Yoshihiko Noda

Noda was born in Funabashi on 20 May 1957, the son of a paratrooper in the Japan Self-Defense Forces.

Unlike many prominent Japanese politicians, Noda has no family connections to Nagatachō.

His parents were too poor to pay for a wedding reception.

Noda graduated from Chiba Prefectural Funabashi Senior High School in 1975.

He graduated from Waseda University with the B.A. degree in Political Science in 1980 and was later accepted into the prestigious Matsushita Institute.

This institution was founded by Kōnosuke Matsushita (the founder of Panasonic) to groom future civic leaders of Japan.

While attending the Matsushita Institute, Noda read household gas meters as a part-time job in his native Chiba Prefecture, partially in order to get to know his future constituents better in preparation for a run for office.

He was first elected to the assembly of Chiba Prefecture in 1987 at the age of 29.

In 1993, he was elected to the Diet for first time representing Chiba's Lower House District 4th as a member of the now-defunct Japan New Party.

He later joined the DPJ and served as its Diet affairs chief as well as head of the party's public relations office.

In October 2005, Noda criticized Prime Minister Jun'ichirō Koizumi for his position on Japanese class A war criminals as "war criminals".

However, Noda supported Koizumi's visit to Yasukuni Shrine.

Noda acted as senior vice finance minister during the premiership of Yukio Hatoyama after the DPJ won control of the Diet in 2009 general election, and was appointed as Minister of Finance by Prime Minister Naoto Kan in June 2010.

He was known as a reformist and had led a DPJ intraparty group critical of ex-DPJ powerbroker Ichirō Ozawa.

Upon assuming the post of finance minister, Noda, a fiscal conservative, expressed his determination to slash Japan's deficit and rein in gross public debt.

Yoshihiko Noda (野田 佳彦) is a Japanese politician who served as Prime Minister of Japan and Leader of the Democratic Party of Japan from 2011 to 2012.

He is a member of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, and a member of the House of Representatives (lower house) in the Diet (national legislature).

He was named to succeed Naoto Kan as a result of a runoff vote against Banri Kaieda in his party, and was formally appointed by the Emperor Akihito on 2 September 2011.

In January 2011, for the first time in six years, the finance ministry intervened in the foreign exchange market and spent 2.13 trillion yen to purchase dollars in order to rein in the yen's spiraling appreciation.

After Naoto Kan's resignation in August 2011, Noda stood as a candidate in the party election to replace him.

He won a runoff vote against Banri Kaieda in the leadership election, making him the presumptive prime minister.

He inherited the challenge of rebuilding from the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami.

During the party caucus making the leadership decision, Noda made a 15-minute speech in which he summarized his political career by comparing himself to dojo loach, a kind of bottom-feeding fish.

Paraphrasing a poem by Mitsuo Aida, he said, "I'll never be a goldfish in a scarlet robe, but like a loach in muddy waters. I'll work hard for the people, to move politics forward."

The "loach speech" was popular among his colleagues and cemented his political reputation at the start of his term.

Noda told his foreign policy and was said to have close relations with the United States, and stressed the importance of the US-Japan security alliance in August 2011 speech.

On 15 August 2011 —the anniversary of the Surrender of Japan in World War II, he said that Japan's class A war criminals convicted by the Allies were not legally war criminals under his view.

As prime minister of Japan, he stated that his position on this issue would follow the standard set by previous administrations, and that he did not wish to alter close relationship with China and South Korea.

In his first speech as Prime Minister on 2 September 2011, Noda confirmed that the Japanese government would continue to phase out nuclear power, by not building new nuclear power plants nor extending the life spans of outdated ones.

During premiership of Noda, one of his most important initiatives was pursuing the entry of Japan into the negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which he announced on 11 November 2011.

This proved controversial and was widely discussed in Japanese society.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government under Governor Shintaro Ishihara sought to buy the Senkaku Islands, which are claimed by China and Taiwan.

Ishihara wished to build facilities on the islands to more obviously claim them as Japanese territory, a move which the national government under Noda regarded as likely to exacerbate tensions with China.

Following a severe loss for the DPJ in the December 2012 general election, Noda conceded defeat and announced his resignation as party leader, triggering a leadership election that was won by Kaieda.

Noda was succeeded by Shinzo Abe, President of the Liberal Democratic Party as Prime Minister on 26 December 2012.

In May 2012, nuclear power plants which were sitting idle in the wake of the Fukushima accident were restarted in order to help Japan's immediate demands for energy, despite protests including hundreds of people.

On 27 April 2012 the Tokyo government began raising funds from the public to purchase the islands.

and by September 2012 1.4 billion yen ($17.8 million) had been raised.

On 24 August, Noda went on live television and vowed to appeal to the international community to support Japan's claims to sovereignty over islands at the center of separate disputes with South Korea and China.

On 11 September, the Japanese government nationalized its control over Minami-kojima, Kita-kojima, and Uotsuri islands by purchasing them from the Kurihara family for ¥2.05 billion.