Background
Shūzō Aoki was born on 3 March 1844 in fief of Clioshu and became the adopted son of a physician named Aoki Kenzo.
青木 周蔵
Shūzō Aoki was born on 3 March 1844 in fief of Clioshu and became the adopted son of a physician named Aoki Kenzo.
In 1873, while studying in Germany, he became a first-class secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, serving in the Japanese legation in Germany.
During the period from 1874 to 1879 he served as minister to Germany, Austria, and Holland. After his return to Japan in 1879 he assisted Minister of Foreign Affairs Inoue Kaoru in the latter’s attempts to bring about revision of Japan’s treaties with foreign powers, but these efforts ended in failure. The period from 1880 to 1885 was spent in the posts of minister to Germany, Holland, and Norway.
In 1889 he became acting minister of foreign affairs and an advisor to the Privy Council. He served as minister of foreign affairs in the Yamagata Aritomo cabinet and conducted negotiations with the British in efforts to carry out treaty revision.
Because of the so-called Otsu Incident in 1891, in which a Japanese police officer attacked and wounded the Russian Crown Prince Nikolai, he was obliged to accejit responsibility and resign his position, thus bringing to an end his negotiations on treaty revision. In 1892 he was appointed minister to Belgium and Germany.
In 1900, while serving as minister of foreign affairs in the second Yamagata cabinet, he played a role in dispatching Japanese troops to China to assist in putting down the Boxer Rebellion. In 1906 he was appointed ambassador to the United States, but he was obliged to resign this post in 1908 because of difficulties over the question of Japanese immigration to America. Upon his return to Japan, he once more became an advisor to the Privy Council.