Biography

Dr. Tomohiko Taniguchi served as Prime Minister ABE, Shinzō’s principal foreign-policy speechwriter for a total of 15 years. Among the many speeches he helped to craft were those delivered by Mr Abe to the parliaments of Delhi under the title of “Confluence of the Two Seas,” Canberra, and Washington, D.C., as well as at Yad Vashem, Pearl Harbor, and Darwin, Australia.

He holds an LLB from the University of Tokyo and a doctorate in national security from Takushoku University. Dr Taniguchi began his career as a print journalist with Nikkei Business, Japan’s leading business and finance weekly magazine. During his tenure, he undertook sabbaticals at Princeton University as a Fulbright Fellow, at the Shanghai Institute of International Studies, and at the Brookings Institution as a paid, CNAPS Fellow. From 1997 to 2000, he served as Nikkei Business’s London correspondent and was elected President of the Foreign Press Association in London—becoming the first individual from “East of Suez” to hold the post.

In 2005, he joined Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where he worked closely with ASŌ, Tarō (then Foreign Minister) and ABE, Shinzō (then Prime Minister), assisting both with speechwriting over a three-year period.

Academically, he was a tenured professor at the Keio University Graduate School of Systems Design and Management from 2014 to 2023, before becoming a Specially Appointed Professor at the University of Tsukuba.

Since July 2025, Dr Taniguchi has served as Chairman of Nippon Kaigi—where kaigi means “conference”—the country’s largest and most influential conservative advocacy group.
A prolific writer, he is the author of Prime Minister Abe’s Speeches (in Japanese), which examines the late prime minister’s legacy through his own words. His English-language articles have appeared in The Economist, Foreign Affairs, and The New York Times. He has made more than 500 live appearances on international news networks including BBC, CNN, CNA, CNBC, NewsX and Al Jazeera English amongst others.

Born in 1957 in Takamatsu, Kagawa, he currently resides in Tokyo with his wife.