Rodrigo Duterte and Shinzo Abe got off on the right foot. After Duterte’s first visit to Japan, it was obvious the two leaders had a genuine rapport between the two of them. So much so that the Japanese Prime Minister let loose the flow of official development assistance to the Philippines through JICA for Duterte’s pet BBB program and also military aid for the Philippine Air Force and Navy, in terms of patrol aircraft and vessels.
Duterte made four visits to Japan during his Presidency. Abe made one state visit to the Philippines and even went to Davao City to meet with Duterte at his private residence. Both spoke fondly of each other as gleaned from their official statements after each visit but the photographs of the two tell the real story, of them sharing a particular bond.
This was despite their contrasting stand in foreign policy, particularly China. Abe wasn’t tolerating any of China’s aggressive behavior anywhere in the region. He was instrumental in the formation of the QUAD alliance among the US, Japan, Australia and India.
At the same time, Abe was not belligerent toward China as he employed diplomacy to iron out differences between the two countries, which have not exactly had an ideal relationship because of Japan’s attempt to counter China during the Sino-Japanese War before World War II.
Abe was Japanese political royalty as both sides of his paternal and maternal family’s were active in pre-war politics.
Shinzo Abe was born on 21 September 1954 in Shinjuku, Tokyo, to a prominent political family with significant economic influence throughout pre-war, wartime and post-war Japan. His family was originally from Yamaguchi Prefecture, and Abe’s registered residence (honseki chi) is Nagato, Yamaguchi.
His maternal grandfather Nobusuke Kishi was de facto “economic king” of occupied China and Manchukuo, a Japanese puppet state in Northern China that was established after the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, in the lead-up to the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II. During the war, he had served as Vice Minister of Munitions in the cabinet of Prime Minister Hideki Tōjō. At the end of the war, Kishi was imprisoned in Sugamo Prison as a suspected “Class-A” war criminal by the U.S. military occupation of Japan, but was released and later de-purged as part of the Occupation’s “reverse course.” due to the Cold War. In his book Utsukushii Kuni e (Toward a Beautiful Country), Abe wrote: “Some people used to point to my grandfather as a ‘Class-A war criminal suspect,’ and I felt strong repulsion. Because of that experience, I may have become emotionally attached to ‘conservatism,’ on the contrary”. Kishi went on to help found the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in 1955, and served as Prime Minister of Japan from 1957 until he had to resign in 1960 due to the Anpo protests.
His paternal grandfather Kan Abe was a Yamaguchi landowner who served in the House of Representatives during World War II. In contrast to his maternal grandfather, Kan Abe was a stalwart pacifist who opposed the Tojo government and war in East Asia. His father Shintaro Abe served in the House of Representatives from 1958 to 1991, with stints as Chief Cabinet Secretary, Minister for International Trade and Industry, and Minister for Foreign Affairs. During World War II, Shintaro volunteered to be a kamikaze pilot but the war ended before he completed training.
Abe attended Seikei Elementary School and Seikei Junior and Senior High School (成蹊中学校・高等学校). He studied public administration and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in political science from Seikei University in 1977. He later moved to the United States and studied public policy at the University of Southern California‘s School of Policy, Planning, and Development (now the USC Price School of Public Policy) for three semesters. In April 1979, Abe began working for Kobe Steel. He left the company in 1982 and pursued a number of government 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.
Abe was considered a rightist-nationalist because of his conservative views, mostly due to the fact that his maternal grandfather served in the Imperial War Cabinet as Vice-Minister for Munitions, detained in Sugamo Prison for being a Class A war criminal, who subsequently founded the Liberal Democratic Party for the Americans.
While in detention at Sugamo Prison, Kishi became close to fellow ultra-nationalist and rightist Yoshio Kodama. Kodama would later on be instrumental in the rise of the Liberal Democratic Party as its chief fundraiser or fixer; kuromaru in Japanese.
In March 1946, Kodama was arrested by the United States as a suspected Class A war criminal. He was held in Sugamo Prison with Ryoichi Sasakawa, where the two formed a long friendship. Kodama also formed a close relationship with fellow suspected Class-A war criminal (and future prime minister) Nobusuke Kishi. Since he had a lot of time, Kodama was able to keep himself up to date on current events and far-reaching political changes in East Asia in all available daily newspapers. He realized that the new democratic forces in Japan were weak, observing that “in the midst of all this rapid change, there is one thing which is lagging behind. This is parliamentary power.” While imprisoned, Kodama wrote Sugamo Diary (a chronicle of his experience in prison) and I Was Defeated (an autobiographical work).
Like many other alleged Japanese war criminals, Kodama was recruited by the US G-2 (Intelligence) under Charles A. Willoughby while in custody.[page needed] In 1948, the US intelligence community was able to drop all charges against him on the condition that he would support all anti-communist activities of the G-2 CIC division in Asia.[page needed] On December 24, 1948, he left Sugamo Prison as a free man and was never imprisoned again for the rest of his life. Kodama spent a total of six and a half years of his life in prisons. Kodama, being a right-wing ultranationalist, eagerly fulfilled his end of the bargain, using his fortune and network of contacts to quell labor disputes, root out Communist sympathizers and otherwise fight socialist activities in Japan. In 1949, the CIA paid him to smuggle a shipment of tungsten out of China. The shipment never arrived but Kodama kept his money.
Nobosuke Kishi would go on to become Prime Minister of Japan while Yoshio Kodama would continue to play the role of kuromaru. Kodama was allegedly the boss of Yamaguchi-gumi, the largest Yakuza faction in Japan. Kodama would later on be indicted in the Lockheed scandal, which brought down the government of Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka.
Kishi’s eldest son, Nobukazu, could not have children of his own so he adopted Nobuo Kishi Abe, the third son of Shintaro Abe and Shinzo’s brother. Nobuo did not know he was adopted until he was to start at Keio University. He is currently the Defense Minister under Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.
There have been unconfirmed reports that Yoshio Kodama worked with Filipino politicians after World War II to recover Japanese war loot buried in the Philippines. The paths of Ferdinand Marcos and Yoshio Kodama would’ve surely crossed as both were members of their country’s respective repatriations commission’s. Whatever agreements were made between Japan and the Philippines, it was the US which dictated the terms.
Abe and Duterte could’ve discovered their fervent nationalism as their common ground. Abe as a conservative, wanted Japan to be free of American influence. He wanted Japan to be freed from the shackles of the Constitution imposed on the Japanese by the Americans which only allowed the Japanese to have a military for defensive purposes, as a result of their actions in World War I and II. Abe wanted to build up Japan’s military to be capable of defending the country on their own without America given the rise of China and South Korea, both hostile to Japan because of their historical differences.
Duterte declared the Philippines free from American inflluence during his term and the country received more military aid from Japan than the US in terms of naval patrol craft and aircraft. It’s safe to say that the two were intellectual kindred souls when it came to the paths they wanted to chart for the Philippines and Japan.
Abe has gotten flak for his conservative stance on issues relating to Japan’s actions during World War II. Abe has openly paid his respects to Japanese war dead interred at the Yasukuni Shrine, which includes Class A war criminals of World War II. There is also his silence about Japanese atrocities during World War II relating to abuses committed by the Japanese Imperial Army in China during the Sino-Japanese war and the conscription of Korean men and women for the war effort. Abe was particularly concerned about the rise of China as an economic and miltary power in the region.
Their differing stands on China didn’t deter Abe from extending Japanese aid to the Philippines. Perhaps Abe understood what Duterte was up against given Tokyo had hosted a meeting between then President Benigno Aquino III and the MILF leadership. Abe was also aware of how the US treated the Philippines as a former colony insofar as the military bases were concerned and how it controlled the economy. More importantly, Abe must have realized how Philippine infrastructure was never fully rebuilt after the war.
The Philippines’ foreign policy has evolved since Duterte came to power. While Duterte was openly hostile to the US, except during Trump’s administration which stuck to its promise of non-interference, Duterte managed to avoid any conflicts with the major players in the region. Duterte did away with the Philippine image as the US lackey in the region and gained the respect of his peers in ASEAN.
Duterte revived the Philippines’ relationships with China, Russia and India. He had no tolerance for Australia and the European Union, which continued to criticize his drug war and human rights record. What Duterte emphasized was to these country’s was respect for sovereignty.
Perhaps Duterte’s sense of history was the lynchipin of his foreign policy. In the event that China acts to take back Taiwan forcibly, this would force the US, Japan and Australia to take decisive action. The Philippines would be right in the middle of the conflict. But given the relationships which have been forged, they would definitely think twice about consequences.
We have seen how Duterte played his card in the Russia-Ukraine war. While the Philippines supported the UN General Assemly resolution, it did not individually single out Russia and joined the call for sanctions.
In the case of Japan, it remains to be seen what will happen after Abe’s asssassination as he was clearly on the comeback trail to the Prime Minister’s office. The conflict between Japan, China and South Korea runs deep. Abe may have been a conservative nationalist but he was not in favor of war but more of diplomacy. Abe’s vision of Japan is one which is not under the direction of the US as it has been since 1945. For Abe, it was about bringing Japan’s pride and honor back.
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