Seiji Kihara

is a Japanese politician of the Liberal Democratic Party. A former Parliamentary Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs and former State Minister for Foreign Affairs (Third Abe Cabinet) and former Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary, he currently serves as a member of the House of Representatives in the Diet (national legislature).

Early life and education Kihara was born in Shibuya, Tokyo on 8 June 1970. He lived in Chicago, United States from when he was nine months old until he turned five. He also lived in Amsterdam in his youth. He attended Musashi High School and Junior High School and matriculated at the University of Tokyo in 1989, where he studied law.

At the Ministry of Finance Upon his graduation from university, Kihara joined the Ministry of Finance in 1993. This coincided with the start of the Lost Decades, a twenty-year period of economic stagnation the country would experience, and he was assigned to a department that dealt with bankrupt securities companies. While working as a civil servant, Kihara studied at the London School of Economics for two years and earned a master's degree in 1995. After working in the law and legislation department at the ministry, he returned to England as a liaison officer and worked for Her Majesty's Treasury, the British counterpart of the Ministry of Finance. While in England, he had the chance to get acquainted with Margaret Thatcher, who advised him that 'in a democracy, politics performs better than bureaucracy in the long run because of the brilliance and intelligence of all the people in the country'. She also told him, 'politics is the loftiest of human activities because it is entirely about the realisation of one's beliefs', and encouraged him to pursue a political career instead. In an interview with The Nikkei, Kihara stated that he found it problematic that the gross financial assets of Japanese households had increased by only 40% compared to 240% in the United States over the past two decades. The main aim of the policy, he said, was to make it easier for households to benefit from corporate profit growth.

Kihara was replaced in September 2023. In November 2024 he was appointed chairman of the LDP Election Strategy Committee, to replace Shinjiro Koizumi, who resigned after the 2024 general election.