By Dominic Pino
Monday, July 08, 2022
Former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe was assassinated while giving a campaign speech. He was shot in the back by a man from only a few yards away, who used what appears to be a homemade shotgun.
Abe was the longest-serving prime minister in Japanese history. The country’s politics are characterized by the long-term dominance of the Liberal Democratic Party, of which Abe was a member, but significant factionalism within the LDP leads to frequent changes in leadership. Abe’s ability to maintain stable leadership in Japan demonstrated his abilities as a statesman.
Abe was also a widely respected global leader. He spearheaded the idea of the “free and open Indo-Pacific,” which included strengthening ties with India, Taiwan, Australia, and the United States in opposition to China. He enjoyed close personal relationships with numerous heads of state from around the world. Matthew Continetti likened him to Ronald Reagan in 2018.
America’s allies immediately understood the significance of Abe’s assassination. Indian prime minister Narendra Modi announced a day of national mourning. Outgoing U.K. prime minister Boris Johnson, dealing with his own domestic political problems, said of Abe, “His global leadership through unchartered times will be remembered by many” and released the same statement in Japanese. Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese credited Abe with helping form the Quad alliance between Australia, Japan, India, and the U.S. and called him a “giant on the world stage.” Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau said, “The world has lost a great man of vision, and Canada has lost a close friend.” French president Emmanuel Macron, German chancellor Olaf Scholz, Israeli prime minister Yair Lapid, Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, and Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan all gave their condolences.
South Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol sent his condolences and condemned the assassination as “an act of terrorism” and a “brutal attack against the very foundation of democracy.” That’s significant because Japan’s relationship with South Korea is strained due in part to the history of Imperial Japan’s war crimes in Korea before and during the Second World War, and the efforts of some modern Japanese politicians, including Abe, to downplay that dark past.
All of these leaders were able to put out statements before the president of the United States.
About eleven hours after Abe was shot and about three hours after his death was officially announced, the White House released the first statement from President Biden on the assassination. It echoed many other leaders in sharing the president’s condolences with Abe’s family and the people of Japan, highlighting Abe’s outsized role in world politics as a strong leader. But it also included this line: “While there are many details that we do not yet know, we know that violent attacks are never acceptable and that gun violence always leaves a deep scar on the communities that are affected by it.”
Unlike other world leaders, Biden felt it was necessary to inject domestic political language into his statement on Abe’s murder. Two phrases stand out. The first is “gun violence.” The phrase obviously relates to Democrats’ domestic campaign for gun control. But Abe was not a victim of “gun violence.” He was assassinated while giving a campaign speech for a candidate in Japan’s upcoming elections. Biden is correct to note that we don’t yet know for certain the details of the killer’s motivations, but we do know the circumstances of Abe’s killing, and it’s not a nebulous problem with “gun violence.”
The second phrase is “communities affected.” Japan is not a “community.” Japan is a country of 125 million people with over 2,500 years of history. It’s a top-five global economic powerhouse and one of the most important allies of the United States, in Asia or anywhere in the world. For the president of the United States to use progressive-speak about “communities affected” in a statement about the assassination of that country’s former prime minister fails to treat the subject with the care it deserves.
Sadly, Biden is not alone. The left-wing media couldn’t help trying to score points against conservatives in their reporting of Abe’s assassination. NPR initially referred to Abe as a “divisive arch-conservative” in its tweet announcing his death, which it later changed to “ultranationalist” instead. The Associated Press is framing the story as one that “shocked not only Japan but the entire world, which has come to associate the relatively low-crime nation with strict gun control.” Some conservatives are trying to make it a told-you-so moment about gun control, which is improper as well.
The statements from leaders around the world demonstrate an ability to put this event in global perspective and understand the significance of Abe’s legacy. President Biden’s, shamefully and belatedly, does not. The inability of American politicians and American media to look beyond domestic politics and put events of global significance in proper global perspective will come back to bite us. It communicates to a world that looks up to us that we are unserious.
American parochialism certainly isn’t new, but it’s especially harmful right now, with Russian military aggression ongoing and China becoming increasingly authoritarian. Shinzo Abe was a global statesman who knew how to take a global view when circumstances demanded it. That Joe Biden’s statement on his assassination fails to do so and came well after numerous foreign leaders already gave statements is a terrible way for America to remember his legacy.
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