It's been almost a year since former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was shot dead. During this time, many people, including doctors, questioned the National Police Agency's explanation of the cause of death based on a judicial autopsy of "blood loss from the subclavian artery" through SNS. Police said the results of the autopsy will be revealed at the trial. However, at the trial, the prosecution will once again ignore the testimony of the university hospital EMT to whom Abe was transported that he had suffered heart damage, as well as physical evidence such as CT images to support this. The first pre-trial arrangement procedure, which was scheduled to begin on June 12 with the attendance of defendant Tetsuya Yamagami, was canceled after a suspicious parcel was sent to the Nara District Court. As a result, it is possible that the defendant will be absent for security reasons and liquidation proceedings will be carried out. While suspicions of the existence of forces trying to hinder the clarification of the truth behind Abe's assassination are growing, Seiwakai (Abe's faction), the largest faction of the Liberal Democratic Party, confronts the neo-conservative-led U.S. government head-on, urging them to "stop interfering in internal affairs." began to In the wake of Abe's assassination, the neoconservatives pushed the former conservative mainstream "Kochikai" faction to the sidelines and tried to "dispose of" the Abe group and the Seiwakai, which had been in power as the mainstream of the Liberal Democratic Party for more than 20 years.
What should be emphasized is that the so-called conservative forces, with the Abe group at its core, are fiercely opposed to the United States. Criticism of the United States and NATO over the Ukraine War was introduced at the end of last year, "Abe's Assassination and Anti-American Conservative Rise Against the U.S. Deception Revealed in the Ukraine War". In short, it is an assertion of ``approval of the Greater East Asia War and denial of the Tokyo trial,'' and is a fierce criticism of the United States based on the victim's consciousness that the Empire of Japan was dismantled by the tactics of the United States and Britain. This idea is based on the imperial historical view and Yasukuni thought advocated by the Nippon Kaigi under the guise of the ideological device of the first Abe administration (2006-2007). Nippon Kaigi's restoration philosophy of "rebuilding a beautiful Japan" centered on the restoration of the Meiji Constitution advocated by the first president of Seicho no Ie, a traditional religious group including Jinja Honcho, is directly connected to the denial of defeat and the denial of U.S. occupation of Japan. Was.
Since the start of the second Abe administration in 2012, such blatant discourse has been hidden. The reason they turned to openly criticizing the United States after Abe's assassination must be because they sensed some sort of US-related movement behind the assassination.
Conservative forces in Japan continue to pursue policies based on Confucian values that still raise eyebrows in the United States and Western countries, such as familism, anti-individualism, opposition to separate surnames for married couples, opposition to foreign suffrage, and sexual minorities ( LGBT) denial, opposition to matrilineal emperors, etc. In Japan, having the same surname for married couples is regarded as a symbol of familism, and heterosexual marriage has been the absolute basis for this. The Abe group's claims fit perfectly with this. Therefore, conservatives strongly opposed the "LGBT understanding promotion bill" that was submitted to the Diet before the G7 Hiroshima Summit in May. At the House of Representatives vote on June 13, some lawmakers withdrew or were absent. Both are Shinzo Abe worshipers.
On SNS and YouTube, the target of the attack was the U.S. Ambassador to Japan Emmanuel (pictured center), who said, "Japan is the only G7 country that does not have an anti-LGBT discrimination law and does not recognize same-sex marriage." Before the bill was submitted, the ambassador also participated in a demonstration and said, "Regarding the LGBT understanding promotion bill, it does not go beyond the framework of the Japanese Constitution, but it is an attempt to strengthen the principles of the Constitution." “U.S. President Biden also has a policy of protecting the rights of sexual minorities,” he said.
In response, the conservatives thundered, saying, ``Don't allow the US government to interfere in domestic affairs.'' You can feel the revival of the national anti-American right wing until the 1950s, before most of the right wing in Japan was labeled as "pro-American right wing". There are also voices of resentment, saying, "If Mr. Abe was here, I wouldn't have let him do this." Some critics who were Abe sympathizers say they will launch a genuine conservative party.
The Yoon Seo-yeol administration, which was inaugurated in May last year in South Korea, expressed a sense of crisis about the growing threat from North Korea and the intensifying conflict between the United States and China, and rebelled against the fact that it shifted its focus to diplomatic and security cooperation with Japan. there is They believe that if they go on the route of reconciliation with South Korea, they will emphasize reconciliation with North Korea and consideration for China like the former Moon Jae-in administration, and if they are replaced by a left-wing government that is hostile to Japanese conservatives, they will return to the original plan. is opposed to the Biden US administration, which ordered the revival of the "Japan-US-Korea" system. The Kishida administration was cautious about calls from South Korea to improve relations, but after Abe's death in July, the Kishida government changed its stance to a more positive one. The Abe group was also a major obstacle for the Biden and Kishida administrations in terms of South Korea policy.
Abe backed Sanae Takaichi, who had left Seiwakai, in the 2021 LDP presidential election. Appreciating the fact that he fought better than expected, he said, ``We showed a firm view of the nation. I raised my voice. Not only did he declare that he would revise the constitution, but he was also obsessed with choosing a successor, like Takaichi, saying, ``I will visit Yasukuni Shrine as soon as I become prime minister.''
Prime Minister Kishida appointed Sanae Takaichi as Minister for Economic Security in August 2022. However, at the end of last year, Takaichi expressed his strong dissatisfaction with Kishida, saying, "Neither I nor Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura (an Abe faction) was invited to the government's ruling party policy roundtable, nor was I given a chance to argue." In March 2023, Kishida did not dismiss Takaichi, who asserted that the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications' administrative document on political fairness in the Broadcasting Act was a "fabrication," but this was to assess the weakening of the Abe group. It should be seen as a time-saver.
For the U.S. government and the power centers behind it, the Abe group was "out of service" with the enactment of the new security legislation in 2015, which accompanies the exercise of the right to collective self-defense. Toshimi Kitazawa, who served as Defense Minister under the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) administration, said, "I feel an admiration for military power" when Abe rushes forward to enact the new security legislation. The center of power in the US needed this sense of Abe in order to "make Japan a military superpower under US control." However, the group that could transform into ultra-nationalism that revered the Yasukuni thought had to be thrown out.