Katsunobu Katō

Katsunobu Katō
加藤 勝信
Official portrait, 2020
Minister of Health, Labour and Welfare
In office 10 August 2022 – 13 September 2023
Prime Minister	Fumio Kishida
Preceded by	Shigeyuki Goto
Succeeded by	Keizō Takemi
In office 11 September 2019 – 16 September 2020
Prime Minister	Shinzō Abe
Preceded by	Takumi Nemoto
Succeeded by	Norihisa Tamura
In office 3 August 2017 – 2 October 2018
Prime Minister	Shinzō Abe
Preceded by	Yasuhisa Shiozaki
Succeeded by	Takumi Nemoto
Chief Cabinet Secretary
In office 16 September 2020 – 4 October 2021
Prime Minister	Yoshihide Suga
Preceded by	Yoshihide Suga
Succeeded by	Hirokazu Matsuno
Minister of State for Measures for Declining Birthrate
In office 7 October 2015 – 3 August 2017
Prime Minister	Shinzō Abe
Preceded by	Haruko Arimura
Succeeded by	Masaji Matsuyama
Member of the House of Representatives for Okayama's 5th district
Incumbent
Assumed office 10 November 2003
Preceded by	Yoshitaka Murata
Personal details
Born	(1955-11-22) 22 November 1955 Tokyo, Japan
Political party	Liberal Democratic Party
Spouse	Shuko Kato
Children	4 daughters
Relatives	Katsuzo Murosaki (grandfather) Mutsuki Kato (father-in-law) Takenori Kato (uncle-in-law) Koko Kato (sister-in-law)
Alma mater	University of Tokyo (BEc)
Occupation	Politician

Katsunobu Kato (加藤 勝信, Katō Katsunobu, born 22 November 1955) is a Japanese politician, who previously served as the Minister of Health, Labor, and Welfare at three times from 2017 to 2018 and from 2019 to 2020 under Shinzo Abe's cabinet, and again from 2022 to 2023 under Fumio Kishida's first reshuffled cabinet in both Heisei and Reiwa periods. He also served as the Chief Cabinet Secretary from 2020 to 2021 under Yoshihide Suga's cabinet. Belonging to the Liberal Democratic Party, he has been a member of the House of Representatives since 2003.

Born and raised in Tokyo and a graduate of the University of Tokyo, Kato had a bureaucratic career in the Ministry of Finance before going into politics.

Early life, family, and career

Born as Katsunobu Murosaki (室崎勝信) on 22 November 1955 in Tokyo, Japan, his father, Mutsuki Kato, was an executive at Hino Motors. His family came from Shimane Prefecture and his grandfather, Katsuzo Murosaki was a businessman and prefectural assemblyman. He studied economics at the University of Tokyo and joined the Ministry of Finance after graduating in 1979. He held various posts until being assigned as secretary to the Minister of Agriculture Mutsuki Kato in April 1994.

Eventually, Kato married Shuko Kato, the daughter of Mutsuki Kato (1926–2006). As his family had only four daughters, Kato was adopted by his father-in-law, Mutsuki Kato, to carry on his family name. He retired from the Ministry of Finance in 1995 and became his father-in-law's personal secretary.

Political career

Then-Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida (left), Katsunobu Kato (center), and Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroshige Sekō (right) at Japanese Prime Minister's Official Residence in Tokyo (15 April 2013).

Third Abe Cabinet, First Reshuffle (7 October 2015).

Kato would pursue his political career in Okayama Prefecture, where his adoptive family was based. After unsuccessful runs in 1998 and 2000, Kato was elected to the House of Representatives for the first time in 2003 general election. He had initially run as an independent as his father-in-law had left the LDP. However, fellow Okayama politician and former Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto recruited him for the party and when elected, Kato joined the Heisei Kenkyukai led by Hashimoto. This was significant as Hashimoto and Mutsuki Kato had long been rivals in the political world of Okayama.

Kato became a confidant of Shinzo Abe. This was partially due to a family relationship. Mutsuki Kato had been a close ally of former Japanese foreign minister Shintaro Abe and his wife had remained a close friend of Shinzo's mother, Yoko, and as well as Shinzo's maternal grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi, who served as the Prime Minister from 1957 until his resignation in 1960. Kato also had close ties to Mikio Aoki, who knew Kato's grandfather from his days in the Shimane Prefectural Assembly.

In August 2007, Kato became parliamentary vice-minister to the Cabinet Office in the Abe Cabinet. He was retained until the end of Yasuo Fukuda's Cabinet.

When Abe was re-elected as president of the LDP in September 2012, he appointed Kato as his special assistant. In December of the same year, LDP has returned to government and Kato was appointed Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary. In October 2015, Kato joined the cabinet for the first time as minister of state with a portfolio including countermeasures against the declining birthrate and women's empowerment.

At the first time on 3 August 2017 when Shinzo Abe reshuffled his cabinet, Kato became as the Minister of Health, Labor, and Welfare, who led the government to take a measures to prevent the demographic and aging crisis in Japan. But he was resigned on 2 October 2018 due to appointed as the Chairman of the General Council, one of four key posts in the LDP.

At the second time, in the beginning of Reiwa period, on 11 September 2019, Kato reappointed as the Minister of Health, Labor, and Welfare. In early 2020, he joined Abe's cabinet to oversaw the government's widely response to COVID-19 pandemic. However, on 7 April of the same year, Japanese government decleared the first state of emergency to prevent the spread of virus, which extended for closing schools and businesses, and as well as stay-at-home orders until 29 May. After Abe resigned as Prime Minister on 16 September 2020 due to his health reasons, Kato appointed as the Chief Cabinet Secretary under his successor Yoshihide Suga, who served as the 99th Prime Minister of Japan for 12 months. On 4 October 2021, just one month after the end of Suga's cabinet and with the fourth and final COVID-19 state of emergency as the country gears towards to the first endemic phase, Kato became as the chairman of the Social Security Research Commission and subcommittee chairman of the Tax Research Commission within the LDP.

At the third time, on 10 August 2022 when Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida reshuffled his first cabinet following the assassination of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at one month previous, Kato appointed as Minister of Health, Labor, and Welfare. During the 18-month-period of Omicron time, Kato joined Kishida's cabinet, where the government continued to comply with wearing face masks and social and physical distancing to prevent the spread of highly transmissible COVID-19 Omicron variant and its subsequent subvariants, which claimed the lives of 56,500 Japanese people, a lowest mortality toll in the country, than compared to any wealthy countries. Kato also urged Japanese people, who have yet to get fully or triple vaccinated to do so.

In January 2023, Japanese Health Minister Kato joined to meet with Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and his cabinet, Tokyo governor Yuriko Koike, Osaka governor Hirofumi Yoshimura, and among others to considered downgrading COVID-19 to the Category 5, the same category as a seasonal flu, followed by tuberculosis and SARS, of five-tier system under the infectious disease prevention law. However, Japanese government plans to reclassify COVID-19 by four months later during the "Omicron endgame", following the discussions by Japanese Health Ministry's subcommittee on infectious diseases, notifications of the change to medical institutions and local authorities, and a preparation period. With the reclassification, Japanese government will also consider revising its recommendation on wearing face masks indoors. If COVID-19 is downgraded to Category 5, it will no longer be covered by the law, meaning the central or prefectural governments will be unable to take such measures. On 27 April of the same year, Japanese Health Minister Kato announced that Japanese government would be downgrade the classification of COVID-19 to be on par with "seasonal flu" by midnight 8 May during the 8-day holiday period of Golden Week Festival after the three days delayed (as the World Health Organization ends the first three-year-period of global COVID-19 emergency). Regarding COVID-19 measures, Kato said in a press conference that the highly transmissible Omicron variant and its subsequent subvariants were cause of less severe disease and deaths (during the first 18-month-period) than any previous strains, which indicate there is no need to worry about an increase of public health risks. As of result, daily announcements of COVID-19 Omicron cases will be officially ended so far, and then the country will towards to the second endemic phase for the first time since October 2021. Although the public health reports will be simplified to weekly announcements based on information from designated medical institutions.

Kato left from Kishida's cabinet in the next second reshuffled cabinet in September 2023, after which Kato once again became chairman of the Social Security Research Commission, and as well as Secretary-General of the LDP Headquarters for Realizing Constitutional Revision.

Katō is affiliated with the conservative organization Nippon Kaigi.

Honours

• Netherlands: Grand Officer of the Order of Orange-Nassau (29 October 2014)

References

• 政治家情報 〜加藤 勝信〜. JANJAN (in Japanese). Retrieved 2007-10-20.

External links

• Official website (in Japanese)