Mutsu Munemitsu



Mutsu Munemitsu (陸奥 宗光) was a statesman and diplomat in Meiji period Japan.

Early life
Mutsu Munemitsu was born in Wakayama domain Kii Province (present-day Wakayama Prefecture as the sixth son of Date Munehiro, a samurai retainer of the Kii Tokugawa clan. His father was active in the sonno joi movement, and Mutsu Munemitsu joined forces with Sakamoto Ryoma and Ito Hirobumi in the movement to overthrow the Tokugawa bakufu.

Meiji bureaucrat
After the Meiji restoration, he held a number of posts in the new Meiji government, including that of governor of Hyōgo Prefecture and later governor of Kanagawa Prefecture, both of which were host to foreign settlements. He was head of the Lax Tax Reform of 1873-1881, and served on the Genroin. He conspired to assist Saigo Takamori in the Satsuma Rebellion and was imprisoned from 1878 until 1883. While in prison he translated Jeremy Bentham's Utilitarianism.

After he left prison, he rejoined the government as an official of the Foreign Ministry, and in 1884 went to Europe for studies. Later he became Minister to Washington D.C. (1888-1890), during which time he established formal diplomatic relations between Japan and Mexico, and partially revised the unequal treaties between Japan and the United States.

On his return to Japan in 1890, he became Minister of Agriculture & Commerce. In 1892, he became Foreign Minister in the Itō Hirobumi cabinet. In 1894, he concluded the Anglo-Japanese Treaty of Commerce and Navigation of 1894, which finally ended the unequal treaty status between Japan and Great Britain.

Mutsu Munemitsu was the lead Japanese negotiator in the Treaty of Shimonoseki, which ended the First Sino-Japanese War on 1894-1895. The Triple Intervention by France, Germany and Russia reversed the gains that he had negotiated from China in the Treaty of Shimonoseki, and the Japanese public blamed Mutsu for the national humiliation. He resigned all government posts in May 1896 and moved to Ōiso, Kanagawa, where he wrote his personal diplomatic memoirs Kenkenroku (蹇蹇録) after the treaty was signed to explain his views and actions. However, his memoirs could not be published until 1923 due to the diplomatic secrets they contained.



Mutsu died of tuberculosis in Hawaii in 1897.

Mutsu was ennobled with the title of hakushaku (count) under the kazoku peerage system at the end of the Sino-Japanese War.