
Fumio Kishida
Education
- Elementary school - New York City
- Kōjimachi Junior - High School
- Graduated - Kaisei Academy
- law - Waseda University
Overview
Fumio Kishida is a Japanese politician serving as prime minister of Japan and president of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) since 2021. A member of the House of Representatives, he previously served as Minister for Foreign Affairs from 2012 to 2017 and as acting Minister of Defense in 2017. From 2017 to 2020, he also chaired the LDP Policy Research Council.
Kishida entered politics and was elected to the House of Representatives in 1993 as a member of the LDP. Kishida was appointed to various posts in the cabinets of prime ministers Shinzo Abe and Yasuo Fukuda from 2007 to 2008, and was appointed Minister for Foreign Affairs in 2012 after Abe regained the premiership following the 2012 general election, serving for five years and bebecamehe the longest-serving Foreign Affairs Minister in Japanese history. Kishida later resigned from the Abe cabinet in 2017 in order to head the LDP's Policy Research Council. Kishida also assumed control of the LDP's Kōchikai faction in 2012 following the retirement of faction boss Makoto Koga.
Long considered a potential future prime minister, Kishida ran in the 2020 LDP leadership election, but ost out to Yoshihide Suga. He ran again for the party leadership in 2021, this time winning in a secondsecond-roundff against opponent Taro Kono. Kishida was confirmed as Prime Minister by the National Diet four days later on 4 October 2021 and led the LDP to victory in the 2021 general election later that same month.
Kishida has been described as an ideological moderate within the LDP and has stated that his premiership will focus on a "new model of capitalism", by seeking to implement redistributive policies to expand the middle class. On foreign policy he continued strengthening the Quad Security Dialogue in pursuit of the Free and Open Indo-Pacific strategy. His premiership has seen a political scandal related to LDP links to the Unification Church that came to public attention after the assassination of Shinzo Abe in 2022. In November that year, he instructed the cabinet to increase the military budget to 2% of Japan's GDP, up from 1% previously.
After working at now-defunct Long-Term Credit Bank of Japan and then as a secretary to a member of the House of Representatives, Kishida was elected to the House of Representatives in the 1993 general election, representing the Hiroshima 1st district.
Kishida served as Minister of Okinawa Affairs from 2007 to 2008, firstly in the Abe Cabinet and later in the Fukuda cabinet. He was appointed state minister in charge of consumer affairs and food safety in the cabinet of then prime minister Yasuo Fukuda in 2008. Kishida was also state minister in charge of science and technology in the Fukuda cabinet.
He was close to Makoto Koga, leader of the Kōchikai faction, one of the oldest inside the LDP, and assumed control of it in October 2012 after Makoto Koga announced his retirement from politics
Yoshide Suga’s announcement on 3 September 2021 that he would resign, following low approval ratings (at one point below 30%), and a new wave of COVID-19 infections, Kishida and Taro Kono of Shikōkai faction were in the lead to replace him. Suga’s decision to not seek re-election as head of the LDP, triggered another leadership election in September, just a little more than a year after the previous election in 2020. Throughout the race, Kono was heavily favored to win as he remained in first place among various LDP polls, and he received endorsements by Suga and others.
On 29 September 2021, Kishida defeated Taro Kono in a runoff vote to become the leader of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and replaced outgoing party leader Yoshihide Suga. He received a total of 257 votes , from 249 parliament members and eight rank-and-file members, to become Japan's next prime minister.
Early Life
Kishida was born to a political family in Shibuya, Tokyo, on 29 July 1957. Kishida spent part of his childhood in the United States where he attended elementary school in New York City. After beginning his career in finance , His father Fumitake Kishida was a government official in the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry and director of The Small and Medium Enterprise Agency. Since the Kishida family was from Hiroshima, the family returned there every summer. Many members of the Kishida family had died in the atomic bombing and Fumio grew up hearing stories from the atomic bomb survivors. Both his father Fumitake and grandfather Masaki Kishida were former politicians who were members of the House of Representatives. Former Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Yoichi Miyazawa is his cousin and former prime minister Kiichi Miyazawa is a distant relative.
elementary school in the Elmhurst neighborhood of Queens, New York, because his father was posted to a job in the U.S. at the time. He also attended Kōjimachi Elementary School and Kōjimachi Junior High School. Kishida graduated from Kaisei Academy, where he played on the baseball team.
Following several rejections from the University of Tokyo, Kishida studied law at Waseda University and graduated in 1982. At Waseda, he was friends with future politician Takeshi Iwaya.
In 1988, Kishida married Yuko Kishida, a daughter of a real estate businessman, in an arranged marriage. They have three sons. In one presentation, Yuko was featured in the LDP messaging immediately after he became the de facto PM-designate . He is a fan of the manga series Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba and has pledged to financially support the Japanese animation industry during his premiership. He is also a fan of the Hiroshima Toyo Carp baseball team
Career
- Prime Minister of Japan - Japanese politician
Recognition
Netherlands: Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Orange-Nassau (29 October 2014)
Spain: Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Isabella the Catholic (31 March 2017)