is a previous

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

ese

defence minister A ministry of defence or defense (see spelling differences), also known as a department of defence or defense, is the part of a government responsible for matters of defence and military forces, found in states where the government is divid ...

. He is a politician of the

Democratic Party of Japan The was a Centrism, centristThe Democratic Party of Japan was widely described as centrist: * * * * * * * to Centre-left politics, centre-left, Liberalism, liberal or Social liberalism, social-liberal List of political parties in Japan, ...

, a member of the

House of Councillors The is the upper house of the National Diet of Japan. The House of Representatives (Japan), House of Representatives is the lower house. The House of Councillors is the successor to the pre-war House of Peers (Japan), House of Peers. If the t ...

in the

Diet Diet may refer to: Food * Diet (nutrition), the sum of the food consumed by an organism or group * Dieting, the deliberate selection of food to control body weight or nutrient intake ** Diet food, foods that aid in creating a diet for weight loss ...

(national legislature). A native of

Nagano City is the capital and largest city of Nagano Prefecture, located in the Nagano Basin (Zenkoji Daira) in the central Chūbu region of Japan. Nagano is categorized as a core city of Japan. Nagano City is the highest prefectural capital in Japan, wit ...

and graduate of

Waseda University Waseda University (Japanese: ), abbreviated as or , is a private university, private research university in Shinjuku, Tokyo. Founded in 1882 as the Tōkyō Professional School by Ōkuma Shigenobu, the fifth Prime Minister of Japan, prime ministe ...

, he was elected to the House of Councillors for the first time in 1992 after serving in the assembly of

Nagano Prefecture is a Landlocked country, landlocked Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshu. Nagano Prefecture has a population of 2,007,682 () and has a geographic area of . Nagano Prefecture borders Niigata Prefecture ...

for five terms. He had joined the

in 1998. On 16 September 2009; Kitazawa was appointed the Minister of Defence by Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama. He was re-appointed by Prime Minister Naoto Kan in the cabinet shift, and was the Minister of Defence until 2 September 2011. He retired in 2016, and was succeeded by

Hideya Sugio Hideya Sugio is a Japanese politician who is a member of the House of Councillors of Japan. Sugio is part of the CDP's shadow cabinet ' Next Cabinet' as the shadow Minister in Charge of the Cabinet. Career He graduated from Tokyo University i ...

References

External links

* in Japanese. , - 1938 births Democratic Party of Japan politicians Ministers of defense of Japan People from Nagano (city) Living people Members of the House of Councillors (Japan) Waseda University alumni {{Japan-politician-1930s-stub