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Taro Aso (麻生太郎 Asō Tarō, born September 20, 1940) is a Japanese politician currently serving as Minister for Foreign Affairs.
Aso and Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe are considered leading candidates to replace Junichiro Koizumi as Prime Minister of Japan after his term expires. Both are conservative on foreign policy issues and have taken confrontational stances toward other East Asian nations, particularly North Korea and, to a lesser extent, China. Abe is considered a more "moderate" politician than the more "hard-line" Aso, and has led Aso in opinion polling within Japan. *
Early life
Aso was born in Iizuka, Fukuoka. His father, Takakichi Aso, was chairman of the Aso Cement Company and a close associate of Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka; his mother was Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida's daughter. Aso is also a great-great-grandson of Toshimichi Okubo, and his wife is the third daughter of Prime Minister Zenko Suzuki.
He graduated from the Faculty of Politics and Economics at Gakushuin University. He then studied at Stanford University, but was cut off by his family, who feared he was becoming too Americanized. After making his way back to Japan on a ship, he left Japan once more to study at the University of London. * He spent two years working for a diamond mining operation in Sierra Leone before civil war forced him to return to Japan.
Aso joined his father's company in 1966, and served as president of the Aso Mining Company from 1973 to 1979. He has offered no apologies for the company's use of forced labor during World War II. * He was also a member of the Japanese shooting team at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal.
Political career
Aso was elected as a member of the House of Representatives in October 1979, and has since been re-elected eight times. In 1988 he became Parliamentary Vice Minister for Education.
He joined the Cabinet of Junichiro Koizumi in 2003 as Minister of Internal Affairs, Posts and Communications. On October 31, 2005, he became Minister for Foreign Affairs.
There has been some speculation that his position in the Cabinet is due to his membership in the Kono Group, an LDP caucus led by pro-Chinese lawmaker Yohei Kono. By appointing Aso as Minister for Foreign Affairs, Koizumi may be attempting to "rein in" Kono's statements critical of Japanese foreign policy. *
Controversial statements
At a meeting of the Kono Group in 2001, Aso drew criticism when he said that "those burakumin can't become prime minister," a statement directed at Hiromu Nonaka, a burakumin member of the Diet. Aso's office attempted to clarify the statements by saying that they were misunderstood.
In May of 2003, while attending a festival at the University of Tokyo, Aso remarked that Koreans wanted to change their names to Japanese names during colonial rule, and that Japan helped in the diffusion of the Hangul writing system.
Later in 2003, when Abe was inaugurated as Minister of Internal Affairs, Posts and Communications, he predicted that information technology developments would lead to a future in which paper was replaced by "floppies."
On October 15, 2005, he praised Japan for having "one nation, one civilization, one language, one culture and one race," and stated that it was the only such country in the world. [http://www.japantoday.com/e/?content=news&cat=1&id=352312
On December 21, 2005, he said China was "a neighbour with one billion people equipped with nuclear bombs and has expanded its military outlays by double digits for 17 years in a row, and it is unclear as to what this is being used for. It is beginning to be a considerable threat." (See also: China's military expenditure)*
On January 28, 2006, he called for the emperor to visit the controversial Yasukuni shrine. He later backtracked on the comment, but stated that he hoped such a visit would be possible in the future. *
Kyodo News reported that he had said on February 4,2006 "our predecessors did a good thing" regarding compulsory education implemented during Japan's colonization of Taiwan. *
Mainichi Daily News reports that on March 9, 2006 he referred to Taiwan as a "law-abiding country", which drew strong protest from Beijing, which considers the island a part of China. * His implication that Taiwan is an independent nation contradicts the agreement made between Japan and China in 1972 (the Joint Communique of the Government of Japan and the Government of the People's Republic of China) that the Beijing rather than Taipei government be considered the sole legal government of China and that Taiwan be considered "an inalienable part of the territory of the People's Republic of China."
External links
"Taro Aso"