Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary

Role in the Japanese Government
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The Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary (内閣官房副長官, Naikaku-kanbō-fuku-chōkan) is an official in the Japanese government who assists the Chief Cabinet Secretary. Since July 1998 there have always been three Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretaries at any given time.

Role

The Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretaries are customarily divided into two types: those responsible for political affairs (政務担当) and those responsible for administrative affairs (事務担当). Since the Obuchi Cabinet, there have been two Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretaries for political affairs and one for administrative affairs. Prior to that, there were one for each.[1]

The Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretaries for political affairs are members of the National Diet, one from the House of Representatives and one from the House of Councillors. The position is often given to a protégé or close aide to the Prime Minister. It is considered a gateway to success for mid-career Diet members, as those who serve in it have often been given important cabinet positions afterwards. There are five instances of former Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretaries becoming Prime Minister: Noboru Takeshita, Toshiki Kaifu, Yoshirō Mori, Shinzo Abe and Yukio Hatoyama.[1][2][3]

The Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary for administrative affairs is the senior bureaucrat in the government. The position is typically filled by someone who has previously served as administrative vice-minister or in a equivalent role. The main function of this position is to coordinate the bureaucracy. They preside over the administrative vice-minister's liaison conference, a sub-cabinet meeting of the senior bureaucrats of each ministry.[1][2][3]

List of officeholders

Since the Obuchi Cabinet

Date of appointment Political affairs
(House of Representatives)		 Political affairs
(House of Councillors)		 Administrative affairs Prime Minister
31 July 1998 Muneo Suzuki Mitsuhiro Uesugi Teijirō Furukawa Obuchi
5 October 1999 Fukushiro Nukaga Sōichirō Matsutani
5 April 2000 Mori
4 July 2000 Shinzo Abe Kōsei Ueno
26 April 2001 Koizumi
22 September 2003 Hiroyuki Hosoda Masaaki Yamazaki Masahiro Futahashi
7 May 2004 Seiken Sugiura
31 October 2005 Jinen Nagase Seiji Suzuki
26 September 2006 Hakubun Shimomura Junzō Matoba Abe
27 August 2007 Matsushige Ono Mitsuhide Iwaki
26 September 2007 Masahiro Futahashi Fukuda
1 August 2008 Ryu Shionoya
24 September 2008 Jun Matsumoto Yoshitada Konoike Iwao Uruma Aso
13 May 2009 Katsuhito Asano
16 September 2009 Yorihisa Matsuno Koji Matsui Kin'ya Takino Hatoyama
8 June 2010 Motohisa Furukawa Tetsuro Fukuyama Kan
14 January 2011 Hirohisa Fujii
17 March 2011 Yoshito Sengoku
2 September 2011 Tsuyoshi Saitō Hiroyuki Nagahama Makoto Taketoshi Noda
1 October 2012 Hirokazu Shiba
26 December 2012 Katsunobu Kato Hiroshige Seko Kazuhiro Sugita Abe
7 October 2015 Koichi Hagiuda
13 August 2016 Kotaro Nogami
3 August 2017 Yasutoshi Nishimura
11 September 2019 Akihiro Nishimura Naoki Okada
16 September 2020 Manabu Sakai Suga
4 October 2021 Seiji Kihara Yoshihiko Isozaki Shun'ichi Kuryu Kishida
13 September 2023 Hideki Murai Hiroshi Moriya

References

  1. ^ a b c "政権の黒子？出世の登竜門？　官房副長官の役割とは". Jiji.com (in Japanese). Jiji Press. 8 December 2023. Retrieved 15 June 2024.
  2. ^ a b Hayao, Kenji (1993). The Japanese Prime Minister and Public Policy. University of Pittsburgh Press. pp. 165–167. ISBN 978-0-8229-7157-3.
  3. ^ a b Shinoda, Tomohito (2011). Koizumi Diplomacy: Japan's Kantei Approach to Foreign and Defense Affairs. University of Washington Press. pp. 66–70. ISBN 978-0-2958-0373-9.


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