Embassy Tokyo (Japan)

While Akie Abe seems intent on maintaining a higher profile than her predecessors, her role in the new administration is as yet undefined. So too is the bureaucratic apparatus necessary to support her activities; Japan has had to wrestle for the first time with creation of an office to support a “professional” first lady. Kuni Miyake, a former MOFA bureaucrat, has already come on board as Mrs. Abe’s Chief of Staff. In a conversation with Embassy Tokyo’s DCM, Miyake seemed intent on pursuing an ambitious outreach to other first ladies, a move designed to boost Akie Abe’s and PM Abe’s domestic popularity. In addition to Miyake, Mrs. Abe has a full-time staff member managing her wardrobe and appearance. Mrs. Abe has made clear, however, that she does not play a role in policy formulation or personnel matters. For example, she noted in her extensive magazine interview in Bungei Shunju that she was not consulted on cabinet appointments and had no idea who her husband would select until the day they were announced. She did describe the stress her husband seemed to be under as he pondered who to tap for his cabinet. To show that she can still fulfill the role of a traditional political wife, she also underscored in the interview that her most important job is to “make a relaxing atmosphere at home.”

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  1. shinichi Post author

    Wikileaks

    http://cablegatesearch.wikileaks.org/cable.php?id=06TOKYO6475&q=abe%20shinzo

    Cable reference id: #06TOKYO6475

    Subject Thoroughly Modern Akie Abe; Japan’s New First Lady
    Origin Embassy Tokyo (Japan)
    Cable time Sun, 12 Nov 2006 22:45 UTC
    Classification CONFIDENTIAL

    C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 TOKYO 006475

    SIPDIS

    SIPDIS

    E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/25/2016
    TAGS: PGOV [Internal Governmental Affairs], PINR [Intelligence], JA [Japan; Okinawa; Ryukyu Islands]
    SUBJECT: THOROUGHLY MODERN AKIE ABE; JAPAN’S NEW FIRST LADY

    Classified By: Ambassador J. Thomas Schieffer. Reasons: 1.4 (B)(D)

    ¶1. (SBU) Summary. After more than five years of living
    under Japan’s most famous bachelor, former Prime Minister
    Junichiro Koizumi, Japan once again has a First Lady. Since
    the election of Shinzo Abe as prime minister on September 26,
    Akie Abe has begun to chart a very different course from her
    predecessors; giving a long and revealing interview to a
    widely circulated monthly magazine, holding hands with her
    husband in public, and taking up her own causes. Her efforts
    appear to be well received by the Japanese public. As the
    wife of the youngest prime minister in Japan’s post-war
    history, she seems eager to represent the face of the modern
    Japanese woman, without alienating the more traditional
    elements of society. End summary.

    —————————–
    PM Abe: “Times Have Changed”
    —————————–

    ¶2. (SBU) Foreign press reports that Japan’s new first lady,
    Akie Abe, has taken the country by storm probably overstate
    her impact thus far. No one can deny, however, that she has
    already become the most public first lady in Japan’s history.
    Less than two weeks into the new administration, as her
    husband pulled off consecutive summits in Beijing and Seoul
    aimed at repairing frayed ties with Japan’s Asian neighbors,
    Mrs. Abe was already making her presence known. In Beijing,
    she drew attention by walking off the plane holding hands
    with her husband, an image that was replayed for days on
    Japanese television. In Seoul, she drew on her Korean
    language ability to delight her hosts and improve the optics
    of an otherwise restrained visit. While the wives of
    previous prime ministers have always participated in State
    and other public events, none ever made their impact felt so
    quickly and so publicly. Prime Minister Abe, meanwhile,
    seems to be encouraging his wife to play an active role,
    telling CNN: “In the past, wives never came out in front,
    but times have changed. I would like her to support me as my
    partner.”

    ———————————————
    New Role Undefined; Focus on Education, Burma
    ———————————————

    ¶3. (C) While Akie Abe seems intent on maintaining a higher
    profile than her predecessors, her role in the new
    administration is as yet undefined. So too is the
    bureaucratic apparatus necessary to support her activities;
    Japan has had to wrestle for the first time with creation of
    an office to support a “professional” first lady. Kuni
    Miyake, a former MOFA bureaucrat, has already come on board
    as Mrs. Abe’s Chief of Staff. In a conversation with Embassy
    Tokyo’s DCM, Miyake seemed intent on pursuing an ambitious
    outreach to other first ladies, a move designed to boost Akie
    Abe’s and PM Abe’s domestic popularity. In addition to
    Miyake, Mrs. Abe has a full-time staff member managing her
    wardrobe and appearance. Mrs. Abe has made clear, however,
    that she does not play a role in policy formulation or
    personnel matters. For example, she noted in her extensive
    magazine interview in Bungei Shunju that she was not
    consulted on cabinet appointments and had no idea who her
    husband would select until the day they were announced. She
    did describe the stress her husband seemed to be under as he
    pondered who to tap for his cabinet. To show that she can
    still fulfill the role of a traditional political wife, she
    also underscored in the interview that her most important job
    is to “make a relaxing atmosphere at home.”

    ¶4. (SBU) Demonstrating her ability to balance work and
    family, Akie Abe has traveled frequently to pursue her own
    interests, focusing primarily on education and humanitarian
    efforts in Burma. During a trip with her husband to
    Washington, DC, she initiated a visit to an elementary school
    that teaches classes in Japanese, reading to the American
    students from a picture book on ducks written by former Prime
    Minister Mori. That exchange led to a sister school
    relationship between the U.S. school and an elementary school

    TOKYO 00006475 002 OF 003

    in Fukuyama City, Hiroshima. This year, she has already
    visited Sri Lanka, to view the state of tsunami
    reconstruction efforts, Washington, Burma, China, and Los
    Angeles, where she viewed a film on Japanese citizens
    abducted by North Korea.

    ¶5. (SBU) Akie Abe has gained attention in Japan for her
    campaign to build schools in Burma, which began when her
    husband was chair of the Parliamentarians’ League to Build
    Schools for Asian Children back in October 2005. Mrs. Abe
    visited the site of the first project, located adjacent to a
    temple in Mandalay, in May 2006. The eight-room schoolhouse
    is expected to be completed by January 2007, and will operate
    under the temple’s management. The charitable group involved
    in this project is currently considering a program to fund
    school meals for Burmese students, as a way of encouraging
    poor families to allow their children to attend. It has also
    proposed funding doctors to be assigned to the schools, but
    who would then serve the surrounding communities.
    Previously, Mrs. Abe toured South Africa and Madagascar with
    Ayako Sono, chair of the Nippon Foundation, inspecting HIV
    treatment facilities. In the Bungei Shunju interview, she
    traces her interest in working on education for poor families
    to those travels, noting that she and her colleagues from
    that trip continue to meet regularly in Tokyo through an
    informal group they call African Night.

    ——————————-
    Akie Tells All in Bungei Shunju
    ——————————-

    ¶6. (SBU) Another sign of Mrs. Abe’s break with the
    traditional model of low-profile Japanese first ladies is an
    unusually wide-ranging and revealing interview with the
    influential conservative monthly magazine, Bungei Shunju, in
    November. Her willingness to discuss openly the pressures of
    a political marriage and her struggles with infertility
    signal a sharp break from the past. She also used the
    interview to reveal what could be considered intimate details
    of her relationship with her husband over the past 20 years,
    providing readers with insights to his “gentle” side at home.
    She describes him as considerate of her interests and
    self-sufficient, even to the point of ironing his own
    trousers. Mrs. Abe is already well known as the social
    drinker in her family, but describes in the Bungei Shunju
    interview how she first took to drinking with her husband’s
    political support organizations because of his low tolerance
    for alcohol. She still travels regularly to his electoral
    district in Yamaguchi Prefecture to attend drinking parties
    with her husband’s supporters. On a more serious note, she
    dispels rumors that she began studying Korean a few years ago
    because of her infatuation with Korean soap operas,
    attributing her interest to her husband’s first visit to
    Pyongyang with Koizumi and the realization that she could
    make a positive contribution to Japan-DPRK relations.

    ¶7. (SBU) One of Akie Abe’s reasons for giving the long
    interview to Bungei Shunju may have been to clear the air on
    the Abes’ lack of children, a sensitive subject in a country
    with a declining birth rate and where women can still come
    under tremendous pressure to bear children. Noting that she
    had received fertility treatment earlier in her marriage but
    was now too old to keep trying, she admitted feeling pressure
    as a political wife to bear a child. Her husband had even
    broached the idea of adopting, she revealed, but she was
    unable to make up her mind. She accepts not having children
    by “telling myself that I have been bestowed with a mission
    to be useful to society by doing things other than raising a
    child,” she told the magazine, adding that women can still
    lead fulfilling lives without children, as long as they have
    somewhere to funnel their energies. She also remarked that
    she was aware of the various campaigns of U.S. first ladies,
    including Laura Bush’s work on literacy, and wished to
    emulate them. She was open about her initial reluctance to
    take on the role of a political wife, and credits the
    training she received from her mother-in-law and her
    husband’s political supporters.

    TOKYO 00006475 003 OF 003

    ——————
    Biographic Details
    ——————

    ¶9. (SBU) Akie Abe, 44, is the eldest daughter of Akio
    Matsuzaki, who retired as President of Japanese confectionery
    giant Morinaga & Co. She attended the elite Sacred Heart
    School in Tokyo from kindergarten through the school’s
    two-year junior college program, where she majored in
    English. She was working at Dentsu, Inc. one of Japan’s
    largest advertising agencies, when she met Shinzo Abe through
    one of her bosses. They dated for approximately two years
    before marrying in June 1987, when she was 25 and he was 32.
    She disclosed recently that she worked for two years as a
    disc jockey at a local radio station in Yamaguchi while her
    husband was Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary, using a pseudonym
    to keep her identity secret. She loves music, sports,
    flamenco dancing, and watching serialized television dramas.
    She also likes to cook, although she rarely has time. She
    speaks Korean conversationally, as well as some English.
    SCHIEFFER

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