| Katsuo Okazaki | |
| Office1: | Minister for Foreign Affairs |
| Primeminister1: | Shigeru Yoshida |
| Term Start1: | 30 October 1952 |
| Term End1: | 9 December 1954 |
| Predecessor1: | Shigeru Yoshida |
| Successor1: | Mamoru Shigemitsu |
| Office2: | Chief Cabinet Secretary |
| Primeminister2: | Shigeru Yoshida |
| Term Start2: | 6 May 1950 |
| Term End2: | 26 December 1951 |
| Predecessor2: | Kaneshichi Masuda |
| Successor2: | Shigeru Hori |
| Office3: | Chairman of the Shanghai Municipal Council |
| Term Start3: | 5 January 1942 |
| Term End3: | 1 August 1943 |
| Predecessor3: | John Hellyer Liddell |
| Successor3: | Council disbanded |
| Birth Date: | 10 July 1897 |
| Birth Place: | Kanagawa, Japan |
| Death Place: | Tokyo, Japan |
| Party: | Liberal Democratic Party (1955–1963) |
| Otherparty: | Democratic Liberal Party (1949–1950) Liberal Party (1950–1955) |
| Alma Mater: | Tokyo Imperial University |
was a Japanese sportsman, diplomat and political figure. He served as the Japanese foreign minister in the 1950s. He was also the final – and only Japanese – chairman of the Shanghai Municipal Council.[1]
Okazaki was born on 10 July 1897 in Kanagawa, Japan. He was the 10th son of Yasunosuke Okazaki.[2] He studied law at the University of Tokyo and then joined the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.[3]
Okazaki participated in the 1924 Paris Olympic Summer Games, qualifying for the 5,000 m final with a time of 15.22.2e.[4] In the final, he fainted in the heatwave and was carried away by medics.[5] He had much success at the Far Eastern Championship Games, winning the mile run at the 1921 Games then doing a middle-distance double in the mile and 880 yards at the 1923 event in Osaka.[6]
Okasaki served as second secretary to the Japanese Embassy in Washington, D.C. in the early 1930s.[7]
He also served in numerous positions in China during the 1930s, including serving as Japanese Consul-General in Nanjing after the Fall of Nanking to the Imperial Japanese Army and during the Nanking Massacre. In 1938, he was serving as Japanese Consul General in Canton.[8] In October 1939 was appointed Japanese Consul at Hong Kong, a position he held until January 1941.[9]
In early January 1942 Okazaki was appointed as Chairman of the Shanghai Municipal Council after the British and American members resigned following the commencement of the Pacific War and the occupation of the Shanghai International Settlement by Japanese troops.[10] After the resignation of the Commissioner General, G. Godfrey Phillips which took effect from 1 March 1942, Okasaki also took over the role of Commissioner General in an honorary capacity.[11] He served until 1943 when the council was disbanded.
Okazaki took part in the surrender negotiations between the Japanese emissaries and American military officials on Iejima in 1945. He was present as a representative of Japan at the formal surrender on 2 September 1945 aboard the .
Okazaki was elected to the Japanese House of Representatives in 1949. In 1951, he was appointed by Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida as Chief Cabinet Secretary and state minister without portfolio.
In 1952, he was appointed Foreign Minister and served in that position until 1954. In 1954, building on work by Ikeda, Okazaki signed a Mutual Security Assistance (MSA) Agreement with U.S. Ambassador John Allison.[12]
In 1961 he was called out of retirement to serve in the United Nations in what was described at the time as a move to strengthen the Japanese delegation. He served as Japan's delegate to the United Nations from April 1961 to July 1963.[13]
Okazaki died on 10 October 1965 in Tokyo of a stomach ulcer at the age of 68.[13]
Okazaki was married to Shimako with whom he had a son, Taro, and a daughter, Yoshiko.[14]
He is the grandfather of the Japanese-American figure skater Kyoko Ina, Yoshiko's daughter.[15]
|-|-|-|-|-