US ambassador: Japanese in ‘disbelief’ over Shinzo Abe assassination

Rahm Emanuel, the U.S. ambassador to Japan, said on Sunday that the assassination of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was a “shock to the system.”

“It hasn’t been totally absorbed into the society or the politics,” Emanuel told ABC “This Week” anchor George Stephanopoulos. “People are walking around with a sense of disbelief.”

Abe, who was assassinated on Friday during a campaign event in the western city of Nara, was Japan’s longest-serving prime minister. He gained a reputation for railing against the country’s enshrinement of pacifism and implementing economic reforms as he sought to bolster Japan’s power on the global stage.

Emanuel said he visited with Abe’s family earlier on Sunday to pay his condolences.

Emanuel pointed to the nation’s strict gun laws and relative lack of gun violence, saying the “bubble has been pierced” by the assassination.

“This is a nation that’s an island, and a lot of what ails other countries — it is immune and feels immune,” he said on Sunday. 

“It’s a very trusting society,” Emanuel added. “And so to have something like this is a total, I mean, shock to the system, a shock to the culture.”

Abe stepped down from the prime minister role in 2020 for health reasons but remained active in the country’s politics. 

Abe regularly stumped for Liberal Democratic Party candidates, including on Friday, when he was speaking in advance of elections for Japan’s upper legislative chamber on Sunday. The election took place as scheduled in the wake of Abe’s assassination.

President Biden said on Friday that he was “stunned, outraged and deeply saddened” by Abe’s killing. He signed a condolence book at the Japanese Embassy in Washington, D.C., later that day and ordered flags on federal property to be flown at half-staff.

Emanuel on Sunday hailed Abe’s achievements in the global economy and national security in particular, praising his involvement in setting up a strategic security dialogue between the United States, Japan, India and Australia known as the Quad.

He called Abe a “visionary” who was committed to building a free and open Indo-Pacific.

“He has been a force that, as I said, not only ahead of his time — now time is catching up to him,” Emanuel said.