Self-belief and strategy: Japan's Taro Kono upends race for next premier

FILE PHOTO: Taro Kono, Japan's vaccination programme chief and ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) lawmaker, attends a news conference as he announces his candidacy for the party's presidential election in Tokyo, Japan, September 10, 2021. REUTERS/Issei Kato

TOKYO (Reuters) - When Taro Kono, Japan's leading contender to be prime minister, was a senior in high school, he asked his father to send him overseas for university, but was flatly refused.

Instead, the elder Kono, a leading politician in the ruling party, took his son to a U.S. embassy reception in a bid to prove his English was not good enough.