Indian External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar remembered former Japanese PM Shinzo Abe and said he was trying to prepare Japan to face the uncertainty.

The Indian Minister made the remark while attending the book launch programme of ‘The Importance of Shinzo Abe.’

Jaishankar stated that he found Shinzo Abe a mixture of “optimism and realism.” He further said that the intent of the book was to evaluate Shinzo Abe and his contributions and his views.

Speaking at the book launch, Jaishankar was quoted as saying by ANI, “I’m actually very glad that this book was not just a collection of personal memories, but that it was actually called ‘The Importance of Shinzo Abe.’ That the intent of this book was to, in a sense, evaluate him and his contributions and his views. Historically, the context and the subtext that Sanjay mentioned, and in many ways, that perhaps was really doing justice to him because if one were to look at the last quarter century of certainly Asian politics, possibly even global politics, there are very few who would compare, which in.”

“Shinzo Abe in terms of their influence, their contribution, the views with which they shaped the contemporary order. So, as one looks at his policies, I tried to capture it in a way, in a single sentence in my forward by saying that Abe was trying to get Japan ready for an uncertain, volatile and difficult world. And for those of us who knew him and worked with him and it’s not very often that one can actually say you knew somebody, you worked with a lot of people. I found him a very interesting mixture of optimism and realism, of being very international, but being very deeply steeped in his own ethos and culture,” he added.

He said that Abe was preparing Japan for a different era.

“A person who in many ways represented the hopes of a technological society, but who was also very proud of the heritage and traditions and got the right balance. Now, this might sound familiar in respect of some other people closer home, but that’s another story. Now, as I said, I think Shinzo Abe was preparing Japan for a new era, for a different era. And it was my good fortune to be in Japan, actually, at the turn of the century when the Japanese system started thinking about going out of the country in a more autonomous way,” Jaishankar said.