Fumio Kishida has won a race to lead Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), putting him on course to become the next prime minister. He won against the high-profile Minister Taro Kono and also Sanae Takaichi. Mr Kishida will succeed Yoshihide Suga, who decided to step down after just one year in office. In this episode, I talked with Professor Kotaro Tamura, Former Senator and Parliamentary Secretary of cabinet office in charge of economic and fiscal policy, who played a key role in elaborating Abenomics during Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's first administration. He is also an adjunct professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at National University of Singapore; Chairman of Japan Strategic Initiative and Asia fellow at the Milken Institute on Kishida’s foreign policy outlook.

We discussed Japan’s future US- China policy and Korean Peninsula affairs under Kishida administration. Political expert, Takao Toshikawa, editor of the political newsletter Tokyo Inside line labelled Kishida as Mr status quo, I asked Prof. Kotaro whether he agrees on this label. At the end of our talk, we conversed on the outlook of ASEAN-Japan relationships. Enjoy the episode!