Kijuro Shidehara

Kijūrō Shidehara was a Japanese diplomat and politician who served as prime minister of Japan from 1945 to 1946 and a leading proponent of pacifism in Japan before and after World War II. He was the last Japanese Prime Minister who was a member of the peerage (kazoku). His wife, Masako, was the fourth daughter of Iwasaki Yatarō, founder of the Mitsubishi zaibatsu. Shidehara entered the diplomatic service in 1899 and served in Korea, London, Washington, and the Netherlands. As ambassador to the United States in 1919, he argued in vain against U.S. immigration laws discriminating against the Japanese. He was the chief Japanese delegate to the Washington Conference (1921–22), in which the major Pacific powers agreed to a naval disarmament and a series of international agreements that would provide for security in the Pacific. As foreign minister of Japan from 1924 to 1927 and again from 1929 to 1931, Shidehara became known as an advocate of a conciliatory policy toward China and a policy of economic rather than military expansion. He was elevated to the title of danshaku (baron) under the kazoku peerage system in 1920, and appointed to a seat in the House of Peers in 1925. Although he was forced from office by the militarists in 1931, Shidehara continued to be held in high regard abroad. He again played a significant role in Japanese politics in October 1945, when, at the age of 73, he was accepted by the American military occupation authorities as prime minister. He held office until the end of the demilitarization period in May 1946. He was then elected as a conservative to the lower house of the Diet (parliament), where he served as speaker until his death. Although a liberal in foreign policy, he was conservative in domestic affairs, a fact that may be partly explained by his long association with the Mitsubishi financial interests. He died of a cerebral hemorrhage on March 10, 1951, in Tokyo.