Blinken calls assassinated former Japanese leader Shinzo Abe a ‘man of vision’

Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday visited Japan to pay respects to former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was assassinated while speaking at a campaign event on Friday.

Blinken told reporters that he visited with current Prime Minister Fumio Kishida while stopping in the country and said President Biden had asked him personally to share his condolences.

“I came at the president’s behest because, more than allies, we’re friends,” Blinken said. “And when a friend is hurting, other friends show up. We try to help ease the burden, share the sense of loss, give a shoulder, and that’s what we’re trying to do today.”

Blinken said he gave Kishida letters that Biden wrote to the Abe family. Biden himself visited the Japanese Embassy in Washington on Friday to sign a condolence book and pay his respects to Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, saying he was “stunned, outraged and deeply saddened” by Abe’s killing.

“We saw in him something rare — a man of vision who had the ability to realize that vision,” Blinken said on Monday.

Kishida’s Liberal Democratic Party, which Abe was also a member of, won a majority of seats in Sunday’s upper house elections with coalition partner Komeito. Abe was assassinated while stumping for candidates in advance of the election.

Abe’s party vowed to continue work on the former prime minister’s unfinished goals following the election, including on issues like strengthening the Japanese military and revising Japan’s pacifist constitution enshrined in the postwar period.

Blinken and other top U.S. officials have hailed Abe’s legacy of boosting Japan’s role on the global stage, pointing to economic reforms and his belief in a free and open Indo-Pacific.

“It’s such a loss, too, because during his time in office Prime Minister Abe really took the relationship between our countries to new heights,” Blinken said.

Blinken made Monday’s stop in Japan as part of a pre-scheduled international trip.

Blinken was already in Asia at the time of Abe’s assassination for a meeting of foreign ministers from Group of 20 countries in Indonesia that preceded a visit to Thailand.