Японские исследования (Jul 2024)
Foreign policy legacy of Prime Minister of Japan Abe Shinzō
Abstract
The article analyzes the foreign policy of Abe Shinzō, one of the most notable and unusual political figures of contemporary Japan, who was twice the head of Japanese government for a total of almost nine years. It traces how his political philosophy formed under the influence of ideological views of his relatives, prime ministers N. Kishi and E. Sato, as well as his father, Abe Shintarō. It also considers Abe’s approaches to building Japan’s relations with the countries which are most important for its interests. Abe was perceived as a devoted ally of the U.S. in Washington. He established relations of confidence with presidents Obama and Trump. For this purpose, he strengthened Japanese-American military-political cooperation, took steps to support American strategy in the Asia-Pacific region. He implemented, even if without substantial results, steps to stabilize relations with China, trying to combine policy of containing Beijing with efforts to develop bilateral ties. Abe paid substantial attention to relations with India, including for the purpose of the idea, which was put forward by him and supported by the U.S., to establish quadrilateral cooperation of “democracies” in the Indo-Pacific region – the U.S., Japan, India, and Australia. His policy on the Korean direction was not successful. The relations with Pyongyang remained in deadlock, and, with Seoul, the most acute bilateral problems were not finally solved. Abe also paid great attention to policy aiming to conclude a peace treaty with Russia on the basis of a radical improvement of Japanese-Russian ties in all spheres. The reasons for his failure in these directions are discussed in this article. The article evaluates Abe’s efforts aimed at developing governmental documents and making the Diet adopt laws determining the basic directions of the foreign and military policy of the state. The author characterizes the results of the activity of S. Abe in the sphere of foreign policy and assesses its influence on the formation of the course of the Japanese government after his resignation.
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