New economic revitalization minister Yoshitaka Shindo is a veteran ruling party lawmaker with a conservative agenda that includes constitutional reform and pushing for the resolution of territorial disputes with Japan's neighbors.
Shindo, 65, was the internal affairs minister, his first Cabinet post, immediately after Shinzo Abe became prime minister for a second time in 2012.
The eighth-term House of Representatives lawmaker served as the acting policy chief of the Liberal Democratic Party. He often visits the war-linked Yasukuni Shrine, which remains a source of diplomatic friction with Japan's neighbors, China and South Korea.
