Kōichirō Gemba (玄葉 光一郎, Gemba Kōichirō^?, born May 20, 1964) is the current Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs as of 2011^[update]. He belongs to the Democratic Party of Japan and is a member of the House of Representatives in the Diet. A native of Tamura, Fukushima and graduate of Sophia University, he was later accepted into the prestigious Matsushita Institute of Government and Management, an institution founded by Panasonic founder Konosuke Matsushita which grooms future civic leaders of Japan. Genba was elected to the House of Representatives for the first time in 1993 after serving in the assembly of Fukushima Prefecture for one term. In September 2011 he was chosen as Minister of Foreign Affairs in the cabinet of newly-appointed Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda.

Makiko Tanaka (田中 眞紀子, Tanaka Makiko^?, born in Nishiyama, Niigata, January 14, 1944) is a Japanese politician, the daughter of former Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka.

Tanaka attended high school at Germantown Friends School in the United States and graduated from Waseda University. She spent most of her early adulthood working with her father's political machine Etsuzankai organization, and was the first lady to her father since her mother, Hana, was absent due to long-standing illness. She was elected to the Lower House in 1993, shortly after her father's death.

Tanaka was the first female foreign minister of Japan, from April 2001 to January 2002, but was fired from the cabinet after making remarks critical of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. Later that year, she was kicked out of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and barred from party membership for two years.

In August 2002, Tanaka resigned from the Diet after allegations that she had embezzled her secretaries' civil service salaries. A Tokyo court cleared her in September, and she ran for the Diet again as an independent in November 2003.