Nobusuke Kishi
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Nobusuke Kishi (岸 信介 Kishi Nobusuke, November 13, 1896–August 7, 1987) was a Japanese politician and the 56th and 57th Prime Minister of Japan from February 25, 1957 to June 12, 1958 and from then to July 19, 1960.
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[edit] Early life
Kishi was born Nobusuke Satō in Tabuse, Yamaguchi, Yamaguchi Prefecture, but left his family at a young age to move in with the more affluent Kishi family, adopting their family name. His biological younger brother, Eisaku Satō, would also go on to become a prime minister.
[edit] Political career
He attended Tokyo Imperial University (now the University of Tokyo) and entered the Ministry of Commerce and Industry in 1920. In 1935, he became one of the top officials involved in the industrial development of Manchukuo. Prime Minister Hideki Tojo, himself a veteran of the Manchurian campaign, appointed Kishi Minister of Commerce and Industry in 1941, and he held this position until Japan's surrender in 1945.
Until 1948, Kishi was imprisoned as a Class A war criminal. Unlike Tojo (and several other cabinet members), Kishi was never tried by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. For historian John W. Dower, "Even Japanese activists who endorse the ideals of the Nuremberg and Tokyo charters, and who have labored to document and publicize the atrocities of the shōwa regime, cannot defend the American decision to exonerate the emperor of war responsibility and then, in the chill of the Cold war, release and soon afterwards openly embrace accused right-winged war criminals like the later prime minister Nobusuke Kishi". [1]
Kishi however stayed legally prohibited from entering public affairs because of the Allied occupation's purge of members of the old regime. When the purge was fully rescinded in 1952, Kishi decided to go into politics, and joined the new Japan Democratic Party. In 1955, the Democratic Party and Liberal Party merged to elect Ichirō Hatoyama as the head of the new Liberal Democratic Party. Two prime ministers later, in 1957, Kishi was voted in following the resignation of the ailing Ishibashi Tanzan.
In the first year of Kishi's term, Japan joined the United Nations Security Council, paid reparations to Indonesia, set up a new commercial treaty with Australia, and signed peace treaties with Czechoslovakia and Poland. In 1959, he visited Buenos Aires, Argentina. Kishi's next foreign policy initiative was much more difficult: reworking Japan's security relationship with the United States.
That November, Kishi laid down his proposals for a revamped extension of the Anpo, the US-Japan Mutual Security Treaty. After closing the discussion and vote without the opposition group in the Diet, demonstrators clashed with police in Nagatachō, at the steps of the National Diet Building. 500 people were injured in the first month of demonstrations. Despite their magnitude, Kishi did not think much of the demonstrations, referring to them as "distasteful" and "insignificant." [2] Once the protests died down, Kishi went to Washington, and in January 1960 returned to Japan with a new and unpopular Treaty of Mutual Cooperation. Demonstrations, strikes and clashes continued as the government pressed for ratification of the treaty. In June, on his way to the airport, White House Press Secretary James Hagerty was besieged in his car by protestors and had to be evacuated by military helicopter. To his embarrassment, Kishi had to request that President Dwight Eisenhower postpone his planned state visit, which never took place.
On July 15, 1960, amidst growing public furor over the treaty, Kishi resigned and Ikeda Hayato became prime minister.
On December 14, 2006, Manmohan Singh, the Prime Minister of India, made a speech in the Japanese diet. He stated "It was Prime Minister Kishi who was instrumental in India being the first recipient of Japan's ODA. Today India is the largest recipient of Japanese ODA and we are extremely grateful to the government and people of Japan for this valuable assistance."[3]
[edit] Kishi and the LDP
Kishi is credited as being a key player in the initiation of the "1955 System," the extended period during which a single political party (the LDP) remained dominant. Kishi's role in the late 1950s was one of consolidating the conservative camp against perceived threats by the Japan Socialist Party. His actions have been described as originating the most successful money-laundering operation in the history of Japanese politics. [4]
[edit] Awards
In 1979, Kishi was awarded The United Nations Peace Medal with Ryoichi Sasakawa.
[edit] Descendants
Shintaro Abe is Kishi's son-in-law, and his child Shinzo Abe, the former prime minister, is Kishi's grandson.
[edit] References
- ^ Dower, Embracing Defeat, 1999 p.562
- ^ Bonus to be wisely spent, Time, January 25, 1960.
- ^ Embassy of india in Japan; Prime Minister's speech to the Japanese diet on December 14, 2006 (Doc file)
- ^ Kishi and Corruption: An Anatomy of the 1955 System, Japan Policy Research Institute Working Paper No. 83, December 2001.
| Preceded by Mamoru Shigemitsu |
Minister for Foreign Affairs of Japan 1956–1957 |
Succeeded by Aiichiro Fujiyama |
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