Shinzo Abe, Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, who sought to revive his country as an economic and military power that could confront China’s rising influence, has died aged 67 after being shot by a gunman.
The assassination, during a campaign event for party allies in Nara, near Osaka, left Japan stunned. The killing prompted an outpouring of tributes around the world for Abe, the scion of a prominent political family, whose role at the helm of Japan’s domestic politics and international affairs spanned nearly a generation. Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has led Japan for all but four years since the mid-1950s.
