Fumio Kishida

Fumio Kishida (岸田 文雄, Kishida Fumio, born 29 July 1957) is a Japanese politician, who is the current Minister for Foreign Affairs of Japan. He is a member of the House of Representatives and the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). He served in Yasuo Fukuda's cabinet as minister of state for Okinawa and northern territories affairs, science and technology policy, quality-of-life policy, and regulatory reform.

Kishida was born to a political family in Minami-ku, Hiroshima on 29 July 1957. His father and grandfather were former politicians who were lower house members, and also, former prime minister Kiichi Miyazawa is a distant relative of his. Kishida studied law at Waseda University and graduated in 1982.

Political career

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 for the first time in July 1993. He served in the lower house seven times, representing the Hiroshima No: 1.and Cabinet Junichiro Koizumi 2001 He was chairman of the LDP's Diet affairs committee until September 2012. In the LDP, he is close to retired veteran LDP politician Makoto Koga. Kishida assumed the control of Koga's faction in October 2012. His most appointment in the LDP was chairman of the headquarters for Japan's economic revitalization. Like Shinzō Abe and most members of his Cabinet, Kishida is affiliated to the openly revisionist organization Nippon Kaigi.

Ministerial career

Kishida with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se, February 2017

Kishida was the 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. Kishida was named foreign minister in the Cabinet of Prime Minister Shinzō Abe on 26 December 2012.

Both Kishida's grandfather, Masaki Kishida, and his father, Fumitake Kishida, were members of the House of Representatives, and his cousin is Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry minister Yoichi Miyazawa.

•  Netherlands: Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Orange-Nassau (29 October 2014)