Arfiya Eri

She was born in Kitakyushu, Fukuoka Prefecture. Her father is Uyghur while her mother is of Uzbek descent. She moved to Shanghai at age 10 and Guangzhou at age 11 due to her father's work relocation, and attended the Shanghai American School and the American International School of Guangzhou, where she was elected high school student body president. She graduated from Georgetown University's Walsh School of Foreign Service and Graduate School of Foreign Service in Washington, D.C. Her native language is Japanese, and says she is able to communicate in English, Chinese, Uzbek, Turkish and Uyghur with considerable fluency, plus basic level Arabic.^[2][3] Arfiya previously spent time as an official for the Bank of Japan and the United Nations.^[4]

She ran as an LDP candidate during the 2022 Japanese House of Councillors election.^[5] In April 2023, she was elected to the Japanese House of Representatives in a by-election for Chiba's 5th district.^[6]

She has described her policies as in line with most mainstream LDP positions. She has been vocal about her support for initiatives to promote gender equality in Japan. Eri has noted that female and young politicians are rare in Japan (She was 33 years old as of July 2022), saying that, "We need better representation -- we need young people to feel that they are being represented, that the future is in their hands. Right now, a lot of antagonism comes from the fact that most of the politicians look the same to them."^[3]

Eri is strongly anti-authoritarian, a position she says is shaped by China's human rights abuses against Uyghurs in Xinjiang.^[3][7]