Naoto Kan

Biography

Naoto Kan is a Japanese politician who was prime minister from June 2010 to September 2011. Born in Ube, Yamaguchi Prefecture, he studied applied physics at the Tokyo Institute of Technology and qualified as a patent attorney. He came into politics through civic activism and, after several unsuccessful campaigns, won a seat in the House of Representatives in 1980 for the small Socialist Democratic Federation.

He later moved to New Party Sakigake, and as minister of health and welfare in 1996 he became widely popular for exposing his own ministry's role in the HIV-tainted blood scandal. That year he co-founded the Democratic Party of Japan, and he led the merged party formed in 1998 in two spells before 2004. When the party won power in 2009 he became deputy prime minister and then finance minister.

Kan succeeded Yukio Hatoyama as party leader and prime minister in June 2010 and survived a leadership challenge from Ichirō Ozawa that September. His government handled the diplomatic dispute with China over the Senkaku boat collision and, in March 2011, the Tōhoku earthquake, tsunami and Fukushima nuclear disaster, after which he argued for reducing Japan's reliance on nuclear power. He resigned in August 2011 and remained a member of the lower house until 2024, later sitting for the Constitutional Democratic Party.