Fumio Kishida Biography Flash a weekly Biography.

I am Fumio Kishida, former prime minister of Japan, and here is what has been happening around me in the last few days, with an eye on what really matters for my long term story.

First, my years in office keep shaping today’s policy debates. The Japan Times reports that a new Jiji Press poll on restarting nuclear power plants has results that are almost a mirror image of a similar survey from July 2022, when I was in power and pushed to bring reactors back online as part of a broader energy security shift. That continuity means my nuclear and energy stance is still a living reference point in Japanese politics, not just a closed chapter.

My national security legacy is also back in the conversation. The Diplomat notes that the United States new national security strategy is being read in Tokyo partly through the lens of my 2022 decision to boost defense spending to 2 percent of GDP and to expand long range strike capabilities. Analysts are treating that move as a structural turning point for Japan’s role in the US alliance network and in Indo Pacific deterrence, underscoring that my time in office continues to frame how Japan thinks about China, North Korea, and regional security today. Chatham House similarly describes the 2023 Camp David summit I attended with Joe Biden and Yoon Suk Yeol as a high watermark for US Japan South Korea trilateral cooperation, now serving as the benchmark that successors are struggling to sustain.

Then there is the softer, more human side of the news cycle. Fox News, picking up a Japanese social media post I made, reports that Justin Trudeau visited Japan with his partner Katy Perry and joined my wife Yuko and me for a lunch. I publicly thanked Trudeau for maintaining our friendship even after both of us left office and reminisced about working together on the Nikka Action Plan during my premiership and his separate visit to the Hiroshima atomic bomb archives during the G7 Hiroshima Summit. The story has bounced around entertainment and political gossip spaces, adding an unexpected pop culture twist to my post premiership image and reinforcing my persona as a networked, globally minded ex leader who still moves in high level diplomatic circles even when the cameras are mostly there for a Canadian ex prime minister and a world tour pop star.

There are, so far, no credible reports of new business ventures or corporate board roles for me in the last few days, and any online chatter about such deals is purely speculative and unconfirmed.

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