Yōsuke Matsuoka

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Yōsuke Matsuoka

39th Foreign Minister of Japan
In office ? – ?
Preceded by	Fumimaro Konoe
Succeeded by	Hideki Tojo

Born	March 3, 1880 Japan
Died	June 26, 1946 Japan

Yōsuke Matsuoka (松岡洋右 Matsuoka Yōsuke, March 3, 1880 – June 26, 1946) was a Foreign Minister of Japan (Imperial Japan) shortly before World War II.

Born in Japan in 1880, Yōsuke Matsuoka traveled to the United States while a teenager and eventually studied law at the University of Oregon, from which he graduated in 1900. During his stay, he was a fervent Christian who attended Bible sessions at his high school and had claimed to have met the American Populist William Jennings Bryan. Matsuoka eventually returned to Japan and joined the foreign service, which he served in for eighteen years.

Matsuoka gained international notoriety in 1933 when he announced Japan's departure from the League of Nations after the League’s criticism of Japan's operations in Manchuria, and led the Japanese delegation out of the League's assembly hall. After leaving the foreign service, Matsuoka went to occupied Manchukuo and became President of the South Manchurian Railroad, at which time he worked closely with Hideki Tojo (then serving as chief of the Kwantung Army's secret police).

In 1940, Matsuoka became Minister of Foreign Affairs under Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe, strongly opposed by Kiichiro Hiranuma. Matsuoka was a major advocate of a Japanese alliance with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, whose assistance he saw as a perfect balancing force against the United States, and as such was one of the primary orchestrators the Tripartite Pact in 1940.

On December 31, 1940, Yosuke told a group of Jewish businessmen that he was "the man responsible for the alliance with Hitler, but nowhere have I promised that we would carry out his anti-Semitic policies in Japan. This is not simply my personal opinion, it is the opinion of Japan, and I have no compunction about announcing it to the world."[1]

Matsuoka also signed a Russo-Japanese non-aggression treaty in April 1941. However, after Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, Hitler proposed to Matsuoka that Japan take part in the attack as well. Matsuoka became a fervent supporter of the idea of a Japanese attack on Russian lands, and constantly pressured Konoe and the leaders of the Imperial Japanese Army and Imperial Japanese Navy to mobilize the military for that purpose. In the end, both the army and the navy as well as Konoe decided to concentrate military efforts on targets south of Japan.

Despite the military's opposition to his ideas, Matsuoka continued to loudly advocate an invasion of Russia and became increasingly reckless in his diplomatic dealings with the United States, which he believed was conspiring to provoke Japan into a war. Matsuoka's hostility towards the U.S. (a vocal opponent of Japan's military campaigns) alarmed Konoe, who wanted to avoid war with the United States. Konoe and the military hierarchy colluded to get rid of Matsuoka. To this end, Konoe resigned in July 1941 and his cabinet ministers resigned with him, including Matsuoka. Konoe immediately was made prime minister again, and replaced Matsuoka as Foreign Minister with Admiral Teijiro Toyoda.

Matsuoka subsequently drifted into obscurity. Captured by the Allies in 1945 and brought up on war crimes charges by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, Matsuoka died in 1946 before his trial was completed. His name is amongst the 14 Class A war criminals who are enshrined at Yasukuni Shrine. A memo from Emperor Hirohito, disclosed in 2006, revealed that he stopped visiting Yasukuni Shrine because of the enrollment of the war criminals in 1978, stating "they even enshrined Matsuoka and Shiratori".