| Masayuki Tani | |
| Native Name: | 谷正之 |
| Office1: | Minister of Foreign Affairs |
| Primeminister1: | Hideki Tōjō |
| Term Start1: | 17 September 1942 |
| Term End1: | 21 April 1943 |
| Predecessor1: | Shigenori Tōgō |
| Successor1: | Mamoru Shigemitsu |
| Birth Date: | 2 September 1889 |
| Birth Place: | Kumamoto prefecture, Japan |
| Death Date: | 16 October 1962 (aged 73) |
| Death Place: | Tokyo, Japan |
(2 September 1889 – 16 October 1962)[1] was a Japanese diplomat and politician who was briefly foreign minister of Japan from September 1942 to 21 April 1943 during World War II.
Tani was a career diplomat before assuming ministerial roles.[2] More specifically, he served at the embassy in France (1918-1923), United States (1927–1930) and Manchukuo (1933–1936).[1] In 1930, he was chief of Asian Bureau in the ministry of foreign affairs.[3] He also worked as counsellor to the Japanese embassy in Xinjing and as ambassador-at-large in China.[4]
He served as vice minister of foreign affairs in the cabinet of Mitsumasa Yonai[5] when appointed under then foreign minister Kichisaburō Nomura on 24 September 1939.[6]
Then Tani served as information chief and also, foreign minister in the cabinet of Hideki Tōjō. He was appointed foreign minister on 17 September 1942.[7] [8] During his tenure, Japan continued to encourage a separate peace between Germany and the Soviet Union.[7] However, his term was short. Since bureaucrats in the ministry of foreign affairs resented Tani,[2] on 21 April 1943, he was replaced by Mamoru Shigemitsu.[9] After that, he received Shigemitsu's former post of Japanese ambassador in Nanjing to the Reorganized National Government of China.[10]
After World War II, Tani was detained as a suspect of war crimes until December 1948. However, he was not convicted. Then he served again as Japan's ambassador to the United States from March 1956 to April 1957,[11] becoming the third post-war ambassador of Japan to the US.[12]
Tani was married and had three children, a daughter and two sons.[12]