Japan names ex-banker as new FM

JAPAN: Japan's centre-left Government yesterday named political blue-blood Takeaki Matsumoto as its new foreign minister, who will have to navigate tricky relations with the United States, China and Russia.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan picked the former banker and great great grandson of Japan's first prime minister because of his "capability, knowledge and to ensure continuity of diplomacy", said Kan's top spokesman Yukio Edano.

Matsumoto, 51, replaces Seiji Maehara, an ambitious politician and outspoken security hawk who resigned this week over a donation scandal, dealing a blow to the embattled Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) government.

Japan's new top diplomat, who most recently served as a vice foreign minister, takes the post at a time when his government must deal with a series of diplomatic headaches with key allies and powerful neighbours.

Japan and China, which has just overtaken the island-nation as the world's number two economy, last year fought their most heated diplomatic battle in years, sparked by sea collisions near a disputed island chain.

A series of tense confrontations between their vessels and aircraft has continued in and over the East China Sea, where both Asian giants have competing claims over vast areas, some of them rich in oil and gas deposits.

A territorial dispute is also at the heart of a bitter row that has flared up in recent months between Japan and Russia.

Both countries lay claim to the South Kuril islands, which Soviet forces occupied in the final days of World War II, a dispute that has so far stopped the neighbours from signing a post war peace treaty. TOKYO, Wednesday, AFP