Japan’s new foreign minister Taro Kono: China’s friend ... or foe?
Taro Kono has some Japanese conservatives fearing he will follow in his father’s liberal footsteps and reach out to Beijing. But last time China mentioned his father, it didn’t go down so well
When Taro Kono was named as Japan’s new foreign minister on August 3, advocates of a closer relationship with China were delighted – but conservatives winced at the appointment.
Kono is the son of Yohei Kono, a former foreign minister and deputy prime minister, and there were many who assumed he would follow in the political footsteps of his liberal-minded father and reach out to Beijing and Seoul.
Foreign media clearly made the same assumption, with the internet version of the China News Service pointing to his father’s more liberal convictions, as demonstrated by the statement issued in his name when he was chief cabinet secretary in 1993 – in which the Japanese government admitted the military was involved in the use of “comfort women” before and during the second world war.
South Korea’s Yonhap News concurred that the new foreign minister was cut from different cloth, pointing out that Kono had in the past criticised Abe for paying his respects at Tokyo’s Yasukuni Shrine, the last resting place of millions of Japanese killed in war, including 14 Class-A war criminals.
Many on the right of Japan still despise his father Yohei Kono for what they see as kowtowing to the nation’s hectoring neighbours and feared the worst when his son took over the ministry.