Aichi Kiichi

Aichi Kiichi ( Japanese 愛 知 揆 一 ; * October 10, 1907 in Tokyo ; † November 23, 1973 there ) was a Japanese politician. He was Foreign Minister from 1968 to 1971 and Minister of Finance in Japan from 1972 until his death .

Life

Early years

Aichi Kiichi was born on October 10, 1907 as the son of the Japanese physicist Aichi Keiichi (1880–1923) in Tokyo. He grew up in the city of Sendai , in northern Japan, since his father taught at Tōhoku University . There the young high school student Aichi met the guest professor at the time, Albert Einstein , who suggested that he should also study physics. Aichi, however, embarked on a career as a politician, he had studied political science at the Imperial University in Tokyo until 1931 , and then worked in the Japanese Ministry of Finance until 1950, from 1946/47 as head of the secretariat of the finance minister and from 1947 to 1950 as chief the banking department. He then represented the Liberal Democratic Party in the House of Lords until 1954 .

minister

Aichi first became a member of the Japanese cabinet in 1954 when he became Minister for International Trade and Industry and was also director of the Economic Council. He has been a member of the Japanese House of Representatives since 1955. In 1958/59 he was Minister of Justice and from 1964 to 1966 Minister of Education. He was one of the closest employees of the then Prime Minister Satō Eisaku . In December 1968 he succeeded Takeo Miki as the new Japanese foreign minister. Aichi was confronted with various foreign policy problems, so he had to renegotiate trade relations with the PRC and renew the Japanese-American security pact . His course from the beginning was to maintain the alliance with the United States. He was responsible for the return of Okinawa to Japan on June 17, 1971. Aichi also turned increasingly to Asian problems, he tried to improve relations with the People's Republic of China and negotiated several times in Moscow for the return of the Kuril Islands . In addition, at the beginning of 1971 he negotiated an agreement with the Swiss government to avoid double taxation in the area of ​​income taxes . He was replaced as Foreign Minister of Japan by Takeo Fukuda after the elections in June 1971 , as Aichi's party, the Liberal Democrats, lost large numbers of votes. After the parliamentary elections on December 10, 1972, Aichi returned as Finance Minister under Prime Minister Tanaka Kakuei , who had meanwhile replaced Sato. He participated in numerous international conferences in order to achieve a worldwide reform of the monetary system, since the sharp slide of the dollar in the first half of 1973 also affected the Japanese yen. Aichi died in Tokyo on November 23, 1973 after a brief serious illness.

family

Aichi Kiichi married his wife Uda Tomiko in 1936. His only daughter Ayako lives in New York, along with her husband Natako Kazuo.

Web links

• Kiichi Aichi in the database of Find a Grave (English)
• Kiichi Aichi in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely available)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Kiichi Aichi in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely available)
2. ↑ http://www.admin.ch/ch/d/sr/0_672_946_31/index.html

Japanese name: As is common in Japan, the family name comes before the first name in this article . Thus Aichi is the family name, Kiichi the first name.