Taneomi Soejima was a Meiji period statesman; he held the title of count; his common name was Jiro.
Background
Taneomi Soejima was born on 17 October 1828 in the domain of Saga in Kyushu, the son of Edayoshi Nango, but was later adopted into the Soejima family. His elder brother Edayoshi Shin'yo was a teacher in the official school of the domain and trained such important Meiji period leaders as Okuma Shigenobu, Oki Takato, and Eto Shimpei; Soejima himself was very much influenced by his brother in his scholarship and ways of thinking.
Education
From 1864 on, he studied English in Nagasaki and, along with Okuma Shigenobu, received instruction in Western studies from Guido Herman Fridolin Verbeck, a missionary and schoolteacher.
Career
During the late years of the Edo period, Soejima traveled to Kyoto and Edo and made many friends among the courtiers and samurai who were active in the movement to restore power to the emperor and expel the foreigners. When his elder brother died, however, he returned to Saga to take his brother’s place as a teacher in the domain school.
At the time of the Meiji Restoration in 1868, he took part in drafting the Seitaisho, the regulations defining the organs of the new government and their functions. He was given the position of san’yo (junior councilor), and in 1869 advanced to the more important post of councilor of state. In 1871, when Iwakura Tomomi embarked on his mission to Europe and America, Soejima succeeded him as foreign minister.
After the Iwakura mission returned to Japan in 1873, a controversy broke out among the government leaders concerning the proposal to launch a military expedition against Korea. Iw'akura opposed the idea, and Soejima, Itagaki Taisuke, and the others who favored it accordingly resigned. The follow'ing year, Soejima joined Itagaki Taisuke and others in petitioning the government for the creation of an elected assembly, but he was never a member of the people's rights movement. He refused all offers of government posts and for a time was completely removed from political affairs, at one period touring China. In 1879, however, he was summoned to be a lecturer to Emperor Meiji and later he served as advisor in the Imperial Household Ministry and to the Privy Council, posts that he held until his death from illness in the midst of the Russo-Japanese War. In 1892, he served for three months as home minister in the Matsukata cabinet.
Personality
He had his own distinctive ideas as to what Japan’s policy should be on the Asian continent and favored a belligerent approach. In 1891 he set up a research organization called the Toho Kyokai with himself as director and devoted himself with great enthusiasm to its direction. He had a profound knowledge of Chinese literature and culture, and his erudition and personality were said to have won him high respect among Chinese. He was skilled at composing poetry in Chinese and was noted for his distinctive style of calligraphy.