US Secretary of State Antony Blinken delivered a letter of condolence from President Joe Biden to the family of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was fatally shot at a campaign rally on Friday. Blinken met current Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Monday in a brief stop in Tokyo en route to the US, telling reporters Biden personally asked him to extend his sympathies. “I shared with our Japanese colleagues the sense of loss, the sense of shock that we all feel, the American people feel at this horrific tragedy,” Blinken said. The secretary of state added that during his time in office, Abe really “took the relationship between our countries to new heights.” Blinken was returning from a trip that took him to Bali for the G-20 foreign ministers’ meeting, which he said on Saturday was shadowed by the death of the influential former Japanese premier. A wake for Abe, Japan’s longest-serving premier, is planned for Monday and a funeral is to be held Tuesday. Over the weekend, Biden called Kishida to extend his sympathy and outrage over the killing of the former Japanese leader, who was fatally shot while campaigning ahead of a Sunday election for the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. Kishida denounced the shooting as “despicable and barbaric” and said in the call with Biden he would protect democracy by not succumbing to violence. Japan’s ruling coalition expanded its majority in the upper house election held after the assassination of Abe, who led the bloc to numerous victories during his term as premier. Abe, who served two terms, from 2006-2007 and 2012-2020, was a security hawk, a fiscal dove, a defender of Japan’s alliance with the US and an advocate for maintaining the postwar global order. Biden has praised Abe for advancing a security alliance for a free and open Indo-Pacific and establishing meetings of the Quad that brought together Australia, India, Japan and the US. The four-nation group which has grown in stature in recent years seeks to counter an increasingly assertive China in the Indo-Pacific and has been chastised by Beijing as a “clique” that could stoke a new Cold War. Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://bit.ly/2TwO8Gm Subscribe to our newest channel Quicktake Explained: https://bit.ly/3iERrup Bloomberg Quicktake brings you live global news and original shows spanning business, technology, politics and culture. Make sense of the stories changing your business and your world. To watch complete coverage on Bloomberg Quicktake 24/7, visit http://www.bloomberg.com/qt/live, or watch on Apple TV, Roku, Samsung Smart TV, Fire TV and Android TV on the Bloomberg app. Have a story to tell? Fill out this survey for a chance to have it featured on Bloomberg Quicktake: https://cor.us/surveys/27AF30 Connect with us on… YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/Bloomberg Breaking News on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BloombergQuickTakeNews Twitter: https://twitter.com/quicktake Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/quicktake Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/quicktake