Profile of
Minister for Foreign Affairs YOHEI KONO

December 2000

Yohei Kono has been reappointed Minister for Foreign Affairs in the Cabinet formed by Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori on July 4, 2000, a post he held under the first Cabinet of the Prime Minister Mori. The reappointment of Kono, who has served as President of the Liberal Democratic Party and is one of the LDP's top foreign policy experts, demonstrates the Mori Cabinet's intention to deal effectively with the Kyushu-Okinawa Summit to be held in July 2000, the situation on the Korean Peninsula, and other important items on the diplomatic agenda.

Yohei Kono was born on January 15, 1937, in Kanagawa Prefecture. He is from a family of politicians: his father, Ichiro Kono, was a major political figure believed to be a likely candidate for the premiership, and his uncle Kenzo Kono once held the post of President of the House of Councillors. After graduating from Waseda University's Department of Political Science and Economics in 1959, Kono went on to work for a general trading company. In 1960 he took a leave of absence from the company and enrolled in a postgraduate course in political science at Stanford University. In 1962, Kono accompanied his father on a visit to the Soviet Union, where he had an opportunity to meet with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, then one of the leading figures in world politics.

After the death of his father in 1967, Kono responded to the ardent wishes of the late politician's supporters and, on the LDP ticket, ran successfully for a Lower House seat from Kanagawa-3, his father's old constituency. Within the conservative party, the young Kono joined a faction then led by Yasuhiro Nakasone, which had absorbed most of the LDP Parliamentarians formerly belonging to a faction founded by the senior Kono. At the same time, in the interest of promoting political reform, Kono started an intraparty group that cut across LDP factional lines, bringing together Diet members elected in the same year, and he became a central figure in that group.

A number of reform-minded young Parliamentarians tried to have Kono nominated as a candidate in the 1972 election for the LDP presidency, and he was soon recognized as a rising star of the advocates of political reform within his party. He took his first important step toward the upper ranks of political leadership later that year, when he was appointed Parliamentary Vice-Minister of Education.

When the Lockheed bribery scandal came to light in 1976, Kono and five other LDP politicians left the party and, under the banner of political reform, formed a breakaway conservative party called the New Liberal Club, with Kono serving as Chairman. When the LDP failed to capture a majority of Lower House seats in the December 1983 general election, the NLC accepted an offer to form a coalition government, a move that allowed members of the fledgling party to obtain Cabinet seats. In 1985 Kono himself was appointed Director General of the Science and Technology Agency (Minister of State) in the Cabinet of Prime Minister Nakasone. By 1986, however, NLC Parliamentarians had largely reached the conclusion that the party had fulfilled its original purpose, and the majority of them, including Kono, returned to the LDP that year.

Kono did not rejoin the ex-Nakasone faction, instead associating himself with a more ideologically compatible faction headed by Kiichi Miyazawa. He was subsequently entrusted with such important posts as Chairman of the LDP Research Commission of Foreign Affairs and Director of the LDP Political Reform Headquarters' Party Reform Division.

In December 1992, he was appointed Chief Cabinet Secretary--a pivotal post whose responsibilities include serving as government spokesman--by Prime Minister Miyazawa.

In the July 1993 Lower House elections, held in the wake of the passage of a nonconfidence vote against the Miyazawa Cabinet, the LDP fell short of a majority despite remaining the biggest party in the Diet and was forced into the opposition, thus bringing to an end a period of uninterrupted conservative rule that had begun in 1955. After this major political setback, LDP leaders pinned their hopes for a conservative resurgence on Kono, who was elected Party President later that month. After assuming LDP leadership, Kono sought to rally the party around a program of internal reform and pave the way for its return to power.

Kono played a key role in the formation of the tripartite coalition that came to power following the resignation of the Tsutomu Hata Cabinet in June 1994. Kono supported Mr. Tomiichi Murayama, Chairman of Social Democratic Party of Japan, in his candidacy for the premiership, asserting that it was possible for the LDP, the SDPJ, and New Party Sakigake to hammer out a common platform of basic policies.

Assuming the portfolio of Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister in the Murayama Cabinet, Kono served in November 1995 as chairman of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Ministerial meeting held in Osaka. In this capacity he took the lead in putting together the Osaka Action Agenda, which laid out a comprehensive and concrete framework for promoting the liberalization of trade and investment in the Asia-Pacific. Kono was also responsible for coping with the issue of alleged nuclear weapons development by North Korea. At the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review and Extension Conference, he exerted his efforts toward the adoption of two resolutions that were evaluated highly as setting a course for achieving nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, including a resolution to strengthen the NPT review process. In relations with the United States, Kono worked for the smooth and effective implementation of the Japan-U.S. security arrangements, such as a reexamination of the Japan-U.S. Status of Forces Agreement. It was also under his guidance that Japan dispatched its Self-Defense Forces to countries neighboring Rwanda to aid Rwandan refugees and gave financial support toward the realization of peace in Bosnia. Kono is now serving his twelfth term in the House of Representatives.

Kono traveled to many different countries before entering politics, and between the late 1980s and the early 1990s he visited North America five times, Europe three times, and China three times. In January 1991 he traveled to Moscow to participate in a Japan-Soviet round-table discussion, and in May 1992 he was invited to speak to a conference of Japanese, American, and European journalists in Europe. He was also president of the Japan-Hungary Friendship Society.

He played a leading role in luring the United Nations University to Japan and has made efforts to strengthen ties between Japan and the U.N., establishing regular meetings between Diet members and U.N. University officials. Kono is an active proponent of arms control, being a founding member of the Japanese Parliamentary Association for the Promotion of International Disarmament.

In addition, Kono is at the forefront of the environmental protection movement, being a board member and former president of the Japan Association for the Protection of Birds, and is a strong supporter of sports, serving as president of the Japan Athletic Association and president of the Inter-University Athletic Union of Japan.

Kono has two sons and a daughter. His elder son, Taro, is a member of the House of Representatives. Kono enjoys reading, watching sporting events, and going to the theater in his spare time.

BRIEF PERSONAL HISTORY