Uchida Kosai

Count nihongo|Kosai Uchida|内田 康哉|Uchida Kōsai (17 November 1865 - 12 March 1936) was a Japanese statesman and diplomat. He was also known as Uchida Yasuya.

Born in what is now Yatsushiro, Kumamoto Prefecture, as the son of the domain's doctor, Uchida was a graduate of Tokyo Imperial University. He entered the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and served as minister to Qing dynasty China, then as ambassador to Austria-Hungary, and then to the United States. He served as Japanese foreign minister from 1911 to 1912 under the 2nd Saionji Kinmochi administration.

Appointed as ambassador to Russia just before the Bolshevik Revolution, he returned to Japan to serve as Foreign Minister again from 1918 to 1923 under the Hara, Takahashi, and Kato administrations. He served as acting Prime Minister of Japan twice – once after the assassination of Prime Minister Hara, and again after the sudden death of Prime Minister Kato, immediately before the Great Kanto Earthquake.

He was appointed to the House of Peers in 1930, and became President of the Southern Manchuria Railway Company in 1931.

Under his third term as Foreign Minister, from 1932 to 1933, during the Saito Makoto administration, he called for the formal diplomatic recognition of Manchukuo, and later called for Japan's withdrawal from the League of Nations. He died of illness 15 days after the February 26 Incident.

References

* Beasley, W.G. "Japanese Imperialism 1894-1945". Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-822168-1
* Gulik, Carol. "Showa: The Japan of Hirohito". W. W. Norton & Company; Reprint edition (August 1993). ISBN 0-393-31064-7