In the morning of July 8, 2022, Japan’s former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (安倍 晋三) was shot twice during a speech for an election campaign event in the city of Nara. According to the latest reports, the 67-year-old Abe has been rushed to hospital. Update: just before 18:00 local time, news came out that Shinzo Abe died after being shot.
The shooting incident happened around 11:30 when Abe was giving an Upper House election campaign speech in front of Yamato-Saidaiji Station of the Kintetsu Line.
Ex-Tokyo governor Yoichi Masuzoe (舛添要一), who was also at the event in Nara, tweeted that the former President was suffering “cardiopulmonary arrest” (心肺停止状態), meaning he is showing no vital signs.
According to the Asahi newspaper, a 41-year-old man by the name of Tetsuya Yamagami has been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder and the weapon was seized.
On Chinese social media, the incident immediately became a trending news topic and various images were shared showing the alleged suspect. Other photos showed the former Prime Minister laying on the ground surrounded by medical staff. The hashtag “Abe Shows No Vital Signs” (#安倍已无生命体征#) received over a billion views on Friday.
One Weibo news post about the shooting by CCTV received over 1,6 million likes. The top comment said: “Exam candidates, remember this for extra points: July 7 is the day of the 1937 Marco Polo Bridge Incident that started China’s War of Resistance against Japan; July 8 the day when Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was shot and killed.” The comment received nearly 100,000 likes.
Influential media blogger Zhang Xiaolei (@张晓磊) posted: “Walking alone down a dark alley*, this man will go down in the history of Japan,” referring to the gunman.
Some of the comments called the shooter a ‘hero’, saying he would no just also go into Japanese history, but also would be remembered in Chinese history books. The comment that “this is a historical day” is a recurring one on Weibo today.
Former Prime Minister Abe was President of Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), and he was the longest-serving prime minister in Japanese history from 2006 to 2007 and then again from 2012 to 2020. He retired as Prime Minister in 2020 due to health reasons.
“An old man gets shot and falls to the ground yet you are gloating over it. Where is the morality? Where is your bottom line?“
In China, Abe has never been popular. After his 2020 retirement, he visited the controversial Yasukuni Shrine war memorial just days after stepping down. An 2021 editorial in the Chinese state media outlet Global Times called the former Prime Minister the “chief anti-China politician in Japan.” In a 2021 Security Dialogue on Taiwan-US-Japan, Abe said that “Taiwan must be a leader among democracies.” Some weeks earlier, he had also stated that “a Taiwan emergency is a Japanese emergency,” urging China not to provoke its neighbors or seek territorial expansion.
In 2017, a video of a Japanese kindergarten recital saying that the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu islands belong to Japan and that China should not “spread lies” about Japan went viral and sparked controversy on Chinese social media. That incident also put Shinzo Abe in a bad light as his wife previously visited the school, and he had reportedly once said that the ideology of the school’s chairman was similar to his.
Anti-Japanese sentiments often surface on Chinese social media, where the history of the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945) is still actively remembered (read more here).
“Shinzo Abe needs to let go of his hatred, excuse the gunman, and erase this part from history,” another popular Weibo comment said, sarcastically referring to previous Japanese history textbook controversies regarding the silencing of Japan’s war crimes.
But there are also those who are condemning those who apparently delight in the fact that the former Prime Minister was shot. One popular Weibo comment criticized these Weibo users, writing: “An old man gets shot and falls to the ground yet you are gloating over it. Where is the morality? Where is your bottom line?”
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian (赵立坚) commented on the attack on Shinzo Abe during a regular press briefing on July 8, expressing shock and concern, adding: “We hope that former Prime minister Abe will be out of danger and recover soon.”
Some could not resist making a sarcasting comment in the post reply section, writing: “There is still the danger that he might live?”
Despite all the reactions expressing a negative stance toward Abe and Japan, some Weibo users are posting a candle emoticon for the former Prime Minister, writing: “Sending prayers for Shinzo Abe.”
Update: On Friday late afternoon, local media reported that Shinzo Abe died after the attack. Soon after, before 18:00 CST, the hashtag “Shinzo Abe Passed Away” (#安倍晋三身亡#) became the number one topic on Chinese social media platform Weibo, with the hashtag page receiving over 280 million views within thirty minutes.
Also read: Chinese Reporter Cries during Live Broadcast on Shinzo Abe Attack
To get more insights on Shinzo Abe, we can recommend The Iconoclast: Shinzo Abe and the New Japan by Tobias Harris (2020).
By Manya Koetse
* “孤身走暗巷”, “walking alone in a dark alley”, comes from a song titled “Lonely Warrior” (孤勇者) by Eason Chen.
Get the story behind the hashtag. Subscribe to What’s on Weibo here to receive our weekly newsletter and get access to our latest articles:
Spotted a mistake or want to add something? Please let us know in comments below or email us. First-time commenters, please be patient – we will have to manually approve your comment before it appears.
©2022 Whatsonweibo. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce our content without permission – you can contact us at info@whatsonweibo.com.
The post Anti-Japanese Sentiments on Weibo after News of Shinzo Abe Getting Shot in Nara appeared first on What's on Weibo.