The world continues to mourn the assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
Throughout Abe’s almost eight-year administration — and particularly during the latter half of his tenure — evaluations of the Japanese leader were higher overseas than in his home country. This does not appear to have changed with Abe’s death.
At the onset of the second Abe administration, appraisals and expectations for the new administration were low. Abe was branded a historical revisionist who refused to face up to Japan’s wartime past and deliberately glorified the nation’s history. A December 2012 New York Times editorial warned: “Japan voted for economic revival, not nationalist fantasies.”