Thinking Citizen Blog — Fumio Kishida: Japan’s new Prime Minister — the LDP, Hiroshima, New York City (Queens)
Thinking Citizen Blog — Monday is Foreign Policy Day
Today’s Topic: Fumio Kishida: Japan’s new Prime Minister — the LDP, Hiroshima, New York City (Queens)
What should every thinking citizen know about Japan’s new Prime Minister? Or is knowing anything at all really too much to ask? Well, based on the perhaps Quixotic commitment to learning as much as I can about the most important players on the world stage, today I have decided to do a little reading about Fumio Kishida and share some highlights. Experts — please chime in. Correct, elaborate, elucidate.
FORMER FOREIGN MINISTER, LEADER OF THE LIBERAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY (LDP)
1. While the Liberal Democratic Party is generally considered to be conservative and pro-business, Kishida has argued for income redistribution which he calls a “Japanese style of capitalism.”
2. Served as Foreign Minister from 2012 to 2017, arranging the first visit of an American President (Obama) to the sight of the Hiroshima bombing. He was the longest serving Japanese foreign minister since World War Two.
3. “In stylistic terms, Mr. Kishida marks a return to a type of understated leader Japan has often had in the postwar years. He rose to the top not through charisma on television or provocative policy prescriptions, but through accumulation of support from party elders.”
NB: “Mr. Kishida leads a faction of the ruling party known as the home of the patricians who come from political families or served in high-ranking bureaucratic posts.” (See fourth link below for details on the “kochikai” or “Broad Pond Society” faction which tends to be moderate in domestic and foreign policy. )
THE CHALLENGE OF THE UPCOMING ELECTION
1. “Mr. Kishida’s first challenge will be to keep his party’s majority in Parilament’s lower house in elections likely to be held Nov. 7 or Nov. 14.” (actually it looks like October 31st)
2. “Recent polls suggest the LDP which has ruled Japan for most of the last 66 years, has recovered the support it lost during a summer spike in Covid-19 infections.”
3. “Infections have fallen sharply and a slow-starting vaccination program has now delivered shots to most adults, allowing the government to lift a state of emergency this week.”
BACKGROUND — HIROSHIMA, NEW YORK CITY (back row second from right)
1. His family is from Hiroshima and many of his family members died during the atomic bombing.
2. As a child he lived for a while in Queens in New York City attending PS 013 Clement C. Moore elementary school in Elmhurst.
3. “His classmates included children of many backgrounds — white, Korean, Indian and Native American — but he sometimes felt the sting of racial discrimination. In his book Kishida Vision,” published last year, Mr. Kishida described a time in 1965 when a white classmate refused to hold his hand as instructed by a teacher on a field trip.”
NB: “Still, he came to admire the United States, finding it remarkable that students of varied backgrounds “respected the national flag and sang the anthem together in the morning.”
FOOTNOTES — Oddities from Wikipedia — sort of thing not usually found in entries about politicians. Is this a Japanese thing?
1. A fan of a kind of a savory pancake called okonomiyaki. Has anyone tried them? Apparently Hiroshima has 2000 okonomayaki restaurants — the highest per capita rate in Japan. (See fifth link below.)
2. His marriage was arranged.
3. He was rejected by the University of Tokyo multiple times.
NB: “He is a drinker and an anime fan.” Remember Shinzo Abe, like Donald Trump, was a teetotaler.
APPENDIX — THE DEMOGRAPHIC PARADOX OF JAPAN
1. Japan has one of the highest life expectancies in the world but also a rapidly declining population.
2. The population is expected to decline by 50% or more by 2100.
3. It peaked in 2014 at 127 million and is expected to fall to 107 million by 2040 and 97 million by 2050.
NB: What should Japan do? What will it do? Will immigration policy be made less restrictive? for permanent or just temporary residence?
Fumio Kishida to Become Japan’s Next Prime Minister After Party Election Win
Japan’s Likely Next Prime Minister Tries to Set Himself Apart
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_Democratic_Party_(Japan)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan
Here is a link to the last three years of posts organized by theme:
PDF with headlines — Google Drive
YOUR TURN
Please share the coolest or most important thing you learned in the last week, month, or year related to foreign policy. Or, even better, the coolest or most important thing you learned in our life related to foreign policy.
This is your chance to make someone else’s day. And to consolidate in your memory something important you might otherwise forget. Or to think more deeply than otherwise about something dear to your heart. Continuity is the key to depth of thought. The prospect of imminent publication, like hanging and final exams, concentrates the mind. A useful life long habit.
