Nishi Tokujiro
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Nishi Tokujirō (西 徳次郎?) (4 September 1847 – 13 March 1912) was a statesman and diplomat in Meiji period Japan.
[edit] Biography
Nishi was from a samurai family of the Satsuma domain (present-day Kagoshima prefecture). He joined Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the new Meiji government, and was sent as a student to study the Russian language in St Petersburg, Russia in 1870. From 1870-1873, he traveled extensively through Central Asia, visiting Bukhara, Samarkand, Tashkent, Urumchi and other areas of east Turkistan. After serving as First Secretary at the Japanese legation in Paris, France in 1874, he returned to Japan.
In June 1886, he was appointed council-general of the Japanese legation to Russia, Sweden and Norway and was elevated in rank to danshaku (baron) under the kazoku peerage system. In August 1896, he became ambassador to Russia. In March 1897, he was appointed to the Privy Council.
From 6 November 1897 to 12 January 1898, he served as Foreign Minister under the 2nd Matsukata administration and again as Foreign Minister from 12 January 1898 to 30 June 1898 under the 3rd Ito administration.
He negotiated the '3rd Russo-Japanese Agreement' (the Nishi-Rosen Agreement) on 25 April 1898, with Russia acknowledging Japan's supremacy in Korea in exchange for Japan’s acknowledgement of Russia's sphere of interest in Manchuria.
In October 1899, he was appointed ambassador to Qing dynasty China, and was at the Japanese legation in Beijing during the Boxer Rebellion.
In December 1899, he was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun, 1st class.
He was the father of Nishi Takeichi, an Imperial Army cavalry officer who won a gold medal in the 1928 Summer Olympics and died in the Battle of Iwo Jima.
[edit] References
- Beasley, W.G. Japanese Imperialism 1894-1945. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-822168-1
- Cortazzi, Hugh. Britain and Japan (Japan Library Biographical Portraits). RoutledgeCurzon (2003). ISBN 1-903350-14-X
- Paine, S.C.M. The Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895: Perceptions, Power, and Primacy. Cambridge University Press (2002). ISBN 0-521-81714-5
