Background
HACHIRO AKITA was born in 1884 on the island of Sado in Niigata Prefecture. His elder brother was the financier and political leader Yamamoto Teijiro (1870-1957).
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HACHIRO AKITA
Edit ProfileEducation
After graduating from the law course of Tokyo Imperial University in 1909, he entered the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Career
He was assigned to various overseas posts and in 1927 became head of the Asian Bureau, ranking along with Shigemitsu Mamoru as one of the ministry’s most influential experts in Asian affairs. He served as minister to Australia in 1931 and in 1932 became vice-minister of foreign affairs. In 1934 he was appointed ambassador to Belgium.
He became a member of the Upper House of the Diet in 1938.
In 1953, after the Pacific War, he was elected to the Diet. He was a reform candidate for mayor of Tokyo in the elections of 1955 and 1959, but was defeated both times. In his late years, he sued the novelist Mishima Yukio for invasion of privacy because of resemblances between his own political career and that of a character in one of Mishima’s novels, but the matter was settled out of court.
Achievements
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In 1936 he became minister of foreign affairs in the Ilirota cabinet, which was organized after the February 26 incident. The same year, he concluded the Japan-German Anti-Comintern Pact. Thereafter he served as minister of foreign affairs in the Konoc (first), Hiranuma, and Yonai cabinets, handling the country’s diplomatic affairs at the time of the outbreak of hostilities between Japan and China. He opposed the strengthening of military ties with Germany and attempted to prevent the worsening of relations between Japan and America, but he was replaced as minister of foreign affairs in 1940 by Matsuoka Yosuke, and thereafter the pro-Axis faction came to dominate the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Career
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1927
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1931
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1932
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1934
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1936