Gen Nakatani

Gen Nakatani
中谷 元
Minister of Defence (former Director General of the Defense Agency)
Incumbent
Assumed office 24 December 2014
Prime Minister	Shinzō Abe
Preceded by	Akinori Eto
In office 4 April 2001 – 30 September 2002
Prime Minister	Yoshirō Mori Junichirō Koizumi
Preceded by	Toshitsugu Saito
Succeeded by	Shigeru Ishiba
Personal details
Born	14 October 1957 Kōchi, Kōchi Prefecture, Japan
Political party	Liberal Democratic Party
Alma mater	National Defense Academy

Gen^{[n 1]} Nakatani (中谷 元 Nakatani Gen, born 14 October 1957) is a Japanese politician who served as head of the Japan Defense Agency (now Japan Ministry of Defense) under present Prime Minister Shinzō Abe^[1][2] in the first cabinet of Junichiro Koizumi. He was reappointed Defence Minister by Abe in 2014.

Shigeru Ishiba and Gen Nakatani, ex-ministers of Liberal Democratic Party of Japan (LDP) affiliated to the openly revisionist lobby Nippon Kaigi,^[3] are the prime movers behind a proposed rearmament of Japan. On 30 May 2013, The ruling LDP Council of National Defense approved the draft of the full-scale rearmament of the country. This would also cause the renaming of the Japan Self-Defense Forces into that of a full army of national defense. They presented a draft reform of the rearmament that was approved and sent to the Government for consideration. Shigeru Ishiba called the current restrictions imposed after the Second World War on the size of the Japanese armed forces as long out of date. ^[4] He is a retired Japan Ground Self-Defense Force officer.

Notes

1. Gen is a personal name, not an abbreviation of General.

References

1. Ko Shu-ling; J. Michael Cole (6 October 2010). "Security experts warn on China threat". Taipei Times. Retrieved 4 January 2011.
2. Sachiko Sakamaki; Takashi Hirokawa (26 May 2009). "Japan Should Consider Pre-emptive Strikes, LDP Lawmaker Says". Bloomberg. Retrieved 4 January 2011.
3. Nippon Kaigi website
4. "Japan's self-defense forces get into samurai spirit". Pravdaru. 6 June 2013.