His family owned a sake brewing business and both his father and grandfather had served as the mayor of Yoshino.

[1] His great uncle was Juitsu Kitaoka, economist and former official of the Ministry of Labor.

In 2004, he was appointed as Japan's ambassador and deputy permanent representative to the United Nations, a position he held until 2006 when he returned to academia.

[7] From 2009-2010, he chaired a Ministry of Foreign Affairs committee on the so-called Secret Agreements between the U.S. and Japan on the introduction of nuclear weapons into Japanese territory.

Kitaoka was the Deputy Chairman of the Advisory Panel on Reconstruction of the Legal Basis for Security, an advisory panel to Prime Minister Abe on the possibility of re-interpreting constitutional provisions to allow for collective self-defense.