Fumio Kishida

Fumio Kishida is a Japanese politician who has been Prime Minister of Japan since 2021 and President of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). He previously served in the House of Representatives as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2012 to 2017 and as interim Minister of Defense in 2017. He also chaired the LDP Policy Research Council from 2017 to 2020.

Kishida began his career in banking before entering politics and being elected to the House of Representatives as a member of the LDP in 1993. Kishida was appointed to various positions in prime ministers Shinzo Abe and Yasuo Fukuda’s cabinets 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 Japan’s longest-serving Foreign Affairs Minister. Kishida stepped down from Abe’s cabinet in 2017 to lead the LDP’s Policy Research Council.

Prime mInister Kishida was born in Shibuya, Tokyo, to a political family. He went to P.S. 013 Clement C. Moore elementary school in the Elmhurst neighborhood of Queens, New York. He also went to Kjimachi Elementary and Kjimachi Junior High School. Kishida received his diploma from Kaisei Academy. Kishida studied law at Waseda University and graduated in 1982.