Japan

Coordinates: 35°N 136°E / 35°N 136°E / 35; 136

Japan (ⁱ/dʒəˈpæn/; Japanese: 日本 Nippon [nip̚põ̞ɴ] or Nihon [nihõ̞ɴ]; formally 日本国  Nippon-koku or Nihon-koku, "State of Japan") is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, the East China Sea, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south. The kanji that make up Japan's name mean "sun origin", and Japan is often called the "Land of the Rising Sun".

Japan is a stratovolcanic archipelago of 6,852 islands. The four largest are Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, and Shikoku, which make up about ninety-seven percent of Japan's land area. Japan's population of 126 million is the world's tenth largest. Approximately 9.1 million people live in Tokyo, the capital city of Japan, which is the sixth largest city proper in the OECD. The Greater Tokyo Area, which includes Tokyo and several surrounding prefectures, is the world's largest metropolitan area with over 35 million residents and the world's largest urban agglomeration economy.

Foreign Affairs

Foreign Affairs is an American journal of international relations and U.S. foreign policy. Published bimonthly since 1922 by the Council on Foreign Relations, a nonprofit, 4,900-member organization, publisher, and think tank that was established in 1921 and specializes in U.S. foreign policy and international affairs.

According to the Journal Citation Reports, the journal has a 2014 impact factor of 2.009, ranking it 6th out of 85 journals in the category "International Relations".

History

The Council on Foreign Relations was originally composed of 75 members of mainly academic and professional backgrounds. In its first year, the Council sought discourse mainly in meetings at its headquarters in New York City. However, the members of the Council wished to seek a wider audience, and, as a result, began publishing Foreign Affairs in September 1922.

The Council named Professor Archibald Cary Coolidge of Harvard University as the journal's first editor. As Coolidge was unwilling to move from Boston to New York, Hamilton Fish Armstrong a Princeton alumnus and a European correspondent of the New York Evening Post was appointed as a co-editor and was sent to work in New York to handle the mechanical work of publishing the journal. Armstrong chose the light blue color to be the cover of the journal and had his two sisters, Margeret and Helen, design the logo.

Foreign minister

A Foreign Minister or Minister of Foreign Affairs is generally a cabinet minister in charge of a state's foreign policy and relations.

World contexts

Difference in titles

In some nations, such as India, the Foreign Minister is referred to as the Minister for External Affairs or, as in the case of Brazil and of the former Soviet Union, as the Minister of External Relations. In the United States the equivalent to the foreign ministry is called the Department of State, and the equivalent position is known as the Secretary of State. Other common titles may include minister of foreign relations. In many Spanish and Portuguese speaking countries in Latin America, the foreign minister is colloquially called canciller (chancellor).

Powers of position

A foreign minister's powers can vary from government to government. In a classic parliamentary system, a foreign minister can potentially exert significant influence in forming foreign policy but when the government is dominated by a strong prime minister the foreign minister may be limited to playing a more marginal or subsidiary role in determining policy. Similarly, the political powers invested in the foreign minister are often more limited in presidential governments with a strong executive. Since the end of World War II, it has been common for both the foreign minister and defense minister to be part of an inner cabinet (commonly known as a national security council) in order to coordinate defense and diplomatic policy. Although the 19th and early 20th centuries saw many heads of government assume the foreign ministry, this practice has since become uncommon in most developed nations.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs

In many countries, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is the government department responsible for the state's diplomacy as well as for providing support for a country's citizens who are abroad. The entity is usually headed by Foreign minister (the title may vary, such as Secretary of State who has the same functions).

Former countries

Fumio Kishida

Fumio Kishida (岸田 文雄, Kishida Fumio, born 29 July 1957) is a Japanese politician, who is the current Minister for Foreign Affairs of Japan. He is a member of the House of Representatives and the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). He served in Yasuo Fukuda's cabinet as minister of state for Okinawa and northern territories affairs, science and technology policy, quality-of-life policy, and regulatory Reform.

Early life and education

Kishida was born to a political family in Minami-ku, Hiroshima on 29 July 1957. His father and grandfather were former politicians who were lower house members, and also, former prime minister Kiichi Miyazawa is a distant relative of his. Kishida studied law at Waseda University and graduated in 1982.

Career

Political career

After working at now-defunct Long-Term Credit Bank of Japan and then as a secretary to a member of the House of Representatives, Kishida was elected for the first time in July 1993. He served in the lower house seven times, representing the Hiroshima No: 1.and Cabinet Junichiro Koizumi 2001 He was chairman of the LDP's Diet affairs committee until September 2012. In the LDP, he is close to retired veteran LDP politician Makoto Koga. Kishida assumed the control of Koga's faction in October 2012. His most appointment in the LDP was chairman of the headquarters for Japan's economic revitalization. Like Shinzo Abe and most members of his Cabinet, Kishida is affiliated to the openly revisionist organization Nippon Kaigi.