TOKYO, June 7 (UPI) -- The new Japanese government of Prime Minister Naoto Kan has tapped a private sector official to be its next ambassador to China, sources told Kyodo News Monday.
The proposed appointment of Uichiro Niwa, currently an adviser to the major trading house Itochu Corp., as the next envoy to the Communist country reflects the Kan government's policy of giving priority to relations with Japan's Asian neighbors as well as the United States, the report said.
Kan was elected president of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan Friday in preparation to take over as the next prime minister, succeeding Yukio Hatoyama who resigned amid mounting pressure to step down after being in office only for about eight months. Kan had been both finance and deputy prime minister in the Hatoyama Cabinet.
Niwa may be appointed to his new job this month, government sources told Kyodo. He would be the first such appointee not picked from the government bureaucracy.
In 2003, the Democratic Party of Japan in its pledge to reform the Japanese foreign ministry had said about 20 percent of the ambassadors should come from the private sector, the report said.
Niwa, 71, is a graduate of Nagoya University and had been the president and chairman of Itochu before he became an adviser to the company in April. The report said he had previously headed a government panel to promote decentralization and worked as a member of a key policy-setting council on economic and fiscal policy.
