Nobuhiko Ushiba

was a Japanese diplomat who served as Ambassador to Canada from 1961 to 1964, Ambassador to the United States from 1970 to 1973, and as Minister of State for External Economic Affairs from 1977 to 1979. The last was a position in the Cabinet of Japan created specially for him.

Life and career

Early life and WWII career Nobuhiko Ushiba was born 16 November 1909 in the city of Kobe in Japan. His second cousin was Haru Matsukata, who later married the United States Ambassador to Japan Edwin O. Reischauer (1961 to 1966). He did not attend school until his parents moved to Tokyo soon after the Taishō period began in July 1912. He graduated from two of the city's most prestigious public schools, the First Middle School and the First High School (now the Tokyo University of Agriculture First High School). Due to Japan's growing ties with the German Empire and his father's experience in international trade, he became somewhat fluent in the German language in high school.

Ushiba then entered the Tokyo Imperial University, where he graduated in 1932 with a degree in law. (Had he qualified for the Olympics, he would have been unable to sit for his foreign service qualifying exam.) He was very close to General Hiroshi Ōshima, Japan's ambassador to Nazi Germany. He made at least one trip back to Japan during the height of the war. He flew from Berlin to Turkey (then a neutral nation), then pass over the Caucasus, the Caspian Sea, and Siberia before reaching Japan.

Early post-war career Ushiba's foreign service career faltered badly in the post-war period due to his close association with General Ōshima and his service in Germany. He was rehabilitated and brought back into the foreign service by Shigeru Yoshida, Prime Minister of Japan, who knew him when Yoshida was Japan's ambassador to the United Kingdom just before the war.

Ushiba's post-war career was heavily involved in economics. Upon his return to government service, he was appointed to Japan's Foreign Exchange Control Board in 1949, where as chief of the secretariat he supervised the investment of foreign funds in industries that were essential to Japan's economic recovery. a position which he held until 23 June 1964, when he was promoted to Deputy Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs. He held that position until 14 April 1967.

Ushiba was appointed Ambassador to Canada in 1961, serving until 1964. He left that position to lead the Japanese delegation to the Kennedy Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, which lasted from 1964 to 1967. When the Kennedy Round ended, Ushiba returned to Tokyo and was promoted to Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs in April 1967, the highest position possible for a career official. But despite an agreement to permit additional U.S.-made textiles to be sold in Japan (signed in January 1972) as well as a general Japanese willingness to lower trade barriers and assist American companies in gaining market share, the Nixon administration imposed stringent new restrictions on imports despite Ushiba's pleas. Within two months, he negotiated and signed a major agreement easing trade tensions between the U.S. and Japan which was widely hailed. In 1978 and 1979, he led the Japanese delegation to the Tokyo Round of GATT talks. The Japanese government immediately appointed him chair of the Japan-U.S. Economic Relations Group, a commission set up by the governments of Japan and the United States to study trade issues affecting the two nations. The commission changed its name to the Japan-U.S. Advisory Commission in 1983. It is headquartered in the former Moral Re-Armament headquarters in the Nishi-Azabu District in Tokyo.