Is Prime Minister Kishida related to former PM Shinzo Abe? No, that's not true: The politicians' family trees are different.
The claim appeared on TikTok (archived here) on May 20, 2023. The video shows PM Kishida's genealogy, tracing his grandfather, Masaki Kishida, towards Nobusuke Kishi, who is Abe's grandfather and the former Prime Minister of Japan. The video then talks about three main points concerning the relation between Kishida and Abe's lineage: 1. Kishida's grandfather, Masaki Kishida, was a close confidant of Nobusuke Kishi; 2. Kishida, Abe, and former Prime Minister Taro Aso are related; 3. The Prime Minister, Finance Minister, The Minister in Charge of Vaccine Promotion, and the Minister of Defense are all blood relatives.
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Tue May 23 17:11:51 2023 UTC)
There is no evidence of Masaki Kishida and Nobusuke Kishi being close confidants. Masaki Kishida was briefly a member of the House of Representatives under Shigeru Yoshida before retiring to focus on his business as a department store proprietor. Nobusuke Kishi was the former PM of Japan during the post-war period when Masaki Kishida was no longer active in politics. Reports of their relationship came from Shunkan Bunshun, a tabloid in Japan known for fabricating information about public figures.
When looking at PM Kishida and Shinzo Abe's family trees, they are not connected, meaning that they are not genealogically related. Taro Aso, on the other hand, shares Nobusuke Kishi as a distant relative.
The current finance minister is Shunichi Suzuki, whose family tree does not share any blood relatives with PM Kishida. The Minister in Charge of Vaccine Promotion, Noriko Horiuchi, also does not share any blood relatives with Suzuki or PM Kishida according to her family tree.
