Tatsunosuke Takasaki

Tatsunosuke Takasaki
Minister of International Trade and Industry
In office
12 June 1958 – 18 June 1959
Prime MinisterNobusuke Kishi
Preceded byShigesaburo Maeo
Succeeded byHayato Ikeda
Personal details
Born7 February 1885
Takatsuki, Japan
Died24 February 1964(1964-02-24) (aged 79)
Tokyo, Japan
Political partyLiberal Democratic Party

Tatsunosuke Takasaki (高碕達之助, Takasaki Tatsunosuke, 7 February 1885 – 24 February 1964) was a Japanese businessman-politician.

Early life

Takasaki was born in Takatsuki, Japan, on 7 February 1885. After finishing school in Japan, Takasaki spent his younger days in Manchuria, and was the chairman of Manchurian Industrial Development Company.

Business career

After studying canning techniques abroad, Takasaki founded Toyo Seikan Kaisha in 1917, which has since become the largest container company in Japan and dominates the ASEAN market.[1][2]

Takasaki became the first chairman of Electric Power Development Company in 1953.

Wartime experience

Takasaki was in Manchuria at the end of WW2, and helped negotiate the repatriation of Japanese civilians as the head of the All Manchurian Japanese Association (Japanese: 全満日本人会) located in Xinjing, while waiting for the repatriation from Huludao.

Political career

Takasaki was an elected member of the House of Representatives of Japan, the head of the Japanese delegation to Asian–African Conference, the first head of the Economic Planning Agency of MITI, the initiator of the Sino-Japanese LT Trade Agreement,[3] etc.

He served in various Cabinet positions in the 1950s, including a period as Minister of International Trade and Industry from 1958 to 1959.

From 1960 to 1962, Takasaki and China's Liao Chengzhi led the effort to expand trade relations between Japan and communist China, culminating in the signing of the Memorandum on Sino-Japanese Long-Term Comprehensive Trade (also known as the Liao-Takasaki Trade Agreement or simply the LT Trade Agreement).

This agreement opened the way for the resumption of a small amount of "friendship" trade between the two nations, an important step on the path to the normalization of relations between Japan and China.[4][5]

Death

Takasaki died in Tokyo on 24 February 1964.

References

  1. ^ Funding Universe
  2. ^ Euromonitor
  3. ^ The Foreign policy of modern Japan
  4. ^ Kapur, Nick (2018). Japan at the Crossroads: Conflict and Compromise after Anpo. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. p. 71. ISBN 9780674988484.
  5. ^ Vogel, Ezra (30 July 2019). China and Japan: Facing History. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. p. 319. ISBN 9780674916579.

Further reading

  • Itoh, Mayumi (August 2012). Pioneers of Sino-Japanese Relations: Liao and Takasaki. Palgrave-MacMillan. ISBN 978-1-137-02734-4.

See also

Political offices
Preceded by Minister of International Trade and Industry
1958–1959 		Succeeded by