is a

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

politician A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking, ...

. She is the daughter of former

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is ...

Kakuei Tanaka was a Japanese politician who served in the House of Representatives from 1947 to 1990, and was Prime Minister of Japan from 1972 to 1974. After a power struggle with Takeo Fukuda, he became the most influential member of the ruling Liberal ...

and his official wife Hana.

Early life

Tanaka attended high school at

Germantown Friends School Germantown Friends School (GFS) is a coeducational independent PreK–12 school in the Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the United States under the supervision of Germantown Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of ...

in the United States and graduated from

Waseda University , mottoeng = Independence of scholarship , established = 21 October 1882 , type = Private , endowment = , president = Aiji Tanaka , city = Shinjuku , state = Tokyo , country = Japan , students = 47,959 , undergrad = 39,382 , postgrad ...

. She spent most of her early adulthood working with her father's

political machine In the politics of representative democracies, a political machine is a party organization that recruits its members by the use of tangible incentives (such as money or political jobs) and that is characterized by a high degree of leadership co ...

Etsuzankai was a Japanese politician who served in the House of Representatives from 1947 to 1990, and was Prime Minister of Japan from 1972 to 1974. After a power struggle with Takeo Fukuda, he became the most influential member of the ruling Liberal ...

, and was first lady to her father since her mother, Hana, was absent due to long-standing illness. She was elected to the

Lower House A lower house is one of two Debate chamber, chambers of a Bicameralism, bicameral legislature, the other chamber being the upper house. Despite its official position "below" the upper house, in many legislatures worldwide, the lower house has co ...

in 1993, shortly after her father's death. Makiko Tanaka Ehime Maru

Career

Tanaka was the first female

foreign minister of Japan The is a member of the cabinet of Japan and is the leader and chief executive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The minister is responsible for implementing Japan’s foreign policy and is also a statutory member of the National Security Counci ...

, from April 2001 to January 2002, but was fired from the

cabinet Cabinet or The Cabinet may refer to: Furniture * Cabinetry, a box-shaped piece of furniture with doors and/or drawers * Display cabinet, a piece of furniture with one or more transparent glass sheets or transparent polycarbonate sheets * Filin ...

after making remarks critical of Prime Minister

Junichiro Koizumi Junichiro Koizumi (; , ''Koizumi Jun'ichirō'' ; born 8 January 1942) is a former Japanese politician who was Prime Minister of Japan and President of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) from 2001 to 2006. He retired from politics in 2009. He is ...

. Later that year, she was expelled from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and barred from party membership for two years. In August 2002, Tanaka resigned from the Diet after allegations that she had embezzled her secretaries'

civil service The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil servants hired on professional merit rather than appointed or elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leaders ...

salaries. A Tokyo court cleared her in September, and she ran for the Diet again as an

independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independe ...

in November 2003. Her husband Naoki Suzuki, whom she married in 1969 was adopted as an adult into her family, because she has no brothers to carry on the family name. In August 2009, Tanaka and her husband joined the opposition

Democratic Party of Japan The was a centristThe Democratic Party of Japan was widely described as centrist: * * * * * * * to centre-left liberal or social-liberal political party in Japan from 1998 to 2016. The party's origins lie in the previous Democratic ...

. In September 2009 she became the Diet chairperson of the Committee on Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. In September 2011 she became the Diet chairperson of the Committee on Foreign Affairs. On October 1, 2012, she became Minister of Education, Culture, Science, Sports, and Technology, as part of a reshuffle of the

Yoshihiko Noda is a Japanese politician who was Prime Minister of Japan from 2011 to 2012. He was a member of the Democratic Party, and a member of the House of Representatives (lower house) in the Diet (national legislature). He was named to succeed Naoto ...

Cabinet. On November 2, 2012 she denied applications for three new universities, contradicting a report the previous day that had endorsed the establishment of the universities. It had been 30 years since a minister had contradicted the ministry in such a way. This sparked a large amount of criticism and after pressure from within the DPJ she reversed her decision and approved the applications. She lost her seat in the December 16, 2012

general election A general election is a political voting election where generally all or most members of a given political body are chosen. These are usually held for a nation, state, or territory's primary legislative body, and are different from by-elections ( ...

Japan Times ''The Japan Times'' is Japan's largest and oldest English-language daily newspaper. It is published by , a subsidiary of News2u Holdings, Inc.. It is headquartered in the in Kioicho, Chiyoda, Tokyo. History ''The Japan Times'' was launched by ...

br>Nothing left for the election-gutted DPJ to do but rebuild December 18, 2012
/ref> She left office on 26 December 2012.

Publications

* (with English abstract) Tanaka, Makiko.
The English Language Development Program of the Los Angeles Unified School District : Implications for Elementary School English Education in Japan
" (カリフォルニア州ロサンゼルス統一学区における英語教育の試みと日本における小学校英語教育への示唆
Archive
''

The Journal of Kanda University of International Studies ''The'' () is a grammatical Article (grammar), article in English language, English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite ...

'' (神田外語大学紀要).

Kanda University of International Studies or KUIS is a private university located in Makuhari, Mihama-ku, Chiba, Japan. The university was founded in 1987 as an extension of Kanda Institute of Foreign Languages in Tokyo. KUIS is a research university specializing in learner autonomy. ...

. 2009, Volume 21.
Info pageArchive
at

CiNii CiNii () is a bibliographic database service for material in Japanese academic libraries, especially focusing on Japanese works and English works published in Japan. The database was founded in April 2005 and is maintained by the National Insti ...

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Tanaka, Makiko 1944 births Living people People from Niigata Prefecture Waseda University alumni Children of prime ministers of Japan Spouses of Japanese politicians Female members of the House of Representatives (Japan) Women government ministers of Japan Female foreign ministers Members of the House of Representatives (Japan) Foreign ministers of Japan Liberal Democratic Party (Japan) politicians Democratic Party of Japan politicians Official social partners of national leaders 21st-century Japanese politicians 21st-century Japanese women politicians Japanese women diplomats Japanese diplomats Germantown Friends School alumni Education ministers of Japan Culture ministers of Japan Science ministers of Japan Sports ministers of Japan Technology ministers of Japan