Veteran diplomat is Japan’s pick for China role in bid to cool tensions
- Kenji Kanasugi brings 40 years’ experience to Beijing posting, amid dispute between the two countries over Fukushima waste
- The 64-year-old is the first Japanese ambassador to Beijing in seven years who was not trained in the foreign ministry’s China School
The 64-year-old, currently Japan’s envoy to Indonesia, will replace Hideo Tarumi, 62, who took up his post in November 2020 and was perceived as having a tough stance against China.
Kanasugi, whose career spans four decades, is Japan’s first ambassador to Beijing in seven years who was not trained in the foreign ministry’s “China School”, where diplomats are taught the language and other skills to advance bilateral ties.
After graduating in law from Hitotsubashi University, Kanasugi held a number of high-level positions, including director general of the economic affairs bureau and the Asian and Oceanian affairs bureau, as well as senior deputy minister for foreign affairs.
His appointment comes at a time of division between Beijing and Tokyo over Japan’s continuing release of treated radioactive waste water into the Pacific Ocean from the Fukushima nuclear plant, which started in late August.
But according to Andy Mok, a senior research fellow at Beijing-based think tank the Centre for China and Globalisation, Kanasugi’s arrival should not be “over-interpreted”.