THOROUGHLY MODERN AKIE ABE; JAPAN'S NEW FIRST LADY

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 PINR JA
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.

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PM Abe: "Times Have Changed"
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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."

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New Role Undefined; Focus on Education, Burma
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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

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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.

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Akie Tells All in Bungei Shunju
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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.


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Biographic Details
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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