Citing Kunihiko Miyake’s essay “The Strategic Nature of Abe’s Diplomacy,” this article examines the historical significance of Abe’s foreign policy through its two principal objectives: preserving Japan’s independence and liberal democracy and securing the nation’s survival amid China’s rise and a rapidly changing East Asian security environment.

September 7, 2020
The following is taken from an essay by Kunihiko Miyake titled “The Strategic Nature of Abe’s Diplomacy,” published in the Sankei Shimbun on September 3, 2020.
The first report of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s resignation reached me while I was appearing remotely on a television program.
The program’s content was changed, and questions and messages of appreciation immediately began arriving from reporters and friends both in Japan and abroad.
I had been prepared for the possibility, but I could not deny my sense of loss at “the end of an era in Japanese diplomacy.”
I cannot recall any other eight-year period since the Second World War in which Japan’s diplomacy possessed so much influence and was so trusted and respected.
I also received an email from a leading American authority on security affairs saying, “Prime Minister Abe is a great friend of the United States and deserves praise.”
The author took this compliment at face value because it came from a man who never resorts to flattery.
We are unlikely to see another such era for some time.
Assessments of Abe’s diplomacy within Japan are divided between its merits and shortcomings.
A perfunctory summary such as the following is common: “He advocated diplomacy that took a panoramic perspective of the world map and proactive contributions to peace, and he strengthened the Japan–U.S. alliance, which had deteriorated under the Democratic Party of Japan administration. On the other hand, outstanding issues with neighboring countries such as Russia and North Korea were not resolved, and challenges remained.”
Some foreign-policy specialists have harshly criticized Abe’s diplomacy.
They claim that “summit diplomacy had its limits,” that it failed to make “strategic moves,” and that “only the signboard was visible, not the substance,” but that would be an overstatement.
That is because, viewed fairly, I believe that no diplomatic undertaking in the history of postwar Japan was more firmly grounded in strategic thinking than Abe’s diplomacy over the past eight years.
Abe’s diplomacy had two strategic objectives.
The first was to enable present-day Japan, whose population is declining because of its falling birthrate and aging society and which can no longer expect rapid economic growth, to preserve its independence and liberal democracy while maintaining its current standard of living.
The second was to ensure Japan’s survival in light of rapid changes in the East Asian security environment, including the rise of China.
To accomplish these objectives, the Abe administration first strengthened the Japan–U.S. alliance.
That said, an alliance cannot be strengthened by words alone.
The reciprocal visits by the leaders of the two countries to Hiroshima and Pearl Harbor advanced Japan–U.S. reconciliation, the approval of the exercise of the right of collective self-defense deepened mutual trust, and the new security legislation strengthened Japan–U.S. deterrence.
The Abe administration devoted more than two years to this.
If this was not “strategic,” then what was?
There is still more criticism of Abe’s diplomacy from specialists.
They supposedly describe it as “fireworks diplomacy that plunged into almost insoluble issues such as the Northern Territories and the abduction issue and merely set off spectacular fireworks,” claim that “policies swayed by public opinion earned North Korea’s distrust,” and say that “sanctions would only provoke South Korean opposition and there was no strategy for what should follow them.”
It is true that no progress has been seen on the Northern Territories or the abduction issue, but does that mean “insoluble” problems should simply be “left alone”?
Is it not also part of diplomacy to say what must be said, even if doing so earns “the other party’s distrust”?
Are sanctions unnecessary merely because the other party objects?
Surely not.
For foreign-policy professionals, what are we to make of such pundit-like criticism that amounts to “spitting toward heaven”?
There is also the criticism that “the Abe administration pulled domestic public opinion too far to the right, thereby causing diplomacy itself to become rigid.”
It is unclear which policy this criticism concerns, but does saying that public opinion was “pulled too far to the right” not simply mean that the person making the criticism stands on the left?
Let us leave it at that.
The purpose is not to criticize senior colleagues or others in the same profession.
Diplomacy has another party.
When views differ from those of the other party, negotiations do not proceed as one wishes.
Diplomacy also has a history.
If one becomes too constrained by the course of past events, no new progress can be expected.
This is the reality of diplomacy as the author knows it.
Carefully observing the situation and doing nothing may also constitute “professional diplomacy,” but making medium- to long-term strategic decisions in response to changes in the geopolitical environment is also “diplomacy as politics.”
The assessment of Abe’s diplomacy will be the work of future historians, but there can be no doubt that Prime Minister Abe demonstrated that “diplomacy is not technique but politics.”
Thank you sincerely for all your hard work over so many years.
＊Among Kunihiko Miyake’s recent essays, this is probably the finest.
There is no need to wait for future historians to assess Abe’s diplomacy; it is beyond dispute that it has already received praise throughout the world.
Those whom he criticizes in this essay are presumably the Asahi-affiliated cultural figures and, above all, hopeless individuals such as Magosaki, his former colleague at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.＊