People · Japanese diplomat, Municipal Council vice-chairman
Okamoto Issaku
冈本一策Gāngběn Yīcè · b. 1889
Japanese diplomat who was vice-chairman of the Shanghai Municipal Council from April 1941 and led the Municipal Research Society until December.
Okamoto Issaku (冈本一策, Gāngběn Yīcè) was a career Japanese diplomat who held a seat in the International Settlement’s governing Council for most of 1941. The gazetteer records that he entered the Foreign Ministry in 1910 and served in China, the United States, Britain, Manchuria and Singapore before leaving the ministry in 1940.
He settled in the French Concession, and in April 1941 was elected to the Shanghai Municipal Council’s provisional board, serving as its vice-chairman. In June he took part in founding the Shanghai Municipal Research Society, which he led, and which studied the city’s politics, economy and culture.
His time in the Council was short. When the Pacific War began in December 1941, he was ordered to give up the vice-chairmanship, the Council seat and the Society’s presidency, and went back to the Foreign Ministry with a posting to Hamburg. His successor at the Society was Okazaki Katsuo (冈崎胜男). The gazetteer gives no death date.
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Okazaki Katsuo冈崎胜男Succeeded as president of the Shanghai Municipal Research Society