Viscount Suematsu Kenchō (末松 謙澄, 30 September 1855 – 5 October 1920) was a Japanese politician, intellectual and author who lived in the Meiji and Taishō periods.

Suematsu was born in the hamlet of Maeda in Buzen Province, now part of Yukuhashi, Fukuoka Prefecture.

[1] At the age of ten he enrolled in a private school where he pursued studies in Chinese (kangaku 漢学).

[6] From 1904 to 1905 Suematsu was sent by the Japanese cabinet to Europe to counteract anti-Japanese propaganda of the Yellow Peril variety (e.g. Russian or German circles) and argue Japan's case in the Russo-Japanese War, much as Harvard-educated Kaneko Kentarō was doing at the request of Itō Hirobumi at the same time in the United States.

His works include the first English translation of The Tale of Genji (which he wrote while at Cambridge) and several books on aspects of Japanese culture.