Minami served as a member of the Supreme War Council from 1931 to 1934. He then received a posting as Commander of the Kwangtung Army from 1934 to 1936, during which time he was concurrently Japanese ambassador to Manchukuo.
Minami was placed on the reserve list in 1936, after the February 26 Incident, and forced into retirement from active service.
However, in 1936, Minami was appointed 8th Governor-General of Korea between 1936 and 1942.[4] His tenure in Korea was marked by a more hard-line approach than his predecessors, with a rolling back of various liberal reforms of the 1920s. In addition, Minami outlawed all but one of the Korean language newspapers, and strongly pushed for the soshi-kamei policy.