Keishirō Matsui

Keishirō Matsui was born in 1868. He studied law at Tokyo Imperial University and entered the Foreign Ministry in 1889. He served in European and American posts before becoming vice foreign minister. ^{1, 2}

As chargé in Washington in 1909, Matsui transmitted Tokyo’s offer of 2,000 flowering cherry trees to the United States. His August letter helped arrange the first shipment, which arrived the following winter. Inspectors found it infested with pests, and the trees were destroyed; the successful gift associated with today’s Tidal Basin plantings followed in 1912. ³

Matsui also communicated Japan’s expanding control as it dismantled Korean sovereignty. In October 1909 he notified the State Department that Japan would assume administration of Korean courts and prisons on November 1. He presented the transfer as an administrative improvement and described arrangements for foreign consular jurisdiction. ⁴

Later appointments gave Matsui a larger role in European diplomacy. He served as ambassador to France and as a Japanese plenipotentiary at the Paris Peace Conference. He briefly became foreign minister in 1924, then ambassador to Britain from 1925 to 1928, and eventually a member of the Privy Council. ^{1, 3}