was a Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese politician. He was educated at Chiba

Chiba Prefecture

is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region and the Greater Tokyo Area. Its capital is Chiba City.- History :Chiba Prefecture was established on June 15, 1873 with the merger of Kisarazu Prefecture and Inba Prefecture...

 Middle School and Chiba First High School, and later graduated from Imperial Tokyo University

University of Tokyo

, abbreviated as , is a major research university located in Tokyo, Japan. The University has 10 faculties with a total of around 30,000 students, 2,100 of whom are foreign. Its five campuses are in Hongō, Komaba, Kashiwa, Shirokane and Nakano. It is considered to be the most prestigious university...

's Department of Political Science. In 1906, while serving as a Japanese representative in Korea

Korea

Korea ) is an East Asian geographic region that is currently divided into two separate sovereign states — North Korea and South Korea. Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by the People's Republic of China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the...

, Kiuchi made a bet with Durham Stevens

Durham Stevens

Durham White Stevens was an American diplomat and later an employee of Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs...

, an American advisor to the Korean government, about the length of time before Japan would annex Korea. Kiuchi expected it would only take three years; Stevens' guess of five years would prove to be more nearly correct, as the Japan–Korea Annexation Treaty was signed in mid-1910. In January 1909, Kiuchi was one of a number of politicians who brought pressure to bear against Itō Hirobumi

Ito Hirobumi

Prince was a samurai of Chōshū domain, Japanese statesman, four time Prime Minister of Japan , genrō and Resident-General of Korea. Itō was assassinated by An Jung-geun, a Korean nationalist who was against the annexation of Korea by the Japanese Empire...

 and his allegedly soft policies towards Korea, urging that Japan should exercise direct rule there; it was suggested that Kiuchi took this position due to his dissatisfaction with being shifted from Vice-Minister of Home Affairs to Vice-Minister of Agriculture. He later served as a member of the House of Peers

House of Peers (Japan)

The ' was the upper house of the Imperial Diet as mandated under the Constitution of the Empire of Japan ....

 and then from 1916–1918 as governor of Kyoto Prefecture

Kyoto Prefecture

is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of the island of Honshu. The capital is the city of Kyoto.- History :Until the Meiji Restoration, the area of Kyoto prefecture was known as Yamashiro....

.

Kiuchi's former residence, located in Ichikawa, Chiba

Ichikawa, Chiba

is a city located in northwest Chiba, Japan, approximately 20 kilometers from the center of Tokyo. The city was founded on November 3, 1934. As of January 1, 2011, the city has an estimated population of 474,586 and a density of 8,259.42 persons per km². The total area is 57.46 km²...

, was maintained as a historical building and tourist attraction for some years, but was being considered for dismantling .

Sources