Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio on Saturday night wished former president Donald Trump a “speedy recovery” and denounced political violence.
Kishida himself was saved from an apparent assassination attempt in April 2023 and his predecessor Abe Shinzo – a close friend of Trump’s – was gunned down in July 2022.
“We must stand firm against any form of violence that challenges democracy,” Kishida said on social media platform X shortly after the attack on Trump.
“I pray for former President Trump’s speedy recovery,” he added.
Kishida was evacuated without injuries from a campaign event in western Japan in April 2023 after an assailant lobbed an explosive device in his direction. One police officer was slightly injured in the incident, which apparently involved a crude pipe bomb. The attacker, 24-year-old Kimura Ryuji, was attempting to throw a second bomb when people in the crowd wrestled him down.
Police determined the device thrown by Kimura was potentially lethal, so he was indicted for attempted murder along with several other violations. Kimura was uncooperative with police after his arrest, but he was believed to have been angered by Japanese laws that prevented him from running in the 2022 elections.
The attack on Kishida took place about nine months after his predecessor Abe Shinzo was shot while giving a speech in the city of Nara, near Kyoto.
The assassin, 41-year-old Yamagami Tetsuya, said he had no “political grudge toward Abe,” but instead wanted to attack the Unification Church, a controversial religious group Abe was affiliated with. Yamagami later said he was angry with the church because his mother bankrupted the family by making lavish donations to it. He decided Abe was a more convenient target than the actual leaders of the church.
Yamagami used a homemade firearm to shoot Abe and reportedly had six more of them at his house. He and his family became objects of fascination, and even some sympathy, even though police tried to keep him out of the public eye. Coincidentally, Nara District Court announced last week that Yamagami’s trial date has not yet been scheduled and he probably will not be tried until next year.
The Japanese government has considered banning the Unification Church, better known in the U.S. as the “Moonies” after its late Korean founder Sun Myung Moon, but that decision is still pending as well. The church has paid millions of dollars in compensation in recent years to members who said they were bilked by its deceptive and high-pressure fundraising tactics.
Japan’s Kyodo News reported other members of the governing party and opposition denounced the Trump shooting, with Abe’s assassination still looming large in their minds:
Touching on Abe’s assassination, Tomomi Inada, acting secretary general of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party, said she senses a rising trend of increased radicalism in protests and opposition toward politicians.
“There is a situation in which we cannot ensure the fairness of elections and the foundations of safety,” the former defense minister said on a television program.
Hiroshi Ogushi, head of the election strategy committee of the leading opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, also called the Trump rally incident a “challenge to democracy that should never happen.”
Ogushi called the attack on Trump “outrageous” and said that, like Abe’s shooting, it spotlights the difficulty of keeping candidates safe while protecting the freedom of the public to express incendiary views.
Trump was a “true friend” of Abe, as he said in a statement after Abe’s shooting. The two had several meetings during Trump’s presidency. In the summer of 2020, Trump told Abe he was the greatest prime minister in Japan’s history.
“Absolutely devastating news that former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan, a truly great man and leader, has been shot, and is in very serious condition,” Trump said in a statement released before Abe succumbed to his wounds.
“He was a true friend of mine and, much more importantly, America. This is a tremendous blow to the wonderful people of Japan, who loved and admired him so much. We are all praying for Shinzo and his beautiful family!” Trump said.
Some Internet users recalled Trump’s friendship with Abe and started a meme about Abe’s spirit intervening to save Trump’s life on Saturday night. Some of the posts were humorous, while others were genuinely touching. In some memes, Abe appeared as a gentle spirit who nudged Trump to move his head at the exact right moment, while in others he was depicted as a fierce supernatural protector, a ghostly samurai catching the bullet or deflecting it with his celestial katana. Naturally some of the memes created in Japan envisioned Trump and Abe as anime characters.
One of the most popular memes in Japan, reposted by a few conservative politicians with large followings, envisioned Trump saying he turned his head because “for a moment, I thought I heard the voice of an old friend.” This imaginary news story was often accompanied by an image of Abe’s benevolent spirit floating in the sky.