Straight to the point

In the Nineties, US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and her colleagues made a parlour game of seeing whether anyone could name — in the correct order — all seven of the Japanese prime ministers with whom the Clinton administration (1993–2001) had dealt. No-one could. Japan’s revolving-door premiership continued through much of the 2000s until Abe Shinzo embarked on a record-breaking stint in the job, from 2012 to 2020. Now Japan may be returning to the old pattern, as Kishida Fumio announces, after less than three years in the job, that he will not seek re-election as his party’s leader.

Why have Japan’s postwar prime ministers found it so hard to cling to power? One of the biggest reasons is Japan’s failure, since the end of the American Occupation (1945–52), to become a true multi-party democracy. The early years of the Occupation helped restore democracy to Japan after years of militarism. New parties formed and women voted for the first time. But a strong showing by Japan’s socialists and communists worried those in the United States who hoped to turn Japan into a profitable trading partner and dependable Cold War ally. Left-wing success concerned Japanese businesses, too, many of which leant their support to new conservative parties such as the Nihon Jiyūtō (Japan Liberal Party) and to the merger of conservatives in 1955 that created today’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).

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But America’s interest in supporting anti-communist forces around the world did more than provide a boost for big business in Japan. It ended up creating space in postwar Japanese politics for wartime figures who might otherwise have lived out their days in quiet retirement (or, in some cases, prison). Government bureaucrats managed to hang on to their jobs because the Occupation authorities regarded them as essential to running postwar Japan: senior figures were required only to take a fitness for office test — dubbed the “Paradise Exam” because unlimited time was provided for its completion, alongside tea and cigarettes. Even the notorious ultranationalist and gangster Kodama Yoshio earned himself a second act. He had worked as a fixer in China and Manchuria during the war, building up a multi-million-dollar fortune by running a network that provided intelligence and raw materials like radium and nickel for clients including the Imperial Japanese Navy. Imprisoned in 1946, he was released two years later when America’s intelligence agencies realised how valuable his skills and contacts might be.

Kodama was a man who liked to plan ahead. Before his arrest, he handed over some of his wealth in diamonds and platinum to a friend in the Japan Liberal Party, thereby purchasing himself a place in postwar conservatism. Then, while in jail, he spent time with Kishi Nobusuke, the highest-ranking bureaucrat in Japanese-occupied Manchuria, and Tanaka Kakuei, an up-and-coming politician who had been caught taking bribes. Both men were future prime ministers of Japan and both would go on to benefit from Kodama’s underworld connections. Once out of prison, Kodama played a role behind the scenes, together with the CIA, in launching the LDP. Kishi joined the party after his own American backers helped to secure his release from prison. He became prime minister in 1957 and welcomed Tanaka into his first Cabinet post that same year. The price of admittance was a backpack stuffed with three-million yen in cash. Three years later, when Kishi found himself facing popular unrest over the renewal of Japan’s controversial security treaty with the United States, Kodama rustled up some violent men to attack and intimidate the crowds of protestors.

The upside of the LDP’s connections with big business, civil servants and allies in the United States was that the party was able to co-ordinate a remarkable return to prosperity for Japan across the Sixties and Seventies. But this in itself caused problems. The LDP came to dominate Japanese politics so thoroughly — it has rarely been out of power from 1955 to the present day — that the most important policy debates tended to take place not between rival political parties with strong grassroots support but between factions within the LDP whose influence was built on pork-barrel politics. Tanaka Kakuei became perhaps the greatest player of this game. There is no denying his achievements in office, not least a bridge-building visit to Mao Zedong in Beijing; the two men shared rustic roots, and bonded over talk of Buddhism, Confucianism and incense. But the Japanese were shocked by revelations that Tanaka was involved in bribe-taking from American aerospace manufacturer Lockheed to persuade All Nippon Airways and Japan’s defence agency to choose its aircraft over those of its rivals. Helping behind the scenes to move cardboard boxes stuffed with Lockheed cash was one Kodama Yoshio.

Tanaka was forced to resign in 1974, but it did not mean the end of his political career. In Japan’s system, the most powerful people often operate from behind the scenes, as Tanaka now did. He continued effectively to run Japan from a lavish mansion in Tokyo, meeting with aspiring new members of his LDP faction and handing out “bullets”: parcels of tightly-packed banknotes worth 100 million yen each, wrapped discreetly in traditional Japanese cloth. His protege Kanemaru Shin worked in much the same way, until he fell from his senior LDP position in 1992 after being implicated in a bribery scandal involving a delivery company and the Inagawa-kai yakuza group. A raid on Kanemaru’s Tokyo apartment uncovered $50 million in cash, bonds and gold bars, hidden away in wardrobes and desk drawers. Kanemaru — nickname: “The Don” — died before justice could be done, but not before sharing a last word with an astonished and aggrieved Japanese public. “My political philosophy,” he declared, “is to have some appreciation for a person who saves a drowning child in a river, even if that person happens to belong to a crime syndicate.”

Japan’s “lost decades” of economic growth, from the Nineties to now, has eroded the dominance of the LDP and tempered the scale of political corruption. But both remain prominent themes, alongside the failure of opposition parties to mount effective and long-lasting challenges to the LDP. The scandal that has helped to cut Kishida Fumio’s premiership short involves 85 LDP lawmakers who have been accused of channelling profits from the sale of tickets to party gatherings into slush funds, to the tune of more than £3 million. Small change, compared with decades past. But a good many disillusioned Japanese long ago turned to local politics and civic activism via non-profits and the courts to get things done instead. A powerful example of this approach has been the attempt to secure marriage rights for same-sex couples. National politicians are divided on the issue, but campaigners have succeeded in persuading local administrations to offer them official status, along with a number of district courts.

LDP leaders have also struggled, in recent years, to tackle a demographic crisis at home — an ageing and declining population — alongside an uncertainty of purpose abroad. Not everyone in Japan approved of Abe Shinzo’s vision of a more robust Japan, making a “proactive contribution to peace” in its region and internationally. But greater defence spending does seem to make sense in light of China’s rise and doubts over America’s commitment to Japan’s security. The problem is how to pay for it while tax receipts dwindle and the cost of living continues to rise. Added to all this is anger among the Japanese public about politicians’ links to the Unification Church, which came to light after the assassination of Shinzo Abe in 2022. Here again, history looms large. Back in the Sixties, Abe’s grandfather, Kishi Nobusuke, cultivated links with the Church’s founder Sun Myung Moon, a strong anti-communist.

It is possible that when the time comes, in September, for the LDP to elect its next leader, Japan may get its first female prime minister. Takaichi Sanae — once the drummer in a heavy metal band and now a hawkish Minister for Economic Security — is one to watch, as is Kamikawa Yōko. Both may struggle, however, to garner the level of behind-the-scenes support that has always been needed to win this contest. If a woman does succeed in taking the top job, then Japanese politics will no doubt enjoy a much-needed boost, both at home and abroad. Meanwhile, the holy grail of Japanese politics, a functioning multi-party system reasonably free from the wheeler-dealing of the past, appears for now to be out of reach.

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