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TheSatō–Kishi–Abe family is an extremely prominentpolitical familyin Japan. It has produced three prime ministers:Nobusuke Kishi,Eisaku Satō, andShinzo Abe, who combined have served asPrime Minister of Japanfor over 20 years. Kishi led theLiberal Democratic Party (Japan) in its first election as a combined party. All politicians from the Satō-Kishi-Abe family continue to be associated with the LDP today[1]
The family names come first in the following family tree, and Prime Ministers inbold:
| Abe no Yoritoki Heian-era ABE ancestor | Satō Tadanobu Heian-era SATO ancestor | Marquess Inoue Kaoru[a] (great uncle to Tanabe) | Marquise Inoue Sueko (niece and adopted daughter of Kaoru, and aunt of Tanabe) | Tanabe Yuzuru[b] | Nakako | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Kishi Nobumasa | Kishi Yoshiko | Kishi Nobukazu | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Kishi Yōzō | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Satō Hidesuke (adopted by marriage) | Satō Ichirō | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Kishi Nobusuke[c] (adopted by marriage) | Abe Yōko | Kishi Nobuchiyo[d] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Satō Nobuhiko | Satō Moyo | Satō Eisaku[c](adopted by marriage) | Kishi Nobuo[e][d] (adopted son of Nobukazu) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Satō Ryūtarō | Adachi Masashi[f] | Kishi Tomohiro | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| (Kunihiro) Mine | Satō Matsusuke | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Satō Hiroko | Satō Shinji[g][h][c][i] | Mika | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| (Kunihiro) Oko | Fujie | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Matsuoka Sanjūrō | Matsuoka Kensuke | Matsuoka Mitsuo | Matsuoka Masuo[e][c] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Matsuoka Yōsuke[h] | Abe Akie | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Yoshi | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Abe Munenori | Abe Hidenori | Abe Shinzō[b][j] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Tame | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Abe Kan[b] | Abe Hironobu | Abe Hiroto | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Abe Hyōsuke (adopted by marriage) | Abe Shintarō[b] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Hondō Tsunejiro | Sachiko | Mariko | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Shizuko | Ushio Jirō | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Viscount Ōshima Yoshimasa | Hideko | Ushio Shirō | Ushio Miko | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Parliamentary Districts:
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Ichirō Satō (1889–1958),Nobusuke Satō (1896–1987), andEisaku Satō (1901–1975) were the sons of Hidesuke Satō and his wife Moyo (her name could also be read as "Shigeyo"). Hidesuke was a businessman who had recently fallen on hard times, but was from once illustrioussamurai family, claiming descent fromSatō Tadanobu, and through him to theFujiwara.[2]
Hidesuke and Moyo were distant cousins, as Moyo the granddaughter ofSato Nobuhiro, a samurai of theChōshū Domain. Nobuhiro served asmagistrate of theHamada Domain, and was the first governor ofShimane Prefecture after theMeiji Restoration's abolition of thehan system. Nobuhiro was part of theMeiji oligarchy. He, along with other Choshu followersItō Hirobumi,Inoue Kaoru, andKido Takayoshi, formed much of Japan's post-Meiji government and held an disproportionately large influence, historically sending more prime ministers to the capital than any other region.[3]
Through Moyo, the Sato have been tied to Matsuoka family for several generations. This is because Moyo's brother marrying the sister of influential diplomat, Foreign Minister, and fellow Choshu descendant,Yōsuke Matsuoka, and Moyo's aunt had married Yosuke's father Sanjuro before dying without children. Through the Matsuoka, the Sato were related to theroyal family through Kacho Haruko, who was the daughter of MarquisFushiminomiya Hironobuo and PrincessKaninnomiya Hanako. Haruko was once considered as a potential match for Crown PrinceAkihito. Haruko would end up marrying Yosuke's son Shinzo.[4][5]
Ichirō Satō graduated from the Naval Academy in 1908.[6] From 1920, Satō was stationed in France, and in 1923, he was appointed as a staff officer in the General Staff of the Imperial Japanese Navy. In 1927, he represented the Imperial Japanese Navy at theGeneva Conference on Naval Disarmament, where he argued that the Japanese Navy was nothing more than a means of self-defense, and that Japan could never afford to engage in a war with a great naval power.[6] That same year, he became Chief of Staff of the Combined Fleet, and the following year, he was named Captain of the cruiserNagara. In 1929, Satō represented the Imperial Navy on the Permanent Military Advisory Committee to theLeague of Nations, and in 1930, he served as an IJN representative at theLondon Conference on Naval Disarmament. In 1932, he was appointed First Chief of the Education Bureau, Ministry of the Navy, and later served as vice principal of the Naval War College. In 1938, he was promoted to Vice Admiral and assigned to command the Japanese naval station at Port Arthur, but was transferred to the reserves in 1940 due to ill health. Upon his retirement, he was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon. Thereafter, he embarked on a second career as a naval historian, writingA Fifty-Year History of the Japanese Navy (1943). Satō died ofuremia complicated by pneumonia on April 12, 1958[6]
Nobusuke Kishi, bornNobusuke Satō, was adopted by his uncle Nobumasa Kishi. As Nobumasa had no male heir he married his daughter Yoshiko and took her name.[7][8] Nobusuke passed the extremely difficult entrance examination to enter First High School in Tokyo, the most prestigious high school in the country. Afterward he attendedTokyo Imperial University (now theUniversity of Tokyo), where he graduated from theFaculty of Law in 1920 at the top of his class and with the highest grades in the university's history.[9][10] While at the university, Kishi became a protégé of the right-wing ultranationalist legal scholarShinkichi Uesugi.[9][11] Because he studied German law under Uesugi, Kishi's views tended toward that of typical of German-style Statism during the 1930's, which was at contrast to the more progressive approaches favored by some of his classmates who studied English law.[11] Uesugi was so impressed by Kishi that he sought to make Kishi his successor as a professor in the University of Tokyo Faculty of Law, but Kishi declined.[12] Instead, upon graduation, Kishi entered theMinistry of Commerce and Industry.[9] In 1926–27, Kishi traveled around the world to study industry and industrial policy in various industrialised states around the world, such as theUnited States,Germany, and theSoviet Union.[13] Kishi became known as one of the more prominent members of a group of "reform bureaucrats" within the Japanese government who favored a statist model of economic development with the state guiding and directing the economy.[14]
Known for his exploitative rule of the Japanese puppet state ofManchukuo inNortheast China in the 1930s, Kishi was nicknamed the "Monster of the Shōwa era" (昭和の妖怪;Shōwa no yōkai).[15]
Kishi has been described as the "mastermind" behind the industrial development of Japan'spuppet state in Manchuria.[16] Kishi had first come to the attention of theKwantung Army officers as a rising star in the Ministry of Commerce and Industry for openly touting the policies ofNazi Germany, and calling for policies of "industrial rationalization" to eliminate capitalist competition in support of state goals—ideas that accorded with the Army's idea of a "national defense state".[17] In 1935, Kishi was appointed Manchukuo's Deputy Minister of Industrial Development.[18] Kishi was given complete control of Manchukuo's economy by the military, with the authority to do whatever he liked just as long as industrial growth was increased.[19]
In 1936, Kishi was one of the drafters of Manchukuo's first Five-Year Plan.[20] Modeled on the Soviet Union'sFirst Five-Year Plan, Manchukuo's Five-Year Plan was intended to dramatically boost heavy industry in order so that more coal, steel, electricity, and could be used for military purposes.[18][21] In order to enact the new plan, Kishi persuaded the military to allow private capital into Manchukuo. This was done by arguing that the military's policy use of state-owned corporations to lead Manchukuo's industrial development cost Japanese state too much money.[18] One of the new public-private corporations founded to assist in carrying out the Five-Year Plan was theManchuria Industrial Development Company (MIDC). Established in 1937, it attracted a staggering 5.2 billion yen in private investment, making it by far the largest long term investment in the Japanese empire. The sum was especially large when compared to Japan's annual budget government of 2.5 billion yen in 1937.[21] The man handpicked by Kishi to lead the MIDC was his distant relative and First High School classmate,Nissan Group founderAyukawa Yoshisuke.[22] As part of the deal, the Nissan Group's entire operations were supposed to be transferred over to Manchuria to form the basis of the new MIDC.[22] The system that Kishi pioneered in Manchuria of a state-guided economy where corporations made their investments on government orders later served as the model for Japan's post-1945 development, and subsequently, that of South Korea and China as well.[16]
In order to make it profitable for thezaibatsu to invest in Manchukuo, Kishi had a policy of lowering the wages of the workers to the lowest possible point, even below the "line of necessary social reproduction".[19] The purpose of Manchukuo was to provide the industrial basis for the "national defense state", with American historian Mark Driscoll noting that, "Kishi's planned economy was geared towards production goals and profit taking, not competition with other Japanese firms; profit would come primarily from rationalizing labor costs as much as possible. Thene plus ultra of wage rationalization would be withholding pay altogether—that is, unremunerated forced labor."[23] Accordingly, the Japanese conscripted hundreds of thousands of Chinese as slave labor to work in Manchukuo's heavy industrial plants. In 1937, Kishi signed a decree calling for the use of slave labor to be conscripted both in Manchukuo and in northern China, stating that in these "times of emergency" (i.e. war with China), industry needed to grow at all costs while guaranteeing healthy profits for state and private investors.[24] From 1938 to 1944, an average of 1.5 million Chinese were taken every year to work as slaves in Manchukuo.[25] The harsh conditions of Manchukuo were well illustrated by the Fushun coal mine, which at any given moment had about 40,000 men working as miners, of whom about 25,000 had to be replaced every year as their predecessors had died due to poor working conditions and low living standards.[21]
Kishi showed little interest in upholding the rule of law in Manchukuo.[26] Kishi expressed views typical of his fellow colonial bureaucrats when he disparagingly referred the Chinese people as "lawless bandits" who were "incapable of governing themselves".[26] According to Kishi's subordinates, he saw little point in following legal or juridical procedures because he felt the Chinese were more akin to dogs than human beings and would only understand brute force.[26] According to Driscoll, Kishi always used the term "Manshū" to refer to Manchukuo, instead of "Manshūkoku", which reflected his viewpoint that Manchukuo was not actually a state, but rather just a region rich in resources to be used for Japan's benefit.[26]
As a self-described "playboy of the Eastern world", Kishi was known during his four years in Manchukuo for his lavish spending amid much drinking, gambling, and womanizing.[27] Kishi spent almost all of his time in Manchukuo's capital, Xinjing (modernChangchun,China) with the exception of monthly trips on the world famousAsia Express railroad line toDalian, where he indulged in his passion for women in alcohol- and sex-drenched weekends.[28] When he was locked up in Sugamo prison in 1946 awaiting trial, he reminisced about his Manchukuo years: "I came so much, it was hard to clean it all up".[28] According to Driscoll, "photographs and written descriptions of Kishi during this period never fail to depict a giddy exuberance: laughing and joking while doling out money during the day and looking forward to drinking and fornicating at night."[29] Kishi was able to afford his hedonistic, free-spending lifestyle as he had control over millions of yen with virtually no oversight, thanks to being deeply involved in and profiting from the opium trade.[30] Before returning to Japan in October 1939, Kishi is reported to have advised his colleagues in the Manchukuo government about corruption: "Political funds should be accepted only after they havepassed through a 'filter' and been 'cleansed'. If a problem arises, the 'filter' itself will then become the center of the affair, while the politician, who has consumed the 'clean water', will not be implicated. Political funds become the basis of corruption scandals only when they have not been sufficiently 'filtered.'"[31]
Kishi later served in the wartime cabinet of Prime MinisterHideki Tōjō as Minister ofCommerce and Vice Minister of Munitions,[32] and co-signed the declaration of war against the United States on December 7, 1941.
After World War II, Kishi was imprisoned for three years as a suspected Class A war criminal. However, the U.S. government did not charge, try, or convict him, and eventually released him as they considered Kishi to be the best man to lead a post-war Japan in apro-American direction. With U.S. support, he went on to consolidate the Japanese conservative camp against perceived threats from theJapan Socialist Party in the 1950s. Kishi was instrumental in the formation of the powerfulLiberal Democratic Party (LDP) through a merger of smaller conservative parties in 1955, and thus is credited with being a key player in the initiation of the "1955 System", the extended period during which the LDP was the overwhelmingly dominant political party in Japan.[33][31]
As prime minister, Kishi's mishandling of the 1960 revision of theU.S.-Japan Security Treaty led to the massive1960 Anpo protests, which were the largest protests in Japan's modern history and which forced him to resign in disgrace.[34] Four years later his younger brother Eisaku Satō became prime minister.
Eisaku Satō studiedGerman law atTokyo Imperial University and in 1923, passed the senior civil service examinations. Upon graduation the following year, he became acivil servant in theMinistry of Railways. Eisaku married Hiroko Satō (佐藤 寛子; 5 January 1907 – 16 April 1987) in 1926 and succeeded her father, Matsusuke Satō. Matsusuke was Eisaku's maternal uncle and the head of main Satō family. After Matsusuke died in 1911, his wife and two daughters, Fujie, Hiroko and Masako were supported by diplomatYōsuke Matsuoka, Fujie's brother. Eisaku and Hiroko had two sons, Ryūtarō andShinji. Shinji followed his father into politics, serving in both houses and as a cabinet minister. Shinji's son-in-law,Masashi Adachi, currently serves in theHouse of Councillors, and formerly worked as an aide for his cousin-in-law, Eisaku's grandnephew,Shinzo Abe. In a 1969Shukan Asahi interview with novelistShūsaku Endō, Hiroko accused Satō of being arake and awife-beater.[35]
Satō served as Director of the Osaka Railways Bureau from 1944 to 1946 andVice-Minister for Transport from 1947 to 1948.[36]
Satō entered theDiet in 1949 as a member of theLiberal Party. He served as Minister ofPostal Services and Telecommunications from July 1951 to July 1952. Sato gradually rose through the ranks of Japanese politics, becomingchief cabinet secretary to then prime ministerShigeru Yoshida from January 1953 to July 1954. He later served as minister of construction from October 1952 to February 1953.
After the Liberal Party merged with theJapan Democratic Party to form theLiberal Democratic Party, Satō served as chairman of the party executive council from December 1957 to June 1958, followed by a post asminister of finance in the cabinet of his brotherNobusuke Kishi from 1958 to 1960. As minister of finance, Sato requested the US to fund conservatives.[37]
Satō also served in the cabinets of Kishi's successor as prime minister,Hayato Ikeda. From July 1961 to July 1962, Satō wasMinister of International Trade and Industry. From July 1963 to June 1964 he was concurrently head of theHokkaidō Development Agency and of theScience and Technology Agency. In 1964 he succeededHayato Ikeda as prime minister, becoming the first prime minister to have been born in the 20th century and the second prime minister to come from his family.
As prime minister, Satō presided over a period of rapid economic growth. He would go on to serve the longest stint of any prime minister up until that time, and by the late 1960s he appeared to have single-handed control over the entire Japanese government. He was a popular prime minister due to the growing economy; his foreign policy, which was a balancing act between the interests of the United States and China, was more tenuous. Student political radicalization led tonumerous protests against Satō's support of theUnited States–Japan Security Treaty, and Japanese tacit support forAmerican military operations in Vietnam. This opposition peaked with the1968–1969 Japanese university protests, which eventually forced Satō to close the prestigiousUniversity of Tokyo for a year in 1969.[38]
Satō arranged for the formal return ofOkinawa (Ryukyu Islands; occupied by the United States since the end of theSecond World War) to Japanese control. He brought Japan into theNuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, for which he received theNobel Peace Prize as a co-recipient in 1974. After three terms as prime minister, Satō decided not to run for a fourth. His heir apparent,Takeo Fukuda, won the Sato faction's support in the subsequent Diet elections, but the more popularMITI minister,Kakuei Tanaka, won the vote, ending the Satō faction's dominance.
Kan Abe was born on 29 April 1894, inHeki (present-dayNagato),Yamaguchi Prefecture, the eldest son of Abe Hyōsuke and his wife Tame. The Abe family was a prominent family of landowners andsake andsoy sauce brewers in Heki who had served asnanushi (village heads) in theEdo period.[39] His father was from the Mukunoki family, a prominent family inŌtsu, who was adopted into his wife's family upon marriage. Both his parents died by the time he was four, after which he was raised by his aunt Yoshi.[40][41][42] Abe graduated fromTokyo Imperial University, the predecessor of theUniversity of Tokyo.
Abe married Shizuko Hondo, the grand daughter of ViscountŌshima Yoshimasa, which strengthened Abe's ties to theMeiji oligarchy and their influence within the government, giving he and his son Shintaro greater access to Sato, Kishi, and the halls of power.[43] It is believed that Tame and her sister Yoshi were 40th generation descendants of theHeian era samuraiAbe no Yoritoki through his sonAbe no Munetō. This line with ties to the historicMutsu Province was originally believed to beseparate from the mainAbe clan line, which claims descent from the legendaryEmperor Kōgen, however recent studies suggest they may indeed be distant relations.[44][45]
Abe stood as aSeiyūkai Party candidate in theFebruary 1928 general election but lost; he was appointed village mayor of Heki in 1933 and later served in the Yamaguchi prefectural assembly. He was elected to theHouse of Representatives as an independent candidate in theFebruary 1937 general election. He earned the nickname "New Shōin" or "Shōwa Shōin" in honor of the earlier leader from Yamaguchi,Yoshida Shōin.[46]
In the1942 general election, he ran on a platform opposing the militarist government underHideki Tojo, which had by this time taken away most powers from theDiet. The Tojo cabinet had attempted to block antiwar candidates from running through a registration system, notwithstanding which Abe won a Diet seat, which he used for an attempt to oust Tojo and endWorld War II. Abe was assisted in this effort byTakeo Miki, who became prime minister after the war.[47] Abe died of a heart attack in January 1946 while preparing to run in thefirst post-war general election.
Yōko Kishi was born in 1928 as the eldest daughter ofNobusuke Kishi. She would go on to marryShintaro Abe, becomingYōko Abe. She was the mother ofHironobu Abe,Shinzo Abe, andNobuo Kishi.[48][49]
Known for hercalligraphy,[50] she was considered to be the "Godmother" of the Kishi-Abe family (a Japanesepolitical family for three generations),[51] and had long been the leader of the wives of members ofSeiwa Seisaku Kenkyūkai.[52] She was called the "Godmother of the World of Politics" because she had many followers in politics.[53] Yōko Abe died on 4 February 2024, at the age of 95.[54]
Shintaro Abe was born on April 29, 1924, inTokyo, the only son of a politician and member of ParliamentKan Abe. He was raised in his father's home prefecture of Yamaguchi from soon after his birth. His mother was an army general's daughter.[55] After graduating from high school in 1944 duringWorld War II, Abe entered a naval aviation school and volunteered to become akamikaze pilot. The war ended before he could undergo the required training.[56] In 1949 he graduated from the Faculty of Law at theUniversity of Tokyo, Shintaro Abe began his career as a political reporter forMainichi Shimbun.[57] He became a politician in 1957 when he started working as a legislative aide of his father-in-law, the then-prime ministerNobusuke Kishi.[57] He won his father's seat inthe House of Representatives in 1958.[55]
He led a major LDP faction, the conservative Seiwa Seisaku Kenkyūkai, whose reins he took from former prime ministerTakeo Fukuda in July 1986, and held a variety of ministerial and party posts, the former of which includedMinister of Agriculture and Forestry andMinister of International Trade and Industry.[55] Abe was named as Minister of International Trade and Industry in the cabinet of the then prime ministerZenkō Suzuki on November 30, 1981.[58] During this period, he was seen as a young leader groomed for the future prime ministry.[58] In November 1982, he was appointedMinister for Foreign Affairs in the cabinet of the then-prime ministerYasuhiro Nakasone, replacingYoshio Sakurauchi. His term lasted until 1986.[59]
Abe was a top contender to succeed Nakasone as prime minister in 1987 until he stepped aside forNoboru Takeshita, head of a powerful rival faction. Then, he was given the post of secretary general of the party in 1987.[59] In 1988, his chances of becoming prime minister sometime in the near future were again thwarted when his name became associated with theRecruit-Cosmos insider-trading stock scandal, which brought down Takeshita and forced Abe to resign as the party's secretary general in December 1988.[59] Shintaro Abe was hospitalized in January 1991.[55] He died atTokyo's Juntendo University Hospital on May 15, 1991, aged 67. The cause of death was heart failure.[56][57][60]
Shinji Satō (佐藤 信二Satō Shinji, February 8, 1932 – May 3, 2016) was a Japanese politician who served as a member of theHouse of Representatives (1979–2000 and 2003–2005) andHouse of Councillors (1974–1979), asMinister of International Trade and Industry (1996–1997), and asMinister of Transport (1988–1989). He was the second son of Prime Minister Eisaku Satō. Satō announced in 2012 that he had a document signed between his father and U.S. PresidentRichard Nixon that would allow American nuclear weapons to be brought to Okinawa in emergencies.[61]
Hironobu Abe (安倍 寛信; born May 30, 1952) is a Japanese businessman. He is the CEO of AB Communications and former CEO ofMitsubishi Corporation Packaging. A scion of the Satō–Kishi–Abe family, he is the eldest son of politicianShintaro Abe, and the older brother of formerPrime Minister of JapanShinzo Abe and formerMinister of DefenseNobuo Kishi. Abe was a grandson of former prime ministerNobusuke Kishi and a grand-nephew of former prime ministerEisaku Satō.
Hironobu Abe was born in 1952 inTokyo toShintaro Abe andYoko Abe. After attending Seikei Elementary School, Seikei Junior and Senior High School, he entered the Faculty of Economics at Seikei University in 1971. He graduated from either Seikei University or the University of Tokyo in March 1975.[62][63] The following year he joinedMitsubishi Corporation and was assigned to the Resources Division No. 3.[64][65][66] Abe worked in Tokyo, Hiroshima, Kyushu, Toronto, and London managing business investments. In February 2004, he was appointed head of Mitsubishi Corporation's China branch, and in April 2007, he was appointed executive officer of Mitsubishi Corporation. It was rare for a head of a China branch to be appointed to a board position, and this unusual appointment was greeted with a wave of surprise.[67]
Abe served as president and Representative Director of Mitsubishi Corporation Packaging from 2012 to 2021 before retiring altogether from the company in 2022.[68][69][66][70][71][72] After his retirement at Mitsubishi he maintained a part-time advisory role while also being appointed outside director of Yamaeo Group Holdings, Seikei Gakuen, and Fumakilla.[73]
Shinzo Abe (Japanese:安倍 晋三,Hepburn:Abe Shinzō,IPA:[abeɕindzoː]; 21 September 1954 – 8 July 2022) waslongest-serving prime minister in Japanese history, serving for almost nine years in total. He served asPrime Minister of Japan andPresident of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) from 2006 to 2007 and again from 2012 to 2020. Abe also served asChief Cabinet Secretary from 2005 to 2006 underJunichiro Koizumi and was briefly the opposition leader in 2012.
After graduating fromSeikei University and briefly attending theUniversity of Southern California, Abe was elected to theJapanese House of Representatives in the1993 election. Abe was appointed Chief Cabinet Secretary by Prime Minister Koizumi in 2005 before replacing him as prime minister and LDP president the following year. Confirmed by theNational Diet, Abe became Japan's youngest post-war prime minister and the first bornafter World War II. Abe resigned as prime minister a year later due toulcerative colitis and his party'srecent election losses. After recovering, Abe staged an unexpected political comeback by defeatingShigeru Ishiba, the formerdefense minister, to become LDP president in 2012. Following the LDP's landslide victory inthat year's general election, Abe became the first former prime minister to return to office sinceShigeru Yoshida in 1948. He led the LDP to further victories in the2014 and2017 elections, becoming Japan's longest-serving prime minister. In 2020, Abe again resigned as prime minister, citing a relapse of his colitis, and was succeeded byYoshihide Suga.
Abe was a staunch conservative and associated with theNippon Kaigi, which holdsnegationist views on Japanese history, including denying the role of government coercion in the recruitment ofcomfort women duringWorld War II, a position which caused tensions particularly with South Korea. Under his premiership,Japan–South Korea relations further strained in 2019 over disputes about reparations.[74] Earlier that same year, Abe's government initiated atrade dispute with South Korea after theSouth Korean Supreme Court ruled that reparations be made by Japanese companies who had benefited fromforced labor. Abe was considered a hard-liner with respect to Japan's military policies. In 2007, he initiated theQuadrilateral Security Dialogue during his first tenure as prime minister, aimed at resistingChina's rise as a superpower. He advocated for amendingArticle 9 of theJapanese Constitution to legally codify the status of theJapan Self-Defense Forces (JSDF). However, this was never achieved during his lifetime. He enactedmilitary reforms in 2015 that allowed Japan to exercisecollective security by allowing JSDF deployments overseas, the passage of which was controversial and met withprotests. Economically, Abe attempted to counter Japan'seconomic stagnation with "Abenomics", with mixed results. He was also credited with reinstating theTrans-Pacific Partnership with theComprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership.
On 8 July 2022,Abe was assassinated while delivering a campaign speech inNara two days before the10 July upper house elections. The suspect,Tetsuya Yamagami, who was immediately arrested by Japanese police, confessed to targeting the former prime minister because of Abe's reported ties with theUnification Church. This was the first assassination of a former Japanese prime ministersince 1936. A polarizing figure in Japanese politics, Abe was described by supporters as having worked to strengthen Japan's security and international stature, while opponents described his nationalistic policies and negationist views on history as threatening Japanese pacifism and damaging relations with East Asian neighbors including China and South Korea.
Akie Matsuzaki (松崎 昭恵,Matsuzaki Akie) was born on 10 June 1962. She is from a wealthy Japanese family; her father is the former president ofMorinaga & Co., one of Japan's largestconfectionery companies. She was educated atSacred Heart School in Tokyo (orSeishin Joshi Gakuin), aRoman Catholic private elementary through high school, then graduated fromSacred Heart Professional Training College. Akie later worked forDentsu Inc., the world's largest advertising agency, before marrying Shinzo Abe in 1987. After this she became known asAkie Abe. The couple had no children, having undergone unsuccessful fertility treatments earlier in their marriage.[75] The two would remain married until Shinzo'sassassination on 8 July 2022.
In the late 1990s, Abe worked as a radiodisc jockey in her husband's hometown ofShimonoseki. She was popular in the broadcast area and was known by her jockey name, "Akky".[76]
Following her husband's first stint as prime minister, she opened an organicizakaya in theKanda district of Tokyo, but was not active in management due to the urging of her mother-in-law.[77] She received a master's degree in Social Design Studies fromRikkyo University in March 2011.
Akie became popularly known as the "domestic opposition party" due to her outspoken views, which often contradicted her husband's.[77] Abe is also known as a supporter ofsexual minorities and theLGBT community. On April 27, 2014, she joined thegay pride parade inTokyo to show her support for broader rights toJapan's LGBT community.[78] In 2015, she was photographed standing in a field of cannabis plants promoting the revival of the cannabis culture in Japan.[79]
While her husband was in office, Abe developed a close relationship with theMoritomo Gakuen kindergarten in Osaka, which is noted for its conservative and militarist culture, including requiring students to memorize theImperial Rescript on Education. Abe was named as honorary principal ofMizuho no Kuni, an elementary school under development by Moritomo Gakuen, but resigned in February 2017 after it was discovered that Moritomo Gakuen had purchased the land for the school from the government for 14% of its appraised value.[80] The Moritomo Gakuen scandal highlighted the complicated role of the prime minister's wife in Japan: although Abe herself was not considered a civil servant, she was supported by a staff of five civil servants seconded from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, thus implying that her role carries public duties.[81]
Akie was the first spouse of a Japanese prime minister to actively usesocial media, and was particularly personally active onFacebook andInstagram, but dramatically reduced her social media activities and changed the style of her posts in the wake of theMoritomo Gakuen scandal.[82]
Nobuo Kishi sat in theHouse of Representatives from 2012 to 2023 representingYamaguchi's2nd District as a member of theLiberal Democratic Party. From September 2020 to August 2022 he served as theMinister of Defense. He is the younger brother of Shinzo Abe. Shortly after his birth, he wasadopted by his maternal uncle, Seibu Oil chairman Nobukazu Kishi, who could not have children of his own.[83] He did not know about his actual parentage or his relationship with Shintaro Abe's other sons Hironobu Shinzo until he was preparing to enter university.
Kishi spent the first decade of his life living in Tokyo with his grandfather, former prime ministerNobusuke Kishi.[84] He graduated from the Faculty of Economics atKeio University in 1981 and joinedSumitomo Corporation, where he worked until 2002. His postings included the United States, Vietnam, and Australia.
With his brother Abe's backing, Kishi was elected to the House of Councillors in 2004, representingYamaguchi Prefecture.[84] He became known as a specialist in security issues.[85] He has served as Parliamentary Secretary for Defense (Fukuda and Aso Cabinet), Vice Chairman, LDP Diet Affairs Committee in the House of Councillors, Vice Chairman, Party Organization and Campaign Headquarters of LDP, chairman, Special Committee on Okinawa and Northern Problems.[86]
Kishi was elected to theHouse of Representatives in the2012 Japanese general election after resigning from his House of Councillors seat. He re-took a seat in Yamaguchi Prefecture that had previously belonged to his grandfatherNobusuke Kishi and great-uncleEisaku Sato, but that had been lost to theDemocratic Party of Japan in the2009 Japanese general election.[84] Following the 2012 election, Kishi's brother Abe became prime minister. Kishi was promoted to Senior Vice Foreign Minister in 2013.[87]
Kishi became known during this time for his role in promoting the Japan-Taiwan relationship. He helped to arrange an historic meeting between Prime Minister Abe and ROC opposition leaderTsai Ing-wen in 2015.[84] After Tsai'sreelection as president, Kishi met with Tsai in Taiwan in January 2020 and again in July 2020 (when he attended thefuneral of PresidentLee Teng-hui).[88] In 2019, he publicly advocated for Japan acquiring strike capabilities as a defensive measure againstNorth Korea, stating that Japan should not rely upon the United States for defense.[85]
Kishi was appointed as minister of defense under Prime MinisterYoshihide Suga in September 2020. Commentator Michael Bosack described this as "a strange pick that signals factional influence and possibly a personal favor," and argued that the faction led byHiroyuki Hosoda was clearly trying to build Kishi's credentials.[89] Following the news of Kishi's appointment, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman expressed hope that Japan would refrain from developing official ties with Taiwan.[88]
In October 2020, Kishi released a joint statement withAustralian Minister of DefenseLinda Reynolds that announced that Japan'sSelf Defense Forces would be enabled to protect Australian military assets, an act which was made legal in September 2015 through the "Peace and Security Preservation Legislation" passed under the Abe administration. This makes Australia the second country (after the United States) whose assets Japan would be permitted to protect.[90] Kishi and Reynolds also emphasized their opposition to "any destabilizing or coercive unilateral actions that could alter the status quo and increase tensions in theEast China Sea," and some analysts have speculated this to be in reference toChinese maritime activities around the Senkaku Islands.[91] In a September 2021 interview with theMainichi Shimbun, Kishi stated that Japan cannot stand aside when events occur inTaiwan due to being close neighbors and allies with shared universal values such as freedom and democracy.[92] In 2021, he visited the controversialYasukuni Shrine, making him the first sitting Defense Minister to do so since 2016. In response, the South Korean Foreign Ministry described his visit as "deplorable".[93]
After Suga's resignation as prime minister, his successorFumio Kishida opted to retain Kishi as Defense minister after taking office in October 2021.Nikkei noted that this sent a message of continuity in Japan's policies toward China and Taiwan.[94]
After theassassination of Shinzo Abe on 8 July 2022, Nobuo Kishi had to disclose that the relationship with the controversialUnification Church, also known as the "Moon Sect", extends to him. Kishi acknowledged that members of the group participated as volunteers in his campaign activities, including tasks such as telephone campaigning.[95][96][97] Kishida replaced him as Defense Minister a month later.[98] He announced plans to resign from theHouse of Representatives due to health issues, making way for aby-election on April 23, 2023.[99]
Masashi Adachi (阿達 雅志Adachi Masashi, b. September 27, 1959) is a Japanese politician who serves as a member of theHouse of Councillors and as a State Minister forInternal Affairs and Communications.
Adachi was born inSakyo-ku, Kyoto, and grew up inFukui,Sakai, andTakatsuki. He graduated from theUniversity of Tokyo and joinedSumitomo Corporation in 1983, where he worked on rail car exports to the United States. He obtained an MCJ and LLM from theNew York University School of Law in 1993, and became qualified as a lawyer in New York. He thereafter worked in the legal department of Sumitomo, and in the executive office of its Chinese subsidiary. He left Sumitomo in 2000, and thereafter worked for his father-in-law Shinji Sato 2003 to 2004. He then worked for the law firm ofPaul Weiss in Tokyo from 2004 to 2014.[100]
He ran as aLiberal Democratic Party candidate for the House of Councillors in the2007 election but lost.[101] He joined the law school faculty ofNihon University as an adjunct professor in 2008. He again ran as an LDP candidate in the2010 House of Councillors election and lost.[102]
He finally entered the House of Councillors as a runner-up afterYukari Sato resigned in December 2014 to run in the2014 Japanese general election,[103] and won re-election in the2016 House of Councillors election.[104]
He was appointed as a vice-minister for theCabinet Office andMinistry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism in 2018 under Prime MinisterShinzo Abe.[105]
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Nobuchiyo Kishi (岸信千世, b. May 16, 1991) is a Japanese politician and son of Nobuo Kishi. He serves as a member of theHouse of Representatives and Parliamentary Vice-Minister forDigital Affairs and Parliamentary Vice-Minister for theCabinet Office.[106][43]
Born in the United States where his father was posted while working for theSumitomo Corporation, Nobuchiyo grew up in Tokyo and graduated fromKeio University in 2014. Following college, he worked atFuji Television as a reporter in the news bureau. When his father Nobuo becameMinister of Defense in 2020, he joined his father's staff as an aide. When Nobuo stepped down as Defense Minister and retired from politics in February 2023, Nobuchiyo decided to follow in his father's footsteps and run for his father's former seat representing theYamaguchi 2nd district, a seat previously held by his great-grandfather Nobusuke, and throughredistricting, shared by various members of the family for almost 100 years over the course of 5 generations. He would win the seat in the by-election in April with 61,369 votes, 52.47% of the total votes cast, becoming the youngest member of the majorityLDP in Diet, and only the third Diet member born in theHeisei era.[107]
He would be appointed in the Vice-Minister roles in Ishiba's Cabinet following his re-election securing his seat with 104,885 votes in the2024 Japanese general election.[108]
会場には書家、門人の元首相、安倍晋三さんの母・安倍洋子さんをはじめ、…- 毎索にて閲覧
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