What is Shinzo Abe’s net worth and salary?
Shinzo Abe was a Japanese politician who had a net worth of $10 million at the time of his death in July 2022. Shinzo Abe served as Prime Minister of Japan from 2006 to 2007 and later from 2012 to 2020, making him his longest-serving. Prime Minister in the country’s history. A conservative and assertive Japanese patriot, he was known for his negative historical views and embrace of militarism. While giving a speech in the summer of 2022, Abe was assassinated by a former member of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force. He was 67 years old.
Early life and education
Shinzo Abe was born on September 21, 1954 in Tokyo, Japan into a prominent political family. His father Shintaro held various government positions, most notably in the House of Representatives, while his grandfather Nobusuke Kishi was a powerful bureaucrat in occupied China before serving as Prime Minister of Japan from 1957 to 1960. Abe has an older brother named Hironobu and younger brother Nobuo. As a young man, Abe went to Seikei Primary School and then to Seikei Junior and High School. For his higher education, he attended Seikei University and graduated in 1977 with a BA in Political Science. Abe went to the University of Southern California as a visiting student from 1978 to 1979.
career beginnings
After leaving the University of Southern California, Abe began working at Kobe Steel. He eventually left the company in 1982 and held several government jobs, including private secretary to the President of the General Council of the Liberal Democratic Party. Abe also worked as his father’s secretary, and traveled with him on many diplomatic trips.
Parliament
After his father’s death in 1991, Abe was elected to the House of Representatives as a delegate for the first district of Yamaguchi Prefecture. At the end of the contract he became the director of the social affairs department. Subsequently, he became prime minister in the governments of Prime Ministers Yoshiro Mori and Junichiro Koizumi. In 2003, Abe was appointed Secretary-General of the Liberal Democratic Party, and three years later he was elected Chairman of the Liberal Democratic Party.
Prime Minister 2006-2007
Abe became Japan’s prime minister in September of 2006. In this position, he worked to balance the state budget. Abe also led controversial efforts to promote Japanese nationalism and deny the state’s use of government coercion to force women into sexual slavery during World War II. Regarding foreign affairs, he sought to strengthen Japan’s relations with India, China and Southeast Asian countries. In addition, Abe worked to allow the rule of law for Japan’s military forces.
In the run-up to the elections in July of 2007, Abe’s agriculture minister, Toshikatsu Matsuoka, killed himself after a number of funding scandals. The Liberal Democratic Party suffered many other losses, losing control for the first time since the 1950s. To make matters worse, the newly appointed Minister of Agriculture, Takehiko Endo, resigned just seven days from his term due to a financial scandal. Abe then announced his resignation as prime minister. It was later revealed that the decision also came due to ulcerative colitis.
Getty Images
Prime Minister 2012-2020
After the resignation of LDP President Sadakazu Tanigaki in 2012, Abe was re-elected as the head of the LDP. Later in the year, he was elected for the second time as Prime Minister of Japan, becoming the first Japanese Prime Minister to serve two separate terms since Shigeru Yoshida more than 60 years ago. Abe was re-elected in 2014 and 2017, making him the longest-serving prime minister in Japan’s history.
In his second term as prime minister, Abe sought to fix Japan’s economic stagnation through his “Abenomics” policy, which had mixed results. He also helped restore the Trans-Pacific Partnership as a means of liberalizing various sectors of the Japanese economy. Among his other domestic policies, Abe renewed his efforts to deny the atrocities committed by Japan during World War II, and omitted important information in textbooks. Meanwhile, in foreign affairs, he worked to expand Japan’s relations with NATO and the European Union, among other organizations outside Asia.
Abe’s tenure as prime minister was marked by massive efforts to expand the Japanese military. Abe sought to reform Japan’s Self-Defense Forces by revising the part of the constitution that prohibited declaring war. In 2015, he established military reforms that allowed Japan to use collective security by allowing the JSDF to be deployed overseas. This controversial policy was met with a popular reaction and mass protests. Abe came under more criticism in 2018 when he was embroiled in a nepotism scandal. His reputation was further damaged when he was seen partying with the LDP during the height of the floods in western Japan. Later, in 2019, he started a trade war with South Korea and fought with the country over war reparations. Due to health problems caused by colitis, Abe retired as prime minister in the summer of 2020.
personal life
In 1987, Abe married socialite Aki Matsuzaki, the daughter of the president of the Morinaga Confectionery Company. The couple did not have any children together.
Assassination
While giving his campaign speech in Nara, Japan on July 8, 2022, Abe was shot dead by a man using a homemade pistol. After he was taken to the hospital, he was pronounced dead at the age of 67. The killer turned out to be a former member of the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force named Tetsuya Yamagami, and he was immediately arrested. Yamagami said he killed Abe because he held a grudge against the Unification Church, and believed the former prime minister was responsible for spreading its religion in Japan.
[ad_2]
