Former Japan Top Bureaucrat Kazuhiro Sugita Dies at 84

Jiji Press

11:47 JST, December 23, 2025

Tokyo, Dec. 22 (Jiji Press)—Kazuhiro Sugita, who was Japan’s longest-serving deputy chief cabinet secretary with a tenure of eight years and nine months, has died, it was learned Monday. He was 84.

Sugita held the top bureaucrat post from the start of the second administration of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in December 2012 to the end of the administration of Abe’s immediate successor, Yoshihide Suga, in October 2021.

A native of Saitama Prefecture, north of Tokyo, Sugita graduated from the Faculty of Law at the University of Tokyo and joined the National Police Agency in 1966. He served as head of the agency’s Security Bureau, Japan’s first cabinet intelligence director and deputy chief cabinet secretary for crisis management.

During his record 3,205-day tenure as deputy chief cabinet secretary, he also served from August 2017 as chief of the Cabinet Bureau of Personnel Affairs, which manages appointments for senior posts in government ministries and agencies.

As NPA security bureau head, he led the agency’s response to the Aum Shinrikyo doomsday cult’s 1995 sarin nerve gas attack on the Tokyo subway system. He was deputy chief cabinet secretary for crisis management at the time of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States.

Well-versed in crisis management and intelligence issues, Sugita was nicknamed the guardian of the prime minister’s office during his tenure as the top bureaucrat. His unique information network gave him power over the bureaucratic apparatus, and his calm demeanor won him the trust of Abe and Suga.

He was behind government moves on the 2019 abdication of former Emperor Akihito, who now holds the title of Emperor Emeritus, and the subsequent ascension of Emperor Naruhito, as well as preparations for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games, held in 2021 amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sugita was awarded the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun in 2022.