Nishi Tokujirō

Nishi Tokujirō

Baron Nishi Tokujirō ( Japanese 西 徳 二郎 ; * September 4, 1847 in Satsuma , today: Kagoshima Prefecture ; † March 3, 1912 ) was a Japanese politician and diplomat who, among other things, was envoy to the Russian Empire between 1886 and 1896 , from 1897 was Foreign Minister until 1898 and envoy to the Chinese Empire between 1899 and 1901 . On April 25, 1898, he concluded the Nishi-Rosen Agreement with the Russian Empire on a reconciliation of interestsKorea .

Life

Nishi Tokujirō, second son of Nishi Tozaemon and Kano Hilo, who came from the Kagoshima Samurai , took part in the Boshin War at the beginning of the Meiji Restoration in 1868 and was then a tutor at the Kaiseijo School. In 1870 he began studying at the Faculty of Law and Political Science at the University of Saint Petersburg . After an interim employment in 1874 as a secretary at the legation in France , he graduated from the University of Saint Petersburg in 1875. Between 1875 and 1881 he undertook numerous research trips through Central Asia , which took him to Samarqand , Transoxania , Tashkent and to the Uighurs in Xinjiang . On his return to Japan in 1881 he became secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs .

In June 1886 he succeeded Hanabusa Yoshitada as envoy in the Russian Empire and represented Japan as consul general in Sweden and Norway . He held this post until August 1896 and was then replaced by Hayashi Tadasu . For his services he was awarded the Knight's Cross Second Class on November 15, 1892, the Knight's Cross First Class of the Order of the Holy Treasure on August 20, 1895 and the Knight 's Cross First Class of the North Star Order on October 23, 1895 . Furthermore, he was raised as a baron (Danshaku) to the hereditary nobility ( Kazoku ) in 1896 . In March 1897 he became advisor to the Privy Council Sūmitsu-in , a body advising the Tennō .

On November 6, 1897, he replaced Ōkuma Shigenobu as Foreign Minister of Japan and held this ministerial office in the second Matsukata cabinet and in the Ito third cabinet until June 30, 1898, after which he was replaced by Ōkuma Shigenobu. During this time he signed the Nishi-Rosen Agreement on April 25, 1898 with the Russian ambassador to Japan Roman Romanowitsch Rosen to resolve the political and economic tensions that arose between the Japanese Empire and the Russian Tsarist Empire after the First Sino-Japanese War Control of Korea to be settled. While Russia Japan's interest in Korea recognized, Japan knew in return the sphere of influence of Russia on the Manchuria on.

Subsequently, in October 1899, Nishi succeeded Fumio Yano as envoy to the Chinese Empire and saw the beginning of the Boxer Rebellion there . He held this diplomatic post until January 1901 and was then replaced by Komura Jutarō . On December 27, 1899, he was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun, First Class. In November 1901 he finally became a member of the Privy Privy Council.

Nishi tokujiro is the father of Takeichi Nishi , who at the 1932 Olympic Games in Los Angeles , the gold medal in jumping on Uranus won and as an officer of the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II on 17 March 1945 in the Battle of Iwo Jima committed suicide.

Background literature

• WG Beasley: Japanese Imperialism 1894-1945 , Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-822168-1
• Hugh Cortazzi: Britain and Japan , Japan Library Biographical Portraits, Routledge Shorton , 2003, ISBN 1-903350-14-X
• SCM Paine: The Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895: Perceptions, Power, and Primacy , Cambridge University Press, 2002, ISBN 0-521-81714-5

Web links

• Entry in the National Parliamentary Library
• Entry in rulers.org

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