Assassination of Shinzo Abe: in China, contrasting reactions

Photo taken on Dec. 23, 2019. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (L) shakes hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) in Beijing.

AP - Noel Celis

Text by: RFI Follow

2 mins

Among the many reactions to the death of Shinzo Abe, that of the Chinese Embassy in Tokyo, which says it is "shocked" by the attack of which the Japanese Prime Minister was shot and killed on Friday July 8, while on the networks, resentment against Japan is resurging.

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With our correspondent in Beijing

,

The assassination of the Japanese Prime Minister, it is first the Chinese manufacturers of bulletproof vests who rub their hands.

Shares of the three main suppliers of military protection jumped 2 to 6% on Friday, reports the Quarz site, while the most nationalists welcomed the disappearance, calling the shooter a “hero” and recalling Abe Shinzo’s visits to Yasukuni. when he was in office, the shrine that commemorates Japan's World War II leaders.

Man of consensus with China

Hashtags about the Nara attack this morning have more than a billion views in China.

And for Chinese weibonauts full of bitterness, the former Prime Minister is also the one who defended the Senkaku Islands, also called Diaoyu by Beijing.

But Shinzo Abe is also, for part of the Chinese elite, the man of rapprochement, even of consensus with China.

Some recall that the former chairman of the Liberal Democratic Party will be the first Japanese prime minister to return to Beijing after the 2011 estrangement around the Rocks of Discord in the East China Sea.

This, before relations between Beijing and Tokyo deteriorate again with its successors.

Put aside past differences, writes the former editor of the

on Twitter .

I feel sympathy for Abe.

I publicly expressed my sympathy in a post today on Chinese social media Weibo.

The post garnered 86,000 likes in just over an hour and is one of the hottest posts about Abe's incident on the Chinese social media.

pic.twitter.com/BB7kPGlsau

— Hu Xijin 胡锡进 (@HuXijin_GT) July 8, 2022

China is "

" by the attack, said Chinese diplomatic spokesman Zhao Linjian.

" 

" said the spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Tokyo

 »

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• China

• Japan

• Shinzo Abe