Tobias Harris spoke with Eryk Bagshaw of the Sydney Morning Herald about Kishi Nobuchiyo and the future of the Abe-Kishi dynasty.
Tobias Harris, a Japan analyst and former political staffer in Toko who wrote Abe’s biography The Iconoclast, said it was an inauspicious start to a political career.
“I mean it just shows the challenge of his position,” he says. “His very existence is not popular.”
Kishi says he wants to put a stop to entrenched hereditary politics. But he is surrounded by the icons of his family. In his office in Tokyo, photos of his grandfather greeting former US President Richard Nixon, a portrait of his slain uncle and a cartoon of his father all hang on the wall.
At 32, Kishi is eight years younger than Abe and 13 years younger than his father when they first became elected officials.
“It’s remarkable when you look at the path of previous generations into politics,” says Harris. “He is exceptionally young. It goes to show how unprepared the dynasty was for generational change.”
The article is paywalled but available here.
Japan Foresight 