NEW DELHI: External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Thursday said former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was trying to get Japan ready for an “uncertain, volatile and difficult world.”
He made the remarks while attending the book launch programme of ‘The Importance of Shinzo Abe.’
Jaishankar stated that he found Shinzo Abe a mixture of “optimism and realism.” He further said that the intent of the book was to evaluate Shinzo Abe and his contributions and his views.
Speaking at the book launch, Jaishankar said, “I’m actually very glad that this book was not just a collection of personal memories, but that it was actually called ‘The Importance of Shinzo Abe.’ That the intent of this book was to, in a sense, evaluate him and his contributions and his views. Historically, the context and the subtext that Sanjay mentioned, and in many ways, that perhaps was really doing justice to him because if one were to look at the last quarter century of certainly Asian politics, possibly even global politics, there are very few who would compare, which in.”
“Shinzo Abe in terms of their influence, their contribution, the views with which they shaped the contemporary order. So, as one looks at his policies, I tried to capture it in a way, in a single sentence in my forward by saying that Abe was trying to get Japan ready for an uncertain, volatile and difficult world. And for those of us who knew him and worked with him and it’s not very often that one can actually say you knew somebody, you worked with a lot of people. I found him a very interesting mixture of optimism and realism, of being very international, but being very deeply steeped in his own ethos and culture,” he added.
Jaishankar noted that Shinzo Abe represented the hopes of a technological society and was also proud of its heritage and traditions. He said that Abe was preparing Japan for a different era. He spoke about then-Japanese PM Yoshiro Mori’s visit to India in 2000.
“A person who in many ways represented the hopes of a technological society, but who was also very proud of the heritage and traditions and got the right balance. Now, this might sound familiar in respect of some other people closer home, but that’s another story. Now, as I said, I think Shinzo Abe was preparing Japan for a new era, for a different era. And it was my good fortune to be in Japan, actually, at the turn of the century when the Japanese system started thinking about going out of the country in a more autonomous way,” Jaishankar said.
“So, if I were to, in a sense, give the first context, at least for India-Japan relations, for me, it would be Prime Minister Mori’s visit in 2000. A visit that some of us remember as rectifying the difficult phase after the nuclear test. But, if we step back and look at it two decades later, I think it was really a strategic reach out to India and reflected a different kind of Japanese thinking about the world and the confidence, really, to go beyond the alliance construct,” he added.
He recalled his meeting with Japanese PM Shinzo Abe. Jaishankar said, “And I begin with Mori because it was in that context that I first met Prime Minister Abe. And our relationship then developed over a number of years. We had some common friends who enabled that. And I feel in many ways that 2000 visit of Mori, the thinking behind that was in some ways a thread that really Prime Minister Abe developed further.”
“And the core of that thinking was really that from this Japanese perspective, here was a Japan prepared to step out more actively into the world and saw another country which it certainly had cultural civilizational, I would say, even historical connect, but more important, a country with which there was no-baggage, where there was, whether you take the extreme right in India or the extreme left in India, Japan was one of the few foreign policy issues on which there’s always been consensus,” he added.
Earlier in 2022, former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was shot while delivering a campaign speech in Nara City of western Japan. Prime Minister Narendra Modi attended the state funeral of Shinzo Abe at Nippon Budokan Hall in Tokyo.
After attending the State funeral of Shinzo Abe, PM Modi met with Akie Abe, wife of the late Japanese PM and conveyed his heartfelt condolences on the tragic loss. Abe, Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, stepped down in 2020 citing health reasons. He was prime minister of Japan twice, from 2006-07 and again from 2012-20. (ANI)