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Shinzō Abe 安倍 晋三
Prime Minister of Japan
In office 26 September 2006 – 26 September 2007
Monarch	Akihito
Preceded by	Junichiro Koizumi
Succeeded by	Yasuo Fukuda
Chief Cabinet Secretary
In office 31 October 2005 – 26 September 2006
Prime Minister	Junichiro Koizumi
Preceded by	Hiroyuki Hosoda
Succeeded by	Yasuhisa Shiozaki
Member of the House of Representatives of the 4th Yamaguchi Prefecture
Incumbent
Assumed office 1993
Preceded by	New constituency
Majority	137,701 (73.62%)
Personal details
Born	(1954-09-21) 21 September 1954 (age 57) Nagato, Japan
Political party	Liberal Democratic Party
Spouse(s)	Akie Matsuzaki
Alma mater	Seikei University University of Southern California
Religion	Buddhism and Shinto[1]

Shinzō Abe (安倍 晋三, Abe Shinzō^?, [abe ɕinzoː] ( listen); born 21 September 1954) was the 90th Prime Minister of Japan, elected by a special session of the National Diet on 26 September 2006. He was Japan's youngest post–World War II prime minister and the first born after the war. Abe served as prime minister for nearly twelve months, before resigning on 12 September 2007.^[2] He was replaced by Yasuo Fukuda, beginning a string of Prime Ministers who could not keep the office for more than one year.^[3]

Early life[link]

Abe was born in Nagato and soon moved to Tokyo. He attended Seikei elementary school and Fuku Yu high school.^[4] He studied political science at Seikei University, graduating in 1977. He later moved to the United States and studied "English for foreign students" and political science at the University of Southern California. In April 1979, Abe began working for Kobe Steel.^[5] He left the company in 1982 and pursued a number of governmental positions including executive assistant to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, private secretary to the chairperson of the LDP General Council, and private secretary to the LDP secretary-general.^[6]

Abe was born into a political family of significance. His grandfather, Kan Abe, and father, Shintaro Abe, were both politicians. Abe's mother, Yoko Kishi,^[7] is the daughter of Nobusuke Kishi, prime minister of Japan from 1957 to 1960. Kishi had been a member of the Tōjō Cabinet during the Second World War. Since GHQ's policy changed and became more anti-communist, Kishi was released from Sugamo Prison, and later established the Japan Democratic Party. In 1950 Shigeru Yoshida's Liberal Party and Kishi's Democratic Party merged as an anti-leftist coalition and became the Liberal Democratic Party of today.

Member of House of Representatives[link]

Shinzo Abe (right), as Chief Cabinet Secretary, meets with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick in January 2006.

Shinzō Abe was elected to the first district of Yamaguchi Prefecture in 1993 after his father's death in 1991, winning the most votes of any election in the prefecture's history. In 1999, he became Director of the Social Affairs Division, Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary in the Yoshirō Mori and Junichiro Koizumi Cabinets from 2000–2003, after which he was appointed Secretary General of the Liberal Democratic Party.

Abe is a member of the Mori Faction (formally, the Seiwa Seisaku Kenkyū-kai) of the Liberal Democratic Party. This faction is headed by former prime minister Yoshirō Mori. Junichiro Koizumi was a member of the Mori Faction prior to leaving it, as is the custom when accepting a high party post. From 1986 to 1991, Abe's father, Shintaro, headed the same faction. The Seiwa Seisaku Kenkyū-kai has sixty members in the House of Representatives and twenty six in the House of Councillors.

Abe was chief negotiator for the Japanese government on behalf of the families of Japanese abductees taken to North Korea. As a part of the effort, he accompanied Koizumi to meet Kim Jong-il in 2002. He gained national popularity when he demanded that Japanese abductees visiting Japan remain, in defiance of North Korea.^[8]

On 31 October 2005, he was nominated Chief Cabinet Secretary of the fifth Koizumi Cabinet, succeeding Hiroyuki Hosoda.

He was the leader of a project team within the LDP that did a survey on "excessive sexual education and gender-free education." Among the items to which this team raised objections were anatomical dolls and other curricular materials "not taking into consideration the age of children," school policies banning traditional boys' and girls' festivals, and mixed-gender physical education. The team sought to provide contrast to the Democratic Party of Japan, which it alleged supported such policies.^[9]

On 20 September 2006, Abe was elected as the president of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.^[10] His chief competitors for the position were Sadakazu Tanigaki and Taro Aso. Yasuo Fukuda was a leading early contender but ultimately chose not to run. Former Prime Minister Yoshirō Mori, to whose faction both Abe and Fukuda belonged, stated that the faction strongly leant toward Abe.^[11]

On 26 September, Abe was elected prime minister with 339 of 475 votes in the Diet's lower house and a firm majority in the upper house.^[12]

Prime minister[link]

Abe, elected at age 52, in 2006, was the youngest prime minister since Fumimaro Konoe in 1941.^[13]

Domestic policy[link]

Economy[link]

Abe expressed a general commitment to the fiscal reforms instituted by his predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi.^[13] He has taken some steps toward balancing the Japanese budget, such as appointing a tax policy expert, Koji Omi, as Minister of Finance. Omi has previously supported increases in the national consumption tax, although Abe has distanced himself from this policy and seeks to achieve much of his budget balancing through spending cuts.^[14]

Education[link]

Since 1997, as the bureau chief of "Institute of Junior Assembly Members Who Think About The Outlook of Japan and History Education," Abe supported the controversial Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform and the New History Textbook. He denies the abduction of comfort women by Japanese troops, claims that a history textbook must contribute to the formation of national consciousness, and cites South Korean criticism of the New History Textbook as foreign interference in Japanese domestic affairs.^[15]

In March 2007, Abe along with right-wing politicians have proposed a bill to encourage nationalism and a "love for one's country and hometown" among the Japanese youth.^{[citation needed]}.

Imperial household[link]

Abe holds conservative views in the Japanese imperial succession controversy, and has said he opposes amending Japanese law to permit female blood lines to succeed the imperial family. Succession of the imperial family by the female blood line should not be confused with ascension of a woman to the Chrysanthemum Throne as Empress.^{[citation needed]}

Foreign policy[link]

Shinzō Abe at APEC 2006, with then U.S. President George W. Bush and President Roh Moo-hyun of South Korea.

North Korea[link]

Shinzō Abe has generally taken a hard-line stance with respect to North Korea, especially regarding the North Korean abductions of Japanese.

In 2002, negotiations between Japan and North Korea, Prime Minister Koizumi and General Secretary Kim Jong-il agreed to give abductees permission to visit Japan. A few weeks into the visit, the Japanese government decided that the abductees would be restricted from returning to North Korea where their families live. Abe took credit for this policy decision in his best-selling book, Toward a Beautiful Nation (美しい国へ, Utsukushii kuni e^?). North Korea criticized this Japanese decision as a breach of a diplomatic promise, and the negotiations aborted.

On 7 July 2006, North Korea conducted missile tests over the Sea of Japan. Abe, as Chief Cabinet Secretary, cooperated with Foreign Minister Taro Aso to seek sanctions against North Korea in the United Nations Security Council.^{[citation needed]}

China, South Korea, and Taiwan[link]

Abe has publicly recognized the need for improved relations with the People's Republic of China and, along with Foreign Minister Taro Aso, seeks an eventual summit meeting with Chinese paramount leader Hu Jintao.^[16] Abe has also said that Sino-Japanese relations should not continue to be based on emotions.^[17]

On 4 August 2006, the Japanese media reported that Shinzō Abe had visited the Yasukuni Shrine (a shrine that includes convicted Class A war criminals in its honored war dead) in April of that year. Abe claimed the visit was of a personal and non-official nature, as Former Prime Minister Koizumi has in the past. The Chinese and South Korean governments expressed concern over the visit.^[18][19] Both Abe and Foreign Minister Taro Aso have stated that any visits to Yasukuni are a domestic matter.^[13] In the end, Abe visited the Chidorigafuchi National Cemetery on 15 August 2007 and abstained from visiting the Yasukuni shrine.^[20]

Moreover, Abe is respected among politicians in Taiwan who are part of the Pan-Green Coalition seeking Taiwanese independence. Chen Shui-bian welcomed Abe's ministership.^[21] Part of Abe's appeal in Taiwan is historical: his grandfather Nobusuke Kishi was pro-Taiwan, and his great-uncle Eisaku Satō was the last prime minister to visit Taiwan while in office.^[21]

Abe has expressed the need to strengthen political, security, and economic ties within the Southeast Asian region. Abe has increased its allies in its international campaign to counter the North Korean nuclear cards. So far, Abe has successfully visited the Philippines and Indonesia, and although China is not within the Southeast Asian region, Japan has also sought for their support.

India[link]

Shinzō Abe's three day visit to India in August 2007 was said to be the start of a new Asian alliance, building on the long history of strong, friendly bilateral relations enjoyed by India and Japan. Abe proposed a 'Broader Asia" alliance of democracies as a counterweight to China's growing influence in the realm of economics and military power.^{[citation needed]} Abe's initiative was seen to be the "fifth" bilateral link in this emerging scenario whereas the US-Australia, US-Japan, Japan-Australia, and US-India links are already established. A sixth link of the India-Australia is said to be the logical corollary in an attempt to create a new quadrilateral of military co-operation which China has labeled the "Asian NATO."^[22]

Abe's India foreign policy was pragmatic, as it was based on boosting Japan's resurgent economic indicators, while gaining a crucial partner in Asia. India, alone amongst all major Asian countries, does not have a history of serious military dispute with Japan. Japan served as India's benefactor during a stage of the Indian freedom struggle during World War II (it supported Subhas Chandra Bose, a.k.a. Netaji and the Indian National Army). This, coupled with the lone dissenting judgement by the Indian judge Radhabinod Pal during the War Crime tribunal of Japanese Class A war criminals^[23] and the cultural impact of Buddhism (which originated in India), has endeared India to the Japanese.

Defense[link]

Abe also sought to revise or broaden the interpretation of Article 9 of the Constitution of Japan in order to permit Japan to maintain de jure military forces. He had stated that "we are reaching the limit in narrowing down differences between Japan's security and the interpretation of our constitution."^[24]

Like his predecessors, he supported the Japanese alliance with the United States.^[12]

Cabinets[link]

Abe's first cabinet was announced on 26 September 2006. The only minister retained in his position from the previous Koizumi cabinet was Foreign Minister Taro Aso, who had been one of Abe's competitors for the LDP presidency. In addition to the cabinet positions existing under Koizumi, Abe created five new "advisor" positions. Shinzō Abe reshuffled his cabinet on 27 August 2007.^[25]

Notes:

1. Toshikatsu Matsuoka committed suicide on 28 May 2007, hours before being due for questioning in connection to allegations of misappropriation of government funds. He was replaced by Norihiko Akagi, who himself resigned on 1 August 2007 due to suspicions of similar conduct. Masatoshi Wakabayashi was appointed Agriculture Minister, which he served concurrently with his post as Environment Minister.
2. Masatoshi Wakabayashi was appointed Agriculture Minister on 3 September 2007, following Takehiko Endo's resignation due to a financial scandal.
3. Prior to Abe's administration, this post was known as "Director General of the Defense Agency". In December 2006, its status was elevated to ministry level.
4. Fumio Kyuma resigned on 3 July 2007 for controversial remarks made about the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. He was replaced by Yuriko Koike, then National Security Advisor.
5. Yoshimi Watanabe was appointed Minister of State for Administrative Reform upon the 28 December 2007 resignation of Genichiro Sata. He served in this capacity concurrently with his role as Minister of State for Regulatory Reform.

Unpopularity and sudden resignation[link]

After Agricultural Minister Toshikatsu Matsuoka committed suicide, Abe's approval rating remained below 30% for months according to opinion polls of Jiji Press. Abe's ruling Liberal Democratic Party suffered great losses in the upper house election. Another agricultural minister, Norihiko Akagi, who was involved in a political funding scandal, resigned after the election.

In an attempt to revive his administration, Abe announced a new cabinet on 27 August 2007. However, the new agricultural minister Takehiko Endo, involved in a finance scandal, resigned only 7 days later.

On 12 September 2007, only three days after a new parliamentary session had begun, Abe announced his intention to resign his position as prime minister at an unscheduled press conference.^[26][27] Abe said his unpopularity was hindering the passage of an anti-terrorism law, involving among other things Japan's continued military presence in Afghanistan. Party officials also said the embattled prime minister was suffering from poor health, with Abe blaming crippling diarrhea.^[28] On 26 September 2007 Abe officially ended his term as Yasuo Fukuda became the new Prime Minister of Japan.

Scandal[link]

In 2000, Abe's home and the office of his supporters in Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi were attacked with molotov cocktails on numerous occasions, and the perpetrators were several yakuza members belonging to the Kudo-kai, a Kitakyushu-based designated boryokudan syndicate. The reason for the attacks was believed to be – Abe's local aide refused to give cash to a Shimonoseki real estate broker in return for supporting a Shimonoseki mayoral candidate in 1999.^[29]

Personal life[link]

View on history[link]

Since 1997, as the bureau chief of the 'Institute of Junior Assembly Members Who Think About the Outlook of Japan and History Education', Abe led the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform. On his official homepage^[30] he questions the extent to which coercion was applied toward the Comfort Women, dismissing Korean "revisionism" as foreign interference in Japanese domestic affairs. In a Diet session on 6 October 2006, Abe revised his statement regarding comfort women, and said that he accepted the report issued in 1993 by the sitting cabinet secretary, Yōhei Kōno, where the Japanese government officially acknowledged the issue. Later in the session, Abe stated his belief that Class A war criminals are not criminals under Japan's domestic law.^[31]

In a meeting of the Lower House Budget Committee in February 2006, Shinzō Abe said, 'There is a problem as to how to define aggressive wars; we cannot say it is decided academically',^[32] and 'It is not the business of the government to decide how to define the last world war. I think we have to wait for the estimation of historians'.^[32] However, on a TV program in July 2006^[33] he denied that Manchukuo was a puppet state.

Abe published a book called Toward a Beautiful Nation (美しい国へ, Utsukushii kuni e^?) in July 2006, which became a bestseller in Japan. In this book, he says that Class A war criminals (those charged with crimes against peace) who were adjudicated in the Tokyo Tribunal after World War II were not war criminals in the eye of domestic law.^{[citation needed]} The Korean and Chinese governments, as well as noted academics and commentators, have voiced concern about Abe's historical views.^[34][35][36]

In March 2007, in response to a United States Congress resolution by Mike Honda, Abe denied any government coercion in the recruitment of comfort women during World War II,^[37] in line with a statement made almost ten years prior regarding the same issue, in which Abe voiced his opposition about the inclusion of the subject of military prostitution in several school textbooks and then denied any coercion in the "narrow" sense of the word, environmental factors notwithstanding.^[38]

Prime Minister Shinzō Abe, then Chief Cabinet Secretary, with a group of students from Harvard University. His future Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki (himself a graduate of Harvard University) is standing to his left.

A Chinese girl from one of the Japanese Army's 'comfort battalions' awaits interrogation at a camp in Rangoon.^[39]

However, it provoked negative reaction from Asian and Western countries, for example, The New York Times editorial on 6 March 2007, “What part of “Japanese Army sex slaves” does Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, have so much trouble understanding and apologizing for? ... These were not commercial brothels. Force, explicit and implicit, was used in recruiting these women. What went on in them was serial rape, not prostitution. The Japanese Army’s involvement is documented in the government’s own defense files. A senior Tokyo official more or less apologized for this horrific crime in 1993.... Yesterday, he grudgingly acknowledged the 1993 quasi apology, but only as part of a pre-emptive declaration that his government would reject the call, now pending in the United States Congress, for an official apology. America isn’t the only country interested in seeing Japan belatedly accept full responsibility. Korea and China are also infuriated by years of Japanese equivocations over the issue.^[40] A Washington Post editorial "Shinzo Abe's Double Talk" on 24 March 2007 also criticized him: "he's passionate about Japanese victims of North Korea – and blind to Japan's own war crimes."^[41]

Response to mass media[link]

The Asahi Shimbun also accused Abe and Shōichi Nakagawa of censoring a 2001 NHK program concerning "The Women's International War Crimes Tribunal".^[42] The "tribunal" was a private committee to adjudicate comfort women; about 5,000 people including 64 casualties from Japan and abroad attended. The committee members, who claimed to be specialists of international law, claimed that Emperor Hirohito and the Japanese government were responsible for the use of comfort women. The TV program, however, did not mention the full name of the tribunal and keywords such as 'Japanese troops' or 'sexual slavery', and it also cut the sight of the tribunal, the host grouping, statements of the organizer, and the judgement itself. Instead, it presented criticism against the tribunal by a right-wing academic and his statement that 'there was no abduction of sex slaves and they were prostitutes'.^[43]

On the day following the Asahi Shimbun report, Akira Nagai, the chief producer and primary person responsible for the program, held a press conference and ensured the report of the Asahi Shimbun. Abe stated that the content "had to be broadcasted from a neutral point of view" and 'what I did is not to give political pressure.' Abe said "It was a political terrorism by Asahi Shimbun and it was tremendously clear that they had intention to inhume me and Mr. Nakagawa politically, and it is also clear that it was complete fabrication." He also characterized the tribunal as a "mock trial" and raised objection to the presence of North Korean prosecutors singling them out as agents of North Korean government.^[44] Abe's actions in the NHK incident have been criticized as being both illegal (violating the Broadcast Law) and unconstitutional (violating the Japanese Constitution).^[45]

A news program aired on TBS on 21 July 2006 about a secret biological weapons troop of Imperial Japanese Army called 'Unit 731', along with a picture panel of Shinzō Abe, who has no relation to the report. Abe said in a press conference, "It is a truly big problem if they want to injure my political life." The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications inquired into fact relevance and stated that there had been an omission in editing the TV program fairly, making an administrative direction of exceptional stringent warning based upon Broadcast Law.

On 24 October 2006, a report emerged that Abe's new administration had called on the NHK to "pay attention" to the North Korean abductees issue.^[46] Critics, some even within Abe's own LDP party, charged that the government was violating freedom of expression by meddling in the affairs of the public broadcaster.

In December 2006, it was revealed that former Prime-Minister Junichiro Koizumi's government, in which Abe was Chief Cabinet Secretary, had influenced town hall style meetings, during which paid performers would ask government officials favorable questions.^[47]

See also[link]

conservatism portal

• India-Japan relations
• Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal on Japan’s Military Sexual Slavery

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Shinzō Abe

• Official website (Japanese)
• Prime Minister of Japan Official Website (English)
• Discussion of the Prime Minister's policies and actions (English)
• Biography by CIDOB Foundation (Spanish)

v t e Prime Ministers of Japan (List) H. Itō Kuroda Sanjō Yamagata Matsukata H. Itō Kuroda Matsukata H. Itō Ōkuma Yamagata H. Itō Saionji Katsura Saionji Katsura Saionji Katsura Yamamoto Ōkuma Terauchi Hara Uchida Takahashi To. Katō Uchida Yamamoto Kiyoura Ta. Katō Wakatsuki G. Tanaka Hamaguchi Shidehara Hamaguchi Wakatsuki Inukai Takahashi Saitō Okada Gotō Okada Hirota Hayashi Konoe Hiranuma N. Abe Yonai Konoe Tōjō Koiso K. Suzuki Higashikuni Shidehara Yoshida Katayama Ashida Yoshida I. Hatoyama Ishibashi Kishi Ikeda Satō K. Tanaka Miki T. Fukuda Ōhira M. Itō Z. Suzuki Nakasone Takeshita Uno Kaifu Miyazawa Hosokawa Hata Murayama Hashimoto Obuchi Aoki Mori Koizumi S. Abe Y. Fukuda Aso Y. Hatoyama Kan Noda Italics denote acting Prime Ministers

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Ronald Watson "Ron" Henley (born December 5, 1956 in Houston, Texas) is a grandmaster of chess, chess writer, producer of chess videos and is involved in financial trading funds. As President of RWH Advisors, International Grandmaster Ron Henley acts as Special Consultant to Ultra High Net Worth Individuals and Family Offices.

Henley was awarded the International Master title in 1980, and the International Grandmaster title in 1982. He won the GM title by winning a 26-player round-robin grandmaster super-tournament in Surakarta, Denpasar, Indonesia, defeating Grandmaster Tony Miles in the last round.

Henley has been second, analyst and trainer for former World Chess Champion Anatoly Karpov in several matches throughout the 1990s. Henley has written several chess books, and also served as a chess trainer and promoter of young, women chess stars such as Irina Krush. At University of South Florida, Henley received one of the first ever chess scholarships in America. While there in 1976 the USF Chess team won the Pan American Intercollegiate Team Chess Championship with a perfect 8-0 team score. In 1977 Henley won the Association of College Unions National Individual Championship. Henley narrated the double-volume chess video, "American Chess Princesses," in which Irina Krush, Elina Groberman, Laura Ross and Shirley Ben-Dak present some of their best games from the 1997 FIDE World Youth Chess Championships held in Cannes, France. In the late 1990s Henley founded the www.chesssuperstore.com which sponsored Irina Krush and Hikaru Nakamura. He was appointed by Garry Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov as President of the World Chess Champions Council Inc, a New York not for profit entity which promotes chess in the schools.

From 1985 through 2001, Henley was an American Stock Exchange Member, as a trader, market maker and specialist. Henley traded extensively in Phillip Morris, Wells Fargo and Teva Pharmaceutical. From 2001 to 2005, Henley was a founding partner and Head Trader of a statistical arbitrage family of hedge funds, with clients such as Bank of America, Gottex Fund of Funds and Aegon USA Insurance Company. Henley went into business consulting where he joined the Board of Directors of several private companies including Quantum Genomics. Henley re-entered the world of finance.

Books[link]

• Elista Diaries: Karpov-Kamsky, Karpov-Anand, Anand Mexico City 2007 World Chess Championship Matches (with Anatoly Karpov) ISBN 0-923891-97-8
• Archangel!: A Defense Against the Ruy Lopez ISBN 1-883358-01-9
• The King's Indian Attack! ISBN 1-883358-02-7
• The Spanish Exchange! ISBN 1-883358-08-6
• The Dragon!: Powerplay ISBN 1-883358-06-X
• The ChessBase University BlueBook Guide to Winning with The King's Indian Attack! ISBN 1-883358-00-0

External links[link]

• Ron Henley player profile at ChessGames.com
• Ron Henley rating card at FIDE
• US Tournament record for Ron Henley

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