Shinzo Abe: The God Gift for JAPAN!!

Shinzo Abe is currently serving as prime minister of Japan. He is the longest serving Prime Minister of Japan in Japanese history. He is also first prime minister, who born after world war-2. His administration resulted japan to become world's most advanced nation even after lack of natural resources in Japan. He has been popularly known for his 'Abenomics'. Let us get into his life and career growth to know more about him.
EARLY LIFE:

Shinzo Abe was born on 21 September 1954 in Tokyo, Japan in a political family. His family is originally from Yamaguchi prefecture. Abe's registered residence is in Nagato, Yamaguchi. His great-great-grandfather Viscount Yoshimasa Oshima served as general in imperial Japanese army. His maternal grandfather Nobusuke Kishi was de facto "economic" leader  of China, Korea and Manchukuo and served position of Prime Minister from1957-1960. His paternal grandfather Kan Abe served in House of Representatives from 1937 to 1946. His father Shintaro Abe was leading member of LDP and served as foreign minister from 1982-1986. His mother's name is Yoko Kishi.

When GHQ's policy changed and became more anti-communist, Nobusuke Kishi, released from Sugamo Prison. After getting out of prison, he established Japan Democratic Party. In 1955, Shigeru Yoshida's Liberal Party and Kishi's Japan Democratic Party merged with each other and formed Liberal Democratic Party.
EDUCATION:

Shinzo Abe studied at Seikei Elementary School, Seikei Junior High School and Seikei Senior High School. He studied Public Administration. In 1977, he completed his bachelors in Political Science from Seikei University. Later he moved to United States, where he studied Public Policy at the University of South California's School of Public Policy for three semester. In April 1979, Shinzo Abe started working at Kobe Steel till 1982.
STARTING OF POLITICAL CAREER:

He pursued working in government offices as executive assistant of Minister of Foreign Affairs then private secretary to chairperson of LDP General council then private secretary to LDP secretary-general. In 1993, he was elected to the first district of Yamaguchi prefecture after his father's death in 1991. In 1999, he became the director of the Social Affairs Division. He was deputy chief cabinet secretary in the Yoshiro Mori and Junichiro Koizumi's cabinet from 2000-2003. Then he served as Secretary General of the Liberal Democratic Party.

Shinzo Abe was chief negotiator for the Japanese government on behalf of families of Japanese abductees taken to North Korea.
Shinzo Abe was the leader of project team to conduct survey on "excessive sexual education and gender free education". The survey raised objection on use of anatomical dolls and other curricular material without taking into consideration age of students. Objection on school policies banning traditional boy's and girl's festival and mixed gender physical education.
On 23 April 2006, Shinzo Abe was appointed as president of Liberal Democratic Party.
FIRST TERM AS PRIME MINISTER:

On 14 July 2006, Shinzo Abe was elected as Prime Minister of Japan. He was elected at the age of 52 and the youngest Prime Minister since Fumimaro Konoe in 1941.
SUDDEN RESIGNATION:

After Shinzo Abe became the Prime Minister of Japan, Liberal Democratic Party suffered great loss in Upper House for the first time in 52 years. His cabinet's agriculture minister Norihiko Akagi, who was involved in party funding scandal also resigned. Moreover, Shinzo Abe's popularity degraded due to his rejection to possible female monarchs. On 27 August 2007, Shinzo Abe announced new cabinet in order to revive his administration but after few days, his new agriculture minister Takehiko Endo resigned because of his involvement in finance scandal. On 12 September 2007, Shinzo Abe showed his intentions to resign and on 24 September 2007, Shinzo Abe resigned and Yasuo Fukudo became the new prime minister of Japan.

Party officials always give Shinzo Abe's health problem behind his resignation. Shinzo Abe confirmed that he was having ulcerative colitis, because of which he resigned. He remained in the diet after resignation and reelected from Yamaguchi 4th district in 2009 elections, when LDP lost power to Democratic Party of Japan.
SECOND TERM AS PRIME MINISTER:

On 26 September 2012, Shinzo Abe again became the leader of LDP. At that point of time, DJP had lost it's majority in lower house due to party splits over nuclear policies and cabinet's decision to increase consumption taxes from 5 to 10 percent. Prime minister Yoshihiko Noda need support of LDP to pass consumption tax bill in response of which, Abe and other opposition parties to hold snap election. Yoshihiko agreed over condition on LDP to pass bond financing bills, support commission to reform the social security system address electoral malapportionment in the next diet session.

On 16 November 2012, Noda announced about dissolution of lower house and general election held on 16 December 2012. Shinzo Abe campaigned with slogan "Nippon o Torimodosu" which means take back japan. He promised for economy revival, higher public spending, continued use of nuclear energy and hard stance on border issues.
In the elections, LDP in coalition with new Komeito party was able to secure two third seats in lower house. On 26 December 2012, Shinzo Abe was formally elected as prime minister in Diet.
THIRD TERM AS PRIME MINISTER:
On 24 December 2014, Shinzo Abe was reelected for the position of prime minister by House of Representatives.
FOURTH TERM AS PRIME MINISTER:

The 2017 general election were to be held on 22 October but Abe called the Snap election on 25 September, while North Korea crises was prominent in media. He was again reelected as prime minister of Japan in 2017.
ECONOMIC POLICY(ABENOMICS):

He took steps towards balancing Japanese budget. He appointed tax policy expert Koji Omi as Minister of Finance. In the second cabinet, he worked for the revival of Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy(CEFP). His economic policy also known as Abenomics consist of three arrows.

• FIRST ARROW: First arrow in economy policy of Shinzo Abe was monetary expansion to achieve 2% inflation target.
• SECOND ARROW:
  
  The first budget of Abe's cabinet included 10.3 trillion yen stimulus package for public work spending, aid for small businesses and investment incentives. It aimed to increase the growth by 2%. Expenditure on defense and manpower increased while foreign spending decreased. In the later half of 2013, Abe decided to proceed with first stage of increasing consumption tax from 5% to 8%  in April 2014.
  
  Abe announced 5 trillion yen as stimulus package for economy revival as backup plan for any negative effect of the decision taken. Japan fell into recession in second and third quarter of 2014. Abe delayed the second stage of increasing consumption taxes to April 2017, that was scheduled to take place in October 2015.
• THIRD ARROW:
  
  The third arrow in economic policy in Abenomics was to achieve growth with structural reforms and to achieve long term growth by private sector investment. On 15 March 2013, Abe announced Japan will be entering negotiations to join Tran-Pacific partnership. It was to liberalize some sectors of economy. There were plans to establish deregulated economic zones and allow sale of drugs online. There were no reforms for labor laws or business reform. There were corporate governance reforms, easing on restrictions on hiring foreign staff in special economic zones.
  
  There were measures to help local and foreign entrepreneurs. Health sector was also liberalized. Corporate taxes were also cut to below 30%, an expansion in childcare system to encourage women to join workforce. In December 2015, Government announced that corporation taxes will be reduced to 29.97% in 2016. Shinzo Abe also set a target for 30% women at leadership positions till 2020.
  
  Private and public organizations are also asked to publish data on number of women they employ. In November 2013, Abe cabinet passed a bill to liberalize Japan's electricity market by abolishing price control, breaking up regional monopolies, creating a national grid company.

Abe also came up with 'Abenomics 2.0', which has new three arrows to boost Japanese economy.

The aim was to tackle low fertility rates and an aging population and to increase the average number of children per woman from 1.4 to 1.8 and stabilize population at 100 million, to boost the GDP to 600 trillion yen by 2021, and to create situation where people do not have to leave employment in order to give care to elderly relatives. Abe also looked for opening more wider Asia-Pacific free trade deal and hailed an agreement for creation of "unprecedent economic zones". Japanese economy was believed to enter second recession after application of 'Abenomics' but in third quarter GDP increased by 1%.

EDUCATION POLICY:

Abe supported controversial Japanese society for history textbook reform. Abe's return was seen as renewed attempt to downplay Japan's wartime atrocities in school textbooks. In 2013, Abe supported Super Global Universities program, which was 10 year long program to increase international student's attendance in Japanese universities and hire more foreign faculty.

FOREIGN POLICY:

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was active with respect to foreign affairs. He made 49 international visits from December 2012 to September 2014. It can be seen as step to strengthen bilateral ties in the region in response to bad relations with China and North Korea. Opening avenues for trade, energy and defense internationally can be seen as part of Abenomics.

He gave importance to South east Asian nations, Australia and India. In September 2013, Abe intervened to aid Tokyo's bid to host 2020 Summer Olympics and Paralympics games: by giving speech in English at IOC session in Buenos Aires.

In 2014, Abe conducted the Japan-Australia Economic partnership agreement with Abbott government. In 2014, Abe and British prime minister David Cameron to establish "2+2 framework" of annual consultation between British and Japanese defense and foreign ministries. In Jan 2015, Abe announced that Japan would provide 200 million dollars  in non military assistance to countries fighting against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant as a part of 2.5 billion dollar aid package.

In April 2015, he became the first Japanese prime minister to address a joint-sitting of US congress. He has stated Japan US alliance as "Alliance of hope". In Seoul in November 2015, Abe attended the first China-Japan-South Korea trilateral summit. In third term, relations with South Korea improved. After Donald Trump's election both leader had meeting at Mar-a-Lago to discuss security threats against North Korea. Abe welcomed North Korea-United Stated Summit

• NORTH KOREA: Shinzo Abe has hard stance regarding North Korea, especially over North Korean abduction of Japanese citizens.
• CHINA,SOUTH EAST ASIA, TAIWAN: 
  
  Shinzo Abe has publicly stated that there is a need in improvement of China-Japan relations and it should not continue to be based upon emotions. Relations with China continuously degraded due to Senkaku Island Dispute and Abe's visit to Yasukuni Shrine. Shinzo Abe is respected politician among Taiwan and a part of Pan Green coalition seeking Taiwanese independence. His great uncle Eisaku Sato was the last prime minister to visit Taiwan while in office. Abe has expressed his thoughts to strengthen political, security and economic relations between south east Asian countries.
• INDIA:
  
  Abe see India-Japan relationship as very important and continuously worked to strengthen the ties between both countries. In 2007, Abe initiated Quadrilateral Security Dialogue between USA, Japan, Australia and India. In January 2014, Abe was invited as chief guest for Republic Day parade in Delhi. During the visit Abe and Manmohan Singh(then prim minister of India) agreed to increase cooperation over economic, defense and security issues.
  
  They signed trade agreements related to energy, tourism and telecom. Ties between both nation got more strength after election of Narendra Modi as India's prime minister. Narendra Modi is one in the Abe's Twitter's following list and both leaders exchange congratulatory messages after winning elections.
  
  On his first major visit to japan in 2014, both leaders discussed agreements over nuclear energy, rare earth elements and joint maritime exercises. In December 2015, Abe and Narendra Modi signed deals in which India agreed to buy Shinkansen technology from Japan and japan to be raised to full partner status in the Malabar naval exercises. They also agreed that Japan would sell non military nuclear technology to India.

DEFENSE AND SECURITY: 

Abe sought to expand the interpretation of Article 9 of the Japanese constitution to maintain de jury military forces. During his first term he raised Japan defense agency to full ministry status. He always supported alliance with USA. Abe attempted to centralize security policy in prime minister's office by creating the Japanese National Security Council. In December 2013, Abe announced five year plan of military expansion.

In the same month the diet passed State Secrecy Law.  Abe's cabinet introduced 11 bills making up the "Peace and Security Preservation Legislation" which would expand military power for foreign conflicts. In December 2015, Abe government announced formation of new intelligence unit, International Counterterrorism Intelligence Collection Unit.

PERSONAL LIFE:

Shinzo Abe married to Aki Matsuzaki. She is a socialite and former radio disk jockey, in 1987. She is the daughter of the president of Morinaga, a chocolate manufacturer. She is also known for her contradicting statements over Shinzo Abe. She is popularly known as "domestic opposition party". They do not have any child, even after undergoing several unsuccessful fertility treatments.

Shinzo Abe's elder brother, Hironobu Abe became president and CEO of Mitsubishi Shoji Packaging Corporation. His younger brother, Nobuo Kishi became Senior Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs. In addition to his native language i.e. Japanese, Abe also speaks English.
AWARDS AND INTERNATIONAL RECOGNITION:

1. He has been awarded with honors by many countries like Saudi Arabia, Greece, Bahrain, Ivory Coast, Netherlands, Philippines, Spain, Luxemberg.
   
2. He has achieved honory doctorates from Rangsit University(Thailand), Jawaharlal Nehru University(India), Turkmen State University(Turkmenistan).
3. He has been awarded with Herman Kahn Award.
4. He has been awarded with Asian of the year award.
   
5. He bagged position in Time 100 in 2014, 2018.
6. He has been awarded with Boston Global Forum's World Leader in Cybersecurity Award.

FAVORITES OF SHINZO ABE:

• FAVORITE FOOD:
  
  The Japanese PM eats a lot of healthy miso, rice and natto (fermented soybeans, pictured) but also admits to hankering after the foods of his youth, mainly ice cream, Korean barbecue and ramen.

WIERD AND UNKNOWN NEWS ABOUT SHINZO ABE:

• SERVED DINNER IN SHOES DURING LUNCH WITH ISRAELI PM BENJAMIN NETANYAHU.