes in power, and power alone, and Xi is the embodiment of such a party. However, acknowledging that Japan’s power was enhanced by Mr Abe, Xi began to pay more heed to Tokyo. Nowadays, the term ‘One Belt, One Road’ does not appear in the global discourse as much as it used to. When Abe fell to the bullets of fanatics, Xi Jinping sent his condolences. The use of the first person in the condolence message was unusual for a Chinese leader. Even Xi must have felt that he and Abe had a kind of friendship.

Similarly, using his varied diplomatic skills, Abe attempted to conclude a peace treaty with the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin. He met with Putin twenty-seven times and was prepared to make some compromises to achieve his one objective: to reduce the military threat to the north of Japan by bringing military tensions with Russia under control. This would enable him to concentrate any spare SDF capacity entirely on the southwestern part of Japan to defend against China.       It was a real politik oriented diplomacy, but it did not bear any fruit. Ironically, Putin was not a dictator who could change relations with Japan by a single decision. Japan imposed harsh sanctions on Russia following the invasion of Ukraine and now relations between Russia and Japan are even worse than they were before Abe began talks with Putin.

Russia, North Korea and China are vertically aligned across the Sea of Japan and all three share borders with Japanese territory. None of these countries has ever experienced anything akin to open democracy, and all three believe in the power of nuclear weapons: in fact, they are increasing their respective arsenals of warheads. This means that no G7 country is in a more dangerous location than Japan.

Japan needed allies. No matter how strong the economy is and how energized the people are, Japan can be weak in the long term if the external environment is so dangerous. Japan had to be able to state with confidence—both domestically and internationally—that it is not alone, that it has partners and allies. It needed a statement that the whole world could understand—one that respects freedom, human rights, democracy and the rule of law—and to declare it to the world.

Creating a new geographical concept and spreading it around the world is no mean feat. It was Shinzo Abe who pursued this in the Indian Parliament in Delhi, in the Australian Parliament in Canberra and in the US Congress in Washington, D.C. It is also to Abe’s credit that he launched QUAD and fostered cooperation between Australia, India, Japan and the United States, and these diplomatic efforts have reassured Japan and the Japanese people.

However, when Abe first came to power in 2006, he realized that the Asia-Pacific concept had become outdated. He felt that there was a need for a larger concept that would balance China’s intimidation as well as a framework that would encompass and emphasize fast-growing India as one pole, both politically and economically. Thus, what Abe created—and the world accepted—was Free and Open Indo-Pacific and the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QUAD). Under Abe, for the first time in its modern history Japan succeeded  in launching a new concept that has defined the world discourse. Abe’s success as a politician is unprecedented in the country's history.

Tomohiko Taniguchi is former special aide and speechwriter of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Extracted with permission from Sanjaya Baru (Edited), The Importance of Shinzo Abe: India, Japan and the Indo-Pacific, HarperCollins, 2023.

The Wire is now on WhatsApp. Follow our channel for sharp analysis and opinions on the latest developments.