Senior Second Rank Viscount Sone Arasuke
曾禰 荒助
Viscount Sone Arasuke
Born	(1849-02-20)February 20, 1849 Yamaguchi prefecture,Japan
Died	September 13, 1910(1910-09-13) (aged 61)
Nationality	Japanese
Occupation(s)	Politician, Diplomat, Cabinet Minister
Known for	JapaneseResident-General of Korea

ViscountSone Arasuke (曾禰 荒助, February 20, 1849 – September 13, 1910) was aJapanese politician, diplomat, cabinet minister, and second JapaneseResident-General of Korea.

Sone was born inNagato Province inChōshū Domain (present-dayYamaguchi prefecture, his adopted father was asamurai fromHagi. He fought on the imperial side in theBoshin War.

After theMeiji Restoration, Sone was sent toFrance for studies, and on his return to Japan served in theWar Ministry. Later, he served as director of the Cabinet Gazette Bureau, Secretary of the Cabinet Legislation Bureau and other posts, in 1890 he became the first Chief Secretary of theHouse of Representatives of the first session of theDiet of Japan.

Sone was elected to the House of Representatives in the1892 Japanese general election, and served as Vice-Speaker of the House in the same year. In 1893, he became Japanese ambassador to France and negotiated the revision of theunequal treaties between France and Japan.

He served successively in a number of cabinet posts:Minister of Justice in the thirdItō administration,Agriculture and Commerce Minister in the secondYamagata administration,Finance Minister in the firstKatsura administration and other posts.

During theRusso-Japanese War with the help ofTakahashi Korekiyo and others, he secured the foreign loans necessary to finance the expenses of the war.^[1] In 1900,Emperor Meiji nominated him to theHouse of Peers. In 1902, he was made abaron (danshaku) under thekazoku peerage system. He became aPrivy Councillor in 1906, and elevated in status toviscount (shishaku) the following year.

Sone was appointed as Vice Resident-General of the Japanese administration inKorea in 1907, andResident-General of Korea in 1909, replacing Itō Hirobumi. One of his major actions in Korea was to install a peninsula-wide telephone network, linking government offices, police stations and military installations throughout Korea.^[2] Sone was opposed to the Japanese annexation of Korea, but was forced to resign from his post in May 1910 due to illness and died a few months later.^[3]

• Beasley, W.G.Japanese Imperialism 1894-1945. Oxford University Press.ISBN 0-19-822168-1
• Duus, Peter.The Abacus and the Sword: The Japanese Penetration of Korea, 1895-1910 (Twentieth-Century Japan - the Emergence of a World Power. University of California Press (1998).ISBN 0-520-21361-0.
• Keane, Donald.Emperor Of Japan: Meiji And His World, 1852-1912. Columbia University Press (2005).ISBN 0-231-12341-8
• Kowner, Rotem (2006).Historical Dictionary of the Russo-Japanese War. The Scarecrow Press.ISBN 0-8108-4927-5.
• Sims, Richard.French Policy Towards the Bakufu and Meiji Japan 1854-1894. RoutledgeCurzon (1998).ISBN 1-873410-61-1

Wikimedia Commons has media related toSone Arasuke.

• National Diet Library Bio and Photo

• 1849 births
• 1910 deaths
• Members of the House of Peers (Japan)
• Japanese Residents-General of Korea
• Kazoku
• People of the Boshin War
• Japanese people of the Russo-Japanese War
• People of Meiji-era Japan
• People from Chōshū Domain
• Government ministers of Japan
• Ambassadors of Japan to France
• Politicians from Yamaguchi Prefecture
• Ministers for foreign affairs of Japan

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Articles with hCards
• Articles containing Japanese-language text
• Commons category link is on Wikidata