ViscountAoki Shūzō (青木 周蔵, 3 March 1844 – 16 February 1914) was a Japanese politician and diplomat who served as foreign minister during the Meiji era.[1]
He was then sent to Germany by the Chōshū Domain to study western law in 1868. However, while in Germany, his studies ranged over a very wide area, from western medicine, to politics, military science, and economics. From his surviving notes, he studied how to make beer, paper and paper money, carpets and rugs and techniques of western forestry management.
While foreign minister, he strove for the revision of the unequal treaties between the Empire of Japan and the various European powers, particularly the extraterritoriality clauses, and expressed concern over the eastern expansion of the Russian Empire into east Asia. Aoki was forced to resign as a consequence of the Ōtsu Incident of 1891, but resumed his post as Foreign Minister under the Matsukata administration.
Returned to his post as foreign minister under the second Yamagata administration, Aoki helped Japan gain recognition as one of the Great Powers by its military support of the European forces during the Boxer Rebellion.
In 1906, he was appointed ambassador to the United States.[3] In 1908, Aoki protested to President Theodore Roosevelt to stop racial hostility against Japanese immigrants in California, there were anti-Asian groups and bills that discriminated against the Japanese, which included segregation of Japanese children in schools.[4] Californians did not want Japanese immigrants to dominate the state's agricultural economy, as the Japanese bought their own land and refused to work for white Californians. Aoki negotiated with Roosevelt and reached an agreement to restrict passports, deport some Japanese, and withdraw anti-alien bills. Although this did not stop the immigration of the Japanese or future discriminatory legislation, it did reduce diplomatic hostility.[5]
Personal life
Kamon of Viscount AokiThe wedding of Aoki's daughter Hanna and Count von Hatzfeldt, 1904
On 20 April 1877, Aoki married Elisabeth von Rhade (1849–1931) in Bremen. Elisabeth, the daughter of a Prussian aristocrat, was born in Strippow, Pomerania, Prussia, Germany. Together, they had one daughter:
Viscountess Aoki Hanna (Hanako) (16 December 1879 – 24 June 1953), who married Alexander Maria Hermann Melchior, Count von Hatzfeldt zu Trachenberg (1877–1953), the second son of Prince Hermann von Hatzfeldt, in Tokyo, on 19 December 1904.
Through his daughter, he was a grandfather of Countess Hissa Elisabeth Natalie Olga Ilsa von Hatzfeldt zu Trachenberg (26 February 1906 – 4 June 1985), who married Count Maria Erwin Joseph Sidonius Benediktus Franziskus von Sales Petrus Friedrich Ignatius Hubertus Johannes von Nepomuk Felix Maurus von Neipperg (a great-grandson of Austrian general Adam Albert von Neipperg) in Munich in 1927. Erwin and Hissa had four children, but now extinct in the male line. Hissa's daughter Countess Maria Hedwig Gabrielle Nathalie Benedicta Lioba Laurentia von Neipperg (born 10 August 1929) married Sir Anthony Williams, the British ambassador to Argentina during the Falkland War.
In 1888 Aoki commissioned an architect and friend from Berlin times, Matsugasaki Tsumunaga, to build him a villa as resort in Nasu highlands. This villa was costly restored in recent years and entered the list of Important Cultural Properties of Japan.[8] Matsugasaki won Aoki as first president of the newly established Society of Japanese Architects in 1888.[9]
^Rolle, Andrew F.; Arthur C. Verge (2015). California: a history (Eighth ed.). Chichester, West Sussex. ISBN978-1-118-70104-1. OCLC879642525.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
^Japan Times, Weekly Edition. Volume 34 (1913), p. 885
.svg){kind=small}
.svg){kind=small}
.svg){kind=small}
.svg){kind=small}
.svg){kind=small}
.svg){kind=small}
.svg){kind=small}
