was a Japanese businessman-politician. Takasaki was born in

Takatsuki is a city in Osaka Prefecture, Japan. It is located in northern Osaka's Hokusetsu region. As of 2020, the city had an estimated population of 347,944 and a population density of 3,300 persons per km². The total area is 105.31 km². The c ...

, Japan, on 7 February 1885. After finishing school in Japan, Takasaki spent his younger days in

Manchuria Manchuria is an exonym (derived from the endo demonym " Manchu") for a historical and geographic region in Northeast Asia encompassing the entirety of present-day Northeast China (Inner Manchuria) and parts of the Russian Far East (Outer Manc ...

, and was the chairman of

Manchurian Industrial Development Company The () was an industrial conglomerate, or ''zaibatsu,'' in the Japanese-controlled Empire of Manchuria (Manchukuo), established at the instigation of the Imperial Japanese Army to further the industrialization of Manchukuo, and in particular, to ...

and the head of the All Manchurian Japanese Association () located in

Xinjing Xinjing may refer to: *'' Heart Sutra'' or ''Xinjing'' (心經), a Chinese-language sutra in Mahāyāna Buddhism Places in China * Changchun, the capital city of Jilin, known as Xinjing (新京) during the Manchukuo era (1932–1945) * Xinjing Tow ...

, waiting for the repatriation from Huludao. Upon returning to Japan, he became the first chairman of

Electric Power Development Company The , operating under the brand name J-POWER, formerly , is an electric utility in Japan. It mainly produces electricity from coal and hydroelectric power stations. It also has a few wind farms and is currently building a nuclear plant in Ohma, ...

, the elected member of the

House of Representatives of Japan The is the lower house of the National Diet of Japan. The House of Councillors (Japan), House of Councillors is the upper house. The composition of the House is established by and of the Constitution of Japan. The House of Representatives ha ...

, the head of the Japanese delegation to

Asian–African Conference The first large-scale Asian–African or Afro–Asian Conference ( id, Konferensi Asia–Afrika)—also known as the Bandung Conference—was a meeting of Asian and African states, most of which were newly independent, which took place on 18–2 ...

, the first head of the Economic Planning Agency of MITI, the initiator of the Sino-Japanese LT Trade Agreement, etc. He founded Toyo Seikan Kaisha in 1917, which has since become the largest container company in Japan and dominates the

ASEAN ASEAN ( , ), officially the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, is a political and economic union of 10 member states in Southeast Asia, which promotes intergovernmental cooperation and facilitates economic, political, security, militar ...

market. He served in various Cabinet positions in the 1950s, including a period as Minister of International Trade and Industry from 1958 to 1959. From 1960 to 1962, Takasaki and China's

Liao Chengzhi Liao Chengzhi (; 25 September 1908 – 10 June 1983) was a Chinese politician. He joined the Communist Party of China in 1928, and rose to the position of director of the Xinhua News Agency; after 1949, he worked in various positions related to ...

led the effort to expand trade relations between Japan and communist China, culminating in the signing of the Memorandum on Sino-Japanese Long-Term Comprehensive Trade (also known as the Liao-Takasaki Trade Agreement or simply the LT Trade Agreement). This agreement opened the way for the resumption of a small amount of "friendship" trade between the two nations, an important step on the path to the normalization of relations between Japan and China. He died in Tokyo on 24 February 1964.

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