Katō Takaaki

Katō Takaaki ( Jap. 加藤高明 , even in the On-reading Kato Komei * 25. January 1860 ( traditionally Ansei 7/1/3) in Saya , district Ama , Owari province (now Aisai , Aichi Prefecture ), † 28 January 1926 in Tōkyō ) was foreign minister several times and the 24th Prime Minister of Japan . - 1911 Baron , 1916 Vice Count .

Katō Takaaki

Life

Katō Takaaki was born on January 25, 1860 in Asai near Nagoya in Aichi Prefecture, the son of a samurai of the Nagoya clan. Before his political career he worked for the Mitsubishi - Zaibatsu . This gave him the political backing, at the same time he represented his interests in politics. He married a daughter of Iwasaki Yatarō in 1886 . In 1887 he became secretary to Foreign Minister Ōkuma Shigenobu and temporarily headed the finance department. From 1894 to 1899 he was ambassador to Great Britain . For a few months in 1901 and 1906 he was Foreign Minister. In 1902 he was elected to the Shūgiin (lower house).

In 1906 he resigned in protest against the Railway Nationalization Act because it ran counter to Mitsubishi's interests. He was president of Tokyo Nichinichi Shinbun newspaper . From 1908 to 1913 he was reappointed as ambassador to London . In 1913 he was foreign minister in the cabinet of Katsura Taro . In the same year he was elected chairman of the conservative Rikken Dōshikai party. Gotō Shimpei resigned from the party to protest against its restructuring . The party was renamed Kenseikai . In 1914, under Ōkuma Shigenobu, Katō worked as foreign minister from the twenty-one demands on the Chinese government. After incidents of corruption with Ōkuma in the March elections, Katō resigned from his office in protest. At the imperial request, he was appointed to the Kizokuin (upper house) in 1915 .

With his cabinet of the "three parties protecting the constitution" ( Goken Sampa from Rikken Seiyūkai , Kenseikai and Kakushin Club) from June 11, 1924 to January 28, 1926, he was the 24th Prime Minister of Japan of the first party government. During his tenure, universal suffrage was passed with the abolition of the census suffrage for men, and the law on the maintenance of public safety came into force. The military was reduced and modernized, and military drill introduced in schools. In 1925 there was an assassination attempt on Katō.

Kato died in his office on January 28, 1926. He was honored by England with the Order of St. Michael and St. George .

Web links

• Katō Takaaki. In: Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online, accessed July 2, 2014 . 
• Newspaper article about Katō Takaaki in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} Kato, Takaaki. National Diet Library, 2004, accessed June 14, 2009 . 
2. ↑ ^{a b} Kiyoshi Inoue : History of Japan . Campus, 2002, ISBN 978-3-88059-994-9 , Timeline of Japanese History, p. 632 .
3. ^ Dorothy Perkins: Japan Goes to War . DIANE Publishing, 1997, ISBN 978-0-7881-3427-2 , Chronology - 1925, pp. 100 ( Googlebook ).

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