Masayuki Tani

Masayuki Tani entered the Foreign Ministry after graduating from Tokyo Imperial University in 1913. His early assignments included Canton and Europe, where he served on Japanese delegations to League of Nations meetings and the Lausanne Conference. He later directed the Asian Affairs Bureau, served as minister to Austria, and became vice minister. ^{1, 2}

Tani held senior office in Japan's wartime government. He became head of the Board of Information and, in September 1942, combined that position with the foreign ministry in Hideki Tōjō's cabinet. He subsequently served as ambassador in China from 1943 to 1945. Barred from public office after the war, he returned as a ministry adviser in 1954 and participated in Japan's delegation to the 1955 Asian–African Conference. ^{1, 2}

As ambassador in Washington in 1956, Tani discussed Japan's negotiations with the Soviet Union with Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. Their September meeting covered the return of Japanese prisoners, Soviet support for Japanese membership in the United Nations, fisheries, and territorial questions. Tani also raised Japan's desire for a clearer indication of how long American administration of the Ryukyu Islands would continue. ³