was a Japanese bureaucrat and the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) politician who served as foreign minister. He was in office from 11 January 1996 to 11 September 1997. Ikeda was known to be "Mr. No" in the political life.

Early life and education

Ikeda was born in Kobe, Hyōgo Prefecture, on 13 May 1937. Following the death of his father in 1944, he moved to Nakajima Honmachi, Hiroshima where his father's family lived. Ikeda studied law at the

University of Tokyo , abbreviated as or UTokyo, is a public research university located in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Established in 1877, the university was the first Imperial University and is currently a Top Type university of the Top Global University Project b ...

and graduated in March 1961.

Career

Ikeda joined the ministry of finance in 1961 and worked as bureaucrat there. Then he became a member of the House of Representatives in 1976 following his membership to the LDP. He won the largest number of votes (55,027) in Hiroshima Prefecture's 2nd electoral district in the 1976 general election. He served as a lawmaker ten times until his retirement. He held key positions in the LDP and was the director general of the Defense Agency. His other posts included chairman of the LDP's decision-making general council and head of the policy research council. He was appointed defense minister on 29 December 1990, replacing Yozo Ishikawa in the post. He served in the post until 5 November 1991 and was succeeded by

Sohei Miyashita was a Japanese politician. He held different cabinet posts. Biography Miyashita was born in 1927. He worked at the Ministry of Finance as a budget examiner. He was a member of the Liberal Democratic Party and served in the House of Representat ...

. Ikeda's second tenure as foreign minister was from 11 January 1996 to 11 September 1997 in the coalition government headed by

Ryutaro Hashimoto was a Japanese politician who served as the Prime Minister of Japan from 1996 to 1998. He was the leader of one of the largest factions within the ruling LDP through most of the 1990s and remained a powerful back-room player in Japanese politi ...

. Ikeda replaced

Yōhei Kōno is a Japanese politician and a former President of the Liberal Democratic Party. He served as Speaker of the House of Representatives from November 2003 until August 2009, when the LDP lost its majority in the 2009 election. Kōno served as sp ...

as foreign minister. Upon the construction of a wharf facility in Takeshima/ Dokdo by the

South Korean government The Government of South Korea is the union government of the Republic of Korea, created by the Constitution of South Korea as the executive, legislative and judicial authority of the republic. The president acts as the head of state and is the ...

at the beginning of 1996, Ikeda protested over the construction and demanded that the South Korean government should stop it. His remarks led to angry public demonstrations in Seoul. He led Japan's attempts to solve the hostage crisis in Peru in the 1990s. Ikeda was replaced by

Keizō Obuchi was a Japanese politician who served as Prime Minister of Japan from 1998 to 2000. Obuchi was elected to the House of Representatives in Gunma Prefecture in 1963, becoming the youngest legislator in Japanese history, and was re-elected to his ...

as foreign minister on 11 September 1997. Later Ikeda became the policy chief or top policy planner of the LDP in 1998. He was part of Koichi Kato's faction in the LDP.

Personal life and death

Ikeda was son-in-law of former Japanese prime minister

Hayato Ikeda was a Japanese bureaucrat and later politician who served as Prime Minister of Japan from 1960 to 1964. He is best known for his Income Doubling Plan, which promised to double Japan's GDP in ten years. Ikeda is also known for repairing U.S.- ...

. He married Noriko Ikeda in May 1969, and took his wife's family name. Ikeda died of rectum cancer in Tokyo on 28 January 2004 at age 66.

Honours

''From the corresponding article in the Japanese Wikipedia'' *

Senior Third Rank The court ranks of Japan, also known in Japanese as ''ikai'' (位階), are indications of an individual's court rank in Japan based on the system of the state. ''Ikai'' as a system was originally used in the Ritsuryo system, which was the polit ...

*Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun

References

External links

* , - , - , - , - , - , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Ikeda, Yukihiko 20th-century Japanese politicians 1937 births 2004 deaths Deaths from cancer in Japan Foreign ministers of Japan Liberal Democratic Party (Japan) politicians Japanese defense ministers Members of the House of Representatives (Japan) Mukoyōshi People from Kobe University of Tokyo alumni