Shinzo Abe, Japan’s longest-serving prime minister (Sept 2006 – Sept 2007 and Dec 2012 – Sept 2020), was pronounced dead on Friday (July 8) after five and a half hours after he was assassinated while campaigning for political candidate Kei Sato in the southern city of Nara for a parliamentary election – about 300 miles (480km) from the capital city Tokyo.
The killer has been identified as Tetsuya Yamagami, who turned out to be a former member of Japan’s Maritime Self-Defense Force – Japan’s equivalent of a Navy. He reportedly had served for 3 years until 2005. Security officials at the scene tackled him to the ground, but not before he successfully pumped two lethal shots at 67-year-old Abe with a homemade shotgun.
Apparently, Tetsuya, wearing grey T-shirt and beige trousers, approached Abe from behind and shot him in the chest and neck. After the stunning assassination, police search his home and discovered several possible explosive devices. Japan NHK reported that Tetsuya, a local resident of Nara, told police he was dissatisfied with Abe and wanted to kill him.
Horrifying footage shows Mr Abe collapsed and was lying face-up on the street while clutching his blood-smeared chest as body guards security police rushed toward him. He was airlifted to hospital, but vigorous efforts to save him have been fruitless from the beginning. He lost too much blood and the damages were too severe after the shooting.
During a news conference at the Nara Medical University Hospital, doctors said Shinzo Abe had sustained deep bullet wounds to his neck – about 5cm (1inch) apart, and one of the bullets had entered and damaged his heart. Even though Abe was said to be conscious and responsive in the first few minutes after the attack, doctors said no vital signs were detected by the time the ex-PM was brought in.
Abe suffered “cardiopulmonary arrest” – the cessation of adequate heart function and respiration that results in death without reversal – even before he arrived at the hospital. He basically bled to death, despite receiving more than 100 units of blood in transfusions over four hours, according to Hidetada Fukushima, the professor in charge of emergency medicine at the Nara Medical University Hospital.
Unlike the United States, gun violence is extremely rare in Japan because handguns are banned. In 2014, there were just 6 incidents of gun deaths in the country, as compared to 33,599 in the US. Last year, there were 10 incidents of shooting – one dead and 4 wounded. There were about 310,400 guns possessed by civilians in Japan in 2019, compared to 393 million in the U.S.
Japanese must undergo a strict exam and mental health tests in order to buy a gun – mostly acquired for sport and hunting. However, the fact that gun violence is extremely rare, is also the same reason why the assassination attempt on Abe was so successful. Security checks were lacking, allowing Tetsuya Yamagami easy access to carry his mission.
The last time a former prime minister was gunned down was 90 years ago. In 1932, Prime Minister Tsuyoshi was Inukai was assasinated by 11 young Navy officers in the Prime Minister’s residence in Tokyo. It was a plot to provoke war with the U.S. as the original assassination plan had included killing film star Charlie Chaplin, who was visiting Japan as Inukai’s guest.
Shinzo Abe announced his resignation in 2020 for health reasons, revealing that he had suffered a relapse of ulcerative colitis, an inflammatory bowel disease. However, his resignation also came at a time when he was deeply unpopular and under pressure to resign. Prior, he resigned abruptly in 2007 as prime minister – after just over a year in office – citing the same disease.
During his almost eight years in office, Mr Abe pursued a policy based on three arrows – monetary easing, fiscal expansion and structural reform – popularly known as “Abenomics”. During his administration, the rate of Japan’s nominal GDP growth was averaging just 0.9%, but the ratio of government debt relative to national income stabilized for the first time in decades.
However, the structural reform was not as effective as analysts had hoped. The Abenomics policy led to a dramatic weakening of the Japanese yen – losing as much as 25% against the U.S. dollar. Even though the stock market was bullish, the impact on wages and consumer sentiment was a disaster. A Kyodo News poll showed 73% of Japanese said they had not personally noticed the effects of Abenomics.
Abe’s ambitious target of boosting nominal GDP to 600 trillion yen by 2020 never materialised and remains an empty dream to the day he was assassinated. Worse, inflation and wage growth fell short of expectations. Current Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has to distance himself from Abenomics, proposing instead a “new capitalism” that prioritizes income redistribution.
In fact, it was just last month when Abe criticized an economic policy paper drafted by politicians in his Liberal Democratic Party as “idiotic” because it was not in line with his signature economic policy of Abenomics. But critics said Abenomics failed to deliver on pledges such as giving women in the workforce more of a voice, tackling nepotism and changing unhealthy work cultures.
Equally controversial was Abe’s plan to boost Japan’s military forces. Not only the country has boosted defense spending by 10% under his watch, in a historic move in 2014, his government reinterpreted the constitution to allow Japanese troops to fight overseas for the first time since World War 2 – triggering tensions with China as well as angering Japanese voters at home.
Abe believed that the U.S.-drafted constitution was unfairly designed to restrict Japan’s ability to exercise self-defence, or to help allies under attack. Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution, which has been nominated for the Nobel peace prize, renounces war as a means of settling international disputes and limits Japan’s military to a purely defensive posture.
The Abe administration, encouraged by Barack Obama ‘s support for Japan playing a more active role in its security alliance with the U.S., argued that Chinese aggression in the South China Sea and North Korean nuclear weapons meant the time had come to consider changing the constitution. But the Japanese public was divided and concerned about the consequences.
A Japanese women’s group had threatened to go on a “sex strike” to punish any man who supports Abe’s move. The primary reason the U.S. drafted the Japanese constitution to cripple the country’s military was to prevent another Japanese brutality from repeating again. It would take two atomic bombs to wipe out Hiroshima and Nagasaki to force Japanese to surrender in 1945.
China, on the other hand, still remembers how the Japanese Imperial Armny marched into China’s capital city of Nanking in 1937 and brutally murdered 300,000 out of 600,000 civilians. Also known as the Nanjing Massacre or the Rape of Nanjing, the Japanese Imperial Army also committed other atrocities such as mass rape, looting, and arson.
Even two years after Abe stepped down under the pretext of health reason, he emerged as the most outspoken Japanese leader against China. Last year, the former Japanese prime minister warned Beijing that Japan and the U.S. could not stand by if China attacked Taiwan – suggesting that the Japanese will join American forces to retaliate against the Chinese.
Warning Beijing not to “provoke or bully its neighbours or pursue territorial expansion”, Shinzo Abe said in Dec 2021 that “any emergency over Taiwan would mean an emergency for Tokyo as well”. By reiterating his support for Taiwan, Abe appeared to be pressuring the government of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to continue his hardline approach towards China.
Hence, while Japanese allies such as the U.S. and European Union have been quick to condemn the assassination and expressed their shock over the loss of Abe, the opposite is happening in China. As the news of the Abe assassination spreads, celebrations began in China as all the social media platforms, including Weibo, WeChat and Youku were flooded with messages cheering the shooter.
A social media account of China Central Television saw a sudden surge in comments rejoicing the attack that killed Abe. Heck, one user on Chinese social media Weibo has even labelled the shooter a “hero”. While many sent death wish to Abe, one social media user has gone to the extent of offering money to the attacker for the assassination job.
One Weibo post which said it would be fitting if Abe atoned with his life for Japan’s invasion of China before World War II just a day after the 85th anniversary of the start of hostilities in 1937 has attracted more than 200,000 likes. Another user who said – “Let the celebrations begin!” – has received more than 150,000 likes within 30 minutes.
However, in a sign that the Chinese government didn’t want the nationalist sentiment to spiral out of control, Hu Xijin (former editor-in-chief and party secretary of the Global Times) wrote on Weibo before news Abe had died that “this is the time to put aside political disputes”. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said his country was shocked by the attack.
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July 8th, 2022 by financetwitter
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Comments
Can’t say I’ve any feeling for Abe getting popped, I don’t suffer from the disease of misplaced emotions simply because the herd wants to look good shouldering the pain of humanity and there’s the pious obligation of luvving all to high heavens, such is Christian, Buddhist, and whatever theatrical to showcase goodness, why didn’t we keep the Japs here after WWII, the freakin’ dwarfs could have continued their brutal murder, torture and rape – and we could have a forgiveness fest each day, and we could have cried our hearts and lungs out each time a fcuking Bushido and his sympathiser died.
Me Grandad told me when the little devils were being repatriated after the war, some Indians and Chinese at the docks in Singapore recognised some particularly vicious Nipponese officers and soldiers, refused to let them board a ship. In other words, they wanted to kill the little bastards and not to bathe them in love and forgiveness.
The outcry for death to the Japs were so great that the Brits overseeing the repatriation turned a blind eye when the locals forcibly grabbed the Japs away to be dispatched. That doesn’t mean postage stamps were stuck on their foreheads, the righteous did their job by smashing heads with hammers and crowbars, slitting throats or strangled or drowned the Jap originals of today’s jihadis. I say jihadis because some of you would react better, didn’t the crusaders call Saddam Hitler, which made killing him more justifiable and palatable, Amen.
All in all, some sixty or seventy or maybe more were eradicated. Grandad, then running a profitable ship chandler business said his ropes were grabbed to swing “quite a few” of the evil, maybe some even innocent bastards by their short necks. There were no one who dared give any lecture about love, forgiveness and humanity, they would have shortened the holy lives of any dumb saint, too. Quite right too!
This being an introduction to my spiel about them Japs, I have to own up to the living truth I don’t actually give a toss about any bad end to any evil animal. I ain’t competing with any of you to see who oozes boundless love and all that and get to sleep with your holy priests. So this is not a piece about how loving, forgiving, and kind I am because Jesus told me to love my enemies, all those of you oozing with love and all that can do all the lovin’ for me. All I know is Western empires and the almost-empire of the Nips were not built out of love for you grateful monkeys. And if the world is a forgiving place, why is it you nice folks are still digging out Hitler and continuing to curse him, and speak of him in a nasty way?
I was goin’ to celebrate (Hooray!) the popping of Abe but I couldn’t get me a few chicken to gas in the oven to give the celebration a nice accent.
There’s been anti-chinese racism in Japan long since before WWII, to this day the Nips, in general, still at the least, look down on the Chinese. Abe’s lot, from his fascist grandfather on were ethnic supremacists and had always desired to subjugate the other “inferior” Asians. The horrendous cruelty done unto Asians by Ketuanan Nipponese were only just and natural according to their racist and supremacist ideology. The Rape of Nanking and other atrocities were so horrific that a German businessman and Nazi party member had to save lives and record the sheer horror carried out by the Japs.
Let me add, specially for some of you braindead wonders, how would you feel for the victims if you were brutally and slowly tortured. What is a torture by being totally skinned but kept alive like? What is the pre-cursor of waterboarding? What’s having a fast-growing bamboo growing through your body like? What’s it like being raped by hundreds of Jap soldiers each day? What’s it like to slowly die from biological weapons?
How does it feel there are Japs like Abe who was (until he got popped) the least remorseful, worse still, always glorifying the good old days of Jap fascism.
Russell of Liverpool documented some of the many forms of torture and death meted out by the rather creative and innovative Japs. Read Russell’s Knights of Bushido and be suitably impressed or sick.
Unlike even some of the remorseful and repentant Jap soldiers, Abe spent too much of his energy and time on glorifying, honouring, and celebrating the fascist past of Japan, and to bring back militarism. A lot of Abe’s provacations toward the Chinese and Korean are deliberately inflammatory, utterly insensitive. The cruelty toward other Asians are ignored, Japan doesn’t even notice that, it seems there is a genetic inability to empathise with others. That Abe visit to the Yucky Shrine to honour Jap war criminals is sheer sick fascist provocation from an emotionally dead piece of meat, now a right proper real piece of dead meat.
Btw, I’m not one bit sorry I wrote this. In fact, I am jolly damn delighted! But that’s not because Abe’s lot never said sorry and never wanted to either that got me goin’. It is simply I feel great some hero has performed what is good riddance to bad rubbish. Should have done that long ago, Abe was doing just too much sh*t-stirring to rile up Asians while keeping up the laughable myth about the superiority of the descendante of some sun goddess, wtf!
If you can lend your heart and mind to the cruelty of the Japs, you too can give some thoughts and feelings for those who suffered and died and many still do (think Agent Orange, depleted uranium…) in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Syria etc. Have to say, Bolehlanders are some monkeys else, always too ready to don sackcloth and put on ashes to make themselves a big bunch of forgiveness-dispensing fcuking joke. Last time our monkeys forgave the Snake Pharaoh M for Memali Monster and turned him into a saint, he turned round, and, as expected by some, bit the monkeys and fcuk them in their butts!
That homemade shotgun of Shogun Shotgun Assassin is rather interesting… Works quite well, maybe its a product of 3D printing. Nice sound too. I’ve nothing against most Japs. I’ve always been impressed by the creativity and innovative flair of the Japs, the DIY shotgun no exception. I like Godzilla, Blind Swordsman, tattooed Yakuza women, and I like watching those funny television game shows in which contestants are tortured. In other words, I too love the Japs.
I haven’t as yet seen anything on why Shogun Shotgun Assassin popped Abe. I’m sure there must be a good reason. I’m curious why Sailor used a gun for his job, the favourite tool is one of those shorter samurai sword often used to hack politicians, rogue company bosses, and Yakuza operatives. The shortest of the blades is used to shorten fingers.
I hope they would love and forgive that former sailor. I would. But I suspect they would bang up the poor chap for a long while, and finally hang him – just as the guy became repentant and turn into a Christian with some Jap cult.
Btw, are those shooters in the pic meant to be Japs? They look nationalist Chinese troopers to me, and those are particularly good at liberally executing the wrong people. As well as fighting for the wrong side.
Angmoh here has an interesting perspective on the assassination of Abe. Angmoh is a white man and some of you monkeys may feel a little bit less uncomfortable he holds a rather non-Western manipulated herd view of the piece of rotten rubbish being disposed.
War is nasty business, not only Abe the dead sushi held the vicious views his grandfather had about Asians especially the Chinese, the racist and fascist had been devoting his whore life refusing to atone and apologise for the very many atrocities of the Japs during WWII. Worse than that there was nothing he liked better than to work hard for the militarisation of Japan, and to stir up Asian with his provocations – while being happy stooge for Yank Imperialism.
So, again, good riddance to bad rubbish, Shotgun Shogun is my hero, Banzai!
These days we see the rehabilitation of fascists all over the world, nothing more visible than the Nazis in Ukraine promoted as heroes. History is being rewritten, I’m over the moon – and the rising sun, the Abe chapter ends with him being pumped fulla lead, Karma I call it, sins of his fcuking grandfather…
You luvvies oozing with love and forgiveness had better shove all that up your ignorant nodding arses, listen to Uncle Andy here, he’s white, his shade of white is more intelligent kind. Remember when the white man – and the superior Asian speaks, you monkeys stand to attention, agree and obey. That ain’t all too bad, remember some of our monkeys collected piles of “banana money” crawling under the Japs and serving them during WWII? Malaya even had a Nipponese gomen run by our monkeys! Priceless!
The last time we had an assassination in Bolehland, a poor Palestinian got gunned down in broad daylight, our radar operators were again busy sleeping. Ever wonder why so long after after WWII, the Yahudis are still hunting Nazis, and are always assassinating their real and imagined enemies. And are always playing the victim card and attempting to destroy views and people not exactly to their liking?
Well, the Jews, I’ve to say have a better sense of everything. They’ve got “an eye for an eye” and not “love thine enemy” and let them arsefcuk you. They remember history – when it’s to their favour. They are clever at manipulating the media, politicians, and you monkeys. The “chosen wans” are always hard done by. Even our “gift from G*d” Anwar was manipulated by them and the neocons and their operatives to pull a con job about Israel on Nik Aziz. Ariel Sharon the famous fascist and mass murderer always boasted Israel owns the US.
If Abe and Jap fascists had Jews as their victims, the “chosen wans” will not be meek mutton surrender monkeys, the likes of Abe will without a doubt be properly and nicely arsefcuked and more, all the bad behaviour will be etched deepin the minds of the world for an eternity and beyond. Unlike bullied Asians meekly waiting for the next arsefcuk, it’s “Never Again!” from the Yahudis.
Well, it’s back to my celebration (still no chickens for the gas oven) of the Jap hero Shotgun Shogun” and the painful descent of Abe to Hell to meet his fcuking grandfather, Praise Be! Banzai! Check the date offer ends for that free sushi at your local sushi joint, remember to collect your two extra free arse bonks from Sammy Sumo!
I’m a Sarawakian and I celebrate the death of this war criminal family decendant. Some of the Iban longhouses are still hanging Japanese soldier skulls, a testimonial of Japan war crimes in Sarawak.