Fumio Kishida

Fumio Kishida (born 29 July 1957) is a Japanese politician who served as Prime Minister of Japan and President of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) from 2021 until his resignation in 2024. He has represented Hiroshima 1st in the House of Representatives since 1996. Before his premiership, he was the Minister for Foreign Affairs from 2012 to 2017, as acting Minister of Defense in 2017, and he also chaired the LDP Policy Research Council from 2017 to 2020.

Born into a political family, 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, Kishida entered politics and was elected to the House of Representatives at the 1993 general election as a member of the LDP. Kishida was appointed to Minister of State for Special Missions in the premiership of 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 becoming the longest-serving Foreign Affairs Minister in Japanese history. Kishida resigned from the Abe cabinet in 2017 in order to head the LDP's Policy Research Council. Kishida also assumed leadership of the LDP's more moderate Kōchikai faction in 2012 following the retirement of faction leader Makoto Koga, a position he held until his resignation in 2023. Long considered a potential future prime minister, Kishida ran in the 2020 LDP presidential election, but lost to Yoshihide Suga. He ran again for the party leadership in 2021, this time winning in a second round run-off against opponent Taro Kono. Kishida was confirmed as prime minister by the National Diet four days later on 4 October 2021.