Komura Jutaro

Komura Jutarō, 1905

Komura Jutarō ( Japanese 小 村 壽 太郎 ; born October 26, 1855 in Obi , Hyūga Province (today: Nichinan , Miyazaki Prefecture ); † November 26, 1911 in Tōkyō ) was a politician and diplomat of the Meiji period in the Japanese Empire . He was twice foreign minister of his country (1901-1906 and 1908-1911).

education

Komura studied from 1870 at the Daigaku Nankō (the forerunner of the Imperial University of Tōkyō ). In 1875 he was selected by the Ministry of Education as one of the first students to study abroad. In 1878 he graduated from Harvard Law School .

Career

Two years later, Komura became a civil servant in the Ministry of Justice , and after serving as a judge at the Supreme Court , he was assigned to the Foreign Ministry's translation department in 1884 .

In 1893 Komura became first secretary of the Japanese legation in Beijing . During the Sino-Japanese War he was the civil administrator of the Japanese-occupied territories in Manchuria. He played a key role in the peace negotiations and in formulating the Shimonoseki Treaty of 1895.

In May 1896 he negotiated the Komura-Weber memorandum with his Russian colleague Carl von Waeber , which legitimized the joint interference of Japan and Russia in the internal affairs of Korea .

Komura Jutarō's tomb in Tokyo

Until September 1898 he was Vice Foreign Minister, then Ambassador to Washington, DC In September 1901 Komura became Foreign Minister in the first Katsura cabinet and signed the Boxer Protocol for Japan . In 1902 he participated in the conclusion of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance . In his role as Foreign Minister, he also signed the Portsmouth Treaty , which ended the Russo-Japanese War , which was highly controversial in Japan . He then signed the Beijing Treaty of December 1905 in Beijing , which transferred the previous Russian rights in Manchuria to Japan. For his services he was made a count ( hakushaku ) and a member of the secret council ( Sūmitsu-in ).

From June 1906 to August 1908 Komura was Ambassador to the United Kingdom . After his return to Tokyo he was again foreign minister in the second Katsura cabinet. In this position he signed the Root -Takahira Agreement with the USA .

He also played a key role in the conclusion of the Japan-Korea annexation treaty of 1910, as well as in the conclusion of various trade agreements that restored Japan's collective bargaining autonomy in 1911.

His grave is in the Aoyama Cemetery in Tokyo.

medal

• Order of the Rising Sun , Grand Cordon
• Order of the Bath , Knight Commander (KCB)

See also

• History of japan

literature

• S. Noma (Ed.): Komura Jutarō . In: Japan. An Illustrated Encyclopedia. Kodansha, 1993. ISBN 4-06-205938-X , p. 822.
• Beasley, WG Japanese Imperialism 1894-1945 . Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-822168-1 .
• Kanayama, Nobuo. Komura Jutaro to Potsumasu: Roshia ni "gaiko" de katta otoko . PHP Kenkyujo (1984). ISBN 4-569-21441-X . (Japanese)
• Morris, Edmund. Theodore Rex . Modern Library; Reprint edition (2002). ISBN 0-8129-6600-7 .

Web links

• Bio & Photo from National Diet Library

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