Toshimitsu Motegi

Motegi during the WEF 2013

Toshimitsu Motegi ( Japanese 茂木 敏 充 , Motegi Toshimitsu ; born October 7, 1955 in Ashikaga , Tochigi Prefecture ) is a Japanese politician ( NJP → independent → LDP ), a member of the Shūgiin , the lower house of the national parliament, for the 5th constituency of Tochigi and acting foreign minister . In the LDP he belongs to the Takeshita faction .

Life

After studying at the University of Tokyo , Motegi was employed by Marubeni KK from 1978 to 1980. He then completed a graduate degree at the Harvard Kennedy School . In 1983 he first worked as a political journalist at Yomiuri Shimbun , then until 1991 as a consultant for McKinsey .

Motegi's career in politics began in 1993 when he was first elected to Shūgiin as a candidate for the New Japan Party in the 2nd constituency of Tochigi (5 seats). After the end of the Hata government and the dissolution of the party, he joined the LDP as an independent in 1995 after a few months. As a result of the electoral reform of 1994, he ran for the LDP from 1996 in the single constituency Tochigi 5 , which includes Sano and Tochigi in addition to his hometown Ashikaga . There he was elected six times with a clear lead over his challengers, most recently in 2012 with around 67 percent of the vote.

From 1999 to 2000 Motegi was parliamentary state secretary ( seimujikan ) at MITI , from 2001 to 2003 then under Prime Minister Koizumi state secretary ( fuku-daijin ) in the foreign ministry . After the 2003 Shūgiin election , Koizumi appointed him Minister of State for Okinawa and Northern Territories Affairs , Data Protection, Science and Technology Policy in his 2nd Cabinet .

From 2007 Motegi was chairman of the Shūgiin Committee on Health and Labor before Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda appointed him Minister of State for the financial sector in August 2008. Like his predecessor Yoshimi Watanabe , he was also given responsibility for administrative reform and public service reform. However, Fukuda's successor Tarō Asō did not take him into his cabinet in September 2008, and responsibility for the financial sector was assigned to the Ministry of Finance .

From 2011 to 2012 Motegi was PARC Chairman of the LDP under Sadakazu Tanigaki . In December 2012, Motegi was economy minister in the second cabinet of Shinzō Abe . During the cabinet reshuffle in September 2014, he was replaced by Yūko Obuchi and moved to the LDP executive board as chairman of the election campaign committee (Senkyo taisaku iinchō) . From August 3, 2016 to August 3, 2017, he was again PARC Chairman.

Prime Minister Abe appointed him as Minister of State for Economic and Fiscal Policy in his third cabinet , which was restructured for the third time . There Motegi was also responsible for the government programs “Economic Renewal”, “Human Resources Development” and “Integrated Reform of the Social Security System and Taxes”. In this position, he headed trade talks with the United States from 2018 to 2019 , in which Japan in fact had to make no greater concessions than in the negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership , which was terminated by US President Donald Trump . In recognition of this, Abe promoted Motegi to Foreign Minister during the cabinet reshuffle in September 2019 .

Web links

• Official Website (Japanese)
• MOFA : Speech Motegis as State Secretary at the Munich Conference for Security Policy 2003

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Sankei Shimbun : 茂木 敏 充 政 調 会長 「成長 と 分配 の 好 循環 を 実 現 し た い」 (Japanese), accessed March 13, 2017
2. ↑ Martin Kölling: America and Japan are facing a breakthrough in their trade conflict. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . August 24, 2019, accessed September 15, 2019 . 
3. ↑ Ryōtarō Nakamaru: Feuds between Japan, neighbors to test Motegi's diplomatic skills. In: Kyōdō Tsūshinsha . September 11, 2019, accessed on September 15, 2019 .