Polyglot IFS Sujan Chinoy delivers speech in Japanese at Abe’s luncheon

WHEN Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe hosted a luncheon at his official residence in Tokyo only for the Japanese-speaking ambassadors, India’s envoy in Japan and 1981 batch Indian Foreign Service officer Sujan Chinoy found his place, and quite rightly. The officer, originally belonging to Kathiawar region of Gujarat, also delivered a speech in Japanese highlighting his impression of Japan and India-Japan bilateral ties. Chinoy is a polyglot, with command over languages such as French, Spanish, German, Japanese, Chinese, Arabic, in addition to…

English, Hindi, Gujarati and Urdu. On Monday, Chinoy tweeted the following: “Honoured to attend Luncheon hosted by PM @AbeShinzo at his official residence #Kantei for Japanese-speaking Ambassadors in Tokyo. And, a great privilege for me to deliver a speech in Japanese highlighting #IndiaJapan close ties and my impressions of Japan.”

Chinoy took charge as Ambassador of India to Japan two years ago after completing a three-year-long tenure as the Ambassador of India to Mexico. According to information available in the official website of India’s embassy in Japan, Chinoy did his schooling from Rajkumar College, Rajkot, and then graduation in English literature from the Maharaja Sayajirao University in Baroda and MBA from the Gujarat University, Ahmedabad. In 1978, he spent some time at the Otemon Gakuin University in Osaka, Japan, as an exchange student, a period that helped him picking up the Japanese language. Subsequently, he obtained his diploma in Chinese from the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Chinoy specialises on East Asia and Asia Pacific region, particularly the issues concerning national security. Earlier, he had served in China for 10 years.