Shinjirō Koizumi

Shinjirō Koizumi
小泉 進次郎
Official portrait, 2020
Minister of the Environment
In office 11 September 2019 – 4 October 2021
Prime Minister	Shinzō Abe Yoshihide Suga
Preceded by	Yoshiaki Harada
Succeeded by	Tsuyoshi Yamaguchi
Member of the House of Representatives for Kanagawa's 11th district
Incumbent
Assumed office 31 August 2009
Preceded by	Junichiro Koizumi
Personal details
Born	(1981-04-14) 14 April 1981 (age 43) Yokosuka, Kanagawa, Japan
Political party	Liberal Democratic
Spouse	Christel Takigawa ​ (m. 2019)​
Children	2
Parent(s)	Junichiro Koizumi (father) Kayoko Miyamoto (mother)
Relatives	Kotaro Koizumi (brother) Jun'ya Koizumi (grandfather) Yoshie Koizumi (grandmother) Koizumi Matajirō (great-grandfather)
Alma mater	Kanto Gakuin University (BEc) Columbia University (MA)

Shinjirō Koizumi (小泉 進次郎, Koizumi Shinjirō, born 14 April 1981) is a Japanese politician who served as the Minister of the Environment from September 2019 to October 2021. He also serves as a Member of the House of Representatives for the Liberal Democratic Party. He is the second son of former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and the younger brother of actor Kotaro Koizumi.

After graduating from university, Koizumi worked as a researcher at the Washington-based think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies, and became active politically as Young Leader of the Pacific Forum CSIS. He also spent time working as a political secretary for his father in the final years of his second term as prime minister. In the 2009 election, he was elected to the House of Representatives for the seat his father had occupied for more than 35 years.

After the election of the Abe Government in 2012, Koizumi was appointed as a Vice-Minister for Reconstruction, focusing on the northeastern region of Japan that was devastated by the March 2011 tsunami and subsequent nuclear disaster. He publicly opposed his father's calls for Japan to abandon nuclear energy immediately. In 2019, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe appointed Koizumi to the Cabinet as Minister of the Environment, a role he retained when Yoshihide Suga succeeded Abe as prime minister in September 2020. Koizumi endorsed Taro Kono in the 2021 LDP leadership election, which resulted in Fumio Kishida becoming prime minister. He subsequently left the cabinet and returned to backbench politics. Koizumi ran as a candidate in the September 2024 Liberal Democratic Party presidential election to succeed Kishida and was the third most voted in the country, losing the first round to Sanae Takaichi and Shigeru Ishiba, with the latter leading the final runoff.

Koizumi is a fourth-generation politician of the Koizumi family. His father, Junichiro Koizumi, was the Prime Minister of Japan from 2001 to 2006. His grandfather, Jun'ya Koizumi, was director general of the Japan Defense Agency (now Minister of Defense) and a member of the House of Representatives representing Kanagawa's 2nd District, a seat that Junichiro also held. His great-grandfather, Matajirō Koizumi, was Minister of Posts and Telecommunications, mayor of Yokosuka and a member of the House of Peers.^[1]

Koizumi's parents divorced when he was a toddler. His father gained full custody of him and his elder brother Kōtarō. They were raised by one of Junichiro's sisters, Michiko. At that time joint custody was not permitted in Japan. After the divorce, Shinjirō was estranged from his mother, Kayoko, and did not meet her or his younger brother Yoshinaga again until he reached adulthood.^[2][3]

Koizumi was born and raised in Yokosuka, his father's home district. When he was a student in junior high and senior high schools, he was engrossed in playing sports, especially baseball. He attended Kanto Gakuin University in Yokohama, receiving a Bachelor of Economics degree in 2004. He received his master's degree in political science from Columbia University. He spent one year as a part-time research fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and as Young Leader of the Pacific Forum CSIS before returning to Japan in 2007.^[4] After that, he worked as a private secretary of Junichiro, his father.

Following his father's announced retirement in 2008, he was elected to his father's former seat representing the Kanagawa 11th district in the August 2009 general election, in which many other LDP seats were lost to the Democratic Party of Japan. He faced criticism for being a hereditary politician. He campaigned in a rented Toyota Prius with a volunteer staff.^[5]

Koizumi became head of the LDP's young legislators caucus in October 2011, a post previously held by Prime Ministers Takeshita, Uno, Kaifu, Abe and Asō. In February 2012, he started a project called "Team 11," which sent members of the division to areas of the Tōhoku region affected by the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami on the 11th of each month to talk to locals and report back on the state of the reconstruction efforts. The group had 82 members, all under the age of 45, as of March 2013. Some observers compared the group to the powerful "Machimura faction" led by Nobutaka Machimura in terms of its political weight.^[6]

He was critical of the LDP under party president Sadakazu Tanigaki. In his first meeting as a party officer, he stated that "the image of the party is that it doesn't listen to the opinions of young people, has old thoughts and a hard head. That is why trust will not be restored."^[7] He argued in a November 2011 speech that the party's stance on the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement needed to be clarified.^[8] He later advocated breaking up the LDP's agreement with the Democratic Party of Japan and Komeito to pass an overhaul of the social security and tax system, directly arguing to Tanigaki that the party's mission should be to take down the DPJ government and to restore LDP control, and drawing comparisons to his father's maverick reputation.^[9]

Koizumi broke ranks with the LDP in August 2012 as one of seven LDP legislators who refused to walk out of the no-confidence vote instigated by Ichiro Ozawa against Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, in which the LDP and NK had agreed to throw out their votes. Although Koizumi voted for the no-confidence resolution, it was ultimately voted down 246–86.^[10] He voted for Shigeru Ishiba against Shinzō Abe in the LDP leadership election of September 2012, but did not make his vote public until after the election in order to avoid influencing others' votes.^[11]

Koizumi was re-elected in the December 2012 general election, which restored LDP control of the government under Abe. In the subsequent House of Councillors election in July 2013, he focused his campaigning efforts on disaster zones, outlying islands and areas in rapid population decline, giving speeches in support of their local LDP candidates. Kenichi Tokoi, a nonfiction author who wrote a book about Koizumi, said that his goal was to shake as many individual hands as possible and to leave the impression that he was kind enough to visit them, something which he could not achieve by campaigning in big cities.^[12]

In October 2013, he was appointed Parliamentary Secretary in charge of Tohoku Recovery, in which capacity he would oversee post-disaster reconstruction efforts in Iwate Prefecture and Miyagi Prefecture. Ishiba, then secretary general of the LDP, stated that Koizumi "made a very strong case" with local disaster victims "about what he wanted to do and why."^[13] Tokoi characterized this posting as a test of Koizumi's administrative ability.^[12]

Koizumi was reportedly considered for a formal cabinet post under the Abe government in the reshuffles of October 2015 and July 2017.^[14][15] On 11 September 2019, Abe appointed Koizumi as Minister of the Environment.^[16][17] He advocated for environmentalist policies, including ending Japan's use of nuclear and coal power, despite serving in a government considered skeptical of such policies.^{[18][19][20][21]}

However, he supports the construction of new coal-fired power stations in Japan, despite their particulate and greenhouse gas emissions. His support for the construction of two coal-fired power stations in Yokosuka has led him to be a "a target of activists' wrath".^[22]

In late August 2020, after the resignation of Shinzo Abe, Koizumi was named as a possible successor.^[23] A Kyodo News survey showed that almost 9% of those surveyed preferred him for prime minister,^[23] though some inside the party consider him too young to be in charge of the country.^[24] Koizumi declined to run and endorsed Minister of Defense Tarō Kōno for the position.^[25] After Kōno also declined to run Koizumi and Kono both endorsed Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, a fellow Kanagawa politician.^[26] Suga ultimately won the LDP presidential election and became prime minister.^[27] Suga decided to retain Koizumi in his role.^[28] Poor approval ratings and criticism of the government's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic led to Suga announcing his resignation in September 2021.^[29] In the party's leadership election of 2021 (which ended with Fumio Kishida being elected as leader and later prime minister), Koizumi again endorsed Kōno for the position.^[30] When Kishida formed his first cabinet in October, Koizumi was replaced by Tsuyoshi Yamaguchi as Environment Minister.^[31]

From 2021 to 2024, Koizumi remained a backbencher in the Diet. He was chosen to chair the standing committee on national security of the House of Representatives in January 2024 after the previous chairman resigned in connection to the 2023–2024 Japanese slush fund scandal.^[32]

Fumio Kishida's term as LDP President was set to expire in September 2024. By 2 July, fellow centrists Taro Kono and Shigeru Ishiba were both considering running for the party presidency.^[33][34] On 2 July the Yukan Fuji reported that Koizumi may be preparing to run himself, with a goal of making it to the second round runoff.^[35] While visiting Fukushima Prefecture for a surfing competition, Koizumi said he was "carefully considering" running in the leadership election.^[36] On 14 August, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced he would not seek a second term as LDP President, making the race an open field.^[37][38] By late August, both Kono and Ishiba had already declared their respective candidacies.^[39][40]

On 6 September, Koizumi officially announced his candidacy for the LDP presidency.^[41][42][43] In a press conference he pledged to introduce legislation that would legalize separate surnames for married couples and proposed holding a national referendum to determine whether or not Article 9 of the Constitution should be amended.^[44][45] Koizumi promised to dissolve the lower of house and call a general election “as soon as possible” if elected President and later Prime Minister.^[46][47] His candidacy was endorsed by former Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga.^[48] Koizumi gave his first street speech the following day in Tokyo's Ginza district.^[49] Koizumi, along with fellow front-runner Shigeru Ishiba, has been described as one of the "centrists" of the election.^[34][50][51]

Koizumi lost the election, placing third behind Sanae Takaichi and Shigeru Ishiba. Ishiba defeated Takaichi in a runoff election, having received support from Koizumi's camp. As LDP president, Ishiba appointed Koizumi chairman of the Election Strategy Committee, a senior party office.^[52] In the October 2024 election Koizumi traveled across the country to rally support for LDP candidates, but the results were unfavourable, with the ruling coalition losing its majority. Koizumi resigned as election strategy chairman to take responsibility.^[53] He was then appointed as executive secretary to the LDP political reform headquarters.^[54]

Like his father, Koizumi visits Yasukuni Shrine on 15 August, the anniversary of Japan's surrender in World War II. He visited in 2012, 2013, and again in 2022. ^[55][56][57] He visited in 2024 in preparation for his run in the 2024 LDP leadership election.^[58]

In a May 2013 interview with the Sankei Shimbun, he refused to comment on Osaka mayor Toru Hashimoto's controversial remarks on comfort women, characterizing the issue as one that should be discussed among experts and historians rather than politicians. He described the perceived nationalist shift in Japanese politics as "Chinese propaganda" and stated that the government needed to wage a better public relations campaign against it while focusing on the successful implementation of Abenomics. He also commented on the Japanese Constitution, stating that amendments were necessary but that there were more immediate problems to be solved: "I go to the disaster zones in Tohoku every month, and the constitution has not come up even once as an issue when I walk down the street there."^[59]

Koizumi was critical of the Abe government's decision to terminate a corporate tax surcharge intended to fund the Tohoku recovery, and views nuclear power as unsustainable in the long term, mirroring views that his father expressed in 2013.^[13]

In 2017, when asked on his position on same-sex marriage in a survey conducted by The Asahi Shimbun, Koizumi did not give a response.^[60] In a 2021 survey conducted by NHK, he said he was in favor of its legalization.^[61] When asked again in 2024, Koizumi did not respond.^[62]

Koizumi had a 75.6% approval rating at the start of his stint as parliamentary secretary for Tohoku recovery.^[63] In a December 2013 JNN poll, he ranked second after Shinzo Abe as the most favoured candidate for prime minister, although 57% responded that they had no particular favoured candidate.^[64] In April 2017, in the aftermath of the Moritomo Gakuen scandal surrounding Prime Minister Abe, polls by Yomiuri^[65] and NTV^[66] showed Koizumi as the most favoured LDP leader (and presumptive prime minister), surpassing both Abe and challenger Shigeru Ishiba.^[67]

Following the December 2012 election, the National Diet Building gift shop began selling "Shinji-Rolls" (進次ろうる), souvenir green tea-flavoured roll cakes branded with Koizumi's likeness. Shinji-Rolls became the gift shop's second most popular item in 2013, outselling souvenirs branded with the likenesses of LDP leaders Shigeru Ishiba and Taro Aso, and outsold only by manju bearing the likeness of Shinzo Abe.^[68]

On 7 August 2019, television announcer and news presenter Christel Takigawa announced that she married Shinjiro Koizumi. She gave birth to a son on 17 January 2020.^[69] She gave birth to a daughter on 20 November 2023.^[70] In January 2020, Koizumi received international news attention when he announced his plans to take two weeks of paternity leave when his first child was born.^[71][72]

Along with Japanese, Koizumi can speak English.^[73][74]

He is the secretary-general of the Surfing Diet League of the LDP.^[75] In September 2023, he surfed on the coasts of Fukushima to dispel concerns regarding the discharge of waste from the decommissioned Fukushima nuclear plant.^[76] He returned to Fukushima Prefecture in July 2024 to surf with U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emmanuel while having summer vacation.^[77]

• Koizumi family

• Official website (in Japanese)