Kimura Toshio

Kimura Toshio ( Japanese 木村 俊 夫 ; born January 15, 1909 in Tōin , Mie Prefecture ; † December 1, 1983 in Tokyo ) was a Japanese politician of the Liberal Democratic Party (Jiyūminshutō) , who was foreign minister in 1974 .

Life

Kimura Toshio was a grandson of Kimura Seitarō ( 木村 誓 太郎 ) and son of Kimura Hideki / Hideoki (?; 木村 秀 興 ), who were both members of the House of Representatives ( Shūgiin ) from Mie. After attending high school, he graduated from the Faculty of Political Science of the Imperial University of Tokyo and began his professional career as an administrator in the Ministry of Communications (Teishin-shō) after graduating in 1938 . In the following years he was director of the Department of Ports and Natural Harbors of the Branch of the Naval Transportation Department of the Ministry of Transportation in Kinki , an officer in the Ministry's Liaison Office in Osaka , Secretary in the Office of the Minister of Communications, Head of the General Affairs Section in the Office of the Director of the Marine Security Agency , Head of the General Affairs Section and Head of the Public Relations Department in the Office of the Director of the General Naval Authority. After the end of World War II , he was President of Star Motorcar Traffic Company, Ltd. , Executive Director of the Cooperative of Motor and Sailboat Owners of Mie Prefecture, Director of the Cooperative of Public Transport Workers of "Metropolis" Tokyo , President of Chuo Sobi Equipment Company, and Chairman of the Cultural Association of Farming and Fishing Villages of Mie Prefecture.

In the elections of January 23, 1949 Kimura was elected in constituency 1 (5 seats) of the Mie prefecture as a candidate without party nomination for the first time as a member of the House of Representatives and remained a member of parliament until 1980. After his first election, he joined the Democratic Liberal Party (Minshu-Jiyū-tō) of Shigeru Yoshida . In addition to his membership in parliament, he was chairman of the League for Naval Transport. After the merger ( Hoshu Gōdō ) of the Democratic Party of Japan (Nihon Minshutō) with the Liberal Party (Jiyū-tō) on November 15, 1955, he became a member of the newly formed Liberal Democratic Party. In July 1957 he took over his first government office and was until June 1958 Vice Minister in the Ministry of Transport in the reorganized first Kishi cabinet . He was also chairman of the House of Representatives' transport committee between 1962 and 1963.

In 1966 he was first one of the three deputy bosses (fuku-chōkan) of the cabinet secretariat (Naikaku kambō) and then in the course of a restructuring of the second Satō cabinet as the successor to Fukunaga Kenji chief (chōkan) of the cabinet secretariat. At the request of Prime Minister Satō Eisaku , he renounced this office on November 30, 1968 in favor of Hori Shigeru and was again deputy chief cabinet secretary until 1971. In a reshuffle of the third Satō cabinet , he solved Satō Ichirō on July 5, 1971 as head of the Office for Economic Planning ( Keizai-kikaku-chō ) and remained in this post until July 6, 1972. During this time, he was briefly acting foreign minister while Foreign Minister Takeo Fukuda a gallstone surgery had to undergo. Afterwards he was chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives between 1973 and 1974.

In the course of a reshuffle of the second Tanaka cabinet , he took over the post of Foreign Minister (Gaimu Daijin) from Ōhira Masayoshi on July 16, 1974 and held this post on December 9, 1974 when the second Tanaka cabinet resigned . Immediately after taking office, there was an exchange with the Foreign Minister of the People's Republic of China , Qiao Guanhua , about starting negotiations on the conclusion of a peace treaty between the two countries. As foreign minister he visited Ghana , Nigeria , Zaire , Tanzania and Egypt from the end of October to the beginning of November 1974 . It was the first visit by a leading Japanese politician to Africa and the beginning of cooperation between Japan and African countries. He continued his commitment to relations with Africa when he became head of the LDP group for Asia and Africa Studies in 1977. He was also chairman of the Japanese-Palestinian Parliamentary Friendship Society and, in this capacity, organized the visit of the chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Yasser Arafat to Japan in 1981 . On December 1, 1983, he died in a Tokyo hospital from complications from heart failure .

Background literature

• Jun Morikawa: Japan and Africa: Big Business and Diplomacy , p. 72 et al., Africa World Press, 1997, ISBN 0-8654-3577-4

Web links

• Entry in prabook.com
• Entry in prabook.com
• The Governments of Japan 1945 - today

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Japan: Key Ministries
2. ↑ Robert Hoppens: The China problem in Postwar Japan: Japanese National Identity and Sino-Japanese relations , S. 133, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015, ISBN 1-4725-7547-4

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