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Institutional condolences, nationalist exultation, strategic criticism. China reacted with a triple approach to the murder of Shinzo Abe. One led by the government, one by netizens and one from the state media. With some incursion of voices outside the tripartite chorus. The former premier of the Japan, the longest-lived since the post-war period, had a relationship in his life that was nothing short of contrasting with Beijing, largely convinced that Abe was above all a nationalist with a revisionist agenda. A partial truth of a leader with a very pragmatic approach and driven above all by the need to awaken Japan from the two “lost decades“. On the economic level, with L’Abenomics. On the political level, with the never completed overcoming of the pacifist constitution imposed by the United States after the end of the Second World War. On the diplomatic level, bringing Japan back to have geopolitical ambitions and strategic. And consequently a global status.
The parable of the relations between Abe and China
Xi Jinping he preferred to focus on lights of the relationship with Abe. The Chinese president waited about 24 hours after the attack and then wrote a message to Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, in which he said “deeply grieved for sudden death“by Abe.”In the past, I have reached an important agreement with him on building China-Japan relations“, added Xi. The reference is to the trade agreements and bilateral relations reached during the important visit by Abe in Beijing by 2019. The Beijing Embassy in Tokyo also stated that “former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe contributed to improving relations between China and Japan during his tenure“.
It should be remembered, in fact, that when Abe began his second term in 2012, relations between China and Japan were under minimum terms. The tensions on the disputed Senkaku / Diaoyu islands and the lack of dialogue between governments had also led to extensive boycott campaigns of Japanese products in China, with several news episodes with violence on Japanese properties in Chinese territory. Abe has raised relations progressively but continuously. Against China it was assertive in terms of security and territorial disputes, accommodating on the commercial level and on the internal dossiers of the People’s Republic.
After the 2019 agreements he was even ready to bring the reports up “a new dimension“One was in fact scheduled for spring 2020 visit (which would have been historic) by Xi in Tokyo. In the plans of the two leaders, it was to be the appointment to seal a new era in bilateral relations between the two Asian giants. But that visit it never happened. The Covid-19 pandemic forced first to suspend it, then to cancel it. Abe had also suffered several criticisms on the home front for not immediately closing the borders with China. Expectation motivated precisely by the awaited visit of Xi.
On social media, Chinese nationalists rejoice
But the pandemic caused not just a freeze, but a real one removal. The virus accelerated the need for Tokyo to distance themselves from Beijing. Both from a political and a commercial point of view. Not towards a decoupling unworkable for the world’s second and third economies, which are deeply interconnected. But if anything, towards one diversificationas demonstrated by the program China Exit launched by Abe himself in the spring of 2020. Japan was forced to reveal its cards earlier than expected. Abe is the true demiurge of the concept of Indo-Pacific already in 2007 during his first mandate and in unsuspecting times with the United States still very far from entering into confrontation mode with Beijing.
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