Politics and Power in 20th-Century Japan: The Reminiscences of Miyazawa Kiichi 9781472526632, 9781474219228, 9781472529596

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Politics and Power in 20th-Century Japan

SOAS Studies in Modern and Contemporary Japan Series Editor: Christopher Gerteis, SOAS, University of London (UK) Series Editorial Board: Steve Dodd, SOAS, University of London (UK) Andrew Gerstle, SOAS, University of London (UK) Janet Hunter, London School of Economics and Political Science (UK) Helen Macnaughtan, SOAS, University of London (UK) Timon Screech, SOAS, University of London (UK) Naoko Shimazu, Birkbeck, University of London (UK) Published in association with the Japan Research Centre at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, UK. SOAS Studies in Modern and Contemporary Japan features scholarly books on modern and contemporary Japan, showcasing new research monographs as well as translations of scholarship not previously available in English. Its goal is to ensure that current, high quality research on Japan, its history, politics and culture, is made available to an English-­speaking audience. The series is made possible in part by generous grants from the Nippon Foundation and the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation. Published: Women and Democracy in Cold War Japan, Jan Bardsley Christianity and Imperialism in Modern Japan, Emily Anderson The China Problem in Postwar Japan, Robert Hoppens Media, Propaganda and Politics in 20th Century Japan, The Asahi Shimbun Company (translated by Barak Kushner) Contemporary Sino-Japanese Relations on Screen, Griseldis Kirsch Debating Otaku in Contemporary Japan, edited by Patrick W. Galbraith, Thiam Huat Kam and Björn-Ole Kamm Forthcoming: Japan’s Postwar Military and Civil Society, Tomoyuki Sasaki Japanese Taiwan, edited by Andrew Morris

Politics and Power in 20th-Century Japan The Reminiscences of Miyazawa Kiichi Edited by Mikuriya Takashi and Nakamura Takafusa Translation edited by Timothy S. George

Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

LON DON • OX F O R D • N E W YO R K • N E W D E L H I • SY DN EY

Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

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www.bloomsbury.com BLOOMSBURY and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc KIKIGAKI, MIYAZAWA KIICHI KAIKOROKU edited by Takashi Mikuriya and Takafusa Nakamura © 2005 by Kiichi Miyazawa, Takashi Mikuriya and Takafusa Nakamura First published 2005 by Iwanami Shoten, Publishers, Tokyo This English edition published 2015 by Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, London by arrangement with the proprietor c/o Iwanami Shoten, Publishers, Tokyo Paperback edition first published 2016 English translation © Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2015 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the authors. British Library Cataloguing-­in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN:

HB: PB: ePDF: ePub:

978-1-4725-2663-2 978-1-350-02256-0 978-1-4725-2959-6 978-1-4725-3321-0

Library of Congress Cataloging-­in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. Series: SOAS Studies in Modern and Contemporary Japan Typeset by RefineCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk

Contents About the Editors Translation Editor’s Introduction Timothy S. George Preface Nakamura Takafusa

ix xi xiv

1

Early Life Elementary schooldays Entry into Musashi Higher School Enjoying Noh and mountain climbing Attending the Japan-America Student Conference Time at Tokyo Imperial University Entry into the Ministry of Finance Notes

1 1 4 11 13 17 19 25

2

Experiences Before and During World War II: The Japan-America Student Conference and the Heading of Tax Offices Visiting America as a student, and the state of US-Japan relations Immediately before the outbreak of war Inspecting occupied territories during wartime as an administrator in the Ministry of Finance Experiences in the Numazu tax office Posted to Shiba tax office Returning to ministry headquarters Notes

3

The Ministry of Finance after Japan’s Defeat in World War II The immediate aftermath of defeat Shibusawa Keizō as Finance Minister The issuing of the new yen, and settling of wartime indemnities Working for the Tax Bureau and the Central Liaison Office Impressions of Kurusu Takeo and Kitamura Tokutarō Izumiyama Sanroku Becoming Secretary to the Minister of Finance Joseph Dodge arrives in Japan Notes

28 28 33 35 39 43 45 49 51 51 55 57 59 65 66 68 72 73

vi

Contents

4

Negotiations with GHQ: The Dodge Line and the Shoup Tax System The Dodge Line Carl S. Shoup arrives in Japan Finance Minister Ikeda Hayato’s objectives in America The Finance Minister’s entourage Notes

5

Attending the San Francisco Peace Conference Understanding “Occupation,” and the need for a security treaty General MacArthur and the peace process The outbreak of the Korean War, and John Foster Dulles From General MacArthur’s reassignment to the signing of the treaty Fifty years on, reflecting on the peace treaty People involved in the peace conference Notes

100 100 103 104

The Beginnings of the Kōchikai, and the Anpo Protests Domestic discussions about rearmament The Ikeda–Robertson talks From Yoshida to Hatoyama Relations between Ishibashi Tanzan, Ikeda Hayato, and Kishi Nobusuke The Kōchikai faction The Anpo protests: from Kishi to Ikeda Itō Masaya Relations between Yoshida, Ikeda, and Satō Eisaku Maeo Shigesaburō Notes

118 118 123 124

Ikeda’s Visit to America and His Meeting with President Kennedy Ikeda’s visit to America Head of the Upper House Steering Committee Ikeda’s third term and subsequent retirement Becoming Director of the Economic Planning Agency in the second Ikeda Cabinet The Comprehensive National Development Plan The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade Notes

142 142 147 150

6

7

75 75 82 90 95 98

107 111 113 116

125 130 133 137 137 139 141

154 156 158 163

Contents

vii

8

The Japan-US Textile Negotiations Appointment as Minister of International Trade and Industry Japan-US textile negotiations prior to ministerial appointment Visiting America for talks with Maurice Stans Self-­regulation by Japan Reaching an agreement between the two governments The key players Qiao Guanhua Andrei Gromyko Notes

165 165 167 168 173 175 176 182 185 187

9

From the Plaza Accord to the Collapse of the Bubble Economy The Plaza Accord The first talks between Miyazawa and James Baker Black Monday As Prime Minister, dealing with the collapse of the bubble economy Dealing with the jūsen problem: public investment in the banks Victim of a violent attack

188 188 189 191 194 196 198

10 Miyazawa as Prime Minister Peacekeeping operations The human cost of peacekeeping operations The Miyazawa Cabinet, Kanemaru Shin, and Gotōda Masaharu The Emperor’s visit to China President Bush, Senior President Clinton President Yeltsin Notes

201 201 205 208 212 212 216 217 220

11 Considering Twenty-First-Century Japan Koizumi’s politics Thoughts on Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution Cambodia and Iraq Turning points in postwar Japan Views on postwar democracy The qualities of a politician Challenges for Japan’s international relations Japan’s aims for the twenty-first century

223 223 225 226 228 229 230 231 236

viii

Contents

Epilogue: On Completion of the Interviews Mikuriya Takashi

239

Appendix: Chronology of Miyazawa Kiichi’s Life and Related Events Index

241 250

About the Editors Mikuriya Takashi was born in Tokyo in 1951. He graduated from the Faculty of Law, Tokyo University. He went on to be a Visiting Scholar at Harvard University and a professor at Tokyo Metropolitan University, Japan’s National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, and at the Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology, Tokyo University. He is currently a professor at the Open University of Japan. His publications include Seisaku no sōgō to kenryoku [Policy Synthesis and Power] (University of Tokyo Press), Baba Tsunego no menmoku [The Reputation of Baba Tsunego] (Chūō Kōron Shinsha), Nihon no kindai 3: Meiji kokka no kansei [Modern Japan 3: The Completion of the Meiji State] (Chūō Kōron Shinsha), Ōraru hisutorī [Oral History] (Chūkō Shinsha), and “Hoshu” no owari [The End of “Conservatism”] (Mainichi Shinbunsha). Nakamura Takafusa (1925–2013) graduated from the Faculty of Economics, Tokyo University. He was a professor at Tokyo University, Ochanomizu University, and Toyo Eiwa University, and a Professor Emeritus of Tokyo University. His publications include Gendai no Nihon keizai [The Modern Japanese Economy] (University of Tokyo Press), Nihon keizai: sono seichō to kōzō [The Structure and Development of the Japanese Economy] (University of Tokyo Press), Senzenki Nihon keizai seichō no bunseki [An Analysis of Economic Growth in Prewar Japan] (Iwanami Shoten), Shōwa keizaishi [The Economic History of the Shōwa Period] (Iwanami Shoten), Shōwa kyōkō to keizai seisaku [Economic Policy and the Shōwa Depression] (Kōdansha Gakujutsu Bunko), and Shōwa-Shi I, II [Shōwa History I, II] (Tōyō Keizai Shinpōsha). A number of his works have been published in English, including The Postwar Japanese Economy: Its Development and Structure (University of Tokyo Press), Lectures on Modern Japanese Economic History, 1926–1994 (LTCB International Library Foundation), and A History of Shōwa Japan, 1926–1989 (University of Tokyo Press). Timothy S. George was born in Minnesota in 1955. He has degrees from Stanford University, the University of Hawai’i, and Harvard University, and is Professor and Chair of History at the University of Rhode Island.

x

About the Editors

His publications include Minamata: Pollution and the Struggle for Democracy in Postwar Japan (Harvard University Asia Center), Japanese History and Culture from Ancient to Modern Times: Seven Basic Bibliographies (second edition, with John W. Dower), and Japan since 1945: From Postwar to Post-Bubble (edited with Christopher Gerteis). He is the editor and co-­translator of Harada Masazumi, Minamata Disease, and co-­editor and co-­translator of Saitō Hisashi, Niigata Minamata Disease.

Translation Editor’s Introduction Timothy S. George

The importance of Miyazawa Miyazawa Kiichi (1919–2007) played several important roles in Japan’s government and politics for six eventful and transformative decades. He was not only present at the making of Japan’s history over these years; he was directly involved in making it. The son and grandson of politicians, he received an elite education, graduated from Tokyo Imperial University, and joined the Finance Ministry in 1942. He remained active in government and politics until 2003, when he resigned from the Diet (parliament), to which he had first been elected in 1953. A fluent English speaker, for decades he was a key player in economic and financial policy and United States–Japan relations. Miyazawa served as Prime Minister from 1991 to 1993, and also as Minister of Finance, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Minister of International Trade and Industry, Director General of the Economic Planning Agency, and Chief Cabinet Secretary, and was a leading figure in the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which dominated Japanese politics. There is one other book in English in which Miyazawa tells a part of his story, Robert D. Eldridge’s translation of Secret Talks Between Tokyo and Washington: The Memoirs of Miyazawa Kiichi, 1949–1954 (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2007; first published in Japanese as Tokyo-Washinton no mitsudan). When the Japanese original was published in 1956, Yoshida Shigeru, the mentor of Miyazawa’s mentor Ikeda Hayato, had recently been forced out of the premiership by the new Prime Minister Hatoyama Ichirō and his followers. Miyazawa might have feared that his wing of the LDP would not return to power, and that he might never again be involved in policymaking. Within a few years, though, he was back, and he remained at the center of politics and government into the twenty-first century. In this book he discusses with candor and in detail a wide range of topics, including his memories of the 1923 Great Kantō Earthquake, his 1939 visit to the United States, the firebombing of Tokyo, recovery policies during the postwar Occupation, the San Francisco Peace Treaty, and Japan’s role in international organizations such as the GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) and

xii

Translation Editor’s Introduction

the OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development). This is a thoughtful insider’s view of six decades of Japanese politics, closing with his thoughts on Japan’s role in the twenty-­first century. This book is best described as an oral history autobiography. Mikuriya Takashi and Nakamura Takafusa, both well-­known historians of modern Japan, met with Miyazawa to record his reminiscences in 11 two-­hour sessions between 2001 and 2004. Miyazawa sheds light on the thinking of the men (and they were virtually all men) who governed Japan in wartime in the 1940s, occupation and recovery in the 1950s, high growth from the mid-1950s to the early 1970s, the oil shocks of the 1970s, the bubble era of the 1980s, and the bursting of the bubble and the uncertainties that followed in the 1990s and early twenty-­first century. There are, unsurprisingly, some important topics scholars might wish Miyazawa could have been pushed to discuss. These include his resignation as Finance Minister in 1988 in the wake of the Recruit scandal, in which shares in a subsidiary of the Recruit human resources company were provided to many politicians before the new company went public. Another is the Sagawa Kyūbin scandal, in which a package delivery company gave illegal contributions to scores of politicians, and which contributed to the splintering of the LDP, to a no-­confidence motion that ended Miyazawa’s premiership, and to the temporary removal from power of the LDP. A third is the 1993 Kōno Statement issued by Miyazawa’s Cabinet through Chief Cabinet Secretary Kōno Yōhei, an official admission of government involvement in the sexual slavery of “comfort women” forced to work in World War II in brothels run by the military. What Miyazawa does have to say is fascinating, in particular, his descriptions of top leaders of Japan and of other countries. Miyazawa’s mentor was Ikeda Hayato, the bureaucrat and politician responsible as prime minister for the famous “income doubling policy” announced in 1960, and Miyazawa later took over the LDP faction previously headed by Ikeda. Miyazawa attended the San Francisco Peace Conference that formally ended Japan’s war and its postwar occupation, and also took part in a long succession of other international conferences, negotiations, and summit meetings. He gives his impressions of talks with US presidents from Kennedy to Clinton, and with other world leaders including Andrei Gromyko and Boris Yeltsin. In the final chapter he discusses his hopes for Japan in the twenty-first century.

A note on this translation This translation began with the 2011 Translation Workshop in Japanese Studies at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS),

Translation Editor’s Introduction

xiii

organized by Christopher Gerteis of SOAS and funded by the Nippon Foundation. The translations were done by seven young scholars selected for the workshop and directed by Timothy George of the University of Rhode Island. Preliminary translations were completed before the workshop, discussed at the meetings in London, and then revised by the translators and edited further by Timothy George. Footnotes have been added by translators, and endnotes are notes from the original text.

A note on conventions Japanese names are given family name first, according to Japanese convention. Macrons are used to indicate long vowels, except in the case of Tokyo and Osaka.

Preface Translated by Jo Lumley

It is over twenty years since I was seconded from my position as a university professor to work as head of the Economic Planning Agency’s Economic Research Institute between 1977 and 1979. While I had already had many dealings with government before that, it was an extremely valuable experience to see the decision-­making and communication processes from the inside. I was the Institute’s head for two full years, during which I worked under three directors (ministers), the second of whom was Miyazawa Kiichi. Within the Institute was the National Income Survey Office (kokumin shotoku chōsa shitsu), which was responsible for a quarterly report on the national income statistics. When the estimates were ready, they would first be reported to the minister and would then pass through Cabinet Report stage before being made public. At that time, we had completed our estimates using a new version of the United Nations’ system (the UNSNA), and since we had to switch from the old UNSNA to the new one, we often went to the minister’s office. When visiting the minister, the person responsible would present the documents and explain them, during which time the minister would follow along with his finger. If the minister’s finger kept moving, this meant that everything was fine. However, if it stopped somewhere, an incisive question would follow. Sometimes the person in charge would be momentarily unable to respond, and at these times I would sometimes try to throw a lifeline from the next seat. Other ministers did not ask questions, but with Miyazawa we always entered the office with trepidation. I am most grateful for the help I received from Miyazawa during the switch to the new UNSNA. Around 1978, newspapers frequently discussed economic growth figures and so there was a fear that if the growth figures were higher when measured using the new system, we would be accused of manipulating the data. This worried us. However, it turned out that the growth figures from the previous year (fiscal year 1977) were almost identical on both the new and old measures. When we reported this to the minister, he was very pleased, and instructed us to release these figures one month ahead of schedule separately from the quarterly report, thus avoiding any suspicion. After that, we managed to release the figures early, and completed a smooth changeover to the new UNSNA.

Preface

xv

Although this may seem like a minor detail, the changeover was a major task for the Economic Research Institute, and it was a great weight off my mind to know that we had succeeded without incident. In the almost thirty years since then my contact with Miyazawa had been limited to a hello at the Economic Planning Agency’s annual reunions until I agreed to help Itō Takashi and Mikuriya Takashi with their interviews. This brought me with Mikuriya to Miyazawa’s offices to request his permission. Happily, he graciously accepted, and I am thrilled to be able to present the result of those ten interviews in this volume. I am only sad that Shinpo Seiji of Aoyama Gakuin University, who so efficiently managed everything as chief researcher during my time at the Economic Research Institute, passed away last autumn. I would like, at least, to dedicate this book to his memory. Nakamura Takafusa January 2005

1

Early Life Translated by Jo Lumley

Elementary schooldays Mikuriya: Perhaps you could begin by telling us about your early years. Miyazawa: According to the official record, I was born in Hiroshima Prefecture in 1919, but according to my mother [Koto], it seems that she gave birth in a hospital in Kyōbashi in Tokyo. Around that time, I suppose my father [Yutaka] was still working for [the shipping company] Yamashita Kisen, so we must have been in Tokyo. My first memory is from the time of the Great Kantō Earthquake in September 1923, but of course it’s not a complete recollection. I was living in the Dote Sanbanchō area of Kōjimachi in Tokyo.i Our house didn’t burn down, but since it was supposed to be dangerous I’m told we all went out onto the levee and spent several days there. Personally I don’t remember that part, but I do remember that the sky in the distance was red. Another memory is that when my father came home every evening he would bring me some night-­watch candy—marshmallows or something like that. The “night-­watch” was a gathering of the Neighborhood Association because of rumors of dangerous activities by Koreans;1 my father went to this, and he would bring back candy for me. Recently, I had a discussion with Funada Naka, former Speaker of the Lower House (House of Representatives).ii At the time of the quake, he was a Cabinet Secretary, and apparently he felt it was imperative that there be an emergency imperial edict because of the massive number of casualties. The phone lines and other channels were not working, so he cycled [across the city] to Sannō in Ōmori to get the approval of Kiyoura [Keigo], the President of the Privy Council. He got the signature and when he returned to the Prime Minister’s Residence—it In the aftermath of the Great Kantō Earthquake, rumors spread across Tokyo that resident Koreans had started fires and poisoned the well water. This led to mob violence against Koreans. See Michael Weiner, The Origins of the Korean Community in Japan, 1910–1923 (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press International, 1989), Chapter 6.

1

2

Politics and Power in 20th-Century Japan

would have been evening by then—there was no one there. Because of the rumors about trouble with the Koreans, they had all taken refuge inside the Imperial Palace. Since there was no-­one there, he went to the Palace as well— that’s what he told me. What I find very odd is this. The earthquake happened around midday, so if we imagine Funada got back to the Prime Minister’s Residence around four or five, this means that by then the rumors had already spread through the center of Tokyo since everyone had left to seek refuge. Given the state of communications and the media at the time, how did the rumors spread so quickly? It was that sort of situation, I suppose. I still find this odd, but that’s the story as told to me personally by Funada. I think that the houses in the Banchō area [of Chiyoda] had been destroyed. My [maternal] grandfather [Ogawa Heikichi] was living in the Uchisaiwaichō area of Hibiya, and I think his house was destroyed as well. We went and moved into an intact house in Yotsuya. That’s more or less my only remaining memory from that time. In 1924, my father stood for election to the Lower House and lost. I think he was first elected in the 1928 general election. So by then he was spending most of his time back home [in Hiroshima]. He had entered the Ministry of Home Affairs after taking the higher civil service exam, but his salary was nowhere near enough to run an election campaign—that’s why he started working for Yamashita Kisen, which means that business there must have been good. After starting at Yamashita Kisen, he married Ogawa Heikichi’s second daughter [Koto], who was introduced to him by the company director Yamashita Kamesaburō.iii But after the election he left the company and went back and forth between [Tokyo] and [Hiroshima]. My mother was in poor health in those days, suffering from tuberculosis. So she was admitted to, I think, Nankoin Sanatorium in Chigasaki [in Kanagawa Prefecture]. I suppose it was because of that that we all ended up moving to Chigasaki. At the same time, my grandfather’s summer house was in Hiratsuka [the neighboring city] so I spent time there as well. So I was supposed to begin elementary school in Chigasaki. However, for reasons I’ve never fully understood, I ended up taking the entrance exam for the Tokyo University of Education Elementary School2 as well. It was an experimental school, so there was a lot of variety: boys’ classes, mixed classes, and classes for children who were a little “retarded.”3 I was in a mixed class. Entry was by lottery—as I recall, I didn’t get in on the first draw but I was admitted afterwards as a replacement. So, I didn’t attend elementary school At the time Miyazawa attended, this school was called Tokyo Normal Higher School Elementary School. It was called Tokyo University of Education Elementary School from 1949 to 1978, and is presently known as the Elementary School of University of Tsukuba. 3 Miyazawa uses the English word “retarded” here. 2

Early Life

3

in Chigasaki, but because my parents were in Chigasaki and Hiratsuka, I went to stay in my grandfather’s house in Uchisaiwaichō in Hibiya. The school was in Ōtsuka [to the north of Hibiya] which was quite a time-­consuming commute. The house in Hibiya was around where the Nippon Press Center is today. I lived there for one or two years. I remember looking through the window as the oxcart passed in the funeral procession of Emperor Taishō [in February 1927]. Mikuriya: How did you used to travel from Hibiya to Ōtsuka? By streetcar? Miyazawa: Yes. In Uchisaiwaichō, the Fukoku Seimei Building [had recently been built]. I think this was before [the rebuilding of] the Nippon Kangyō Bank headquarters. The Shisei Kaikan was still unfinished due to financial problems— that was the scene.4 I would board the streetcar at Uchisaiwaichō, cross the Kandabashi Bridge, go through Kasugachō, up through Tomisaka and then to school. This wasn’t just a half-­hour trip. It happened that I was accepted into the Tokyo Normal Higher School Elementary School, but later my father was elected, and once things had calmed down after the Great Kantō Earthquake we went to live in Magome in Ōmori.5 After that, I commuted to school from there. There were several ways of getting there on the public railway [now Japan Railways], either by changing to the Yamanote line at Shinagawa, or by going as far as Suidōbashi and then taking a streetcar. As far as my parents were concerned, the length of the journey was less of a concern than my safely changing trains on the way. I would sometimes take different routes, but it always took well over an hour each morning and evening. On top of that, Magome was a long way from Ōmori station. [Only] important people could take a rickshaw, and this was before buses, so including [the walk] the journey probably took me an hour and forty minutes each way. As I mentioned before, I was in a mixed class of about twenty boys and twenty girls. I was commuting from a long way away, but my school friends were all locals, of course. I envied them having the time to mess around on their way home—I always had a train to catch. Until quite recently we used to have class reunions about twice a year. One of my close friends there was Akutagawa Hiroshi.6 But now that we’re in our eighties, the reunions are almost exclusively women; the men disappear one by one as they pass away. Recently there are fewer and fewer. I only know the women’s names from before they were married. From their point of view I’m calling them by their names from decades ago, but you see

The Nippon Kangyō Bank headquarters and the Shisei Kaikan were completed in 1929. All three buildings mentioned would have been noticeable examples of modern architecture in Uchisaiwaichō. 5 Part of the present-­day Ōta ward in southeast Tokyo. 6 1920–1981. Actor, and son of the writer, Akutagawa Ryūnosuke. 4

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Politics and Power in 20th-Century Japan

I never had the chance to get used to their married names. We had a wonderful teacher, and for a while he was the center of the reunions, but he has passed away. Mikuriya: Did you have the same teacher all the way through? Miyazawa: Yes. And because it was an experimental school we did all sorts of things together. Mikuriya: You just touched on this, but I’d like to ask, despite your commuting schedule, did you ever hang around after school or anything like that? Or did you always go straight home on the train? Miyazawa: Because I was about an hour and forty minutes’ journey away from home, if I stayed around to play I would still have an early start the next morning, so that was out of the question. I’m sure that going to school so far away was worthwhile, but it meant that I couldn’t play with the children where I lived, either—I never saw them because we attended different schools. So it had its upsides and downsides. Mikuriya: Then, did you play alone once you were back home? Miyazawa: Well, I hardly had any time to play. Since my father was a Member of the Lower House, we had a student lodger from back [in Hiroshima]. Sometimes on Sundays he and I would play catch together in an empty field. That was about it.

Entry into Musashi Higher School Miyazawa: The elementary school being an experimental school, those in the all-­male class progressed automatically to Tokyo Normal Higher School Middle School. But for the boys in the two mixed classes, a certain number could progress on the teacher’s recommendation. The others could take the entrance exam if they liked, but received no special treatment. The more able boys were told to go out and try the entrance exams of other middle schools. That way, the teacher’s recommendation could go to someone else. I wouldn’t go as far as to call it altruism, but that was the system, and that’s why I was told to try the entrance exam for the ordinary division [equivalent to middle school] of Musashi Higher School. I hadn’t necessarily imagined myself going there if I passed, but I took the exam out of a sense of camaraderie in believing that I might be able to free up one teacher’s recommendation for one of my classmates. Professor Nakamura, did you go to Tokyo Higher School?

Early Life

5

Nakamura: No, I didn’t. I think by then Tokyo Higher School had become a seven-­year school,7 hadn’t it? Miyazawa: It was: Tokyo, Tokyo Prefectural, Seikei, Musashi and Seijō. Nakamura: Yes, those were the only seven-­year higher schools in Tokyo. Miyazawa: That’s right. Among them Seijō had more of a liberal arts orientation, I think you might say. Tokyo Higher School was national and Tokyo Prefectural Higher School was run by Tokyo Prefecture. The Mitsubishi Zaibatsu set up Seikei; Musashi was founded by Nezu Kaichirō.8 In those days at Musashi Higher School, the middle school was called the “ordinary division,” and there were, I think, two classes of forty students each. Later they would split into arts and sciences. I’m sure Nezu was quite involved in things. The headmasters were men such as Ichiki Kitokurō and Yamakawa Kenjirō.9 And working under them as principal was quite a famous educator by the name of Yamamoto Ryōkichi.iv He was a school friend of Suzuki Daisetsu and Nishida Kitarō from his time at Kanazawa [at the Fourth Higher School] and in Kyoto.10 From what I’ve read, it seems they were close friends. He was very strict as an educator, and he was probably in his prime about the time he was teaching us. Each forty-­minute lesson with him was so terrifying you could hardly breathe. At that school he did many things in his own particular way. For example, his questions on the entrance exam—you learn about [Edo period scholar] Motoori Norinaga’s [study room], Suzunoya, in textbooks, but his question would be: “Draw the arrangement of the four-­and-a-­half tatami mats on the floor of Suzunoya,” or something else like “How long did it take for news to get back to Akō that the revenge of the Forty-Seven Rōnin had succeeded?”11 So perhaps some of it was questionable but I do think we received a rather special sort of education. In the 1920s, a number of “seven-­year higher schools” were established that combined four years of middle school-­level education (jinjōka “ordinary division”) with the three years of higher education (kōtōka “higher division”) that higher schools typically provided. 8 Nezu Kaichirō (1860–1940) was a businessman and politician, notably President of the Tōbu Railway Company. 9 Ichiki Kitokurō (1867–1944) was principal for the period 1922–1925; Yamakawa Kenjirō (1854– 1931) for 1926–1930. 10 Suzuki Daitetsu (1870–1966), known in English as D.T. Suzuki, was a prolific writer in Japanese and English on topics such as Buddhism and Zen and is often credited with first introducing Japanese Zen to the West. Nishida Kitarō (1870–1945) was a prominent Japanese philosopher whose best-­ known work is An Enquiry into the Good (Zen no kenkyū). He was the founder of the Kyoto School of philosophy. For brief details of the friendship between Suzuki, Nishida, and Yamamoto Ryōkichi, see Michiko Yusa, “Nishida and Hearn,” Monumenta Nipponica, vol. 51, no. 3 (1996), pp. 309–316. 11 A famous episode in Japanese history. In 1703, forty-­seven masterless samurai (rōnin) loyal to the daimyō of Akō set off to avenge the death of their lord by killing the man they held responsible for his death. As punishment, they were sentenced to die by ritual suicide (seppuku). 7

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Yamamoto was the principal for quite some time, so the impact of his extreme methods was such that some pupils hated it and left, and others really worshipped him. I think that even for the time, he was unusually extreme. For better or worse, I realize now he taught me a great deal. The school was in an area called Ekoda [in present-­day Nerima]. This was an area with daikon fields, and the school grounds were very spacious. Nakamura: But it must have been pretty far to travel from Ōmori. Miyazawa: Unlike my journey to Ōtsuka, this time I would go through Ikebukuro. And then to Ekoda, on the old railway it would take around twenty minutes with a short walk on the other end. This took at least an hour and thirty or forty minutes each way. Nakamura: Didn’t Musashi Higher School have dormitories? Miyazawa: It did. They aimed to recruit able students from outside Tokyo, so they were very keen for students to live in their dormitories.v I really didn’t like the idea of living there, so I had no intention of doing so, whatever the cost. Part-­way through my time there, a military officer was assigned to the school, as was common then. However, Yamamoto, having studied abroad in Britain in his youth, was in that sense a very liberal person and he often clashed with the assigned officer. Mikuriya: This is around the period when the Control Faction12 (Tōseiha) was getting stronger, and the May 15 and February 26 Incidents13 took place while you were at Musashi Higher School. The May 15 incident in 1932 was probably the year you started there, and then a number of socially significant events like the February 26 Incident [in 1936] followed. What are your impressions, looking back at all this? Miyazawa: Partly because of my father’s involvement in politics and also the influence of my grandfather, I was very sensitive to all this. My grandfather, in fact, was born in a place called Fujimi in Shinshū [present-­day Nagano Prefecture] and had a summer house there. He suggested to Inukai [Tsuyoshi], his associate At the time there was a struggle for control of the Japanese Army between the Imperial Way faction (Kōdōha) and the Control faction (Tōseiha), with the latter winning out following the February 26 Incident (see note 13). 13 Both incidents were failed attempted coups d’état. In the May 15 Incident of 1932, a group of young naval officers succeeded in assassinating the Prime Minister Inukai Tsuyoshi (1855–1932), but failed in their attempted coup. On February 26, 1936, troops loyal to the Imperial Way faction attempted to kill the Prime Minister Okada Keisuke and most of the Cabinet in order to restore power to the Emperor. However, they did not succeed in killing Okada, and the Emperor condemned their actions. 12

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in the Seiyūkai,14 that he should get a summer house there too, so Inukai took the next-­door house. Well, in a place like that, “next door” was actually around half a ri away,15 but there he was. His house was named Hakurinsō (lit. White Forest Cottage). I would sometimes see him come around with his walking stick. My grandfather’s house had a tennis court and I remember a young Inukai Michiko [Tsuyoshi’s granddaughter] coming to play, and everyone being quite nervous. Kojima Kazuo, also known as Kojima Koichinen,16 had a house in Fujimi as well. My grandfather got caught up in the “private railway bribery scandal” (goshitetsu gigoku jiken) and was found innocent by the lower court, but subsequently found guilty and went to prison for a few years [indicted on September 26, 1929].17 This was one of the most significant events at what you might call a “formative age”18 for me and I have never forgotten it. For a former justice minister to go to prison must have been unusual, but eventually he was granted either a general amnesty or a pardon. All this is bound together in my memory with the political incidents you mentioned earlier. My grandfather lived, as I mentioned earlier, in Uchisaiwaichō. The prime minister’s residence was built there in 1928, I think, and my grandfather took me to visit. The prime minister at the time was Tanaka Giichi. To change the subject yet again, the assassination of Zhang Zuolin19 also took place in 1928. I feel this was the first thing that definitively marked a turn for the worse in Japan. The Emperor, in particular, was very angry. Tanaka told him that he would severely punish the plotters, but then he didn’t, of course. Reading about this recently, I discovered that in the Cabinet it was apparently [my grandfather] Ogawa Heikichi who opposed the punishment. It’s strange reading about it now because at the time I didn’t know that. Anyway, the Emperor rebuked Prime Minster Tanaka for this. And didn’t Tanaka die from angina? Mikuriya: He died straight away after resigning [as prime minister]. Nakamura: Two or three months after. Rikken Seiyūkai (Friends of Constitutional Government), often abbreviated as Seiyūkai, existed from 1900 until 1940 and was the dominant political party of this period. Inukai Tsuyoshi was its leader from 1929 until his assassination in 1932. 15 A distance of about 2 kilometers. 16 Kojima Kazuo (1865–1952), who also called himself Koichinen, worked as a journalist and was later elected to the Diet. He was a close associate of Inukai Tsuyoshi. 17 In the late 1920s, five private railway companies paid bribes to Ogawa as Minister of Railways in exchange for preferential treatment Ogawa was eventually sentenced to two years in prison but was released after serving less than half the sentence between 1936 and 1937. 18 Miyazawa uses the English term “formative age.” 19 Zhang Zuolin (1875–1928) was assassinated by the Japanese Kwantung Army on June 14, 1928. He was head of the Fengtian clique, which was supported by Japan. The Kwantung Army orchestrated the assassination to look like the work of the Chinese Nationalists in order to influence Prime Minister Tanaka Giichi to pursue a more aggressive line in Manchuria. 14

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Miyazawa: After such a rebuke from the Emperor, perhaps also because he was a military man, at the time it was rumored to be suicide. Who can say? Mikuriya: There were rumors, it would seem. Miyazawa: Yes. Personally it’s clear to me, but I wonder if the Emperor felt that in his youth he had overstepped the limits of a constitutional monarch. It’s clear that he didn’t do so again until the end of the war, so I imagine that incident did stay in his memory. But it seems to me that the assassination of Zhang Zuolin was the first clear case of Japan’s progression towards disaster. At Musashi Higher School they had a system of sending pupils with the highest marks on a trip abroad in the summer. Initially they always sent them to America, but the exchange rate became unfavorable and when it was my turn, we went to Manchuria.vi Nakamura: Was this when you were in the higher division? Miyazawa: The Sino-Japanese War started in 1937 so it would have been that year. My memory is of seeing the “dream of Manchuria” that existed for a brief moment. We took the Asia Express train, we visited Harbin and Mudanjiang; we went to the north as well. It was a rare kind of experience. Mikuriya: Speaking frankly, what was your impression of Manchuria? Miyazawa: Perhaps because of the way I was educated, I had the preconception that it just wouldn’t succeed. It’s not that we saw anything particularly brutal; we stayed in the Japanese settlers’ farms and things were a little difficult, but overall my impression was certainly not a bad one. But I left without feeling able to believe that it would be a big success. Nakamura: Things had calmed down after the establishment of Manchukuo, and I imagine that those must have been Manchuria’s best days. Miyazawa: I agree. Living was probably very good there. I remember my surprise at finding that Amakasu Masahiko20 lived there. I was a student so I didn’t know anything about the various goings on with the Kwantung Army. So just to have Amakasu Masahiko (1891–1945) was an Imperial Army officer who, in the wake of the Great Kantō Earthquake in 1923, murdered anarchists Ōsugi Sakae and Itō Noe, along with Ōsugi’s nephew, in what became known as the Amakasu Incident. He was prosecuted for this but paroled soon after, and later went to Manchuria, where he was involved with the Kwantung Army and headed the Manchurian Film Association (Man’ei).

20

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seen Manchuria for a moment during that short part of its history was educational. Mikuriya: How did you feel about the start of the Sino-Japanese War? Miyazawa: It was clear that things would go from bad to worse and I vividly remember being critical of it. We had military training (gunji kyōren) [at school]. In Tokyo there was an army parade ground in Yoyogi [now Yoyogi Park], but instead of there, they made us stay out in Komakado near Mount Fuji, or Narashino, which is now a golf course. I was very reluctant because I really hated that kind of training. We had training at university as well, though. Nakamura: I am a little younger than you, so they had us holding guns from middle school onwards. Miyazawa: What’s more, I was clumsy, and for whatever reason we had to clean the inside of the guns. Did you know about that? Nakamura: I had to do that often. Miyazawa: There was a metal rod, and you would wrap around it a rag with a little oil on it and then feed it all the way down the barrel. The clever guys were very good at it but I used to get the rag stuck in the middle, and then it was all over. And I was bad at wrapping my puttees. Nakamura: The mean-­spirited officers would peer down the barrel, and shout at you if there was even the slightest bit of dirt inside. Miyazawa: That’s right. At university we would line up every morning for the reading of the Imperial Rescript to Soldiers and Sailors21 but sometimes the assigned officer would forget the words halfway through. So, some of them weren’t so bad. Nakamura: In those days, from 1932 until about 1940, a lot of books were published that were read by young people. It was an era when Nishida [Kitarō]’s philosophy books, and Marx, these sorts of books, were widely read. Miyazawa: I would read rather a lot. Ishizaka Yōjirō’s Wakai Hito (Young People)vii is a bestseller few young people today will have heard of, but it was a craze at the time. The Imperial Rescript to Soldiers and Sailors (Gunjin chokuyu) was a code of ethics for the military issued by Emperor Meiji in 1882. Members of the Army were expected to be able to recite it from memory.

21

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Nakamura: I read that one too. Miyazawa: Of course you did. Musashi Higher School was quite strong for Chinese classics and English so naturally we read those sorts of books, but unsurprisingly The Communist Manifesto was not available. However, it was on sale when I went to America in 1939 for the Japan-America Student Conference. I thought, though, that I wouldn’t be able to bring it back into Japan with me, so before our boat arrived in Yokohama I sent it from the ship’s post office to my home address without putting a sender’s name on it. And it arrived safely, which means that censorship must actually have been quite loose sometimes. Nakamura: By 1939, I imagine that Marxism was very much disapproved of. Miyazawa: It was. Apparently I wasn’t intelligent enough—I just never managed to understand what Marx was saying, and I was never able to become a devotee. Going back to my time at Higher School, Kōsaka Masaaki, the father of Kōsaka Masataka,22 was an expert on Hegel and he taught me a great deal, though I never really understood it. Nakamura: Would Kōsaka come to Musashi Higher School? Miyazawa: Now, where was he teaching at the time? Perhaps in Kyoto [at the time, Kōsaka was an associate professor at Tokyo Arts and Sciences University].viii You could say that Yamamoto Ryōkichi, whom I mentioned earlier, was a man of great influence in the world of education. He had previously been in Kyoto and knew Nishida [Kitarō], so [that’s why] Kōsaka was coming to teach at Musashi Higher School. Nakamura: When you say “teach,” do you mean he would come every week? Miyazawa: Yes. This was not just once or twice. Nakamura: To have taken classes on Hegel with Kōsaka is really quite something. Miyazawa: It didn’t have any lasting effect on me at all, though. Mikuriya: Is there anything from that period that stayed with you especially? For example, something you saw in the Western books that you read in the original? Kōsaka Masaaki (1900–1969) was a philosopher and follower of Nishida Kitarō in the Kyoto School (see note 10). He was a nationalist and argued for the necessity of war on ideological grounds. His eldest son, Kōsaka Masataka (1934–1996), became a Professor of International Politics at Kyoto University.

22

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Miyazawa: I had an uncle on my father’s side, and because of him I read John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty and that sort of thing from when I started middle school. He told me I should read it in the original. It took a few years of frustrated effort, but eventually as I read it I remember I came to feel that I understood. I also enjoyed the Japanese classics so I used to read them quite often. We’re told to study when we are young because there are things that you can only learn when young. With the classics in particular, I could remember them after reading them just once. If you don’t do this when young, you miss your chance. Nakamura: The teaching of kanbun back then was very rigorous, don’t you think? Miyazawa: Yes, it was. If I were to read something like the Man’yōshū or the Kokin wakashū now, I couldn’t possibly remember everything. Back then, I could do it after reading them once or twice. Nakamura: And you started learning English when you were at middle school? Miyazawa: That’s right. In fact, when I went to university and to the JapanAmerica Student Conference I was surprised to discover that [what I’d learned] was of no use, and I started [in earnest] from then.ix Nakamura: Were there American or British teachers at Musashi? Miyazawa: Yes. We studied in classes of around fifteen, so I think they intended for us to learn a lot. It must have done some good, but it wasn’t of much use when I actually went to America.

Enjoying Noh and mountain climbing Mikuriya: At Musashi, did you participate in any groups or club activities, that sort of thing? Miyazawa: I didn’t spend much time in school because of the long commute. School clubs didn’t exist in the way that they do now, but I had little time to spend on that sort of thing anyway. But I did go mountain climbing in the summer. For a few years I went with the Mountaineering Club. Every time there were moments where I thought I would die. It’s a very frightening activity. I don’t really think it’s for children, but I was always drawn to the mountains. Do you remember a book called Yama to keikoku [Mountains and Ravines, 1938)]? Nakamura: Yes, by Tanabe Jūji.

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Miyazawa: Another is Kammuri Matsujirō [author of Kurobe keikoku [The Kurobe Ravines, 1928], who owned a pawn shop in Hongō [in Tokyo], didn’t he? Nakamura: I seem to remember that the Kammuri Pawn Shop was still there near the university even after the war. Miyazawa: I would imagine so. I always had a special feeling about the mountains; I even went skiing once or twice. Nakamura: Some of those books on mountains have been called masterpieces. I remember reading most of them. Miyazawa: There is something frightening about mountains, though. Nakamura: Did you go walking in the Hida Mountains? Miyazawa: Yes. This was much later, but for a while I didn’t go, and then once I became Director of the Economic Planning Agency I felt like going again to the Ushiro Tateyama Mountains [the eastern arm of the Hida Mountains], so I gave it a shot. A friend in Toyama invited me to come, and it happened that my secretary, Akabane [Takao] was a graduate of Matsumoto Higher School [in Nagano], so I thought he would have no problems in the mountains. He came with me, and it wasn’t until later that he told me he had a fear of heights. The Toyama Prefectural Police assigned us a guide, and the Prefectural Chief of Police also accompanied us. It was a rather impressive expedition. Nakamura: Did you go to Mount Kashimayari? Miyazawa: No. At that time it was no longer allowed, so we went from Midagahara to Murodō. Nakamura: Were you traversing the Tateyama range? Miyazawa: That time we didn’t go as far as that, but I have done that in the past. Nakamura: And that was before there were any cable cars, I suppose. Miyazawa: There weren’t any at all. I rather despise those newfangled cable cars and things like that [laughs]. Fuwa Tetsuzō23 is another politician who enjoys the mountains. Nakamura: That’s right. He wrote books about it, didn’t he?x Fuwa Tetsuzō (1930–) was a communist member of the House of Representatives (1967–2003), and the Japan Communist Party’s Central Committee Chair (2000–2006).

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Miyazawa: He and I do see eye to eye when it comes to mountains. Nakamura: So did you keep going mountaineering at university? Miyazawa: I didn’t go while at university; it was when I was in middle and higher school. Another thing I have enjoyed ever since around the end of elementary school is Noh. I often used to go and see Noh plays. There was something about it I enjoyed, but it was expensive. The cheapest seats cost about one yen. Even now I still go sometimes. Mikuriya: Did this start with someone taking you to see Noh? Miyazawa: I think it started with learning along with my parents as they did Noh chanting. Although I didn’t especially like the chanting, I thought that Noh itself was fascinating. There was a great actor named Kita Roppeita—we met several times and he was very kind to me. Nakamura: So did you learn the Noh of the Kita School? Miyazawa: No, the Kanze School. I was a child when I did this, so I remembered the lines very easily. It was an eclectic selection of the Japanese classics, so I learned all sorts of funny ones. Nakamura: Did you have any other hobbies in your youth? Miyazawa: No, nothing in particular. Nakamura: Well, I imagine you had lots of friends at Musashi. Miyazawa: Yes, there were a lot, and we still have reunions. There was Aiura [Tadao], who joined the Navy early and died in battle—I still think he was a great man.

Attending the Japan-America Student Conference Mikuriya: 1939 was the Japan-America Student Conference. Miyazawa: I saw an announcement on a university notice board saying that selection for the conference would take place in summer, so I decided to try out. That’s all it was. And I was accepted, so I went. Mikuriya: It must have been quite something to visit America during that period.

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Miyazawa: Yes. I went all over the place collecting money. There were still [financial assistance] groups like the Harada Sekizenkai Foundation then. Also, there was a link with Nippon Yūsen since we were traveling with them, so I went to various different places for money. I still remember there were some places that would hand over some money and then even see me to the elevator afterwards. You can’t forget something like that. The Ministry of Education gave us, maybe, about seven hundred yen. I can’t remember. In any case, this was for a two-­week boat journey. Nakamura: Where was the conference held? Miyazawa: That time it was at the University of Southern California. Nakamura: In Los Angeles. Miyazawa: The group from Japan was half men and half women. This happened just at the time that the termination of the Treaty of Commerce and Navigation between the United States and Japan was announced. Nakamura: That would be July 26, wouldn’t it? Miyazawa: That’s right. We heard about this on board the ship, and, assuming that this would be a big point of contention, we all practiced debating it before arrival. But in fact, they just said no, what Japan is saying is reasonable, it’s just cruel to do that to such a poor country—things like that—and there was no debate between us at all. I thought that this was an amazing country; it would be unwise to fight this country. Another thing: we stayed in guest houses, and when I [first] went to wash my face, turned the “H” tap and hot water came out, I thought this was a great place. I remember they looked at me strangely when I remarked on the hot water. It would have been about then that I remember reading something by Churchill that said: if the navy controls Japan, things will be fine, but if the army is in control, its inexperience could lead to war. I think it was that the army had a basic misunderstanding of America, believing them to lack any spirit of cooperation, that sort of thing. Navy people, at least, had seen foreign countries. I remember, Yonai [Mitsumasa] said that Japan was “dragged along by a demonic history.”24 Why did it have to turn out that way? Admiral Yonai Mitsumasa (1880–1948) was Prime Minister between January and July 1940. He had opposed Japan’s entry into the Axis with Germany and Italy and resigned due to opposition from the army. In a letter of 1940, he wrote of a “demonic history” (mashō no rekishi) that sent politicians into a “dance of madness,” and “drives each of them, step by step, to a steep cliff ’s edge that they could not have anticipated.” For the Japanese text of the letter, see Makiko Takada, Yonai Mitsumasa no Tegami (Yonai Mitsumasa’s Letters, Hara Shobō, 1993).

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Nakamura: I don’t know, but it is said that within the navy as well, a more hard-­ line group was gaining in influence. Miyazawa: Even now I really do feel, as I mentioned before, that the assassination of Zhang Zuolin marked the point of no return. What’s more, they went ahead in spite of such opposition from the Emperor. Nakamura: Another might be that the [1930] London Naval Treaty was viewed very harshly by the navy.25 Miyazawa: Yes. Mikuriya: Once you got to America, how long did the Japan-America Student Conference last? Miyazawa: The journey took two weeks each way, so I wonder how long it was. We can’t have been there for very long.xi Mikuriya: Ah, so you weren’t in America for a very long time. Miyazawa: We had only collected so much money. I wouldn’t say there was any particular hostility, but we somehow didn’t feel it was a good idea to travel to the eastern United States. We ended up returning home from Seattle, but even though our money had run out we couldn’t go back straight away. There were no airplanes, so we had to wait until the boat arrived. I remember we camped on an island off Seattle. Recently I happened to read the book Snow Falling on Cedars, which is also a film, and I found out for the first time that quite a number of Japanese people worked as farm laborers on that island. Nakamura: Was it during your stay over there that you heard about the war in Europe? Miyazawa: Yes, that’s right. We were in a hotel in Portland, Oregon, so I think I can say this for sure. That would have been September 1, 1939. I was sleeping when I got a phone call telling me to come to the front desk. We listened to the radio there. That was the [German] invasion of Poland on September 1.xii The London Naval Treaty of 1930, set up to agree limits on naval armaments, was supported by the Cabinet at the time but opposed by the Naval General Staff. The signing of this treaty created controversy because it was felt by some to be a civilian intervention in the Emperor’s direct command of the armed forces. See Kobayashi Tatsuo, “The London Naval Treaty, 1930,” in Japan Erupts: The London Naval Conference and the Manchurian Incident, 1928–1932, ed. James W. Morley (New York: Columbia University Press, 1984), pp. 11–117.

25

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Mikuriya: In that case, you would have been in America when Hiranuma [Kiichirō]’s whole Cabinet resigned, citing the “complicated and strange state of affairs in Europe,”26 and the premiership passed to Abe [Nobuyuki]. Miyazawa: Yes, I must have been. Was that before the invasion of Poland? Nakamura: Slightly before. The Hiranuma Cabinet went into disarray after the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact. Miyazawa: The following year we invited the American group to Japan. We were still able to do that. Mikuriya: This is in 1940. Miyazawa: Yes. We arranged to use Tsuda College. [As a women’s college] they had no men’s restrooms so we had some of them changed. We even took the American students to Manchuria. Of course the Metropolitan Police often came looking around, but it was possible to do even this. Nakamura: What universities did the Americans come from? Miyazawa: A lot of them came from universities in California, I think. Probably this had something to do with the cost of traveling and the reach of promotion. There were some from Stanford. There are still some left and we exchange letters with each other. Mikuriya: So even then, it was possible to have contact with America. Miyazawa: It was. I would say that although at a higher political level I’m sure there were tense negotiations, for the general public there was not any feeling that “ill will”27 prevented us from going back and forth. In general, there was nothing like that, even though there were issues with immigration and boycotts.

On August 28, 1939, the entire Hiranuma Cabinet resigned following the German-Soviet NonAggression Pact. This pact broke the terms of the 1936 Anti-Comintern Pact, thereby throwing Japan’s alliance with Germany into doubt. Mikuriya quotes a well-­known part of the Cabinet’s resignation statement. 27 Here, Miyazawa uses the English “ill will.” 26

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Time at Tokyo Imperial University Mikuriya: For university, I understand you went to Tokyo Imperial University in 1939 to study in the Department of Political Science in the Faculty of Law. Did you have any difficulty deciding on this path? Miyazawa: Under the pre-­war educational system it was usual to progress from higher school to one of the Imperial Universities. In some special cases this didn’t happen, but you could say that it was a matter of course that students of the arts would go on to study law or economics. Not everyone was accepted, but I think it was rare for students to have to retake the entrance exams more than once or twice. Also, a few went to Waseda or Keiō, but it was just a few. Since my higher school was in Tokyo, most of us went to Tokyo University. Mikuriya: At the Faculty of Law you would have attended a lot of lectures. What did you think of them? Miyazawa: Someone whose books I am still reading is Oka [Yoshitake]. Now his collected works have been published, too.xiii He didn’t speak too much about Japanese politics of the time, but more about Western Europe. However, occasionally he would say wickedly sarcastic things about the political situation, so I always paid full attention in his lectures. Yabe [Teiji] was also teaching politics there. He had a rather bold way of teaching, but I took his class because it was compulsory, and I wouldn’t say that I was especially passionate about it. At the time I suppose he must have held [Prime Minister] Konoe [Fumimaro] in very high regard.28 On the subject of Konoe, I would say that history’s estimation of him is very much as Oka has written.29 Professor Takayanagi [Kenzō], who taught English law, was the instructor who took me to America; I sometimes went to visit him at his house in Zushi [Kanagawa Prefecture]. Then, in Principles of Economics, a professor named Maide Chōgorō would go on and on about Marxism. Nakamura: Maide used to talk about Marxism then? Miyazawa: Yes, he did. Yabe Teiji (1902–1967), also sometimes known as Yabe Sadaji, was active in the nationalist think tank, the Shōwa Research Institute (Shōwa Kenkyūkai). He was a close associate of Konoe Fumimaro (prime minister, 1937–1939, 1940–1941), and was one of his advisors during his later period of office. 29 Oka Yoshitake, Konoe Fumimaro: A Political Biography (Tokyo University Press, 1983, trans. Shumpei Okamoto and Patricia Murray). 28

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Nakamura: He later wrote a textbook called Riron keizai gaiyō (An Overview of Economic Theory). This was a bit later on, and in book form, but there he doesn’t make a single mention of Marx. Miyazawa: Oh, I see. Well, perhaps he didn’t mention Marx directly, but still it’s clear that’s what he was talking about.30 This bored me intensely. Nakayama Ichirō wasn’t at Tokyo University yet. Nakamura: He came later on to deliver lectures on economic policy. Miyazawa: Yes, that was later. Tōbata [Seiichi] was there, though. Nakamura: He was agricultural policy, wasn’t he? Miyazawa: Yes. I used to listen quite often to Yokota [Kisaburō] as well. He often said: “Boys, you will all be imprisoned once you graduate,” and when we laughed, he would correct himself, “I mean conscripted.” Mikuriya: How were the classes on constitutional law? Miyazawa: Constitutional law was with Miyazawa [Toshiyoshi (no relation)]. Classes for the higher civil service exam were with Miyazawa and Kakei [Katsuhiko]. Nakamura: There is a story that Miyazawa didn’t teach the first three articles or so of the Meiji Constitution at all.31 Miyazawa: Well, I don’t have any particular memory of him mentioning them, and I didn’t expect him to. I wasn’t taught by Minobe [Tatsukichi], but at that Maide was part of the department’s minority Marxist faction. For details, see Byron K. Marshall, “Academic Factionalism in Japan: The Case of the Tōdai Economics Department, 1919–1939,” Modern Asian Studies, vol. 12, no. 4 (1978), pp. 529–551. 31 The first three articles of the Meiji Constitution (1889) are as follows: 30

Article 1. The Empire of Japan shall be reigned over and governed by a line of Emperors unbroken for ages eternal. Article 2. The Imperial Throne shall be succeeded to by Imperial male descendants, according to the provisions of the Imperial House Law. Article 3. The Emperor is sacred and inviolable.

l

l

l

Miyazawa Toshiyoshi was a student of Minobe Tatsukichi and an adherent of his “organ theory.” Following Minobe’s departure from Tokyo Imperial University and the campaign against the organ theory (see note 32), the Ministry of Education intervened to eliminate the theory from universities. It is likely that Miyazawa Toshiyoshi avoided mentioning the beginning of the Meiji Constitution in order to avoid the suspicion that he was teaching organ theory. See Frank O. Miller, Minobe Tatsukichi, Interpreter of Constitutionalism in Japan (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1965).

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point his political influence was waning.32 On another topic entirely, I learnt a great deal from Wagatsuma [Sakae]’s book Minpō kōgi (Lectures on Civil Law) and also Takata Yasuma’s books. Of course I read Nakayama’s books too. I always thought Wagatsuma’s Minpō kōgi was an excellent book. Mikuriya: How about Takagi? Miyazawa: Takagi Yasaka would sometimes give lectures on topics like American constitutional history, but I never had any contact with him. I did attend his lectures out of interest, though.

Entry into the Ministry of Finance Mikuriya: You’ve mentioned the higher civil service exam. When did you start to feel you wanted to take this exam to progress into government service? Miyazawa: Well, maybe my grandfather and my father . . . My mother experienced this with both of them. I didn’t like politicians, and I was quite determined not to become one. In that case, the next step from Tokyo University Faculty of Law was into civil service, so I thought of either entering the Home Ministry or becoming a diplomat. I decided to take both exams.xiv I really hesitated, but for some reason one day I was standing outside the public railways’ Yūrakuchō station watching the Nihon Gekijō (national theater) turning red in the setting sun, and I thought to myself: I want to stay in Japan. So for reasons I don’t quite understand, I gave up on becoming a diplomat and decided to enter the Home Ministry. When my father was a Member of the Lower House, Ikeda Hayato, who was also from Hiroshima, was one of his junior colleagues. Ikeda was now in the Ministry of Finance and he asked my father to send me to work there. I didn’t have any desire to enter the Ministry of Finance. But after being urged to just try taking the exam, I did so. I was not necessarily fully convinced that it was the best thing, but I went anyway. I do remember I was also being encouraged by someone in the Home Ministry. I thought the Ministry of Finance was probably Minobe Tatsukichi (1873–1948) was the originator of the “organ theory” (tennō kikan setsu). This was an interpretation of the Constitution whereby the Emperor was simply an organ of the state and sovereignty resided with the state, as opposed to the view that the Emperor himself was sovereign. At first, the theory was not controversial, but by 1935 Minobe and his theory were being publicly denounced in a campaign initiated by militarists and nationalists. Minobe was forced to resign from Tokyo Imperial University as well as giving up his seat in the Upper House (House of Peers). See Frank O. Miller, Minobe Tatsukichi, Interpreter of Constitutionalism in Japan (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1965).

32

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not a very exciting place. For bureaucrats, there was much more going on at the Home Ministry. Mikuriya: If you had gone to the Home Ministry, you would have started along with Nakasone [Yasuhiro]. Miyazawa: He was a year older than me, but yes, more or less. One of my sponsors at the Ministry of Finance was Morinaga Teiichirō,xv who was the deputy section chief of the section where I had been assigned. Subsequently people expressed their surprise to me about this. My other sponsor was Ikeda Hayato, so people often asked me why it was that someone like that was looking out for me. Perhaps not later, but at the time they did. Nakamura: As for your father and Ikeda . . . Miyazawa: They had known each other for a long time. In Hiroshima Prefecture, there was a man named Mochizuki Keisuke, a Hiroshima representative, who must have been roughly at the same level as my grandfather in the world of politics. At the time my father was elected from Hiroshima to the Lower House [in 1928] it was customary for members of the House to become secretaries [for ministers]. So to avoid my father becoming secretary to his own father-­in-law Ogawa [Heikichi, then Minister of Railways], Mochizuki [then Home Minister] was asked to take him instead. The Ikeda family ran the post office in a small village in Mochizuki’s electoral district, and Ikeda [Hayato] was the son of this influential family. But after entering the Ministry of Finance he became ill, as you know. For a time it seemed he might die. Before his illness, Ikeda’s parents asked my father to find a wife for him. I don’t know about this for certain but I think this is more or less what happened. The daughter [Naoko] of Count Hirosawa [Kinjirō] was studying at Gakushūin University and it was felt that she would be a good choice. While this was going on, Ikeda went to Gakushūin University himself to find out what kind of girl she was. So in fact, it was my father who matched Ikeda and his wife.xvi There’s a bit more to the story. Later, as Ikeda was suffering from what appeared to be an incurable disease, Count Hirosawa’s daughter passed away suddenly from a heart attack or something similar. Afterwards, a cousin of Ikeda’s [Ōnuki Mitsue] came to nurse him, and I’m sure she did so devotedly. If he ever got better, he thought that he’d never be able to head a tax office again, but he vowed to work in one, even if only as an office assistant. Miraculously, he did get better, and got married [to Mitsue]. This is the Mrs. Ikeda we know. But Ikeda is quite an extraordinary man: for whatever reason, he named the first daughter he had with his wife after his deceased first wife. Given the society of the time, I suppose

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21

Ikeda’s parents were upset that after first marrying Hirosawa’s daughter, Ikeda should then marry a relative. So apparently they partially disowned him. Amidst all of this, Ikeda was called to come and work at the Ministry of Finance. Nakamura: That was about when Ikeda started to rise up the ranks at the Tax Bureau, wasn’t it? Miyazawa: Yes. However, Ikeda had lost several years of advancement in the civil service, and what’s more he originally came from Kyoto University; he described himself as a “third-­class ticket holder.” He drank a lot and was not good with people, and so I thought he would end up perhaps as a section chief in the Tax Bureau. At the Tax Bureau, promotion is based on practical skill, and he seemed like someone who could eventually reach the level of a regional bureau chief and make a living as a tax expert. That’s about as far as people considered he would go. It was thought he wouldn’t become a Vice-Minister, but [he did so] after the war, probably because of the Purge.33 Nakamura: Was Morinaga in the Budget Bureau at the time? Miyazawa: In the section I entered, Sakomizu Hisatsune was section chief, and his head administrator was Morinaga Teiichirō.xvii Nakamura: Was that the Finance Section? Miyazawa: They called it the Finance Section, or the Planning Section;xviii Morinaga was the section’s star. His wife was Wakatsuki Reijirō’s34 granddaughter. A strange thing happened. As this was during the war, the Materials Mobilization Plan was kept secret.35 The plan needed to be supported by national resources. A group of scholars would come in and we would hold small-­scale discussion meetings almost every week. There, we’d hand out the Mobilization Plan documents, and then ask for them back at the end. I was the administrator Ikeda became Vice-Minister of the Ministry of Finance in 1947. “The Purge” refers to a purge (kōshoku tsuihō) initiated by GHQ in 1946 of public office-­holders associated with militarism and ultra-­nationalism. It was later reversed in 1951–1952. See, e.g., John W. Dower, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II (New York: Norton, 1999). 34 Wakatsuki Reijirō (1866–1949) was an official in the Ministry of Finance who became a politician, and held the post of prime minister from January 1926 until April 1927 and again from April until December 1931. 35 The Materials Mobilization Plan (busshi dōin keikaku) was used as a means of economic planning between January 1938 and August 1945. The basic procedure was one of allocating the year’s supply of goods (domestic and imported) to military and civilian uses. See, e.g. Tetsuji Okazaki and Masahiro Okuno-Fujiwara “Japan’s Present-Day Economic System and its Historical Origins,” in The Japanese Economic System and its Historical Origins, eds. Tetsuji Okazaki and Masahiro OkunoFujiwara (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999, trans. Susan Herbert), pp. 1–37. 33

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for that project, so I took the minutes. Shimomura [Osamu] was also there at that time. One day, Morinaga said to me: “You have collected back all the documents from the meeting, haven’t you?” and I said yes, I had. Then the next week, he asked the same thing, and that made me wonder. It was because a woman called Watanabe Taekoxix was at the meetings. Nakamura: Some say she was working with Sakomizu. Miyazawa: It was on Sakomizu’s recommendation that she became a member of the small committee dealing with the financial resources aspect of the Mobilization Plan. She did a good job there. Morinaga was very insistent, and when I asked him what the problem was, he said: “Did you get the documents back from Watanabe Taeko?” and that’s when I understood. She was Shiga Yoshio’s “housekeeper.”36 Nakamura: She had been arrested and then released. She did well to get to the heart of the Ministry of Finance. Miyazawa: So Taeko was arrested as well? Nakamura: I believe she was. I don’t know if she was released on bail or what, but obviously she got out. Miyazawa: However, none of us knew about that. Though I think there were times when we wondered which way Sakomizu and people on the Cabinet Planning Board such as Mōri Hideoto were leaning. I suppose Sakomizu had a tendency to hit back twice as hard as he’d been hit. Nakamura: I can’t really comment, but over twenty years ago, maybe more, I organized some events for the magazine Economist to hear recollections of the past. I heard a series of these from Shiga Yoshio. Watanabe Taeko was his wife, and they sometimes attended together and both spoke. Miyazawa: Oh, you met them?

Shiga Yoshio (1901–1989) was a key figure in the then-­outlawed Japanese Communist Party. He was in prison from 1928 until 1945. See, e.g. John K. Emmerson, “The Japanese Communist Party after Fifty Years,” Asian Survey, vol. 12, no, 7 (1972), pp.  564–579. The term ‘housekeeper’ was used to describe a female communist party member or sympathizer who lived with a male party member outwardly appearing to be his wife, thereby acting as “a cover for underground activity” (Henry DeWitt Smith, Japan’s First Student Radicals, [Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1972], p. 184). Watanabe Taeko and Shiga Yoshio did, in fact, marry in 1927.

36

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Nakamura: Yes, I did. And they told me various stories from the past. We had the main parts transcribed and they were published as a book by Mainichi Shinbunsha.xx Miyazawa: You see, that was around the time of controversy surrounding state control of electricity.37 Officials like Minobe [Yōji], Sakomizu, Okumura Kiwao must have also had relations with the armed forces, but I wonder what kind of people they were. Mōri Hideoto, too, for that matter; I never really knew where they stood.38 Nakamura: I agree. They were very much influenced by Marxism in their youth, and even after entering the bureaucracy, they continued to hold those views. I have also heard Sakomizu’s recollections. In one of his stories, he boasted: “When I was Finance Section chief people used to say that I would rush at great speed to Osaka, and that my mere presence there would raise share prices.” This is just the time that Keynesian economics appeared with all that difficult math. About this, he said: “Shimomura was a brilliant assistant, but I had difficulty understanding his explanations. But if Watanabe Taeko explained the same things to me, I got it straight away” [laughs]. Miyazawa: Now you mention it, that reminds me that when Sakomizu was Finance Section chief, he was very kind to Morinaga too. The war started, and since there was full mobilization, it would have been a serious problem for stock prices to fall dramatically. I don’t know if he went through Sakomizu or not, but Kaya [Okinori], the Finance Minister, had Morinaga putting in limit orders, and buying and selling shares every day. Mikuriya: Incredible. That must have been difficult. Miyazawa: And this is placing a great deal of trust in bureaucrats. I wonder, did the money come from the Wartime Finance Bank? At the time in the Ministry of Finance, a Securities Section (shōken-­ka) had been established,xxi of which The Electric Power Control Law (denryoku kanri hō) of 1938 brought about government control of electricity generation and transmission. It was opposed by the private power companies, but supported by the armed forces. The law was drafted by Okumura Kiwao, who, along with Sakomizu Hisatsune, Minobe Yōji, Mōri Hideoto, Kishi Nobusuke, and others, was a “reform bureaucrat” (kakushin kanryō). See, e.g. Ortrud Kerde, “The Ideological Background of the Japanese War Economy,” in Japan’s War Economy, ed. Erich Pauer (London: Routledge, 1999), pp. 23–38. 38 As mentioned in note 37, all were “reform bureaucrats.” Mimura argues that the reform bureaucrats “promoted a radical, authoritarian form of technocracy,” and advocated for fascist planning in order for Japan to achieve a “technically advanced, self-­sufficient empire.” Janis Mimura, Planning for Empire: Reform Bureaucrats and the Japanese Wartime State (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2011), p. 3. 37

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Morinaga was the head. Given the time, it would have been the “Shin-Tō Stocks” [a new issue of stocks within the Tokyo Stock Exchange], that sort of thing, that he was putting in limit orders for. Because of the seriousness of the war, certainly Finance Minister Kaya knew about Morinaga putting in the limit orders, and probably the prime minister did as well. Morinaga’s father[-­in-law] was a man named Tawara [Kazuo], and it happens that he was the director of the Wartime Finance Bank.xxii Nakamura: You’re not talking about [Tawara] Magoichi, who was a minister [of commerce and industry, 1929–1931]? Miyazawa: No, not him. If it wasn’t from the Wartime Finance Bank, where did the money come from? I wonder whether the Wartime Finance Bank existed then. Nakamura: It was set up in exactly the year you entered the Ministry of Finance. Miyazawa: Well, I suppose that’s probably it, then. Morinaga, I imagine, was well trusted; perhaps this is part of what lies behind Sakomizu’s story about going to Osaka. Nakamura: He did tell me that on the day war was declared he went to observe the stock exchange floor. It would have been the morning of that day. The Chairman of the Stock Exchange was also working as director of Aizawa Securities or somewhere similar. He said: “I’m on the job today,” and that morning he brought up the stock prices little by little. Sakomizu was watching all of this happen. Miyazawa: Sakomizu was married to Okada Keisuke’s39 daughter, wasn’t he? He was acquainted with the military; he was a very competent man. Among Minobe [Yōji] and the others, I think he would have been unrivalled. Nakamura: Minobe was in the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, where he rose to the level of bureau chief. Miyazawa: I knew Minobe towards the end of his life. He was a kindly old man. To think that he used to call himself a reform bureaucrat . . . Nakamura: It seems Okumura Kiwao didn’t do so well in his later years. Okada Keisuke (1868–1952) was a naval officer and held a number of political offices, including prime minister (1934–1936).

39

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Miyazawa: Sakomizu later became a Diet member [Lower House, 1952–1955; Upper House (House of Counselors), 1956–1977]. Nakamura: Wasn’t he also Director of the Economic Planning Agency? Miyazawa: That’s right. Nakamura: Until that point, he said that he had a very difficult time postwar. Miyazawa: He must have been biding his time. But that’s just the way it was. Some people in that situation even became prime ministers later on.40

Notes i ii iii iv

v vi

[The wards of Kōjimachi and Kanda in central Tokyo later merged to become Chiyoda. Dote Sanbanchō is] in present-­day Chiyoda Gobanchō, near JR Ichigaya station. Funada Naka ([1895]–1979) [was Speaker of the House of Representatives in 1963–1965 and 1970–1972]. See Kiyomiya Ryū, Miyazawa Kiichi: zenjinzō (A Complete Portrait of Miyazawa Kiichi, Gyōken Publishing, 1981, revised 1992), p. 51 (1981 edition). Yamamoto Ryōkichi (1871–1942) held jointly the posts of headmaster and principal (1931–1942) as well as head of shūshin (morality) (see Musashi Kōtōgakkō ichiran [Musashi Higher School Facts and Figures], 1937 edition, found in the store of Musashi University Library). For more details on Yamamoto, see Ueda Hisashi, Yamamoto Ryōkichi-­sensei den (Biography of Yamamoto Ryōkichi, Nansōsha, 1993). In pre-­war plans of the school, three dormitories can be found: Shindoku, Aijitsu, and Sōkei (Musashi University Musashi Gakuen Archives). The trip was for students with excellent marks in the second year of the higher division. The original plan was to travel across China, but this was changed to a tour of Manchuria due to the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese war. Miyazawa set off on July 19, 1937, with Aiura Tadao. Among the places they visited were Busan, Keijō [present-­day Seoul], Heijō [Pyongyang], Mukden [present-­day Shenyang], Shinkyō [present day Changchun], Mudanjiang, Harbin, Jilin, Fushun, Anshan, and Dairen [present-­day Dalian]. Miyazawa himself wrote a report of the trip: 2597-Nendo Musashi Kōtōgakkō gaiyū hōkoku dai–10-gō (Musashi Higher School Foreign Expeditions Reports Vol. 10, 2597, Friends of Musashi High School Cultural Division, 1938; Musashi University Musashi Gakuen Archives).

This is likely a reference to Kishi Nobusuke (1896–1987), the wartime leader of the reform bureaucrats, who then became a postwar political leader. After Japan’s surrender, he spent the period 1945–1948 in Sugamo Prison as a “Class A” war crimes suspect but was later released due to insufficient evidence. He was then subject to the Purge of Public Officials (see note 33) and re-­entered public life in 1952. He later became prime minister for the period 1957–1960, which represents two terms of office. Dower calls him “brilliant and unscrupulous” (John W. Dower, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II, New York: Norton, 1999), p. 454. See, e.g. Richard J. Samuels, Machiavelli’s Children: Leaders and Their Legacies in Italy and Japan (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003).

40

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vii Wakai hito (Young People) was serialized from 1933 until 1937 in [the literary magazine] Mita bungaku and was awarded the first Mita Bungaku Prize. It was published [as a novel] in 1937 by Kaizōsha. viii See Musashi Kōtōgakkō ichiran [Musashi Higher School Facts and Figures], 1937 edition, found in the store of Musashi University Library. Kōsaka Masaaki taught an introduction to philosophy. ix On his father’s wishes Miyazawa learned the roman alphabet when in elementary school, and when in middle school he had an American private tutor; see Kiyomiya Ryū, Miyazawa Kiichi: zenjinzō (A Complete Portrait of Miyazawa Kiichi, Gyōken Publishing, 1981, revised 1992). In the same volume Miyazawa states that his English improved out of necessity after World War II though involvement in negotiations with GHQ. x Works include Kaisō no yamamichi (Reminiscences of Mountain Trails, Yama-Kei Publishers, 1993) and Watashi no minamiarupusu (My Akaishi Mountains, Yama-Kei Publishers, 1998). xi The party left Japan on July 26, 1939 and arrived back in Japan on October 1. See Takayanagi Kenzō (ed.) Gakusei Nichibei kaidan (Japan-US Student Talks, Nippon Hyōronsha, 1939). xii In Miyazawa’s contribution to Gakusei Nichibei kaidan, “War declared” [original title in English], he says that he leapt out of bed on hearing a voice shout “Warsaw is in trouble!” and then listened to the radio on the ninth floor lobby (Takayanagi Kenzō (ed.) Gakusei Nichibei kaidan (Japan-US Student Talks, Nippon Hyōronsha, 1939), pp. 162–172). xiii Oka Yoshitake, Oka Yoshitake chosakushū, 8 vols. (Collected Works of Oka Yoshitake, Iwanami Shoten, 1992–1993). xiv Miyazawa took the administrative and diplomatic exams and passed both. This was the final session of the diplomatic exams before the Pacific War. xv Born in Miyazaki Prefecture, Morinaga (1910–1986) later became Governor of the Bank of Japan (1974–1979). xvi For information about the Hirosawa family, we consulted Heisei shinshū kyūkazoku kakei taisei (The Revised Heisei Compendium of Family Trees of Former Noble Families, Kasumi Kaikan, 1996). xvii On entry into the Ministry of Finance (January 1942), Miyazawa was assigned to the Planning Section (kikaku ka) of the Minister’s Secretariat (daijin kanbō), of which Morinaga was section chief. At the time, Sakomizu was section chief of the Financial Bureau Planning Section (rizai kyoku keikaku ka). Sakomizu became Miyazawa’s manager in November of the same year following a reorganization of the ministry. The Minister’s Secretariat became the General Affairs Bureau (sōmu kyoku), of which Sakomizu was made bureau chief (the chief of the General Affairs Bureau Planning Section was Noda Uichi). In the same reorganization, Morinaga became section chief of the Financial Bureau Finance Section (rizai kyoku kin’yū ka). Miyazawa was seconded to the Financial Bureau in December 1942; taking the above into account we believe that he is talking about this period. (See Ōkurashō hyakunenshi [One Hundred Years of the Finance Ministry], Appendix.)

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xviii The Financial Bureau Finance Section was known as the Financial Bureau Planning Section between December 1940 and November 1942 (Ōkurashō hyakunenshi [One Hundred Years of the Finance Ministry], Appendix.) xiv Left-­wing activist and scholar, Watanabe Taeko graduated from Tokyo Women’s University in 1928. After a disagreement with Iwata Yoshimichi about the 1931 Draft Theses (1931 seiji tēze sōan) [policy statement of the Japanese Communist Party], and her arrest in 1932 and subsequent release on bail, she withdrew from the activist movement. From 1934, Watanabe became involved in theoretical research as a research student in the Ōhara Social Problems Research Institute (Ōhara Shakai Mondai Kenkyūjo); from 1935 she was working unofficially for the Citizens’ Economic Research Institute (Kokumin Shiryoku Kenkyūjo). She claims that even after this she continued to pass “information” to communist leaders such as Shiga Yoshio and Tokuda Kyūichi. See, e.g. Watanabe Taeko and Mōri Akiko, “Shihonron” no konpon mondai (Fundamental Problems of Das Kapital, Sundaisha, 1967). For a fellow activist’s brief recollections of Watanabe, see Ronald P. Loftus, Telling Lives: Women’s Self-Writing in Modern Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2004), pp. 234–239. xx Published as Nakamura, Itō, and Hara Akira (eds.), Gendaishi o tsukuru hitobito (2) (The Makers of Modern History [2], Mainichi Shinbunsha, 1971). xxi In August 1944, the Financial Bureau Finance Section was renamed the Securities Section. (See Ōkurashō hyakunenshi [One Hundred Years of the Finance Ministry], Appendix.) xxii Tawara Kazuo was a bureaucrat who entered the Ministry of Finance in 1913. After postings including one in the South Pacific Mandate, he worked as director of the Wartime Finance Bank from April 1942 until October 1945 (Ōkurashō jinmeiroku [Ministry of Finance Personnel Register]).

2

Experiences Before and During World War II The Japan-America Student Conference and the Heading of Tax Offices Translated by Sam Malissa

Visiting America as a student, and the state of US-Japan relations Miyazawa: It’s said that people these days live in an audio-­visual age. Because of this, when I think about my trip to America as a student, I realize that Japanese who go abroad today aren’t surprised at what they see and hear since they’re likely familiar with most of it. There also used to be a sense of how long it took to get to the US. The trip lasted two weeks, not one night—that’s a pretty big difference. No, I doubt that people these days are much surprised or impressed the way that we were. In that sense, you could say that everyone’s become naturally globalized now. Nakamura: You went as one of a group of eighty-­nine people, which seems rather large. Miyazawa: That was the number including the American participants. The contingent from Japan was forty-­eight people. Nakamura: Ah, so both groups together totaled eighty-­nine people. That’s still quite a crowd. Miyazawa: Yes, it is. It’s certainly uncommon to travel with a group like that. We didn’t make any distinctions between students from private schools and public schools. There were members who had experience organizing these trips, having taken turns over the years; when I went, the leaders were private school students from Waseda and Keiō. Students from Tokyo University, coming from a public

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university, were probably less interested in taking on that role. No, it was the members from private schools who led our group. I’m jumping ahead a bit, but I want to tell you about an organization that opened up in Yotsuya some time shortly after the war, called the JapaneseAmerican Conversation Institute.i It was established by Itabashi Namiji.ii More than just a language school, it was—and continues to be—the postwar center for activities like the Japan-America Student Conference. Itabashi has headed the school all along, and I would say he’s done a superb job. He was several years older than the members of my group, and has long contributed to this sort of international exchange. In the period after the war’s end, there was high demand for communication between Japanese and Americans, so many government officials studied at Itabashi’s Conversation Institute—which meant that Tokyo University graduates would also hang about and make nuisances of themselves. Itabashi had long been involved with the Student Conference, and you could say that he carried on its legacy after the war. His school is still thriving today. For my part, I was only able to contribute to that exchange in small ways. One sure sign that the times have changed is the difference in how easy it’s become to go abroad compared to when I was young. Obviously it was difficult to travel during the war, and before that we had to deal with the issue of currency controls. I have the sense that it was quite a special privilege to be sent by government offices or universities for study abroad, and the average student wasn’t able to travel overseas. I think currency control was the main reason. One also needed government permission to get on a ship and leave Japan, which of course was no longer the case after the war. I would say that when the currency controls were lifted in the postwar period, and anyone could travel abroad, the attraction of our Student Conference was rather diminished.iii It’s apparently a very involved process to organize [that sort of group travel,] so once anyone could travel freely, there was no need to go to the trouble of putting it all together. At the same time, people have realized that that sort of structured exchange has a certain worth to it, and groups continue to come and go even now. Nakamura: It says in your writings that you were in Palo Alto when the Abe Cabinet replaced the Hiranuma Cabinet. You wrote about how when you were doing a home-­stay with a host family, you went downstairs one morning and the mother of the house said that the situation in Europe was basically hopeless. The next day the Japanese government changed over, and you saw that the newspaper read, “ABE.” Miyazawa: Is that so? You know, now it’s my job to keep abreast of things, but I would say that although I was at least conscious1 of political happenings as a Miyazawa uses the English word “conscious.”

1

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student, if I were to characterize the flow of information I had access to in those days as vigorous or sparse, it would have to be sparse. I wouldn’t even feel ill at ease if I were uninformed on some issue. That being the case, I don’t have much of a recollection of what I would have thought in my student days about the Hiranuma Cabinet resigning amidst scandal, hard as that may be to believe. Though I knew about major things like the notice annulling the Japan-America Commerce and Navigation Treaty, for a student who would eventually enter the world of politics, I didn’t really know much about what was going on with the government. I wonder why that was? I suppose that was the level of awareness that students had in those days about the world around them. No, odd though it may seem, I don’t remember discussing that sort of thing very much. Nakamura: The annulment of the Commerce and Navigation Treaty came into effect in early 1940, six months after it had been declared. But as far as what that might have meant, sometimes I wonder if even members of the government couldn’t foresee the consequences. I ask myself, to what extent did they realize that it would lead to limitations on Japan’s most crucial imports, or to a gasoline embargo? Miyazawa: That’s right, abandoning the Commerce Treaty did open up the possibility of embargo. Losing conditions of trade for critical resources was clearly not a good thing, but those at the center of government were rather slow in sensing that the scene was set for precisely the consequences that Professor Nakamura has just pointed out. Nakamura: When later it became clear that it had been a decisive moment. Miyazawa: Yes, I suppose you could say that it was decisive. Nakamura: But when the Commerce Treaty annulment was announced, it wasn’t generally taken as a sign of the calamity to come. Miyazawa: I believe that the final straw that made the Japanese resolution to declare war on the US inevitable was the shock to the Navy when oil stopped coming into the country. The Army had likely been eager from the outset, but when the Navy was shaken by the fear of withering away without oil, it really started to clamor for a fight while there were still stores of fuel. Looking at it from another perspective, if we assume that the Americans knew that an embargo would push Japan to open hostilities, then this lays firm groundwork to draw an A-B-C-D line of cause and effect between the annulment of the Commerce and Navigation Treaty and the start of the war. But it seems there were no proposals

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in place for how to obtain oil [in the event of an embargo], nor is there any record that the matter had been subject to much debate. Given this, the move on Palembang [in Indonesia] is likely the most misrepresented event from the start of the war. There was the feeling that a path forward had been opened up by claiming the Indonesian oil fields for Japan—the sense that an answer had presented itself to Japan’s problems, a feeling that inspired the popular song “Aoi yori aoki” (“Bluer than Indigo”).2 It was likely the same in the case of French Indochina—Japan also moved in there out of a wish to secure the resources of Southeast Asia. Nakamura: I agree. In French Indochina there was rice as well, and it seems to me that the importation of rice from that region signaled that there was a food shortage back home. Miyazawa: There were debates about oil nearly every day, but I don’t recall there being that much discussion of food supplies. Nakamura: In 1939, there was an outcry when the Tokyo rice vendors ran out of stock. It seems that one of the reasons the Abe government collapsed so quickly was a lack of measures in place for that eventuality. After that, there was a large influx of rice from Indochina and Thailand. It was of shoddy quality, the rice from that region. As you know, the period from 1939 to 1940 was when all sorts of supplies suddenly ran out. Miyazawa: Yes, that’s right. Nakamura: And that’s surely one reason why Japan pushed so urgently towards the south. Miyazawa: I was traveling with the Japan-America Student Conference in 1939—it must have been on September 1—when the [German] invasion of Poland began. But in our interactions with the American students, this didn’t particularly increase any sense that our countries would have to go to war against one another. I heard about the invasion when we were in Portland, Oregon, as our trip was winding down towards its scheduled end and our travel funds were running low. As I mentioned previously, we went camping on an island off Seattle called Bainbridge Island. After the war, actually rather recently, Shiroyama

“Aoi yori aoki” is actually the first line of “Sora no shinpei” (“Sacred Soldiers of the Sky”), the theme song of a 1942 documentary about Japanese paratroopers with the same title.

2

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Saburō became interested in the Japan-America Student Conference and wrote a book about it [Yūjō chikara ari (Strength in Friendship), Tokyo: Kōdansha, 1984]. He’s a thorough writer and traveled to all the places we had gone, and based on what he writes, it seems that the town on Bainbridge Island is still flourishing today. So we went camping there, roughing it in tents and such, living with the Americans and playing softball and the like. Not only did we part ways without any sense of impending war between our countries, but the following year we also invited a group of them to come to Tokyo, such a thing still being possible at that point. I remember going around raising money to bring them over. When I went to the US it was the sixth Conference, and the one in Tokyo was the seventh. We wanted to host the event at Tsuda College, which only had restrooms for women since it had been a girls’ school, and I remember we needed to change over the facilities for use by men. Besides that, the conference took place there as it usually would have, and I don’t recall any particular hindrances or interference. I do remember that the foreign affairs division or some such section of the police would sometimes come by and questioned us on what sorts of discussions we would have during the conference. Nonetheless, we were able to take a rather large group of visiting students to Manchuria, and on the whole it seemed we succeeded in putting together a trip that felt in most respects like business as usual. I just recently found out that some of the students even traveled between Beijing and Shanghai.iv I still trade letters with some of the Americans from those days. By now, many of the group members have passed on, but there are still those with whom I exchange Christmas cards. There were some who also came back later as part of the Occupation forces [laughs]. A few worked in the Occupation administration. Nakamura: Did you ever actually interact with them when you went in for negotiations? Miyazawa: No, that never happened, but there were one or two of them there. Mikuriya: Looking back, that sort of exchange between Japanese and American students was rather unrestricted for those days. Miyazawa: I think that that’s true, especially considering that we were able to go to Manchuria. There were no major obstacles, nor did the average Japanese around us react as if the Americans were a bunch of suspicious characters. Government officials may have been all worked up about the coming war, but they hadn’t done any of the preparation that would have been necessary to properly investigate the visiting Americans, and I don’t think the attitude of the

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average citizen had reached the point where they would have felt discomfort regarding our guests. Mikuriya: That’s rather different from what I would have expected to hear.

Immediately before the outbreak of war Nakamura: When I would take the train to school in 1940, I remember seeing heaps of placards all around Tokyo urging alliance with Germany and Italy. Actually, this was the summer when the second Konoe [Fumimaro] Cabinet came to power and Matsuoka [Yōsuke] was appointed Foreign Minister, which would overlap with when your American colleagues were visiting. Miyazawa: Yes, that was when they were here. It certainly seemed that the whole of Japan was mobilized, but if you keep in mind what I’ve just said, you get the surprising sense that the citizenry did not feel their everyday lives had any immediate connection to America. Nakamura: I would ride the streetcar along Aoyama Boulevard and see placards set out at all the high-­traffic spots, but if you left the main thoroughfare, there were none. Miyazawa: No, I suspect there weren’t. And of course at that time the neighborhood associations hadn’t started running air raid drills, nor had rationing of goods begun. I’d say that the feel of wartime didn’t seep into the daily existence of the citizenry until a while later. Nakamura: Rationing was enforced starting around the following year. Miyazawa: Yes, that’s right. And something also happened on September 18. Nakamura: That was the price-­freeze dictate, which was the previous year, in 1939. Miyazawa: But it wasn’t necessarily enforced strictly right away. Little by little, more and more goods were assigned official prices, but at first people didn’t recognize what was happening. Nakamura: And then within the next two years, all manner of consumer goods had their prices fixed.

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Miyazawa: Yes, and we would talk about the cost of this or that hitting 600,000 ration points. It became common knowledge that once something started to go up, bit by bit the price would spiral out of control. And speaking of having to count points, people’s lives were also certainly affected by garment rationing. We would save up our ration points for clothes. Nakamura: That would have been in 1942, just after the war with the US began. Which says to me that price controls and rationing had already been planned, and would have been implemented regardless of what happened with the war. Miyazawa: I’d have to agree. And the situation progressed gradually. Nakamura: It got to be so that bleached cotton cost such-­and-­such number of points, each person was allotted 100 points, and they could buy what textiles they pleased as long as it fell within their allotment. Miyazawa: It’s been so many years gone by, but I was young man of small means during all of this, and I’ve been thrifty about clothing to this day. I still have a very hard time throwing away clothes, even something worth just 200 or 300 yen, strange as that seems. Old habit, I suppose, from having to think about how many points this or that cost. Nakamura: And that must have been just about when you had to have a suit and shirt made for starting in a government post. Miyazawa: As I mentioned briefly last time we spoke, I had been at Tokyo University, and I took both the Higher Civil Service Examination and the Diplomatic Service Exam on my way to becoming a government official. I would run into trouble with exam questions from certain members of the examination committee. For example, a strain of Shintō thought gained prominence in the field of constitutional law, and a scholar who subscribed to that then joined the committee which came up with the questions for our Higher Civil Service exams. Miyazawa Toshiyoshi and Kakei Katsuhiko were both on the committee. When answering exam questions on constitutional law, we really had a tough time deciding on which of two examiners’ methods to use. If it was Kakei, for example, we had to start by drawing a circle, and then explain what was at the center.3 Miyazawa Toshiyoshi (no relation to Kiichi) was a proponent of the constitutional interpretation that the Emperor is an organ of the state; Kakei advocated the theory that the state originates from the Emperor. In his formulation, the state is described by a circle with the Emperor at the center.

3

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Students in those days had an expression: “Who to answer by.” We needed to figure out whose method to use for answering a given question, so everyone knew right away what was meant when someone asked “who to answer by.” This was enough of a concern that “answering by Kakei” or “answering by Miyazawa” quickly became a part of student lingo. This didn’t happen in all subjects, though. It was like that with national law and constitutional law, but not criminal law or civil law. I don’t know exactly how many points the exam committee awarded me on these tests, but in any case I passed for both government administration and for diplomacy, and was eventually admitted into the Ministry of Finance. That was the year when the war [with the US] began, on December 8, 1941. I was at Ōmori the day the war broke out, likely hanging around there since it was where I had spent much of my time when preparing for the civil service exams. I remember being on my way out the door to the Tokyo University library early in the morning when I heard on NHK news radio that the war had started. I recall it was cold in Ōmori. I set off for the university without really grasping the situation. When I reached the library that afternoon and walked up the steps, there was a blackboard set squarely at the top with a detailed description of what was happening in Hawaii. Naturally, “Hawaii” was written out in obscure Chinese characters. When we saw that blackboard on December 8, we thought that there must have been fighting not just in Hawaii, but all over. We didn’t cause any kind of a ruckus because we were conscious of being students at the library. But of course, once we saw that blackboard, there was definitely some feeling of hope that our forces would win. Shortly after that, I had plans to visit a friend of mine from the Student Conference to go skiing in Otaru and Niseko [in Hokkaidō]. This was in January of the next year, and at that point I was still certain that Japan would win the war. My friend’s father was the headmaster of the Otaru School of Commerce, a man named Tomabechi Hidetoshi. When I was staying with them, Mr. Tomabechi would proclaim unequivocally that the war would be wrapped up in no time. I remember my student self being impressed by this.

Inspecting occupied territories during wartime as an administrator in the Ministry of Finance Miyazawa: As I explained in our last session, I began my time in the Finance Ministry under the tutelage of men like Sakomizu [Hisatsune] and Morinaga [Teiichirō]. It was at the outset of the war, when Japan still had tremendous momentum. Just at the end of the summer there was a joint meeting of the armed forces and the government ministries to discuss the prosecution of

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wartime affairs. During this meeting, it was proposed that representatives of the participating organizations should see the Japanese [overseas] territories. Members of the Army, Navy, Finance Ministry, and Commerce Ministry traveled together in an airplane provided by the Army. I was included in this tour of inspection as a petty clerk, which was what junior clerks were called at the time. I was attached to a bureau chief from the Finance Ministry, and we were part of a group of a few more than ten members. Over the course of some two months, we traveled around to each of the Japanese outposts and holdings. Japan was flush with its victories at the start of the war, and it was a time of great energy and enthusiasm. I was just a youngster, accompanying the group as a petty finance clerk. From the perspective of someone in the military, petty clerks were the lowest of the low: there was military personnel; then civilian employees of the military below that; followed by military horses, then military dogs; and at the bottom were petty clerks. But I was taken along in any case, perhaps because it was useful for the bureau chief to have a junior assistant. At each location we visited, we were introduced to the most prominent personage there. Every territory had a chief administrator, Lieutenant-General So-­and-So in Hong Kong, and . . . who was it in Singapore? Nakamura: Was it Yamashita [Tomoyuki]? Miyazawa: No, there was someone above Yamashita, a commander of the joint armed forces. Nakamura: Terauchi [Hisaichi].v Miyazawa: That’s it. Our group lined up to pay our respects to him when we arrived. When the question came up as to whether or not I should be included at the end of the greeting line, the touring party decided to allow me to participate. The same thing was repeated at each destination we visited. It was a singular experience at a singular time. By singular time, I mean that we still had the enemy on the run at that point, there had not been any counter-­attacks, and the storehouses were bursting with supplies wherever we went. There are all sorts of stories from that tour. For instance, there was a surplus of Palmolive bar soap in Hong Kong, which some Japanese soldier tried eating because he thought they were sweets. There were also great stores of whiskey and Trust brand cigarettes from the West. The military members of our party loaded up our plane with this bounty to take it with us. But the runway was quite short in Hong Kong, as it has been until very recently, and they were asked to rein themselves in since stuffing so much into the plane would make taking off

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difficult. Unfortunately we had to leave it there—but it was that sort of a heady time. And when we tried chatting with the factory girls in Singapore, they didn’t fuss about coyly. I wanted to speak with them because we could communicate in English, and they were quite direct and willing to talk. We also went to Shanghai on that trip. The inspection tour was a grand experience, and those two months were truly like a sunny stretch in the middle of the rainy season. During that trip I became interested in learning about how the Dutch managed their colonial holdings. I thought there would certainly be some books on the subject available in Jakarta, but though I searched all around, I couldn’t find even one. I wonder if it was intentional on someone’s part, but there were no reference materials at all. By the time we took our tour, there had already been a steady stream of administrative officials dispatched from Japan to manage the territorial holdings. There was a whole ranking system, with a chief administrator at the top and functionaries below him, and I remember meeting all sorts of different people. For instance, Makassar on Sulawesi Island—which I believe was later known as Ujung Pandangvi—was a Japanese naval territory, since colonial holdings were divided up between the Army and the Navy, and it was there I met Maeo [Shigesaburō]. He was my senior at the Ministry of Finance, and he had gone to Makassar as an administrator attached to the Navy, not yet being ready for the post of chief administrator of the territory.vii Maeo was a tax specialist, and he handled taxes for the colony. I asked him if he researched the old Dutch tax system with the intention of converting it to the Japanese system. Even now, I remember what he said: “I enjoy research, so I do plenty of it, but tax systems are not the sort of thing that can be changed around in one or two years. That would be a waste of my effort, and I don’t spare it any thought.” As I told you, I visited Manchuria when I was younger, and I still feel regret when I think about how Japan missed its chance to cultivate talented personnel there. I’m talking about the sort of people who were raised in an empty, wide-­ open place, far from the cramped and limiting ways of an island nation like Japan. The people raised in Manchuria give off a different air, and I think it’s a shame that Japan did not make better use of that talent. How can I put it—let’s say those people are continental. Japan had the chance to foster the development of those types . . . had the chance and missed it. Nakamura: I can think of an example of that sort of person, whom you no doubt know: Etō Shinkichi, a former professor at Tokyo University. He was quintessential Shenyang—he was a colleague of mine, so I know him rather well, and he was certainly of a somewhat different type from the usual Japanese.

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Miyazawa: He had been working at Asia University, hadn’t he? Nakamura: He’s best known for being the head of Asia University, but after he stopped working there he took a position as the head of the Tōyō Eiwa Women’s Academy, where I was teaching. Miyazawa: I met him after I had become a career politician, when I was asked by the Foreign Ministry to head a cultural envoy dispatch to the southern territories. I invited several people to join the group, including Etō. I observed him throughout the whole trip. When we were at Hong Kong University and other such places, I found that he had a wonderful ability to get to the heart of an issue. It goes without saying that he was able to speak Chinese. Nakamura: He spoke Chinese from the time he was young, and can still hold a conversation now. Miyazawa: I’ve always thought that he’s a remarkable, fascinating character— and you’re telling me he’s from Manchuria? Nakamura: Etō’s father [Toshio] had been the director of the library at Mukden, so Etō grew up there through middle school. Miyazawa: Is that so? Well, I found him to be an engaging person, who didn’t get tripped up on insignificant details. I still meet with him now and again these days. It’s funny, every time I guess that he’ll go one way in his thinking, he heads in a different direction [laughs]. Nakamura: Yes, that’s how he is—part of his distinctive personality. Miyazawa: And there are still quite a few people like that in the performing arts world, people who were raised in Manchuria. That’s where Japan missed out, in cultivating the sorts of people who weren’t suffused with the nonsensical traditions of the Japanese home islands. In the southern territories, though, I don’t believe that there was the same kind of opportunity, since Japan held those areas for such a short amount of time. In 1949, when Japan had lost the war and was under American control, Joseph Dodge said something I found amusing. After our defeat and occupation, we were in the same position as the areas we had held previously. During our occupation of the southern territories, the military had issued its own currency. So one day, Dodge asked me how Japan managed to finance its operations in the territories, and I told him that we did it through issuing military currency. I still

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remember that he said, “Aha, so that’s what you did.” Now that I think about it, financing those operations with military scrip couldn’t have gone on indefinitely. But in any case, the fact that we did it at all seems to have come as a surprise to the Americans. Nakamura: It wasn’t until later that the figures were released, but there are price index records for the southern territories through to the end of the war. From looking at these, it becomes clear that the further away from Japan, the more severe the inflation. Naturally there was inflation in Shanghai and Manchuria, but if you look at somewhere like Burma, the numbers are astronomical. Of course, this is bound to happen when supplies of goods aren’t replenished but the printing of currency continues.

Experiences in the Numazu tax office Miyazawa: I returned to the Ministry of Finance from the tour of inspection, and at the start of the following year [1943], I was appointed the head of a tax office. Mikuriya: And that was the tax office in Numazu [Shizuoka Prefecture]? Miyazawa: That’s right. Ikeda [Hayato] was at the Tax Bureau then, and he took me under his wing. He most likely had me sent to Numazu because it wasn’t that far from Tokyo, and he thought he would be doing me a favor to send me to a place with which I was familiar, a place where express trains stopped. In those days, there was a large inn by the sea called Hoyōkan, which was often used by members of the Imperial Court and such; since I was on my own, I stayed there and commuted to the tax office. The Numazu tax office was comparatively large. The tax system at the time was based on government levies rather than on returns filed by taxpayers. Accordingly, we would conduct a sort of survey to determine the levy. The Numazu office had jurisdiction over Atami and Itō, and we would impose one levy for all the hot spring resorts in each place through the body of the local Hot Spring Association. For example, there were about 100 inns in the Atami association, I can’t recall the exact number, but at any rate our procedure was to negotiate with a lead member of the association as to what the total tax levied should be. They must have cataloged and categorized themselves internally according to size—they likely had some sort of index for this. Before the amount was settled, we at the tax office would conduct our own research and compare our findings to the numbers that the association had reported. It was the head of the tax office’s job to negotiate with the Hot Spring Association spokesman and to decide how much to levy on

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the Atami group, on the Itō group, and so forth. The negotiations would last for several days. Finally, the Association spokesman would stand in front of the desk of the tax office head—which was me—and say whether he felt the levy was too high or too low. An elderly section chief on my staff would stand beside my desk and I would listen as he went back and forth with the Association spokesman. At the end of the meeting, my section chief would rattle out some number on his abacus like this [mimes manipulating an abacus below the desk in a way that the Association spokesman would not be able to see it]. Then he would ask me, “How does this much sound?” And I would answer, “Well, that seems about right.” That’s how we decided. Then after the Association spokesman left, I would ask, “How much did we just agree on?” You see, I can’t read the abacus very well [laughs]. Nakamura: So you mean that the tax office in Numazu would decide on the income tax for Atami . . . Miyazawa: Yes, that’s right. Well, we had the previous year’s records, and based on those it was more or less possible to guess how much to expect in the coming year. And prior to setting the figure, the heads of all the tax offices would gather at the Supervisory Tax Bureau and determine the target tax revenues for the year. That number would become the measure from which to work, and with this in mind the office heads had to determine how to assign the levies in order to reach that goal. It wasn’t an ideal time for that sort of process, but in any case both our offices and the Associations had some leeway to maneuver. The Association heads must have been able to manage things among their members so that they could negotiate with us effectively. This was in no way a democratic system, but that was the way things went. Officially, there was an elected Income Inspection Committee, and setting the levies required their approval to finalize.4 In any case, the taxes levied on Atami and Itō ended up being more or less in balance. The biggest headache came from the hot springs at Yugawara. It was just across the river from Atami and Itō, which were under Numazu tax office jurisdiction in Shizuoka, while Yugawara was in Kanagawa Prefecture, and was handled by the Odawara tax office. There was always a competition between Numazu and Odawara over who had the more robust levies. Besides hot springs, the office at Numazu dealt with rather a lot of distilleries. You may remember the old ad, “If it’s liquor, it’s got to be Genji” (“Sake wa Genji”), which was for a brew from the area around Numazu.5 Actually it’s a bit further south, but it still fell within our jurisdiction. Miyazawa uses the English word “finalize.” An advert for the Genji line of shōchū (distilled spirits) formerly produced by the now defunct Tōyō Brewery in Shizuoka.

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Nakamura: Were you also responsible for Shimoda? Miyazawa: Shimoda had its own small tax office. Usually, tax office heads are higher-­level administrators, but the Shimoda office was run by a petty clerk. Now, in the foothills of Mt. Fuji, around Gotenba, there are many people who brew spirits illegally, and they’re extremely good at it. It was very difficult to access the town of Gotenba from Numazu in those days. The Tōkaidō trains stopped at Gotenba station, and Numazu was the next stop. But the station at Gotenba was rather far away from the town itself, so when a party from our tax office took a train there to conduct a crackdown on illicit brewing, it was still roughly one ri6 to the town from the station. By the time we arrived, the station workers would have called around to warn the brewers, because the station men’s own families were involved in illegal operations. We tried several times to conduct raids, but it never succeeded. Now this is a true story: we went out one time on a raid, and yet again we came up with nothing. Then we spotted something at one of the residences that looked like a tobacco bush, and we asked the owners what they were up to. They apologized fearfully and began taking out all sorts of metal basins. They assumed we were asking them about home brew, you see—we thought we had found an illegal tobacco operation, but unexpectedly turned up an unauthorized liquor manufacture. It wasn’t quite like the stuff in Miyazawa Kenji’s story [“Zeimushochō no bōken” (“The Adventures of a Tax Office Head”)], but I think it was still fairly high quality. Nakamura: I understand that illegal operations were particularly problematic in the Tohoku region. Miyazawa: Yes, it was a big problem in Tohoku. In Miyazawa’s story about a tax office head in that region there was even a home brew that had a name [“Kita no kagayaki” (“Shine of the North”)]. But at any rate, we confiscated the liquor and brought it back to our offices, where we kept it as evidence—until it exploded. Nakamura: You mean it fermented and the lid burst off the container? Miyazawa: Yes. Mikuriya: About how many people worked at the tax office in Numazu at that time?

About 4 kilometers.

6

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Miyazawa: It was on the larger side, with about 100 staff members, though staffers were being steadily drafted into military service. When someone went into service, we wrote their name on the Japanese flag at our office, and we had to write quite a few names. Because so many were conscripted, we weren’t able to work to our full capacity, but technically we were about 100 staffers. We had to cover everything from Atami to Fujinomiya to Fujikawa—a pretty broad territory, now that I think about it. One of our larger taxpayers was Dai Shōwa Paper Manufacture, which was still expanding in those days.viii Mikuriya: That was the Saitō family business.7 Nakamura: There are a good number of paper manufacturers in that region. Miyazawa: There were quite a few in the Fuji and Yoshiwara areas of Shizuoka. Most of the paper companies were outside of our jurisdiction, but we had some. Mikuriya: What sort of work cycle did you have as the head of the tax office? By cycle, I mean your daily routine. Miyazawa: Well, my lodgings were a bit of a ways away from the main area of town. It was about a 20-minute bus ride to the tax office, so I would say about two ri.8 Every morning before I left for the day, the caretaker at the inn where I stayed would come by on a bicycle to collect my [previous day’s] bento box. He wasn’t in very good health, so I would always offer to take it myself, but he wouldn’t hear of it. After that I would head to the office. There wasn’t much to do on an average day. Receive visitors, that’s about it. If a superior came from the Supervisory Tax Bureau, I would entertain him, which usually meant bringing out special rations of liquor. The war was already on, so handling visitors was about all I had to do, aside from attending the occasional formal ceremony together with the chair of the local commerce and industry association, and the chief of police. Mikuriya: Did you usually spend your evenings at the inn? Miyazawa: Yes, I did. In a way, it was a rather luxurious lifestyle. Your question reminds me that I spent time reading a copy of Gone With the Wind that I had bought on my trip to the US and still hadn’t finished. It was a big, thick book, like this [indicates thickness]. I also remember reading Sombart’s Der moderne Founded by the industrialist, Saitō Chiichirō. About 8 kilometers.

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Kapitalismus,ix quite a fine book. I truly enjoyed passing the time with my books, and I’m glad that there was no TV in Japan yet. I served in that post for somewhere between half a year and ten months, and then I was transferred to the Shiba tax office in Tokyo.

Posted to the Shiba tax office Mikuriya: After your time away from the capital, you returned to a post in Tokyo. Miyazawa: Yes, that was the normal pattern for a time. It was thought that new ministry employees shouldn’t go straight to work at the main ministry office, so they would first do a stint in a rural post and then one in a big city before being assigned to the ministry proper. It used to be that there were those who, rather than going to a tax office at that stage in their career, would serve for a period as a finance clerk in a ministry office in New York or London. That couldn’t happen in my day, though, since the war was going on. Nowadays, you wouldn’t hear about a new employee being appointed head of a tax office—apparently that now takes about seven years. Sometimes people ask me my thoughts on the appointment system based on my own experience. It’s quite presumptuous of me to say this, but from the standpoint of management training, I believe that putting someone in charge of a large staff is a good way for them to learn. It might not be ideal when important visitors need handling, but from a training perspective I think it’s by no means a bad thing. But, of course, if the person thrust into that position isn’t a quick student, then it’s no good at all. When I was the head of the Shiba tax office, I would frequently leave my desk and walk through the waiting area for guests. One of the staff would always say, “Excuse me, what number are you?” They asked me what number I was in the reception order! I would say, “I’m the head of the tax office,” and they would be caught totally off guard. I was young, and was doing that on purpose, but you know, I don’t think it was a meaningless exercise. The Shiba tax office is in the Shinbashi district of Tokyo, and there were many cases of tax delinquency to deal with. When we would head out to deal with people who weren’t paying taxes, I would go along but remain uninvolved. There were a number of different methods we used, for instance, repossessing the delinquent’s bicycle. We would also sometimes leave the bike but attach a notification with an official seal to it. Of course there are many ways to affix the notification. Some might just wrap the document around the handlebars, or between the wheel and the fender, so that the owner could still ride it if they

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want to—this is no good. But there are many ways to serve someone notice of delinquency. Nakamura: I take it you would adjust your methods based on whom you were dealing with? Miyazawa: Yes, that’s the sort of thing we dealt with. People would bring home their rations of pickled radishes and find them wrapped in subpoenas! [laughs] But for all that, there still weren’t many air raids yet. Nakamura: You started at the Shiba tax office in August of 1943, is that right? Nakamura: There weren’t yet any air raids at all in 1943. Miyazawa: But there were air raid drills. On another note, I’d like to tell you something else about Shiba. There was a hospital, there was our tax office, and there was the Seishōji Temple. At the top of a stairway behind the temple, there was at that time a restaurant called Sagano. Now, Ikeda [Hayato], who was then the head of our supervisory bureau [Tokyo Finance Bureau],x got along famously with the man who ran Sagano. One time, they had apparently spent the night drinking straight through until morning. I went to the office, and as I was reading the morning paper, I suddenly felt something odd and looked up to find Ikeda sitting there. I thanked him politely for coming to our office, and asked him if he would address the staff. He agreed, so I gathered everyone at around 9 a.m. to hear him speak. Then Ikeda addressed us all in his capacity as head of the supervisory bureau, after which he left. The next day, I paid him a call, thinking that I ought to thank him for going to the trouble of sharing a few words with my staff. When I expressed my appreciation for what he had done the day before, he said, “Eh? What happened yesterday?” [laughs]. I reminded him that he had addressed my staff the previous morning, and he said, “I don’t remember that at all!” He had drunk so much that it had disappeared completely from his memory. Though it’s not as if that’s never happened to me. I’m a drinker too, but I still had no idea that Ikeda had been so drunk. I was rather impressed. Nakamura: And he gave a sensible address? Miyazawa: He didn’t even smell of alcohol! He spoke quite well before going home. Nakamura: That is quite impressive.

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Miyazawa: Well, he must have been at the height of his powers then, but it was still something. In any case, it was the summer of 1944, and with the situation being what it was, Sakomizu and Minobe [Yōji] and that level of official would have all manner of closed meetings with military men at places like Sagano. I suppose there must have been a number of meeting spots like that. Nakamura: Yabe Teiji would have been involved too. Mikuriya: From what I read in Yabe’s diary, during the times when he and the naval officials were rushing about on official business, they generally held their meetings at inns and restaurants. Miyazawa: They discussed things quite seriously, but since it was in the evening and they were drinking, the focus of the talks was off by a millimeter or two. And you know that once things shift even a tiny bit, the whole tone changes completely. They would get all fired up, which sounds like a good thing, but hard drinkers like the proprietor of Sagano were clever about egging them on. I’m sure even those at Tōjō [Hideki]’s level would show up for these gatherings. There was hardly any alcohol in Japan, no dainties to savor while drinking, but all the top brass would hold their secret meetings and deliberations in those sorts of drinking spots. Nakamura: Professor Yabe, whom we just mentioned, would regularly get together with people like Takagi Sōkichi and members of the Naval Investigative Section at inns and restaurants, where they would drink and work on writing up secret plans to end the war. Miyazawa: When it came to the military staff, there were problems with the flow of information. Rather than sharing intelligence, they more often guarded it jealously. No one had a complete picture of what was happening with the war, which must have led them to have so many of those sorts of gatherings.

Returning to ministry headquarters Miyazawa: As time went on, the situation with the war grew worse and worse. I returned to the main branch of the Finance Ministry and was assigned to work on war insurance. War insurance was an automatic supplement to the standard fire insurance contract, but it could also be purchased separately. The premium was 4 yen, which paid out at the rate of ¥1,000. These funds were all guaranteed by the state. For re-­insurance, the state went through insurance companies. There

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was also an administrative measure put in place dictating that the maximum payout for multiple policies would be ¥3,000 in cash. You could still buy a house then in the Mitaka suburbs for ¥3,000, so I believe that the insurance did quite a bit to calm people’s anxiety. When I started the job, there were no air raids, so things were fairly relaxed. But before long, it got so that people were wondering where the bombs would fall today, and where they would fall tomorrow. As long as someone had their insurance premium paid by 4:00 p.m., if their house went up in flames that night, they would receive ¥1,000 for a 4-­yen policy and ¥3,000 for a 12-­yen policy. The insurance would lighten people’s worries, and then their house would be burned down that night. They could purchase coverage both at insurance companies and at the Ministry of Finance. At first, when there was a claim for a house that had been destroyed, an inspector from one of the participating insurance firms would go to the site, submit proof that the building in question had burned down, and the policy would pay out. As time went on, whole city blocks were incinerated, and the inspectors couldn’t possibly investigate each claim one by one. Since the government gazette would announce that such and such block of such and such neighborhood had burned to the ground, I proposed a simplified measure by which everyone on that block would be given their ¥3,000 and sent back to their hometowns. I believe that this provision helped many people. Those who were working, however, couldn’t leave the capital. Those people packed up whatever belongings they might have had, and we began offering complete household insurance at the same rates, so that if someone’s temporary lodgings were also bombed, they could make another claim for ¥3,000. I think that this, too, did a lot to settle people’s minds. Nakamura: My parents’ house was destroyed, and it was more than ¥3,000 worth of damage—¥20,000 or ¥30,000 of damages, I can’t recall exactly how much, but thereabouts. We were awarded our ¥3,000 in cash, and the rest was held as frozen assets. All we could get was a receipt for the amount that was being held in the bank. We were told at first that we would eventually be able to claim those assets, but it proved to be impossible until after the war had ended. It was apparently quite difficult to actually withdraw the money that was guaranteed, unless you knew someone at the bank. Then you could get tens of thousands of yen all at once. Miyazawa: While I was involved with paying out war insurance claims, I was called up for military duty and went to Yamaguchi [Prefecture]. At that point, there were bombings every night, and there was no one to keep track and report in the government circulars which ward in, say, Fukuoka had been destroyed. The insurance work ground to a halt, so I was ordered back to my previous post.

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The trains were not running regularly, and I had to go on foot at times as I made my way back from Yamaguchi, but I was usually able to ride the train for good distances. That was in June of 1945. Nakamura: The worst time of all. Miyazawa: My house in Tokyo was destroyed before I got back, and there was a mandatory evacuation in force. I had been in Atami when I was conscripted, so I went back there and commuted to the Ministry of Finance through July and August. Most mornings I took a train around 5:00 a.m. and returned to Atami at 9 in the evening. During the forty or fifty days between the start of July and the end of the war in August, the trains between Atami and Tokyo only suspended service on two days. I find that truly astounding. [On those two days] I walked to Odawara to catch the train from there. It’s not an easy thing to walk through train tunnels—in that area, they’re long and curved, and you can’t see what’s around the bend. Even walking like this [extends both arms out sideways for balance] I couldn’t stay straight beside the rail, and I fell into the ditches next to the tracks. But that was only on those two days when the Tokyo–Atami trains weren’t running. I basically went to work every day without taking any days off. I’m continually impressed at the vigorous efforts to keep the state railways running, or at least the main lines. I think it’s tremendous that the trains ran as well as they did. Mikuriya: In July of 1945, the war was getting worse and worse for Japan every day. Miyazawa: It was truly bleak. Mikuriya: How did you feel at that time? Miyazawa: That was just about when anti-­aircraft artillery was installed at the Ministry of Finance. The building was fairly sturdy, so the guns were set up on the roof. On account of that, the whole ministry was evacuated. My department relocated to a private home at the top of Reinan Hill.xi Mikuriya: That’s quite a reason to relocate. Miyazawa: The whole ministry was scattered around. I’m fairly certain that the finance minister’s office set up shop in the Bank of Japan. We were evacuated, but we were still a government office, and we had our jobs to do. There was no time to waste on rage or lamentations. To make things worse, we were extremely

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short-­handed. Every department had lost staff members, so those who remained had to take care of multiple workloads. We certainly weren’t brimming with morale, but everyone was serious in carrying out their duties. Yet amidst all this, there was a ministry member who had to take cover during an air raid, and there was a girl volunteer from Gakushūin University sharing his hiding spot. They ended up falling in love. Mikuriya: There was more than just suffering that came out of those attacks. Miyazawa: Yes, given that there were people like that, we can say that it wasn’t only pain and suffering. And while the military may not have recognized it, I believe that there was no lack of valor among bureaucrats and administrators. At the start of the air raids, people felt sorry for the victims, but soon everyone was a victim, and the feeling was one of all being in the same boat. So, as I said before, I was commuting every day from Atami. One day in August, I was walking through Shinbashi on my way to the Finance Ministry offices. As I was approaching the Ministry of Education, leaflets came raining down from the sky. They were entitled, “A Message from President Truman.” The leaflets reported that a new type of bomb had been dropped on Hiroshima, referring, of course, to the atomic bomb. That afternoon, I went to see a friend of mine in the Intelligence Section of the Foreign Ministry. I tentatively asked about what was going on, and he told me that everything was more or less over. I forgot to mention that in those days, the eighth of every month was marked as a day to receive Imperial decrees. Everyone would gather in their building’s courtyard, and the highest-­ranking person present to have returned from active military duty would go like this [raises right hand]. We would face the Imperial Palace and bow. There would also be a room where a notice with updates on “the course of the Imperial Court” would be posted. Nakamura: You’re talking about revering the Emperor from afar. Miyazawa: And then we read Truman’s message and wondered if it was true. The morning paper had come out that day, though I can’t exactly recall if the evening edition came out. Nakamura: There was no evening edition, just one page worth of news by today’s standards. Miyazawa: That’s right, it was just one page. As I said previously, our ministry had been evacuated and scattered around. But on the last day of the war, there

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was the Jeweled Broadcast,9 so we gathered together wherever we could. I went to the Bank of Japan. There were not many people inside, and the bank was gloomy and subdued. I remember admiring how calm and collected the girls [who worked there] were. It was like the last display of Japanese good manners. When we heard the broadcast, it didn’t come as any sort of violent shock for me. I do remember thinking that now I could leave the lights on all night. But even if we could use lights after dark, there were hardly any people living above ground to enjoy the privilege. Most had gone into hiding underground. It was more a question of whether people even had a light bulb to begin with. My first reaction to the surrender was thinking that, from that day forward, people would be able to turn lights on without fear. Nakamura: But the light bulbs were all dead. I still remember that after the war, there was a dubious contraption for sale at the Mitsukoshi department store—it was supposed to make burnt out bulbs light up again. It worked for a bit, but the bulb would short out again almost right away. Well, I suppose it did work, even if it was only once! [laughs] Mikuriya: Yes, that sounds pretty fishy. Miyazawa: I remember putting an electric heating coil into my tub to warm up water for a bath, but it gobbled up electricity something ferocious—so I used a magnet to reset the power meter. Pretty scientific, huh? [laughs] Nakamura: A heating coil uses . . . Miyazawa: 600 or 700 watts. Nakamura: Putting that directly into the water must have been dangerous. Miyazawa: Don’t worry, Professor, the water heated up just fine.

Notes i

This was a study center founded in 1945 at the request of government ministries and private companies. It was opened to the public shortly after its establishment, and was authorized as a specialty school for foreign language study in 1976 with the

Refers to Emperor Hirohito’s first ever radio address, on August 15, 1945, in which he announced Japan’s acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration demanding Japan’s unconditional surrender.

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inauguration of the advanced vocational school system. It is still in operation today. It was founded by the Society for the Promotion of International Education, and Itabashi Namiji was the head of the school (from the institution website). ii Born in Akita Prefecture, 1908. After opening the Japanese-American Conversation Institute, he was a long-­time supporter of the Japan-America Student Conference. He served as the executive director for both the Japanese-American Conversation Institute and the Society for the Promotion of International Education. See also “Itabashi Namiji kyōnen kyūjū, nichibei kōryū ni tsukushita rokujūgonen” (“Itabashi Namiji dies aged 90—65 years devoted to Japan-America exchanges”), Shūkan Mainichi, 103(22), May 1998. iii Foreign travel became much easier in conjunction with the liberalization of the foreign exchange rate on April 1, 1964. iv Flora Lewis and four others traveled to Beijing, according to the previously noted Yūjō chikara ari by Shiroyama (p. 131). Lewis went on to become a journalist, chiefly known for her book, Europe: A Tapestry of Nations (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1987. Translated as Yōroppa: Minzoku no mozaiku, trans. Tomoda Masu, Tokyo: Kawade Shobō Shinsha, 1990). v Yamashita commanded the 25th Army, in charge of Malaysia and Sumatra from November 1941 to July 1942. Terauchi was the general commander for the southern territories from November 1941 until the end of the war (from Hata Ikuhiko (ed.) Nihon rikukaigun sōgō jiten [General Encyclopedia of the Japanese Army and Navy], Fukugawa Hideki, ed. Nihon rikukaigun jinmei jiten [Encyclopedia of Japanese Military Personnel]). vi After the war, Makassar was known as Ujun Pandang, but has now reverted to its old name. vii From August 1942 to May 1944, Maeo served as naval commander and section chief of the Tax and Finance Bureau of civil administration for the South-Western Fleet. viii Dai Shōwa Paper Manufacture was founded in September of 1938. Its previous incarnation, Shōwa Paper Manufacture, was founded in 1927 (from the company website). ix Translated as Kōdo shihonshugi, trans. Kajiyama Tsutomu (Tokyo: Yūhikaku, 1940). x The Supervisory Tax Bureau was renamed the Finance Bureau in July 1941 (from Ōkurashō hyakunenshi, bekkan [One Hundred Years of the Finance Ministry, supplementary volume]). Ikeda served as the head of the Tokyo Finance Bureau from March 1944 to February 1945. During that period, Ōhira Masayoshi served as the head of the tax section under Ikeda (from Ōkurashō jinmeroku [Finance Ministry Personnel Registry]). xi During this time, Miyazawa was attached to the Bank and Insurance Bureau, which was reorganized as the Credit Bureau in May 1945 (from Ōkurashō hyakunenshi, bekkan [One Hundred Years of the Finance Ministry, supplementary volume]).

3

The Ministry of Finance after Japan’s Defeat in World War II Translated by Sam Malissa and Iris Haukamp

The immediate aftermath of defeat Mikuriya: Mr. Miyazawa, please tell us today about what was going on after Japan’s defeat, when Prince Higashikuni’s Cabinet was formed and you served as Assistant Secretary to Finance Minister Tsushima Juichi. Miyazawa: All right. Last time I told you about how I was managing war insurance in the final days of the war. Now, defeat and occupation were things that no one had gone through, and we had no idea what to expect. Prince Higashikuni formed the first postwar Cabinet, which I believe had to do with the opinion that it was not a job for a commoner. Previous Cabinet members who were still alive like Konoe [Fumimaro], Ogata [Taketora] and Yoshida [Shigeru] were involved. Tsushima Juichi was likely appointed Finance Minister because whoever held the post would have frequent dealings with other countries.i I had no previous connection with Mr. Tsushima. He was from Kagawa Prefecture in Shikoku, so I suppose that Ōhira [Masayoshi] was a natural choice for his executive secretary.1 As for whose idea it was to pick me [to be the Assistant Executive Secretary], it may have been Ōhira, or it may well have been the tax bureau chief, Ikeda [Hayato]. I think it had something to do with the notion that my speaking some English would be useful. All of these appointments took immediate effect, and I had the chance to meet most of the members of the Higashikuni Cabinet at the prime minister’s residence. I had the impression that Prince Higashikuni was quite approachable, and he seemed to me a perfectly capable prime minister. I don’t know about how his Cabinet functioned. As for the Finance Ministry, we could finally return to our main offices, which had been evacuated, and that’s just what we did. But before Ōhira was also from Kagawa.

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long, the first contingent of the Occupation forces came with direct orders to Minister Tsushima to withdraw from the building within 48 or 72 hours. I was on duty as secretary that day, and Mr. Tsushima told me bluntly to refuse the orders. His refusal might seem absurd, but he was probably acting on strong feelings stemming from all that the ministry had been through to that point, and from some sense that he had no obligation to obey such an order. I asked the minister if he truly intended to go through with the refusal. It ended up that we did withdraw, and we began taking with us everything we could carry. One thing we took a lot of was salt. The shop for government monopoly goods was housed at the Ministry, and there was a generous supply of salt. Just before the end of the war, salt had been extremely scarce, and reliable members of the Finance Ministry were dispatched to regions of the country where they might find salt. For instance, Morinaga Teiichirō went to Yamagata and worked to increase salt production, going around from place to place in hopes of securing salt that wouldn’t fall into American hands. That was what happened, though I can’t remember if that initiative succeeded or failed. So the Finance Minister’s office relocated to the Kangyō Bank in Uchisaiwaichō. Just when we thought we had finally gotten everyone all back in the same place, we were scattered again. As the Occupation was getting further underway, one of the things that the Finance Ministry was most concerned with was whether or not the Americans would issue military currency. I suppose it makes sense that this would be a primary concern for the Ministry of Finance. If there were US military currency, the Ministry would have no authority over the printing of money, which wouldn’t have been good at all. We wanted to do something so that the US wouldn’t take this measure, but we were in no position to make such a request, and we were extremely worried about whether or not the Occupation forces would go ahead with it. I think it was on August 30 of 1945 that General MacArthur arrived in Atsugi [Kanagawa Prefecture] and we wanted to see if we could somehow find out what the plans for military currency were. There was a section chief in the Ministry’s secretariat named Hashimoto Ryūgoii—he had rather a lot of gravitas, he walked with a cane from childhood polio—and it was decided that he would go to see what could be learned. When he came back to the ministry office that evening, he announced rather dramatically, “Minister, I failed.” But it somehow turned out that he had understood that the matter was settled, and that there would be no military currency—I never was sure exactly what happened. Aside from the currency issue, the thing that everyone was most anxious about in the Cabinet meetings was the safety of the Japanese public when the Occupation forces arrived. In the worst-­case scenario, it could have turned out to be no different than if the attacking forces had landed and brought the war to Japan. Even if that didn’t happen, public safety was still on people’s minds. For instance, at the start of

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the Occupation, there were houses on the market near the coast in Kamakura, since it had not been damaged much in the war, but people were saying that the area was best avoided since it would be dangerous by the sea where the American forces could land. Accordingly, the Cabinet decided relatively quickly—after just a few meetings—that the so-­called “comfort woman strategy” would need to be implemented, and that the restaurant owners and tavern association members would put together some [area for entertaining the US troops] in Ōmori.iii I don’t recall that lasting for very long though. For one thing, there must have been concerns over public health. For another, the American soldiers had a rather strict disciplinary code. MacArthur arrived at the end of August, and on September 2 Shigemitsu [Mamoru] signed the treaty aboard the USS Missouri. From that point the structures of the Occupation administration in Japan were set in place. I don’t know how things were handled outside the capital, but in Tokyo, MacArthur set up his headquarters at the Dai-Ichi Insurance building near the Imperial Palace, and delineated the roles of the various Japanese ministries within the Occupation’s system. There were enough buildings that had survived the bombings and these were commandeered for ministry offices, many in the Yurakuchō area. As for where the Occupation employees would live, some moved into hotels like the Dai-Ichi Hotel, others moved into private homes that were requisitioned, and so on. Gradually, the American staff settled into their lodgings and workplaces. American administrators would go around to the various Japanese ministries and ask about what sorts of things each office handled, and then the daily operations of the Occupation began in earnest. Mikuriya: What was an average day for you as the Assistant Executive Secretary to the Finance Minister? You must have started every morning by going to the minister’s office . . . Miyazawa: At first, we had no idea what sorts of things to expect from the Occupation government, which meant that everything happening in the various Finance Ministry sections would filter up to the minister, and I would read through these reports [and brief him]. But as it turned out, the Minister wasn’t called on to deal directly with MacArthur, I don’t think even once. MacArthur went through Prime Minister Yoshida instead. Mikuriya: And what portion of Ōhira’s responsibilities as executive secretary did he delegate to you? Miyazawa: I worked together with Ōhira. There was no real distinction between our roles, and we each took on whatever tasks were necessary as they arose. We

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also talked frequently, and would go on about all sorts of different subjects. I remember one particular episode with him. The official residence of the Finance Minister had burned down, and Minister Tsushima’s temporary lodgings were not in any shape to serve as an official residence, so we borrowed some space nearby the Southern Manchuria Railroad offices, or perhaps it was actually in the Southern Manchuria Railroad office. Senior ministry officials would gather at that temporary official residence for meetings during the workday, since we had nowhere else that was suitable. You could see all the way from Shiba to Shibaura from that office. One time, Ōhira and I were both on duty there, and he said to me, “Japan has lost nearly everything. But supposing we could pledge something as collateral for a loan, what do you think about the train system? The trains are still running properly, after all.” As I told you in our last session, the rail workers put up such a valiant effort to keep things running during the war that when I was commuting between Atami and Tokyo for nearly two months, there were only two days when the trains were stopped. Considering that, it seemed that our trains might indeed be good collateral for a loan. We recalled that something similar had happened with Edward Harriman.2 At any rate, when we held meetings in that borrowed space, the heads of all the ministry bureaus would attend. Minister Tsushima was the sort of talented individual who would have probably come in first place in a decathlon, and he could also be quite frightening. He would go down the line and reprimand the assembled bureau chiefs, one by one. I thought I was too insignificant a character for him to admonish in those meetings, but once he turned to me and said, “Look at how sloppily you’ve closed the blinds—people will find out that we’re forced to hold our meetings in borrowed space!” He would reprimand us for what seemed like days. When it was time for the Minister to head home, I would escort him to where he was staying, I think it was in Meguro. Once, at his lodgings, he told me that he wanted to do some brush writing, so I got his materials ready for him, and he practiced his calligraphy on the back of a “Be vigilant for fires” poster, covering the sheet completely. He had all sorts of impressive talents—he could even compose jōruri verse in the Shin’nai-­bushi style. On top of all that, he was a competent financier.

Refers to the 1905 Katsura–Harriman Agreement between Japanese Prime Minister Katsura Tarō and American railroad magnate Edward Henry Harriman. Harriman agreed to finance operations for the Chinese Eastern Railways that Japan had recently acquired in the Russo-Japanese War, which would become the Southern Manchuria Railroad. Japan had a significant infrastructure of rails on the continent, but lacked the capital to make use of it, thus necessitating Harriman’s involvement. The agreement met strong resistance, however, and was soon overturned. See Richard Chang, “The Failure of the Katsura–Harriman Agreement,” Journal of Asian Studies, 21 (1) (Nov. 1961), 65–76.

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Shibusawa Keizō as Finance Minister Miyazawa: The first government after the war didn’t last long. The Higashikuni Cabinet disbanded and the Shidehara [Kijūrō] Cabinet was formed, which meant that the ministers changed as well. Tsushima was succeeded by Shibusawa [Keizō], but the executive secretaries to the minister didn’t necessarily need to change right away, so for a short while I was assistant to Minister Shibusawa. He had previously been the President of the Bank of Japan.iv When he gave his greeting address to the ministry staff, he said, “I never expected to be appointed to this kind of post. Most say that I’m good with people but not a great worker, but I’d rather be that way than be bad with people.” Shibusawa had a large house in Mita. It was a splendid place on an expansive site, reminiscent of one of his grandfather Seien’s [Shibusawa Eiichi’s penname] estates. It didn’t suffer any damage during the war, and I think they grew potatoes for food there [throughout the lean years]. He conducted research on the folk culture of Japan from that house,v though he did have a certain aloofness toward the more common professions of the world. He also enjoyed singing sea shanties like “I’m Dry Grass on the Riverbanks” (“Ore wa kawara no karesusuki”), which was really something to see. Minister Shibusawa’s contemporaries urged him to do his best at the job, and they formed a sort of cheerleading group for him, with members the likes of Ōuchi Hyōe. Nakamura: “Be brash and bold,” right? Miyazawa: Yes, “Be brash and bold” was one of Ōuchi’s sayings. Now, the first thing we had to deal with then was the capital levy, and also the dissolution of the zaibatsu conglomerates. After that was the conclusion of war indemnity payments. Due to the circumstances, we had no choice but to implement a capital levy, so Ikeda [Hayato], the head of the tax bureau, put together a team with Maeo [Shigesaburō] and others to handle it. The directive3 from the US to do this came fairly quickly. It must have been shortly after the war’s end that the measure was brought up, and I believe the official directive came in October of 1945.vi Nakamura: It’s documented in the Finance Ministry’s records that the initial ideas came from the Japanese side. Miyazawa: There were all sorts of proposals, like a property value increase tax, but in the end the directive came from GHQ to impose a capital levy. Minister Miyazawa uses the English word “directive.”

3

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Shibusawa had no choice but to collect levies from, and then dissolve, the zaibatsu. I’m not clear on the details, but Iwasaki Hisaya4 would not agree to the measure. I remember accompanying Minister Shibusawa to Mr. Iwasaki’s place on Nakadōri Avenue in Marunouchi. I thought that since Shibusawa had come in person, Iwasaki would acquiesce; I wasn’t present for their discussion, so I don’t know exactly what happened, but it seems that it didn’t go very smoothly. Nakamura: That’s what I understand. Miyazawa: It must have been a very difficult conversation for Minister Shibusawa—after all, he and Iwasaki were family. Kiuchi Jūshirō’s son [Nobutanevii] was Shibusawa’s public relations liaison, and he was related to Iwasaki as well. It seems, though, that Iwasaki didn’t give in easily. Another time, when Shibusawa was being interviewed by a foreign journalist, whose name I can’t recall, he said to the interviewer, “The people who were living in the Japanese colonies will return home soon; based on various calculations, some ten million Japanese would have to starve to death to restore balance [between population numbers and available resources].” But the minister was being brash and bold, and he was urged onwards by the likes of Ashida [Hitoshi]. In the old days, Shibusawa would have been the classic example of a nobleman, but . . . now, this is the continuation of the story of his house in Mita: because Shibusawa was the Finance Minister who enacted the capital levy, he decided to move into a small hut on his estate that had been built for one of his servants, and to tender the main buildings on the property as in-­kind tax payment. After that, at times when meeting space was scarce in 1949 and 50, the house in Mita was used for all sorts of official gatherings. Nakamura: I attended a number of meetings there when the original house was still standing. Miyazawa: It was quite a house. As it turns out, there had been a steward in the Shibusawa household named Sugimoto [Yukio] who later opened a successful hot spring resort in Misawa [Aomori Prefecture], and he wanted to purchase the Mita house after it had been given over to the government. I’m sure I heard that it was sold to him, and that he relocated it to Misawa. Nakamura: Yes, that’s what seems to have happened. I heard it was disassembled, [shipped,] and rebuilt exactly as it had originally been.

At the time, Iwasaki was the head of Mitsubishi.

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Miyazawa: The resort is called Komaki Hot Springs, and it’s really quite a place. Meanwhile, there was a large facility built on the property in Mita for international summits and such [Mita Kaigisho]. The G8 summit has been held there.

The issuing of the new yen, and settling of wartime indemnities Miyazawa: The capital levy was dealt with, but then several more problems cropped up. I wasn’t directly involved with these, though I did have some contact at a remove, so I’ll ask you to forgive me for touching on these events despite not being able to speak with authority. The collection of capital levies led to discussions about changing from the old yen to a new yen. This was in February of 1946.viii Currency that had been issued by the Bank of Japan up to that point became unusable and was subject to compulsory deposit. This led to a moratorium on payments due, and payments within a fixed amount were made in new yen. The measures to circulate new bills were delayed, though, so we affixed certified stamps on the old bills and did various things like that to ensure that only new yen were being used. As an aside, in August that year the question arose of what to do with all the frozen assets. There were two categories, the first one for amounts of up to ¥3,000 and the second for amounts above that. These funds could be used to purchase stocks or property, depending on the individual case—so that money was not totally lost. Another thing that happened then was the cutting off of wartime indemnity payments. The armed forces incurred enormous debt during the war, and private companies were expecting payment; in order to completely dismantle the wartime system, all of these debts had to be nullified. I’m not sure exactly when debates on this issue began, but it was fairly soon after the war when the Occupation administrators began deliberating. After what was surely a drawn-­out discussion, it was concluded that since Japan had to become a democracy, these towering debts couldn’t simply be dropped. Accordingly, it was proposed that taxes would be levied [on the companies owed indemnities] to account for 100 percent of the amounts owed.ix This measure accounted for the elimination of wartime profits, which was likely why it was called the Wartime Profits Tax. Since 100 percent of the money from this tax went to canceling out indemnities, it would have been simpler to just call it what it was—the cancellation of wartime indemnities—but in any case that’s how the question of settling the indemnities was handled.5

For a clear description of the cancellation of indemnities, see Henry Shavell, “Postwar Taxation in Japan,” Journal of Political Economy, 56(2) (April 1948), 133–4.

5

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The Finance Minister, Ishibashi [Tanzan], was the most outspoken in his resistance to all this. His resolute position made a profound impression on me. He voiced his opposition in the Budget Committee meeting, and said to Major General Marquat, “What you’re proposing won’t work.” If you ask me, that’s why Ishibashi was purged from office. I can’t think of any other reason why he would have been forced out—all I can say is that it was totally unreasonable of the Occupation forces to do this. But then, controlling Japanese inflation was a primary directive for the Occupation at the time, regardless of any ideological concerns, so it was nearly certain that anyone who opposed it would be purged. Even with lengthy consideration, the settling of indemnities was an extremely complex business, with all manner of questions regarding what was credit, what was debt, whether or not goods were received, and so forth. Eventually, both corporations and banks put into place new accounting systems. Transactions that didn’t interfere with daily operations went through the new system, and transactions that were problematic went through the old one, resulting in an accounting process divided into two parts. I think they did well to handle it that way. But in the end, the banks didn’t pay out that much, which doesn’t quite add up. It’s true that they paid tens of billions of yen, but that’s much less than what I would have expected. You can see this if you look in the Finance Ministry records— several billions seems a ridiculous sum, but it’s actually oddly low. In fact, I’ve recently been looking into this, and found that the Finance Ministry has the relevant records. There’s a member of the Finance Ministry secretariat researching the records from the new and old accounting systems. Put simply, inflation gradually increased, and financial pressure was relaxed. The amounts in the old accounts grew smaller, there was more and more new business, and that’s more or less how the issue was settled. I remember when this all happened. Financial policy after the war was managed with an eye towards eliminating the problems of the moment in ways that would keep them from cropping up again later. Nakamura: In those days, corporations took on a lot of loans, but were also owed money by the state. The government, however, stopped making payments, which resulted in a great outcry. Corporations across the board made a huge stink, and it was the same with the banks—it ended up taking around two years to reestablish Japan’s businesses. They had significant debts, but these were subject to inflation, so you could say that the problem was settled by the amounts of the debts themselves becoming relatively small. Miyazawa: Looking back on it from today’s perspective, in many ways what was happening was due to the actions of individuals, which could be neatly handled through purges. No one who was involved was allowed to remain in power. Then

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the conglomerates were all dismantled, whether it was Mitsui or Mitsubishi, and countless companies were founded with values fixed at ¥195,000. Even now when I look in the obituaries, I see people whose career history shows that before the war they worked at Mitsubishi, and then they moved to a ¥195,000 company. There were many people like that. In those days, everyone did their best to find something in Japan worth selling, from bamboo crafts to dish sponges made of gourds. Nakamura: You mean people were trying to find products for export. Miyazawa: People worked hard at all sorts of things, but the most successful venture was the special procurements for the Korean War. It was huge— everything sold then, no matter what kind of scrap it was. Without the procurements, the most significant sales development of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries would have been—and I can still clearly remember this now—some contraption for baking bread at home. The special procurements for Korea changed everything in the blink of an eye. Nakamura: And then after your time as assistant executive secretary to the minister, you moved to the tax bureau.

Working for the Tax Bureau and the Central Liaison Office Miyazawa: Every bureau had a counterpart organ in the Occupation administration. Someone needed to interpret during interactions with those counterparts, and I was asked to take care of the Tax Bureau in that capacity. That’s how I began a long working relationship with the Tax Bureau, where I would occasionally deal with the continued administration of the capital levies and the collection of the remaining indemnity payments in the form of taxes. Mikuriya: Ikeda was the tax bureau chief then? Miyazawa: He moved up from tax bureau chief to Vice-Minister. Mikuriya: The Yoshida Cabinet replaced the Shidehara Cabinet, and Ishibashi became the Finance Minister. Miyazawa: Yes, and that’s when Ikeda became Vice-Minister. Mikuriya: Your father was purged from his post around that time as well.

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Miyazawa: Yes, that’s right. He was forced out, and eventually decided that he wanted to run for office again before he retired, now that the war had ended. He did so in 1952, but it didn’t amount to anything. Finance Minister Ishibashi was purged over the issue of indemnities. He was known as something of an inflationist, but his counterparts were New Dealers, so it was a bad match in every way. Mikuriya: When you were with the Tax Bureau, you were seconded to the Central Liaison Office, correct? Miyazawa: Yes, there weren’t many people there who could speak English, and there were other tasks that needed extra help, so I was dual-­registered as serving with both the Finance Ministry and the Central Liaison Office. Mikuriya: And your boss in the Liaison Office was Watanabe Takeshi? Miyazawa: That’s right, Watanabe Takeshi. Mikuriya: What were your impressions of him? Miyazawa: I would say that Watanabe is the classic example of someone from Shinshū, and I mean that in the best way possible. He had a good personality and came from a good family, and his way of handling things was typical Shinshū, which is to say quite rational. There was a journalist named Packenham, I think he wrote for Newsweek, and he said that there were Communists within the Occupation administration. By way of an example, he notes that in the planned general strike of February 1947—the one that MacArthur ordered to stop—there were several Occupation officials who were clearly instigating on the side of the laborers. He may have been wrong, or maybe he was right—I think he was talking about people like Cohen, or Hadley, the woman involved in breaking up the zaibatsu. Nakamura: She also wrote a book later on. I met her once. Miyazawa: She was a beautiful woman. Nakamura: Well, she was getting on in her years when I met her. But I think it certainly is true that during the Occupation she was rather Left-­leaning. Miyazawa: That’s not inconceivable. She came out of the New Deal, where there were many people on the Left. That faction was quite persistent in

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the planned general strike, and MacArthur did what he needed to do. [Charles] Willoughby likely didn’t give in easily—the whole thing was one huge confrontation. Nakamura: Was the Cohen you mentioned before, Jerome Cohen? Miyazawa: I meant Ted Cohen. He wrote a book, a bit of which I read. Nakamura: Ah, that’s a very well-­structured book, and it makes use of extensive resources. It’s also huge.x Miyazawa: He was the one who incited the union. I’m not sure what his ultimate goal in that was, but I didn’t like it. Nakamura: And the woman was Eleanor Hadley. She wrote a book on the disbanding of the zaibatsu, and I believe that [the publishing company] Tōyō Keizai released the translation.xi Miyazawa: She was in the government section of the Occupation. Packenham’s clique was against her group, and they hatched all sorts of plans based on their concern that if Japan wasn’t handled correctly it would go over to the Soviets. They focused their efforts on MacArthur, emphasizing that Japan must not go over to communism. From their perspective, [Charles] Kades must have seemed left-­wing. I think the same could be said about Courtney Whitney, and Willoughby was on the Right. Sometimes I wonder what industry was most affected by the way the war indemnities were settled. Probably the shipbuilders and shipping companies. They built craft for the armed forces but didn’t receive any payments, nor were they paid when their vessels were chartered, so when the payment of war indemnities was cut off, Japan’s merchant marine sector was thoroughly done in. It was the same with Kawanishi [Aircraft], which went under completely, and Nakajima [Aircraft] also had it particularly bad. If we consider that one of America’s aims in stopping the indemnity payments was to dismantle Japan’s potential to wage war, I think we can say they achieved that aim. As the value of currency shifted and business resumed, it would have been enough for these companies to get back even a small bit of their former productivity; however, shipbuilders had handed over warships and had boats requisitioned with no payment and no recourse. Considering this, Japan’s planned shipbuilding in the early postwar was something like a form of compensation for the marine companies.

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Nakamura: Yes, those measures were clearly set out by members of the Transport Ministry. Planned shipbuilding started in around 1948, so it’s been going on for quite a while now. Miyazawa: I think it’s fair to say that there had been a deep-­seated sense of injustice on the part of the shipbuilding companies. Which, we might say, led to the sorts of things that came next. Nakamura: Money began flowing towards shippers and shipbuilders through the combination of the Reconstruction Finance Bank and the planned shipbuilding measures. Miyazawa: Yes, that’s right. And then the conversation inevitably turns to the scandal that came out of all this.xii In truth, it would have been curious had the planned shipbuilding not given rise to a scandal, given the loose way that it was handled. A lot of people went down in that episode, but there were also those like Dokō [Toshio] who were able to pick themselves back up. Nakamura: But nonetheless, it did manage to get the shipbuilding companies back on track. Miyazawa: You’re right. Had such steps not been taken, there would have been no hope for those companies. Nakamura: Even firms that had no more than one or two small boats left could enter into the planned shipbuilding selection pool, and eventually their lot would come up. When it did, they could borrow money to build freight ships weighing several thousand tons, which would reinvigorate the company. Miyazawa: Japan’s shipbuilding capabilities had all been tied up with the Navy, so they had to be repurposed for export. It was that way in Kure [in Hiroshima Prefecture], and everywhere else. The most significant early case of export in postwar Japan was likely the tankers built in Kure. Japan still had the capacity and knowhow to handle a project like that. I wonder what the Americans thought when that happened. By that point they must have already had the notion to keep Japan on their side after the war. Nowadays things are different, and Japan’s shipbuilding industry is not flourishing particularly.

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Nakamura: But there were about twenty years when Japan produced half of the world’s ships. Miyazawa: That’s true. After the war, when Japan wasn’t yet a part of the international economy—when we wanted to join in but were not permitted— the thing that the rest of the world needed most was shipbuilding, and only Japan was properly equipped for that. America didn’t have much going for it in that area, though Europe still had some shipbuilding capability. Enacting an accord on naval capacity would not have been possible without including Japan. It was because of our shipbuilding prowess that Japan was quickly able to enter the international community. Mikuriya: The rest of the world’s countries recognized Japan’s competency. Miyazawa: Yes, they felt like they had no choice but to do so, because Japan kept taking strides. There was also the question of iron—during Japan’s postwar recovery, we had no iron of our own, so we had to import iron ore, which meant that we only made ironworks on the coast. We didn’t have much coal either, and had to import that as well. Given that we had no natural resources of our own, having industry on the coast enabled us to garner considerable profits. If our industry had been far inland, there would have been the tremendous cost of transporting raw materials. Nakamura: That’s how it is for Germany, since they have their own coal and iron in the Ruhr. Miyazawa: They have their own natural resources, so of course they would use them. Having raw materials inland can be problematic though, since transporting freight overland is expensive. Nakamura: Indeed it is. Miyazawa: Japan’s steady recovery eventually led to Yoshida’s Cabinet winning the election in, I think, January of 1949. Nakamura: The first general election was in 1946, during the Shidehara administration, in which the Liberal Party became the dominant party. Miyazawa: How was it that Yoshida gradually came to prominence after the Higashikuni and Shidehara years? I suppose it had to do with Hatoyama [Ichirō].

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Nakamura: Yes, it was because Hatoyama was purged from office. Miyazawa: I don’t know much about it, but I do know that Hatoyama tried to put together a conservative party after the war, together with Ōno [Banboku] and Kōno [Ichirō]. And I wonder what parts Tsuji Karoku and Kodama [Yoshio] played. Nakamura: They come up frequently when talking about this. Miyazawa: No one involved is still alive, but apparently money came in from Shanghai. I wonder. There is nothing to suggest that anything was coming from the Occupation at that point—that would happen later. As such, I have no idea how black market money or military funds would have wound their way into government circles. It would certainly be interesting to find out, but everyone involved has passed away. Mikuriya: That’s true, there’s no one from those days around who might know the truth, like Tsuji Karoku. Miyazawa: That’s right, Tsuji passed away too, in 1950 or 51, I think.xiii Nakamura: There are still some members of the Sasakawa family alive. Miyazawa: That’s true—but I doubt Sasakawa [Ryōichi]’s son would have any idea of what happened. Mikuriya: It seems that a whole generation took their memories to their graves. Miyazawa: Yes, something like that. Nakamura: Kodama Yoshio was the most flamboyant character from that time. Miyazawa: I can imagine that Kodama already had the money that people said he made in Shanghai from before. There was also the episode with Osano [Kenji]xiv and his group, but in that instance too there’s no one left alive who would know the particulars. Osano’s case was quite serious. There were many incidents on the way to Yoshida’s winning the election in January 1949. The whole thing was . . . Mikuriya: It was a high stakes contest, wasn’t it? Miyazawa: Yes, indeed. It really did feel that way.

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Impressions of Kurusu Takeo and Kitamura Tokutarō Mikuriya: Looking back, what were your impressions of Ministers of Finance Kurusu Takeo in the Katayama Cabinet and Kitamura Tokutarō in the Ashida Cabinet? Miyazawa: Well, about my picture of Kurusu: Incidentally, a certain Maeo Shigesaburō worked in the Finance Ministry’s Tax Bureau. Because under the Occupation we took in almost no tax revenue, Marquat ordered the military government of each prefecture to drive around by jeep to collect the taxes, and instructed Maeo to write down respective quotas. Maeo, who—as I have mentioned before—had not changed the Dutch tax system in Makassar, firmly resisted, saying that it was no joke and that taxes were not something that could be allotted off the cuff. His history of opposition began during Tōjō’s premiership, but this time it looked as if he was going to be removed from office. Ikeda was still Vice-Minister then, I think. I heard that Minister Kurusu was told by GHQ [to get rid of Maeo],xv and this vague impression I got made me wonder how this person had actually become a politician. Kitamura, on the other hand, did not act in such irresponsible ways and I could see that he performed his tasks properly. Nakamura: Didn’t Kurusu originally work for the Industrial Bank [of Japan]? Miyazawa: That’s correct. Mikuriya: He had moved up progressively from a general board chairman to Vice-President and then president, and then he suddenly became Minister of Finance. There is a famous story that, when he was approached about becoming minister, he rejected the offer, saying that he had become president in order to revive the Industrial Bank. But then he joined the newly formed Cabinet and immediately accepted the appointment as Finance Minister. The Industrial Bank was extremely disappointed. Miyazawa: That was the way things happened then . . . Which Cabinet was this? Mikuriya: The Katayama Cabinet. Nakamura: Didn’t Kitamura resign suddenly because of illness? Mikuriya: No, that was Yano Shōtarō. After Yano’s resignation, Kurusu became Minister of Finance.

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Miyazawa: Yes, Yano was from Shikoku originally. Nakamura: And he stepped down because of health issues. Miyazawa: Then, of course, the Shōwa Denkō scandal6 happened; one of the various incidents during this period. I don’t know whether GHQ was actually involved in this, but there was after all the shady affair concerning the wife of Viscount Torio7 and GHQ. The relations between two overlapping administrations of such a large country naturally give rise to scandals, especially when this state of affairs extends over such a long period of time. The Japanese side might have been caught up in it, but there is no way such a situation could have been without its incidents. In certain ways, the government officials also had a hard time due to the Shōwa Denkō scandal. There were many such incidents.

Izumiyama Sanroku Mikuriya: Mr. Miyazawa, was your own life during this period very hard? I am thinking about food rationing, for example. Miyazawa: Well, it was difficult indeed. Whenever we had potatoes or such, I would eat them with great pleasure. It was really hard. During the Shōwa Denkō Scandal, a relative of mine, Tanimura,xvi handled the reconstruction loans. His wife was the daughter of a government official, and he worked quite reliably. One day, however, he received a box with soy sauce or such. Although it was only soy sauce, it was obviously expensive. He sent it back as he should have. During the Shōwa Denkō trials he was applauded for this, but because of an illness he more or less steered clear of the trials anyway. When he was called as a witness after his recovery, the judge provided a brazier for him during the interrogation.8 He was considered to be a model government official. Yet this was also dangerous because he even had to send back something like soy sauce. A bribery incident in which the fertilizer company Shōwa Denkō bribed government officials in order to secure government-­subsidized loans from the Reconstruction Finance Bank. The president of Shōwa Denkō was arrested in June 1948. The scandal caused the Ashida Cabinet to fall. The investigations drew wide circles, revealing the involvement of prominent bankers and politicians as well as members of GHQ. For more details on the incident and its repercussions, see John W. Dower, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Aftermath of World War II (London: Allen Lane, 2002), p. 535; and Takemae, Eiji, The Allied Occupation of Japan (London: Continuum, 2002), pp. 164–5. 7 Torio Tsuruyo, the wife of (former) Viscount Torio Norimitsu, is said to have had an affair with GHQ vice-­director of the civil government, Charles Kades. There were rumors concerning intelligence gathering. 8 The fact that the judge went out of his way to provide some warmth for the convalescent reflects Tanimura’s good reputation. 6

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Nakamura: I am not sure if it was the Reconstruction Finance Bank, but in the Shōwa Denkō scandal, certain institutions gave considerable amounts of money to fertilizer companies and such and were rewarded quite handsomely. Miyazawa: It seems like it. Mikuriya: Hinohara Setsuzō was president of Shōwa Denkō then. Miyazawa: The scandal had subsided at last, but there was also some trouble among the Americans and the incident over making Yamazaki [Takeshi] prime minister occurred.9 I do not know much about this, so I cannot really comment, but within the Japanese government there were some that were anti-Yoshida. It was almost certain that Yoshida would win the elections in January 1949. Mikuriya: Just before, when the second Yoshida Cabinet had been set up, Izumiyama Sanroku became Minister of Finance. Miyazawa: I wonder how he came to this position. From what I heard, he had worked under Ikeda Shigeaki. Nakamura: He had worked for Mitsui Bank. Because of the kind of person he was, he was just not cut out to be an ordinary banker. During the war, Ikeda had directly assigned Izumiyama to the Japanese-Manchurian Financial and Economic Research Society when it had been newly set up by Ishiwara Kanji to gather information [for economic research]. Because of his background, he was given his own office in Mitsui Bank, but he almost never did any bank-­related work. Miyazawa: He was a relative of Ikeda, wasn’t he? Nakamura: Ikeda had employed him and it seems that he provided Ikeda with army-­related information. Miyazawa: I happened to be in the Diet then and heard the following discussion: “Why did someone like Izumiyama become Minister of Finance?” “Apparently he has some connection to Ikeda.” “Well, I never!” If I remember correctly, Yoshikuni [Jirō], who would later become the president of Yokohama Bank, was The “Yamazaki Incident” (Yamazaki shuhan kōsaku jiken) was a plot intended to block Yoshida Shigeru’s appointment as prime minister—favored by GHQ—by bringing the chief secretary of the Democratic Liberal Party, Yamazaki Takeshi, into this post in a coalition government.

9

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Izumiyama’s secretary. I know Yoshikuni well, and for some reason he left his position with Izumiyama shortly afterwards. Didn’t something like this happen? Nakamura: Then Matsudaira Norimitsu [was the minister’s secretary]? Miyazawa: Yes, he had been a banker before. Yoshikuni was from the Ministry of Finance. I wonder if this was not something of Matsudaira and Yoshikuni’s making.xvii And then there was that story when Izumiyama was bitten by a woman. What was her name? Mikuriya: Yamashita Harue.10 Nakamura: She was from the Democratic Socialist Party, which was the Social Democratic Party of those days. They say Izumiyama hugged her or something . . . Mikuriya: In this chapter of Japanese postwar history, all that remains of Izumiyama Sanroku is the Yamashita Harue incident. Nakamura: He really was a strange person. When he ran in the upper house election, it was rumored that he couldn’t possibly lose, as all the tipplers in Japan were going to vote for him. Mikuriya: Those were the good old days. Nakamura: Sake ended his ministerial career though. (laughs) Mikuriya: Well, through sake he became a member of the Diet, through sake he lost his post as minister.

Becoming Secretary to the Minister of Finance Nakamura: And then Ikeda [Hayato] became Minister of Finance? Miyazawa: They had to replace Izumiyama sooner or later. First, it seemed as if it would be Ōya Shinzō. He was Minister of International Trade and Industry at that time.

Yamashita Harue was the first female member of the National Diet.

10

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Mikuriya: He held this post and simultaneously that of the Minister of Finance.xviii Miyazawa: Ōya was quite a character; he was well known as Minister of International Trade and Industry and because of his wife-­to-be Ōya Masako.11 In the National Diet, during a discussion on wooden ships or the like, he said, “let’s ‘scrap and build’ ”12 and everyone laughed; Ōya was a first-­rate person, indeed. Mikuriya: Then, in 1949, Ikeda stood for elections, as the first member of what later would be known as the “Yoshida School.” Miyazawa: Yes, before the 1949 elections Yoshida was told by Satō Eisaku to “Get this done.” It is also said that Ikeda and Satō might have accompanied Yoshida to his house in Ogikubo, too. But why to Ogikubo? Nakamura: Didn’t Yoshida stay there at Konoe’s residence Tekigaisō? Miyazawa: That is quite likely. All those talented people gathered at Tekigaisō. Yet, who provided Yoshida with financial resources? Nakamura: That was Asō Takakichi. Miyazawa: Do you really think it was Asō Takakichi? I suppose that’s possible. Nakamura: And Miyajima Seijirō. Mikuriya: He was from Nisshinbo,13 wasn’t he? Nakamura: I don’t know whether Yoshida actually received money from him, but because Miyajima was a member of financial circles, I think he acted as back-­up. He was one of the great elders. If Asō and Miyajima were on board, it was quite a substantial undertaking. Miyazawa: Well, of course. At this time, the coal mining business was not doing badly at all. And then Ikeda himself said that he made a considerable amount of

Ōya divorced his wife to marry the singer Masako in 1950. Ōya used the English for this catch phrase. 13 Nisshin Spinning Company (Nisshin-­bōseki). 11 12

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money for the elections with sake bottles he still had somewhere.14 They sold very well. Mikuriya: He sold empty bottles? Miyazawa: Yes, they could be used for pounding old rice and other things and were rather popular. It amounted to quite considerable funds, he said. Mikuriya: Did Ikeda become Minister of Finance immediately after having been elected? Miyazawa: I’m not sure at what stage, but Yoshida wondered if there was anyone in the government [for this post]. He was not familiar with finances and economics, and maybe he thought about consulting Miyajima. I think this is what happened. Miyajima couldn’t think of anyone off the top of his head, either and asked Sakurada [Takeshi], if he couldn’t suggest someone. Sakurada did not know Ikeda Hayato that well, yet it is not as if he did not know him at all. Then, probably something else happened, because Ikeda Hayato was not somebody who moved in wide circles. Nakamura: Biographies of Miyajima frequently mention that, when he invited Ikeda for a first impression, he said, “This is going to work.” Miyazawa: I heard a similar story. However, although Yoshida seemed to know many people, when it actually came to having to form a cabinet, it was difficult for him to name more than ten suitable persons. Mikuriya: Was it around this time that you became Secretary to the Minister of Finance? Miyazawa: At the beginning of February, the Ministry was located within the Yotsuya Elementary School and Ikeda lived in Shinanomachi. He said “Come over,” and then told me that it had been decided that he would be Minister of Finance. Because it was such an unforeseen development, I just replied something like “What? Really?” Then he said, “When I start, you’ll be assisting me.” Dodge had already arrived in Japan, and I think that from Ikeda’s point of view, having to deal with him must have been a considerable burden. After that, he summoned Kurogane Yasumi, who had connections in political circles and the bureaucracy.

Ikeda’s family had a sake brewery.

14

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He also chose him because Kurogane was extremely efficient in practical business matters. There was no specific reason for my designation, but after my time with Tsushima I had worked in public relations and such, so I guess Ikeda thought I would be useful. However, I never thought that a freshman like Ikeda would become Minister of Finance. Mikuriya: After Ikeda had become Minister of Finance, was it Dodge who left the most vivid image in your mind? Miyazawa: Ikeda came down with a sudden illness. Dodge had already arrived and therefore Director of Finance Watanabexix [Takeshi] and myself had to lead negotiations without Ikeda for several days. However, it was important to find out what kind of person Dodge was. Nakamura: I assume that probably in the beginning Dodge had no contacts within the Finance Ministry. Miyazawa: Yes, and therefore the first thing he did was to gather material from everywhere. But I think that he called upon Ikeda when it came to compiling the budget. I will elaborate on this later, but at that time the entire GHQ consisted of New Dealers. Dodge was quite critical towards them; he and MacArthur were Republicans after all. Speaking from the Finance Ministry’s point of view, these two ideologies did not go together well. Nakamura: It seems as if Kades returned to the States after the failed attempt to launch Yamazaki as the new prime minister . . . Miyazawa: I think he had already left before. Nakamura: This means that the head of the New Dealers had gone. Miyazawa: However, there were still many within the Economic and Scientific Section. Many of the experts there [were New Dealers]. Nakamura: Sherwood Fine, for example. Miyazawa: Do you know Fine? Nakamura: Yes, but I only met him once. Miyazawa: He was a person of considerable standing.

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Nakamura: As vice-­director it seems that he was professional. Miyazawa: Because General Kades was a member of the military, he was not the right person for the job. Sherwood Fine seemed to be far more suitable. Nakamura: I met Fine when I visited UNCTAD [United Nations Conference on Trade and Development] in Geneva. Fine had left the US and gone abroad because he was a leftist. I made an appointment beforehand and went to see him at UNCTAD. Miyazawa: Really? Was this after his time in Japan? Nakamura: Quite a long time afterwards. Actually, it was about twenty years after the end of the Occupation. Miyazawa: Fine was somebody with a great deal of influence. Nakamura: He argued that Dodge came to Japan and caused confusion, although Fine’s team had successfully started to revive the Japanese economy without actually stopping inflation. Miyazawa: Regardless of the outcome, this is certainly true. Nakamura: After Dodge had arrived, they couldn’t implement even a single one of their ideas, and thus I remember that talking to Fine about Dodge was awkward.

Joseph Dodge arrives in Japan Mikuriya: Mr. Miyazawa, what were your thoughts when you met Dodge for the first time? Miyazawa: I knew that he had worked his way up at Detroit Bank. At the Ministry of International Trade and Finance as well as at the Economic Planning Agency, however, everyone was a New Dealer. MacArthur, if anything, was a Republican. I believed that these two directions did not match well, and so the idea to try and take the Republican approach was fairly obvious to me. Dodge was accompanied by his assistant, Reid, who was an exceptional person and no New Dealer either, but a businessman. Therefore, I had the distinct feeling right from the start that Dodge might be on our side. In this respect his standpoint was clear.

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Dodge’s first task concerned the Democratic Liberal Party’s promises for the elections in January 1949. The party—and thus also Ikeda—had pledged to revive the public enterprise sector and to abolish the turnover tax. Dodge, on the other hand, believed that the annual expenditure had to be reduced and the revenue increased. Therefore, no matter what type of tax, to talk about abolishing any tax was impossible, in particular because on the other hand the Reconstruction Loans were about to be stopped. Therefore, increased spending for public works was also out of the question, and export subsidies were to be cut. The negotiations took place between two almost entirely opposite stances in terms of objectives. However, a small group of English-­speaking older party members, such as Hoshijima Nirō and Uehara Etsujirō, came to Dodge’s office to petition for an abolition of the turnover tax: “Say what you like, but we made those promises in the last elections.” They were not many, but they did go to see Dodge. Since they were senior statesmen, he treated them with great respect. However, he firmly kept his standpoint that lowering taxes was out of the question. Slowly we came to understand that we would end up with a completely opposite budget. Yoshida and Ikeda also talked about this. Yoshida was almost indifferent; the main point of focus for him was to build up trust with MacArthur. Because MacArthur was a Republican, he watched silently as Dodge quickly demolished the budget that the New Dealers had put forward. From Ikeda’s point of view, apart from the domestic political situation, Dodge’s approach was a good one. However, it was still a terrible situation. This was the general atmosphere in those days.

Notes i

Beginning with his dispatch to the US and Europe from 1927 to 1931, Tsushima had extensive experience in the Foreign Service. The books he accumulated in his travels are kept at the Kanagawa Prefectural Library as the Tsushima Western Book Collection. ii Hashimoto Ryūgo served as the ministry secretariat chief of wartime facilities until August 1945. He remained attached to the secretariat until he became an investigative official for the cabinet bureau of inquiries (from Ōkurashō hyakunenshi, bekkan [One Hundred Years of the Finance Ministry], supplementary volume; Finance Ministry Personnel Register). iii [The “Comfort women strategy” refers to a government measure to make prostitutes available to Occupation troops to prevent the Americans from approaching Japanese women at large.] The Recreation and Amusement Association (RAA) established the Komachi-­en district on the coast by Ōmori on August 28, 1945, but an Imperial decree later abolished state-­sponsored prostitution. [See also Chapter 4 of John W. Dower, Embracing Defeat (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1999).]

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At the time of his appointment as Finance Minister, Shibusawa had been the President of the Bank of Japan, serving the Finance Ministry in an advisory capacity. v He founded the Mita Ami-­cho Attic Museum and collected archival materials there. This was the seed of what eventually became the Institute for the Study of Japanese Folk Culture collection. vi [The particulars of implementing the capital levy were] proposed by the Japan Taxation Association (Katsu Masanori, chair) on October 30, and the order to execute it came from GHQ on November 26. vii Kiuchi Nobutane served as attaché to the Finance Minister and as chief of the Postwar Liaison Section until June 1946. He was Iwasaki Yatarō’s grandson (from Finance Ministry Personnel Register). viii The Emergency Financial Measures order and the order for the forced deposit of Bank of Japan currency were promulgated on February 17; exchanging old yen for new yen began on February 25; the circulation of old yen was prohibited from March 3. ix The conclusion of wartime indemnity payments was decided in the Provisional Cabinet meeting of August 8, 1946. x Theodore Cohen, Remaking Japan: The American Occupation as New Deal (New York: Free Press, 1987). Translated as Nihon senryō kakumei, trans. Ōmae Masaomi (TBS Britannica, 1983). xi Eleanor M. Hadley, Antitrust in Japan (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1970). Translated as Nihon zaibatsu no kaitai to saihensei, ed. Ōhara Hiroshi and Aruga Mieko (Tokyo: Tōyō Keizai Shinchōsha, 1973). Hadley is also mentioned in Edo Hideo, Sushiya no shōbun (Tokyo: Chūo Kōronsha, 1991). xii This refers to the 1954 Shipbuilding Bribery Scandal. At the time, Dokō Toshio was President of Ishikawajima Heavy Industries. xiii Tsuji passed away on December 21, 1948. After the war, the Lower House Misappropriations Investigative Committee pursued the trail of the political donation funds discussed here. xiv Chair of the International Industrial Promotion group. Known as a close friend and confidante of Tanaka Kakuei. Arrested in 1977 for perjury in the Lockheed Incident; died while his case was under review by the Supreme Court. xv Maeo Shigesaburō was Director-General of the Tax Bureau under Kurusu as Minister of Finance. In December 1947, Maeo was transferred as Director of the Mint Bureau (Finance Ministry Personnel Register). xvi Tanimura Hiroshi, former Vice-Minister of the Finance Ministry, later President of the Tokyo Stock Exchange. xvii Matsudaira Norimitsu was Personal Secretary to the Minister; Yoshikuni Jirō was Secretary to the Minister (One Hundred Years of the Finance Ministry, supplementary volume). xviii Ōya acted as Minister of Finance from February 14, 1948, until the resignation of the second Yoshida Cabinet on February 16, 1949. xix The post of Vice-Minister of Finance for International Affairs [zaimukan] was established on June 1, 1949. Watanabe was the first to hold this post until October 1, 1951.

4

Negotiations with GHQ The Dodge Line and the Shoup Tax System Translated by Iris Haukamp

The Dodge Line Mikuriya: May we continue from the previous section? You spoke about the time up until Ikeda became Minister of Finance. This was in 1949, during the formation of the third Yoshida Cabinet and Dodge’s arrival in Japan, wasn’t it? Miyazawa: That is correct. In February [1949] I was summoned by Ikeda who told me, “I am going to be Minister of Finance. Please act as my secretary.” Surprised that he would become minister, I asked “Really?” and I suspect that he had similar feelings. As I have mentioned before, Miyajima [Seijirō] had probably been advised by Yoshida, and most likely he had also discussed the matter with Sakurada [Takeshi].i It was clear to me, however, that some sort of negotiations would begin with Dodge’s arrival on February 1. Then Ikeda unfortunately came down with a fever. Dodge was a Republican who had worked his way up to become president of the Detroit Bank, and therefore we thought that GHQ’s overall New Deal approach, which was pursued by Fine and others, would come to a standstill. The Ministry of Finance did not cope well with this New Deal, especially in the area of subsidy aid. I had the hope that this old hand Dodge could somehow play a role in this. I accompanied the Minister of Finance preceding Ikeda, Ōya Shinzō—who had taken over from Izumiyama [Sanroku]—to his weekly meetings with Marquat.ii On one of these occasions, Ōya said that he intended to submit a budget to GHQ quickly. When Marquat ordered, “Do it as soon as possible,” Dodge sat and listened. Then I heard him speak for the first time: “Before I came here, I had various talks with Truman.” Although at this time, it was still unclear

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to me how exactly this was related to the “Nine Principles,”1 I think that they were the background of this conversation. “I was told that the economic policies for Japan are also economic fiscal maneuvers. A nation that has lost a war so decisively cannot expect to have an easy time. We have to stop inflation as soon as possible by taking in revenue and curbing expenditures. We will submit a budget, but I will take the time to examine it carefully.” Half of this speech seems to have been directed towards his colleagues at GHQ, as a declaration of his personal convictions. Well, I thought, a distinguished person has arrived. Probably then the officers at GHQ and also Marquat’s staff began to realize that a strange old man had come, and for me this was the first time I heard one of Dodge’s speeches. Ōya was still Minister of Finance, but the present Cabinet was to be replaced soon. Then, on February 16, 1949, a new Cabinet [the third Yoshida Cabinet] was formed, and Ikeda became Minister of Finance. Because he was ill, I believe he went to meet Dodge in early March. When they eventually met, Dodge gave a rather detailed talk, which has to be seen in context with the pre-­election promises that the Democratic Liberal Party had made one month before: All of them were so-­called active policies, such as the reduction of income tax, the abolition of the turnover tax, and an increase of ¥100 billion in spending on public enterprise funded by the Reconstruction Finance Bank. Yet Dodge squarely declared his philosophical standpoint on this matter: “If we did these things, everything would be in vain. As for me, there is no other way than to tighten one’s belt. From what I am hearing, the American GARIOA [Government Appropriation for Relief in Occupied Areas] financial aid is being used in shady ways, and the money is by no means piling up. This is one of the ‘stilts.’ The other one is the sustainment of the Japanese economy by subsidies.” Since I was familiar with the [English] word “stilts” that he used, I translated it as “bamboo horse,”2 without being sure what an “American bamboo horse” would look like. They probably aren’t made out of bamboo. I had never seen anyone standing on stilts, but because there is a word for it there must also be the thing itself. Anyway, Dodge’s order was that “stilts had to be cut.” Then, the talk turned towards the Nine Principles. In short, it was then that the American economic policies regarding Japan changed profoundly and The “Nine Principles of Economic Stabilization” or “Nine-Point Economic Stabilization Plan,” as the “Program To Achieve Economic Stabilization To Be Carried Out by the Japanese Government” was known, was issued by the US State and Army Departments in December 1948. As summarized by Takemae Eiji, these nine points were: “1) a balanced national budget; 2) a strengthened tax system; 3) tightening of credit; 4) wage stabilization; 5) price controls; 6) a foreign exchange rate pegged at ¥360 to the dollar; 7) the promotion of exports; 8) increased national output; and 9) more efficient food production and distribution.” Takemae Eiji, The Allied Occupation of Japan (London: Continuum, 2002), p. 469. 2 He translated it as takeuma, which is the Japanese version of stilts. 1

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extensively. Surely people like Draper were the driving force behind this, based on the desire to change the situation. “Punishment” is too strong a word for the policy until then, but the American financial policy for Japan changed from this towards a strengthening of the country. In a manner of speaking, in my opinion, Dodge came in order to implement just that. Considering the context, I think this is the way it had been arranged, though there was no such explicit explanation then. Accordingly, against this background of the Nine Principles, I thought that perhaps the setting of the yen’s exchange rate also was part of the concept, together with the implementation of drastic austerity measures and the curtailment of public finance. Dodge, however, did not comment at all on the exchange rate at that time. Our side, on the other hand, thought that if we could not even predict how the Japanese economy would develop if we implemented this severe budget, we could not even start talking about something like the exchange rate. Therefore we did not think that this topic would come up soon, but actually it did. For the time being, however, Dodge ignored the issue of the rate and studied the budget that had been produced until then. He insisted that there would be no tax reduction and that subsidies were to be cut, but in fact nobody knew their exact amount. As mentioned before, GARIOA funds were not pooled correctly and some of it was channeled off into export subsidies. Consequently, we did not know how much assistance money we had. “We will therefore ‘expose’3 the amount first, and based on the result decide how much to cut. Carelessly spending the reconstruction money or any other funds is an absolute taboo from now on,” Dodge stated very directly. For Ikeda, I believe, this meant that all electoral promises were void. And what’s more, the budget went in the complete opposite direction of what had been promised. Because a freshman member of the Diet like him had been made a minister, he was the subject of feelings of envy, and the criticism for having reached the complete opposite result after his negotiations with Dodge greatly troubled him. Yoshida actually did not say very much about this, nor did he complain. When there was a great tumult within the party, Yoshida came to Tokyo from Ōiso to keep things in check. That amount of control was all that was needed to be effective then. Eventually, this affair was settled, but the subsidies could be cut even more. I think that the Finance Ministry’s original draft provided for a reduction of ¥70 billion, but actually it was about ¥200 billion.iii That is, the number of ¥70 billion was a careless adjustment by the Ministry, and in fact nobody knew the actual amount of the subsidies. Dodge revised the whole budget and informed us that Miyazawa, citing Dodge, uses the English here.

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he wanted to cut ¥200 billion: “I do intend to cut this much. As we do not know the whole picture, there is no other way.” The topic of curtailing the subsidies came up several times in the negotiations between Ikeda and Dodge. As a representative of the financial authorities, Ikeda could only agree. So far, many people at GHQ, perhaps everyone, had been New Dealers. Consequently, they believed in using the financial aid to increase the level of production and to raise wages, but despite their efforts, the production and wage levels kept falling. That’s why they had to revise the budgets several times. Dodge wanted to set up a counterpart fund in order to accumulate the subsidies separately.4 I heard the term for the first time. Questioned about it, he explained that it meant to save the money in a special account in order to distribute it from there. Concerning taxes, Dodge said, “Frankly speaking, I do not understand the Japanese way of collecting income taxes; it is not at all like the so-­called pay-­asyou-­go system in the US. As I understand it, during the war, special income investigators negotiated the taxes, and that is rather unsystematic.” In addition, there had been anti-­tax struggles. The Eighth Army troops or the regional troops went out by jeep to collect taxes and gave special tobacco rations to the tax officials. Therefore, Dodge regarded the Japanese tax system as somewhat suspicious, but the topic of cutting down on revenue was taboo in any case. Meanwhile, GHQ was busy finding an expert on taxes to invite to Japan in order to make recommendations. Relatively quickly, they decided on someone by the name of Shoup. Dodge said: “Leave the matter of taxation to him. I will not interfere with it and therefore we will put the abolition of the turnover tax and the reduction of income taxes on ice.” In the middle of all this, two of the Democratic Liberal Party’s senior members who spoke English, Uehara Etsujirō and Hoshijima Nirō, came to see Dodge, hoping to achieve at least a tax reduction. This was an exceptional event, but Dodge remained adamant: “Especially with regard to the tax reduction, I cannot give you an answer,” and left everything to Shoup. The current situation bore not the slightest resemblance to the DLP’s electoral promises, and it was impossible for Ikeda to deal with this on his own. Yoshida seems to have been the one who silenced everyone and the budget passed. However, there were still innumerable discussions with Dodge. Mostly it was Ikeda who went to these talks—I accompanied him—and also Finance Director Watanabe [Takeshi]. On Dodge’s side was his assistant Reid. A feeling of trust slowly developed among our group. Still, Ikeda started saying things like “Maybe we just have to let it be. Maybe I’ll just have to give up.” Miyazawa uses the English “counterpart fund” for what came to be known as migaeari shikin.

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Eventually, however, a balanced economy emerged and Yoshida was greatly satisfied; I think it was the following year that he gave a silver cigar-­case or such to Ikeda. The inscription on the lid said something like: “This year we will have a balanced budget thanks to Minister of Finance Ikeda.” Maybe it was no use for Ikeda to petition for minor details, and Yoshida was not in the mood to ask. Yoshida probably had a very firm understanding that McArthur trusted Dodge and was prepared to leave the affair to his team. Thus, he held the party in check and the budget was finalized. But because we went into a depression, it was terribly unpopular. Dodge stepped in once more towards the end of 1949 and reviewed the budget for the next fiscal year, which led to an enforcement of the so-­called Dodge Line that I mentioned before. The Japanese economy, however, had by then begun to recover to a certain extent, as is also stated in Professor Nakamura’s book.5 Nakamura: The statistics only came out about two or three months later, so even though by the end of 1948 production had increased considerably, the Nine Principles were issued and Dodge arrived in Japan while this fact was still unknown. Two or three months afterwards the statistics were published. Miyazawa: I think it is still unclear what would have happened even if we had known these statistics. Nakamura: One really understands these things only in hindsight. Miyazawa: When I read your book I thought “Oh, that is how it actually was.” We and Dodge worked really hard, but objectively, it was also GHQ’s efforts that eventually bore fruit. The inflation in Japan thus started to return to normal, as is also mentioned in A History of Shōwa Japan. Nakamura: When I met Sherwood Fine twenty years later, and we talked about the Dodge Line, he said, “It was completely useless. Although because of our approach, inflation was being stabilized and the economy was on the road to recovery, Dodge came and spoiled it.” Miyazawa: Maybe this is the case. In 1950, a newspaper published an article entitled “A Thief Broke in and Stole Money.” Not objects [the implication here is that money was a valuable commodity—worth stealing—again]. I remember that when Dodge was told this story, he was extremely pleased. Nakamura Takafusa, Shōwa-­shi, vol. 2 (Tokyo: Tōyō Keizai Shinpōsha, 1993), translated by Edwin Whenmouth as A History of Shōwa Japan, 1926–1989 (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1998).

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So, in this sense, the Japanese economy itself had started to recover. Yet, because people’s living standards were at a low level anyway, this austerity budget hit them hard. Nakamura: How was the setting of the yen exchange rate to ¥360 [to the US dollar] received? Miyazawa: This period was actually quite mysterious. Dodge and Ikeda held meetings concerning the drawing up of the budget almost every day. But they did not talk about the exchange rate. Only once, while exposing the subsidy funds affair, Dodge explained the necessity of setting a virtual rate for goods, because otherwise the extent of the subsidies would remain unclear. He had calculated with a provisional rate of ¥330, and chose this rate in order to see what products could be exported at a rate of ¥330. Ikeda certainly did not assume that the focus of the talks had actually changed towards the exchange rate, yet he argued that a rate of ¥330 would be quite tough and it really should be ¥350 at best. Anyway, this talk about virtual exchange rates was not the actual topic of their discussion. It was unclear, in any case, what kind of economy would emerge by rapidly reducing public finances to such an extent. Therefore, we believed that we could not set the rate yet and this matter would have to be tackled later. This was our opinion and also that of the government in general, I believe. Then the foreign news reported that from the next day, that is from April 25, the exchange rate would be ¥360 to the dollar. We were completely thunderstruck. Soon after, GHQ confirmed this, and the rate was put into effect. Later, there were various explanations of the background facts and the topic was mostly clarified, but I think that there had been a dispute over this in Washington, too. Nakamura: I think there was. Dodge sent a telegram to Washington, saying “Let’s go with ¥330.” Miyazawa: They seemed to be thinking along these lines . . . Nakamura: He sent this telegram to Washington and the issue was discussed by the American Council of Economic Advisors (CEA). There was also an extremely interesting telegram from the Department of the Army: “We agree ¥330, but strongly recommend ¥360.”6 Miyazawa: Did this represent Washington’s standpoint? The text of the telegram is given in English.

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Nakamura: Indeed. I believe that Dodge changed the rate to ¥360 because of this “strongly recommend.” Miyazawa: Is that how it was? It seems that it was an ongoing dispute originating at the time when the Nine Principles were issued, and that, once it had been settled, they decided on the exchange rate. Nakamura: The first sentence in the Nine Economic Principles states that “These following nine objectives must be put into practice. Once they are achieved, the exchange rate is to be set.” Therefore, I think that the Nine Principles and the Exchange Rate had always been conceived of together. Miyazawa: I think so. However, Dodge never quite explained it like that. That is, that the exchange rate was not his decision, but Washington’s. From a strategic point of view, this is also quite likely: Dodge himself never said anything to that effect. After the Japanese yen rate had been decided upon, around October, the pound [sterling] was devalued. Nakamura: It was either October or November. Miyazawa: I think it must have been October.iv We really worried about what would happen to the yen after the pound’s devaluation. However, within the Japanese government, people like Mr. Ichimada [Hisato, Governor of the Bank of Japan] and the Minister of International Trade and Industry gathered in Ikeda’s office, and everybody agreed that, “There is no correlation, let’s go with ¥360,” and, strangely, there were hardly any objections. I think there was a feeling that we could somehow work with a rate of ¥360. If anything, GHQ lagged a bit behind. After we had decided to go on with the exchange rate as planned, I contacted GHQ about the Japanese decision, but was told that they were still discussing it and had not yet decided anything. It was left unclear until the last moment, and after our resolution, GHQ just confirmed that it was fine by them. There was no reason then why the eventual decision should be for ¥360, but after all there was no pressing reason to change it. Nakamura: I assume that the issues of export and such also played a role, as expected? Miyazawa: It was certainly like that. There were no specific big obstacles. During the proceeding, the issue of cutting financial support came up. Sherwood Fine and others had until then only discussed ways of cutting funding for the iron and steel industry; therefore, when Dodge was about to cut the export

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support, there was a great dispute about a ripple effect for the dollar. As Dodge stated frankly, this was an issue that was regarded with a certain amount of fear. Ikeda himself wanted to cut the support as much as possible, and the point that he and Dodge agreed upon was that, “the fastest way to teach someone to swim is to throw him into the water.” Practically, until then, individual rates had been set for each product, but the impact of this remained a mystery afterwards. Yet, the general key industries, for some reason or other followed this line.

Carl S. Shoup arrives in Japan Miyazawa: For the government, the matter of setting an exchange rate was settled. But then [Carl S.] Shoup, a professor at Columbia University arrived.7 He was accompanied by several young economists,v who would later become well known. The one who remained active the longest, Vickrey, was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1996 but unfortunately died before he could receive it.vi What impressed me most about the Shoup mission, especially because it was during the Occupation, were the good manners of its members. They were extremely polite and careful in their speech, and they diligently studied the situation in Japan while touring all around the country in a train owned by the Occupation Army. Ikeda, who considered himself an expert on tax systems, was keen to discuss matters thoroughly with Shoup. Yet, being the Minister of Finance, the time for this was not easy to come by, and therefore, I think, he went to Karuizawa on a free weekend for this.vii The problem was whether there was a car at the Finance Ministry that could get us to Karuizawa. Then we had to procure enough gasoline. Someone related to a member of the Ministry of Finance, maybe Uchida Nobuya, had a summer house in Karuizawa. I remember it was interesting to hear Ikeda and Shoup discussing these issues for half a day. Then the Shoup mission published their recommendations, was it in September? Nakamura: It was on September 15, 1949. Miyazawa: Ikeda had presented his request on June 7. During this time, they discussed various things at Karuizawa. Because Shoup had arrived in May, I

As a member of the delegation, Jerome Cohen published an overview of the circumstances in 1950 (Jerome B. Cohen, “Fiscal Policy in Japan,” The Journal of Finance vol. 5, no.1 (1950), pp. 110–25). An introductory discussion of the Shoup Mission’s impact on taxation in Japan is provided by Ishi Hiromitsu in The Japanese Tax System (2nd ed., New York: Clarendon Press, 1993), pp. 27–37.

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think it must have been around this time. Compared to Dodge’s time, discussions with Shoup were less fastidious; regarding the turnover tax for example, he just said, “That’s no good, is it?” and proceeded. I think it was in the middle of a talk on tax theory, something that Dodge had never spoken about either. Mikuriya: Did you go to Karuizawa by car after all? Miyazawa: We went by car and there were also trains running. Mikuriya: So somehow you were able to get hold of gasoline? Miyazawa: Yes. Mikuriya: How many hours did those discussions in Karuizawa take? Miyazawa: If I remember correctly, as Ikeda stayed overnight, the talks took at least several hours. I think Ikeda also wanted to spend a lot of time in more general discussions on taxation. Mikuriya: Did all members of the delegation participate in the meetings? Miyazawa: They all came together. Because Shoup was such an unusual name, when we first met, I asked him for the correct pronunciation. He answered, “It is the same sound you make when you hurt yourself and say ‘Ouch’.” By the way, the newspapers also eventually unified their spelling of his name to Shoup. Nakamura: Before that, they had called him Dr. Shoop! (laughs) Miyazawa: That’s right. They spelled and pronounced his name in various ways. He had a very long life.viii The National Tax Agency was established in June 1949, because it then had become necessary to strengthen taxation in Japan. Mikuriya: It was on June 1, during the reorganization of the Ministry of Finance. Miyazawa: On May 4, a memorandum concerning the reorganization of the national tax administration was issued, and on June 1, the National Tax Agency was launched. From this perspective, Shoup is quite literally the father of the National Tax Agency. Also, it seems a bit mysterious how the National Tax Agency just appeared out of nowhere in the middle of all this hustle and hurry. I think it was also due to the sudden appearance of relatively

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influential people from [the US] Internal Revenue Service. Yet, the National Tax Agency will always be considered as one of Shoup’s achievements. He was still alive until very recently, and also very recently, the Agency sent a delegation to Shoup, I think it was on the occasion of the fifty-­year anniversary of its establishment. Nakamura: About ten years ago, Shoup came to Japan once again.ix Miyazawa: That’s right. Just at that time the dollar was doing extremely badly. Shoup set the following challenge: “In ten years from now, which currency would have been best to have put your savings in?” and I remember somebody suggesting Chinese yuan. Tax reforms were only possible by concentrating entirely on taxation. After all, there are many different kinds, and the local allocation tax and others fundamentally influenced the central-­local relations. Such as the value added tax and the local allocation tax . . .8 Nakamura: These are all areas in which Shoup’s recommendations were implemented. Later, the postwar tax system was adjusted by the various departments, but I think we can still say that it is basically Shoup’s tax system. Miyazawa: Amazingly, this is the case. Nakamura: The corporate tax too remained fundamentally unchanged. Miyazawa: The corporate tax became the flat-­tax. Nakamura: Afterwards, the tax system changed according to each department, but I think that the Shoup system really is the skeleton of all this. Miyazawa: The system is indeed based on the report by these people.9

The enactment of the value added tax as suggested by the Shoup Report was postponed twice, repealed in 1954, and not introduced until April 1989. In the sphere of intergovernmental fiscal relations, a regulation was needed because all local governments had the same responsibilities for providing services, etc., but not all had the same financial capacities. In 1948, a “local distribution tax” had been established to raise revenue for reconstruction and improvement of living standards. In 1950, based on the Shoup mission’s recommendations, the “local equalization grants system was introduced so as not to reduce local autonomy. This new system provided for open-­ended equalizations in grants which matched the basic financial needs of local governments” (Ishi Hiromitsu, The Japanese Tax System (2nd ed., New York: Clarendon Press, 1993, p.  269). The equalization grant system was abolished in 1954 in favor of a new tax shared program known as local allocation tax (LAT). 9 Miyazawa uses the English “findings” here. 8

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Nakamura: Because they were scholars, their thinking was very sophisticated. They placed the fairness of taxation as the highest principle and acted accordingly. And because this was even more consistent, their framework has survived until now. Miyazawa: The members of the Shoup mission were quite young, but outstanding, and they all made their way in the world successfully. I wonder, however, if they could really understand a country like Japan just by merit of their excellent learning? Nakamura: Well, did they really understand it entirely? This is the question. But because they traveled the country and investigated things, I think they grasped quite a bit. And even if one does not understand every little detail, the overall principles still come through. American economists sometimes say very unreasonable things out of pure abstraction, but I believe in this case it was a success. Miyazawa: Because of the conditions on Dodge’s first visit to Japan, he left the issue of the tax system to Shoup. The second time, in the following year, it was again Shoup who advised concerning this matter. Nakamura: Was this when the local tax system was established,x the local equalization grants, for example?10 Miyazawa: The Shoup mission’s second recommendation was issued in September 1950. Whereas Dodge made political decisions and was very much at the center of political attention, Shoup focused entirely on issues pertinent to the tax system and remained outside of politics. I am left with the impression that he did an admirable job. Nakamura: I believe there was a certain Mr. Moss in the finance department of GHQ? Miyazawa: That is correct.xi Moss was from the [US] Internal Revenue Service. He set up the National Tax Agency and made a very quick job of it. How do you know about him?

One of the main points stressed by Shoup was the “reform of local finance” in order to give more power to local governments, in particular, the municipalities. This was to be achieved by giving them “new tax resources (e.g. property tax and value added tax)” and by implementing “a new scheme for the equalization of local budgets called the Equalization Grant Scheme” (Ishi Hiromitsu, The Japanese Tax System (2nd ed., New York: Clarendon Press, 1993, p. 31)).

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Nakamura: Reading about the Shoup mission, it becomes clear that Moss made several suggestions [concerning taxation], one of which was to have someone come over to deal with the tax reform, and that he persuaded Shoup to come to Japan.xii Miyazawa: Somehow Moss was connected to MacArthur’s aide, Colonel Ryder. It was through these channels that the National Tax Agency could be set up so rapidly. It really happened mysteriously quickly during such times. But it was Moss’s work. I think he is still alive. The National Tax Agency inquired after Moss recently. As I mentioned before, not enough tax revenue was being collected at that time. Since each division of the military government was affected, GHQ as a whole started the course of assigning a quota to each administrative division. The Director-­general of the Tax Bureau, Maeo [Shigesaburō], who was opposed to the idea, was fired and transferred to the Mint Bureau as director, as I mentioned before when talking about Kurusu [Takeo]. Dodge was quite a radical market economist. There was one episode, when he set up his severe austerity economy in 1949 and Ikeda said: “With this, we really have to think about relief measures for the unemployed.” Dodge answered: “Since measures to counter unemployment actually increase unemployment, we do not need this sort of thing.” Furthermore, at one point, he very firmly said: “Had I known that Japan had something like a Labor Standards Law, I would not even have come.” Nakamura: That is what is called a liberalist . . . Miyazawa: Yes . . . a capitalist, rather. Nakamura: During the Great Depression, Dodge was unemployed for a short while. He was something like a car salesman before. Miyazawa: Yes, I think he worked in sales. Nakamura: Then he joined a bank and made his way up. Miyazawa: After he came to Japan, he became head of the Office of Budget. Who was in office then? Nakamura: Eisenhower. Miyazawa: That’s right. Eisenhower. He worked hard to pay his way through college, didn’t he?

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Nakamura: To come back to the Dodge Line: The shortage of money at that time is mentioned frequently, but I think there is also the issue that the Ministry of Finance and the Bank of Japan decided to stimulate the commercial banks by pumping as much money into them as possible. Because this issue was regarded as vital, the Bank of Japan also purchased bonds on a large scale and, moreover, lent money to the commercial banks. They attempted to relax the finance market in this way. Then, somebody [Nakamura: I think it probably was Kanō Hisa’akira from the former Specie Bank] received a letter from Dodge, condemning these measures. As it turned out, the financial market could not be relieved this way and, if I remember correctly, at the beginning of the fiscal year 1950, it was decided to stop this policy. Miyazawa: It seems likely the Governor of the Bank of Japan, Ichimada [Hisato11], helped Ikeda with Dodge a little, since the relationship between Marquat and Ikeda was not very good. Ichimada was good at these things. This was the case throughout. Although it seems a bit strange to say it, Ichimada and Dodge were not really that close. Dodge transformed the Bank of Japan’s policy board and I think that this was a mistake. To make their salaries the highest in Japan marked the beginning of entirely unsuitable people appearing on the board. Apparently Ichimada was on good terms with the former New Dealer faction. Ikeda, on the other hand, was close to Dodge and therefore Marquat was antagonistic to Ikeda. As I will explain in more detail later, when we were dispatched to the US in the following year, this problem really came to the surface. Mikuriya: So, around 1950, what exactly was Ichimada’s reputation like? He would later be called the “Pope” after all. Miyazawa: He was a great man, indeed. Nakamura: It is said that there never were really intrusive orders from GHQ towards the Bank of Japan. Miyazawa: That is true; they never issued any harsh directives. Nakamura: Was the sobriquet “Pope” coined for Ichimada in this period? Miyazawa: Yes; somebody called him “Pope” and I think it fitted him well. The Bank of Japan has several guesthouses. They are certainly over budget but I assume that they were very comfortable. In this sense, it makes you wonder if all this might not have been carefully arranged. Ichimada Hisato (1893–1984), 18th Governor of the Bank of Japan, 1946–1954.

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Mikuriya: Mr. Miyazawa, from what you have seen, do you feel more inclined towards Dodge or Shoup? Miyazawa: As I said some time ago, there was a tendency of treating us like a different kind of human beings. Dodge almost never associated with regular Japanese people; he hardly talked to anyone other than Ikeda and Yoshida. Shoup, on the other hand, rarely met with them, and he paid attention to what members of the general public thought. The talks with Ikeda I mentioned before occurred only about once; they were not at all frequent. Therefore, the tax issue was—quite consciously—treated in an apolitical way. Because I had met with Dodge concerning this topic almost every other day, I greatly admired Shoup because of his carefulness; maybe even more so because the Occupation was still underway. Nakamura: Was this when the December budget was being put together? Miyazawa: Yes, but though I say December, for example, in 1949, it was actually drawn up in March, because in some years it had to be revised several times. In October 1948, the Ashida Cabinet stepped down, then the Yamazaki Incident occurred, and there was just not much time for constructing the budget, especially since the elections were to be in January. I think that in 1950 they probably dealt with it in a similar way. Nakamura: Under Dodge’s budget, the subsidies were identified and dealt with; starting with the support for coal, all subsidizing was swiftly abolished. From an official point of view, the budget had to be revised because all anticipated expenditures were cut. Speaking from a budgeting point of view, it almost seemed as if there was too much money. Miyazawa: Let’s see. There is no doubt that in the Ministry of Finance’s original plan for 1949, the financial support to be cut was ¥70 billion. I think that this was a very random number. Dodge then increased the cuts to ¥200 billion. Nakamura: And from these cuts the “counterpart funds” were somehow accumulated. Miyazawa: There is no doubt that this number of ¥70 billion did not rest on any substantiated estimation. Nakamura: I gather there were considerable disagreements, as they would not release these counterpart funds.

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Miyazawa: I think there were different calculations for coal and for iron; I am not quite sure though. Nakamura: The Ministry of International Trade and Industry was responsible for the practical implication? Miyazawa: (takes Kinkō Zaisei [Balanced Budget] (Ikeda Hayato, Jitsugyō no Nihonsha, 1952) off a bookshelf and reads) Regarding the different exchange rates for export depending on the goods, this book explains that, “multiple rates were applied: for example for plate-­glass ¥600 to the dollar, ¥420 for raw silk, ¥270 for cotton products.” And about price control compensations, it says that in the initial budget for the fiscal year 1949, with ¥202,200,000,000, they amounted to 30 percent of the overall annual expenditure. They were reduced to ¥90 billion for 1950 and ¥22 billion for 1951. I do not know anything predating 1949, because the budget was not published in this style then. Nakamura: It was an odd system . . . Miyazawa: And then, towards the end of 1949, Dodge came once again. The newspapers reported that, “Dodge’s return visit heralds consensus on financing small and medium-­sized enterprises.” And that is what seems to have happened. I think that was the first mention of the negative impact of the scarcity of money. As Professor Nakamura pointed out before, the budget for 1950 was presented to the National Diet in January 1950. Therefore, when Dodge came to Japan at the end of 1949, he saw this budget. And because by then he understood the situation, the financial support was to be cut even more. The reform of the tax system was also taken up by that assembly, although Shoup’s recommendations regarding taxation had come out already in September 1949. They were implemented in May, weren’t they? So, the budget for 1950 passed comparatively smoothly. On the other hand, since the general elections for the Upper House were in 1950, we had to do something about the slight deflation that had come about; Ikeda was to visit the United States in this context. The economic depression following Dodge’s policies had become severe and something had to be done. It was very difficult for us, however, to work together with Dodge, who was back in the States. We had to deal with GHQ in Tokyo, but we were unsure about the situation there now that Dodge had left; it seemed as if there was no partner for us to work with. Hence, there was no other way than to go to the United States. I think that Yoshida became aware of these issues because he faced elections.

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Finance Minister Ikeda Hayato’s objectives in America Miyazawa: When Yoshida decided to send Ikeda to the States, the original intention was to let him negotiate about purely economic issues. This was the surface state of affairs, anyway. However, it is likely that when Dodge came to Japan the year before, he had suggested to MacArthur the idea of sending the Finance Minister to the United States. So when Yoshida told MacArthur that he wanted to send Ikeda, they reached a relatively fast agreement. But I remember wondering what was going on, when Marquat, who had heard about this somehow, asked Ikeda, “How about going to America?” At any rate, we had the elections before us, and if we did not achieve a change of the status quo, we would not be able to deal with the depression. So, Ikeda began preparing towards this objective. Then, just as we were about to leave, Yoshida unexpectedly brought up the topic of peace negotiations in a talk with Ikeda. It was the beginning of 1950 and little by little, here and there, the issue of a peace settlement began to come up. MacArthur himself had argued for a rapid conclusion at a very early stage, I think it might have been the beginning of 1947. MacArthur was a very interesting character; he astonished everybody by declaring: “The reasons for occupying Japan are first to abolish the military, second to democratize the country, and then there are economic reasons. The military has been demolished and is gone. Concerning democratization, there are already important reforms under way. The economy will need some more years in any case, and in this light an extended stay [in Japan] is unnecessary.” Whatever the reasons, MacArthur’s own philosophy clearly was that a long stay was not beneficial. Perhaps he also had political plans of his own,12 but as a politician he seems to have considered too long an Occupation period as negative. Then, at the beginning of 1950, the question of independence arose. By this time relations between the United States and the Soviet Union had clearly deteriorated, and there was no chance that the Soviet Union would take part in a peace treaty. The military was concerned that they would have to step back if the US concluded a peace treaty, which would leave Japan unprotected from a possible Soviet occupation under their very eyes. I am sure that this was the background. In this light, one would think that the Department of State, like MacArthur, would already be well along in this matter, but talks did not move forward at all. Although the Soviet Union and the United States fought on the same side in World War II, in 1946, only one year after the end of the war, Churchill gave his In order to run in the presidential elections in 1948, MacArthur needed to end the Occupation and leave Japan.

12

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“Iron Curtain” speech. When Kennan proclaimed the doctrine of containment [of Soviet power] in 1947, the diplomatic relationship collapsed at a very early stage, and quickly became even worse because of the question of how to deal with Berlin. Therefore, for the United States, there was a persuasive argument that a Japanese peace conference would mean handing over Japan to the Soviet Union. Even MacArthur probably thought about the possibility of going to Okinawa or a similar place for a short while, but in any case the Americans couldn’t say “Well, the Occupation is over but we are still here.” There was no easy answer to this question. Especially MacArthur thought that way, yet—with such a substantial force as the Eighth Army present in Japan and General Eichelberger at the top—the military standpoint was clearly against retreating and handing Japan over to the Soviets. Hence, talks were at a standstill. Domestically, the opinion began to be voiced that economic recovery seemed to be underway, and that besides, five years after 1945—despite “democracy, democracy” being the big topic—this interference into each and every domain13 really was no democracy whatsoever. Those in the Occupation Army, too, arrived at the impression that, seen from this angle, people were right and this was in fact the case, and this kind of talk faded. Now, Yoshida acted as if he was not especially concerned with this issue, and did not officially confront this problem, including the question of how to proceed. When Ikeda was about to leave in April 1950, he was therefore extremely surprised when Yoshida told him: “Because of the current situation, the Japanese side may well go ahead with offering bases to the United States, in one way or another, in order to have them remain in Japan. Please convey this to Washington.” At this time, Ikeda had a strong voice and had even told Yoshida various things in a rather outright manner, but he was truly astonished because he had never mentioned diplomatic matters. Hence, for Ikeda, this was a very unforeseen task. The turn towards peace talks and the fact that the Soviet Union would not participate came up right on each other’s heels, and an especially prominent argument was that the conclusion of a peace treaty would lead to catastrophe. Mr. Nanbara [Shigeru] among others squarely opposed Yoshida’s policy; Yoshida shooting back “Opportunistic scholar!”14 must be seen in the context of this tumult. In the middle of all this, Yoshida was determined to have Ikeda lead these talks in Washington. Yoshida also understood that the situation must have been troublesome for the US;15 this was another reason why he wanted Japan, as an

Miyazawa’s expression is “from lifting the chopsticks to putting them back down.” The idiom kyokugaku asei no to denotes the prostitution of learning by advocating popular ideas, bending the truth, and truckling to the times. 15 Miyazawa uses the English word “embarrassing.” 13 14

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independent country, to offer bases to America, in a framework quite similar to what was later realized in the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security. Ikeda left for Washington with Yoshida’s instructions. There were several economy-­related talks scheduled for every day, concerning among other things a relaxation of the Dodge Line and the establishment of an export-­import bank. Dodge also arranged meetings with officials from each department for free discussions. The Department of State and others were extremely sympathetic and often commented on the difficulty of Japan’s situation. They also believed that the financial situation would become very difficult if the Occupation continued for much longer. In discussions with the officials in charge, Ikeda therefore replied along the lines of: “Well . . ., yes I think that’s the case.” We very much wanted to submit our propositions on paper, but we never had the chance to prepare such documents. We were the only Japanese there, we were staying in a cheap hotel, and we just had no working capacity because it was just the two of us. Even if we had had the opportunity and Ikeda himself had written the documents, we could have neither typed nor printed them, nor could we have calculated anything; we had no typewriter, paper, or abacus. Eventually the State Department prepared the documents for us so that we could distribute them for discussion. And there were many who agreed with our points. I felt keenly that they were all so sympathetic because Ikeda and I had broken free of the Occupation. It was assumed that since we had so many discussions in Washington, the state of affairs under MacArthur must be bad. We explained that this was not the case and took pains to clarify the situation properly. Dodge was careful to send daily reports to Tokyo, and with all the sightseeing and study visits, concrete negotiations remained distant. Furthermore, the topic of discussion never moved towards anything concerned with “peace.” The question of when such “peace-­related” talks eventually took place is currently being investigated by a young American scholar in Professor Iokibe [Makoto]’s department. It looks as if this person—Robert D. Eldridge—has just moved to Osaka University.xiii He is studying historical evidence in order to specify the exact date of the beginning of the peace talks. I think it was May 3, 1950, because I have a corresponding diary entry for this date. However, due to the bad quality of paper those days, it is now hardly legible. Yet, what I can decipher is the ambiguous entry I wrote on May 3: “We had several debates with Dodge.” Why did I write it in this obscure way? Obviously, as we were still under Occupation, I was concerned that I would have to show these entries to someone after we came back to Japan. I’m sure it was on May 3. We—that’s Ikeda, Dodge, his assistant Reid, and me—talked for more than two hours. Reid prepared a memo of this meeting and

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some days later Dodge signed it and brought it to our hotel. He asked if he could distribute copies to a restricted circle within the United States, which he did after some minor amendments. I still have one of these copies.xiv According to recent research done by Eldridge, there was an offer from the Japanese side regarding the idea of a security treaty, and the State Department’s reaction was extremely positive. They assumed that the Japanese attitude was probably similar. At this time, Secretary of State Acheson was about to go to London to take part in an international meeting of foreign ministers that also dealt with the question of peace with Japan. Butterworth was Undersecretary of State then. With the constant changes and people coming and going, it was hard to keep track, but Butterworth was the person in charge. When he saw our document, he commented, “That’s really good. What I heard from Shirasu Jirō is wrong. If Yoshida is really making such an offer, I will convey this to Acheson,” and sent the memo to Acheson, who took it with him to London. This is as much as I know of the matter. Another copy was sent to [John Foster] Dulles and another, quite unsurprisingly, to MacArthur. According to Eldridge, this offer by the Japanese side was the reason why the US decided to proceed with peace talks. Before long, Dulles would come to Japan as the person in charge of this issue. That was when the Korean War broke out suddenly; therefore, according to recently published records from the archives, it became clear that the Ikeda visit was rather effective. When we returned to Tokyo, however, we could not meet with MacArthur. I think there was also some misunderstanding involved. The election campaigns had already begun, and we immediately took a train from Haneda to Kyoto, where Yoshida was waiting for us. Right at the Osakayama tunnel, the conductor brought us a telegram from finance official Watanabe, addressed to me. “It is entirely inaccurate that Finance Minister Ikeda came back having achieved a relaxation of the Dodge Line by his trip to the US. Did you not actually go on a general study tour? Either Yoshida or Ikeda mentioning anything along those lines would amount to a severe violation of etiquette.” I just thought “What?!” but Watanabe says that he sent this telegram by order of the two generals Marquat and Whitney.xv The fact that those two constantly quarrelling officials stood side by side made me think that the situation must be really bad (laughs). Of course, at this time we had not even begun any peace talks, but I guess that GHQ assumed that we would return at least with a relaxation of the Dodge Line as a present from the United States. Because Dodge had taken care to send daily telegrams, there was really no reason for this expectation. But then again there were two Japanese special correspondents in Washington. One was Nakamura Shōgo,xvi who would later become head of the political news department at Asahi

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Shinbun, and the other was Sakai Yoneo of Tokyo Shinbun.xvii Their telegrams to Tokyo contained several mentions of the issue. In this way, the faction around Marquat had been beaten already by Dodge. On that account, Marquat and Whitney must have gone to convey to MacArthur that we had negotiated various matters abroad. I’m not sure if people saw it, but it is likely that the subject of peace talks went straight to MacArthur. So, at least they made sure he was aware of this issue by telling him: “Was it not presumptuous of them to lead talks aimed at a relaxation of the Dodge Line when they went to the US with your permission for a study visit?” In Kyoto, we reported everything that had happened in the States to Yoshida. We had more or less managed to achieve his wishes, but we could not help having antagonized those people. We had to make some kind of declaration that would pacify them. Therefore, we returned to Tokyo by night train and went to Marquat’s office to pay him a visit the following day. We had an appointment, but his deputy received us at the front door and told us that Marquat was too busy to meet us. In the end, we did not meet him at all. Thereafter, the newspapers reported on the cooling relationship [between the government and GHQ]. This could not be helped, but the problem was that we had to talk to GHQ in time for the elections. Therefore, several people went through a lot of trouble, and Yoshida sent a report to MacArthur, stating what he was planning to do and asking for his permission. Moreover, he made it public that he had been granted MacArthur’s consent. Hence, we were able to meet the deadline for the election. The issue of peace talks, however, was not touched upon this time either, and remained in the background thereafter. I have written about this previously in Secret Talks between Tokyo and Washington.16 At that time, I could only write about what our side tried to achieve, but I think that now we can learn more about the United States’ reaction from the archives. Because the Soviet Union took part in the peace conference, contrary to expectations, this part [in Secret Talks] is slightly incorrect, but as they did not sign the treaty, the outcome remains the same. I will say more about the peace conference later. This was more or less a full account of our visit to the States in May 1950. The Hotel Washington in Washington still exists. It was a rather shoddy hotel, but then it was affordable: Ikeda and I paid $7 per night for a twin-­bed room (laughs). Ikeda had brought some sake—it was either one shō bottle [1.8 liters] or four gō bottles [0.18 liter]—and we heated it up with hot water in the washbasin. Miyazawa Kiichi, Tokyo-Washinton no mitsudan (Tokyo: Jitsugyō no Nihonsha, 1954), translated into English and annotated by Robert D. Eldridge, Secret Talks between Tokyo and Washington: The Memoirs of Miyazawa Kiichi, 1949–1954 (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2007).

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The Finance Minister’s entourage Mikuriya: Returning to our previous conversation, did Shirasu Jirō accompany you to the States? Miyazawa: That is correct. From Yoshida’s point of view, Ikeda had never been abroad, so it would prove helpful in all kinds of matters to send Shirasu to go with him. I do not think there was a specific intention of having him keep an eye on Ikeda or supervising him. However, Shirasu acted almost entirely at his own discretion, though there is no question that he did so in Japan’s interest. He visited friends from his old university and from his time in England, but he entirely separated this from his work. Mikuriya: So you did not stay in the same hotel? Miyazawa: No, actually we didn’t. He paid with his own money, according to Dodge’s instructions. Dodge had said to Ikeda:“Japan’s a country under Occupation. Therefore its minister of finance must not be ostentatious. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to travel the cheapest way possible.” In New York he actually provided us with a nice hotel, but in Washington, under everyone’s scrutiny, there was no other way. Because this didn’t apply to Shirasu, he acted according to his own wishes. Mikuriya: That means that although Shirasu came to the States together with you, he then moved independently? Miyazawa: Yes. He happened to know Butterworth, and he went on his own to see him. I think they’d been at the same English university [Cambridge University], just in different years of study. However, Shirasu was never told about the so-­ called security treaty idea because he would not have agreed. Therefore, for the State Department, he most likely gave the impression that there wouldn’t be any progress in the peace question. When Ikeda then said something entirely different, the State Department assumed that if that was really the case there could be some advancement. This is all mentioned in Eldridge’s study. Nakamura: Speaking of which, did Yoshida and Shirasu meet during Yoshida’s time as ambassador to England? Miyazawa: Yes. I think Shirasu was already connected to Kabayama17 by marriage then. Therefore, it seems that he often went to the embassy for entertainment. Shirasu was married to Kabayama Masako, the second daughter of Count Kabayama Aisuke.

17

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Nakamura: Ah yes, the famous Shirasu Masako. I often wonder about Shirasu’s [Jirō] part in all this. Miyazawa: There are several aspects: For example, he also came with us to the Peace Conference [September 1951 in San Francisco]. On the return flight he told Yoshida: “And now please retire. Your work is finished. This is the best time to quit.” Yoshida did not like that at all. Shirasu kept saying it on various occasions. However, during the Occupation, when Whitney or Willoughby or someone else caused trouble, Shirasu would just jump right in and help. Nakamura: Shirasu was also a very talented speaker. And he had various good connections, I assume? Miyazawa: When you have been friends at school, you will stay connected. Hence, at times of confusions, like during the “Yamazaki for Prime Minister Affair,” he played quite an important role in the background between MacArthur [and Yoshida]. In February 1946, when the draft Constitution was being prepared, he said that he did the translation himself, with the help of a dictionary: “It says that the Emperor is a ‘symbol’ but I did not know the Japanese word for ‘symbol.’ So I looked it up in the Kenkyūsha dictionary and because it said shōchō I put it down as shōchō.” He always just said what he thought. Nakamura: However, he did not occupy such a conspicuous position for very long. Miyazawa: Yes, although he had joined the Foreign Trade Agency after the war. Mikuriya: As its director . . . Miyazawa: I think that by that time he had realized that he had to get out one way or another. For a short time he was also at the Central Liaison Officexviii and then at the Foreign Trade Agency. Mikuriya: His last post was that of the President of Tōhoku Electric Power [Tōhoku Denryoku]. Miyazawa: He was also close to Konoe’s secretary Ushiba. Nakamura: In any case, Shirasu is quite an elusive character. Miyazawa: He is certainly someone who is very difficult to understand.

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Nakamura: Once, about twenty years ago, a group of researchers invited Shirasu to meet and asked him various questions, to which he did not answer. He said, “Anyway, I’ve forgotten everything about these unpleasant times” (laughs). I remember that, in the end, there was no discussion whatsoever. Miyazawa: He was on good terms with Kobayashi Hideo, Kawakami Tetsutarō, and Kon Hidemi.18 This had to do with his wife, as well, but he himself suddenly bought a farm in the area around Tsurukawa halfway through the war. Because it was situated between Musashi and Sōshū, he called it Buaisō.19 Mikuriya: He actually farmed his land there, and he also crafted every single piece of furniture for his house. Miyazawa: Yes, so he did. Isn’t farming something of a gentleman’s pursuit in England? Shirasu Masako was also an especially talented person. Jirō was not really unsociable, but he was no ordinary character either. He was completely untroubled about things like putting Yoshida into a bad mood by telling him to resign. And then, in London, there was that story with Yoshida’s daughter, Asō Kazuko.20 Mikuriya: Mr. Miyazawa, did you see Shirasu occasionally afterwards? Miyazawa: We met through all those years until he died. He taught me a lot. Mikuriya: Was he after all a somewhat intimidating person? Miyazawa: Well, in short, he was someone who favored plain speaking.21 He just didn’t do figures of speech or polite talking. I think the impression that he was not very sociable also came about because he just blurted out whatever he wanted to say. Although it would have been better to say: “Well, this is slightly troubling for me,” he just said: “That’s annoying.” Apart from this there was no special reason for his reputation. Nakamura: So he was active in the background all through the Occupation? Kobayashi, Kawakami, and Kon were influential critics and writers. The name is composed from the Chinese readings of the first characters of Musashi no kuni, the former Musashi Province that comprised today’s Tokyo Prefecture, most of Saitama Prefecture and part of Kanagawa Prefecture; Shōshū (usually Sagami no kuni), the former Sagami Province, in the northeast of Kanagawa Prefecture; and the last character of bessō (cottage or villa). Buaisō is a pun on the homophonic term for unsociability, buaisō. 20 Asō Kazuko was Yoshida Shigeru’s third daughter. During Yoshida’s time as ambassador in London, Shirasu introduced her to her later husband, Asō Takakichi. 21 Miyazawa uses the English “plain speaking” here. 18 19

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Miyazawa: Well, he certainly could not help doing so. From Shirasu Jirō’s point of view, there were many things Yoshida Shigeru had to accomplish under the Occupation. Mikuriya: He did play a somewhat mysterious role. Miyazawa: Indeed. Also, at GHQ, there probably were requests and reluctant replies on both sides. I think there was just a mutual dislike between Shirasu, on the one side, and people like Kades and Whitney, on the other. I am not quite sure but his relationship with Willoughby seems to have been good.

Notes i

President of Nisshinbo at the time. Sakurada was from Akazaka village [now part of Fukuyama] in Numakuma district, Hiroshima Prefecture, like Ikeda Hayato. During the time of the Ikeda Cabinet, together with Nagano Shigeo [as well as Kobayashi Ataru and Mizuno Shigeo], he was one of the so-­called “four heavenly kings” of the financial world. ii At this time Miyazawa was attached to both the Tax Bureau and the public relations section of the Minister’s Secretariat (Ōkurashō Jinmeiroku, [Finance Ministry Personnel Register]). iii The number settled on in the draft was ¥70 billion (Asahi Shinbun, March 13, 1949). iv Minister Cripps announced the devaluation of the pound during the night of September 18 (local time) to take effect the following day (Asahi Shinbun, September 20, 1949). v The seven members of the Shoup tax mission are as follows (position and area of responsibility at the time): (1) Howard R. Bowen (Professor at University of Illinois; national taxation, local tax regulations and adjustment, reassessment); (2) Jerome B. Cohen (Professor at the City College of New York; indirect taxes, including turnover tax); (3) Roland F. Hatfield (Director of Tax Research, Department of Taxation, St. Paul, Minnesota; local taxation); (4) Carl S. Shoup (Professor at Columbia University, Graduate Faculty; overall director of the tax mission); (5) Stanley S. Surrey (Professor at University of California, Berkeley; complaint procedures, legal questions); (6) William Vickrey (Professor at Columbia University, Graduate Faculty; income taxes); and (7) William C. Warren (Professor at Columbia University; corporation taxes). vi William Vickrey was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics 1996, but died of a heart attack two days after the announcement. vii According to information gathered from contemporary newspaper reports, Minister Ikeda and Dr. Shoup had a meeting at the Manpei Hotel in Karuizawa on September 9, 1950. In an interview with Sankei Shinbun, Miyazawa stated that the meeting took place in Nikkō: “Avoiding the press, Ikeda and I went to Nikkō (Tochigi Prefecture). In Nikkō there was a long meeting, too. Shoup was an extremely polite person” (Sankei Shinbun, March 29, 2000).

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viii Carl S. Shoup died on March 23, 2000, aged 97. ix Shoup came to Japan on an invitation by the Japan Foundation in 1996. On this occasion, he also met with Prime Minister Takeshita Noboru. x The first recommendation concerning local taxation was to press for a fundamental reform (Ōkurashō hyakunen shi [A Hundred Years of the Finance Ministry], Vol. 2, p. 209). xi Harold Moss was head of the Internal Revenue Division, Economic and Scientific Section. xii Kokuzeichō gojūnen shi [Fifty Years of the National Tax Agency], p. 70, referencing Ōkurashō shiryō [Data on the Finance Ministry]. xiii [Robert D. Eldridge is] Associate Professor at the Osaka School of International Public Policy at Osaka University. xiv A section of this booklet is quoted in Miyazawa, Kiichi, Tokyo-Washinton no mitsudan (Tokyo: Jitsugyō no Nihonsha, 1956); reprinted as Shīrizu sengoshi no shōgen senryo to kōwa 1 [Testimony of the Postwar History Series 1: Occupation and Peace]: Tokyo-Washinton no Mitsudan (Tokyo: Chūkō Bunko, 1999). Translated into English and annotated by Robert D. Eldridge as Secret Talks between Tokyo and Washington: The Memoirs of Miyazawa Kiichi, 1949–1954 (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2007). xv Watanabe Takeshi, Senryōka no Nihon zaisei oboegaki [A Memorandum on Japan’s Finances under the Occupation] (Tokyo: Nihon Keizai Shinbunsha, 1966, reprinted by Chūkō Bunko, 1999) mentions a note by Marquat and Whitney to Watanabe. xvi Nakamura was a reporter for Asahi Shinbun. He served as secretary to Asahi’s Editor-­in-Chief Ogata Taketora during the Koiso (Kuniaki) Cabinet, then became US correspondent in 1950. After heading the Asahi’s US office, he returned to Japan in 1958 as representative of the Osaka head office. He wrote Nagata-­chō ichibanchi (Tokyo: Nyūsu-­sha, 1946). xvii Sakai went to the United States in 1926. After working for Japanese newspapers like the Rafu Nichibei, he went on to cover events such as the Spanish Civil War. He acted as US correspondent for Tokyo Shinbun from 1947 and became Sankei Shinbun’s Washington correspondent in 1964. He died in 1978. xviii Shirasu was Vice-Director of the Central Liaison Office.

5

Attending the San Francisco Peace Conference Translated by Fiona Michishige

Understanding “Occupation,” and the need for a security treaty Miyazawa: As I mentioned before, Ikeda was informed of the parts of the peace treaty related to Japan’s security plans by Prime Minister Yoshida, and then relayed them to Washington. Recent research has shown what effects that had. On the fiftieth anniversary of the peace treaty various events were taking place in the US. Since I happened to be a surviving attendee of the peace conference, I was given the opportunity to attend several of them and make speeches. Regarding the transition from Occupation to a state of peace, I was taught in a sense that being occupied by a foreign country is a kind of national humiliation and so, fifty-­some years ago I was the kind of person who thought so too. But with fifty years’ hindsight and hearing what everyone had to say, I would say quite a number of them looked upon Japan’s defeat and occupation as liberation from various kinds of oppression. Some of them may have been primary school children at the time, but experienced the years to follow and read about it in the history books. So what kind of oppression are they referring to? I think it could be any number of different things, from the oppression of the imperial system to the army. Recently I’ve found that a surprising number of people feel they were liberated from these things. As for the Occupation itself, with the exception of Okinawa, neither American soldiers nor the American Army invaded Japanese soil. In that respect, air-­raids aside, there were no large-­scale killings. So it follows that in actual fact there weren’t mass killings of that kind, nor oppression of freedom. Also, the occupying administration actually used the Japanese government to run things. So on the level of the general population, cases of the US taking charge of direct orders and administrative divisions were extremely rare. The Japanese government did all of this. Occasionally the military government would come around in their jeeps, and so on, but direct participation in everyday life was

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relatively rare, apart from cases such as the military police controlling traffic at the Hibiya crossing. For that reason, if you ask the general public about the Occupation, their main memories are of things like American soldiers giving chocolate to children and so now I really think that there are no strong residual feelings of humiliation. While people dealing with the administration on a daily basis may have felt humiliated taking orders directly from the occupying forces every single day, for the general public, it was probably more of an indirect relationship. What’s more, my impression is that MacArthur’s team at GHQ ran things relatively well. So looking back on the few years of Occupation after fifty years, we can say that the tragedy of the Occupation only affected the Japanese people in a few cases. Nakamura: I think you’re right. I was in my twenties at the time, so my memories of it are very vivid and, as you say, there weren’t many of those kind of cases. Miyazawa: I happened to be one of many in the audience at the Asahi Shinbun symposium entitled, “The 21st century: Japan’s road ahead” [“Nijūisseiki— Nihon no shinro”].i One of the panelists, a really marvelous fellow, responded to my comment that Occupation was extremely humiliating saying, on the contrary, he thought it was liberating. Mikuriya: I was born in 1951, so I didn’t experience the Occupation at all. I learned everything I know about it textbook-­style. During primary school we learnt that the army in the prewar period was bad, that militaristic Japan was bad and that compared to that, the democratizing occupation was very positive. Miyazawa: I’m definitely in the minority there. At my primary school, Japanese history began with the “descent from heaven” myth, but from a modern perspective that seems absolutely crazy. In those days, we were taught that Japan had never been beaten by a foreign country and didn’t even learn about the Battle of Hakusukinoe,1 so my perspective may be a little skewed. Still, the Occupation meant the government had to work alongside a foreign presence, so in any case it wasn’t something to aspire to. I’m sure no one would want to experience it again. The thing is, Yoshida was planning to use the security treaty to wrap up the Occupation, while also hoping to cast off that state of humiliation quickly and by Known as the Battle of Baekgang in Korean, this was the battle in 663 in which Japanese forces and those of the Korean kingdom of Baekje were decisively defeated by Korea’s Silla kingdom and forces from Tang China. This was Japan’s most significant military defeat before the twentieth century.

1

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any means possible. I think it was probably a decision made with the intention of winning public support and, going by public support at the time, generally speaking, it may well have succeeded. But from today’s viewpoint, the question remains whether the price of the security treaty was worth paying. Mikuriya: That is an interesting question, and something that is discussed by revisionism. Miyazawa: This is the first time I have reflected on it in this way, but I still wonder if there was any way to resolve the situation other than the security treaty. There is an argument for waiting for comprehensive peace and not interfering at all, but as I understand it, that’s not realistic. I can’t say for sure. Nakamura: It’s a difficult topic, but I agree with you that comprehensive peace only works as a public stance. Publicly it’s fine, but in practice even those arguing for it would still be thinking to themselves that it would most probably be difficult to achieve. I think the Socialist Party members of that period probably thought that way too. Miyazawa: Well, that’s the Socialists for you. Nakamura: I think quite a lot of Japanese people felt so too, in a vague way. Miyazawa: In response to that, I think people are now back to the idea that if you decide to go with a system such as the security treaty, it should have a period of validity. Mikuriya: They didn’t think of that though, did they? Nakamura: No, I suppose they didn’t. Mikuriya: They didn’t think things through to that kind of objective end. I think that’s why talks were on such an emotional level, rather than a logical one. Miyazawa: Is that so? This was much later, but last year in San Francisco, I was asked to give my opinion as a surviving attendee. I said that it was correct to have a period of validity and to this day I still believe so, but that’s not necessarily the final word on the matter. There may be other valid points of view.

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General MacArthur and the peace process Miyazawa: Anyway, as I said before, when Ikeda was sent as a special envoy in 1950, talk of peace was just beginning, both in the US and in Japan. Looking back, General MacArthur talked of a quick road to peace at a very early stage. That was in 1947, so it was extremely early on. We should refer to what MacArthur said at the time: “The occupation was set up with the following objectives: firstly, to set up a framework to disable military groups. Secondly, to plan the democratization of other Japanese institutions. Thirdly, to rebuild the economy. The first objective has been achieved and the second is on track. However, the third goal of rebuilding the economy is an endless task. We can’t wait until it has been achieved before pursuing peace.” So in 1947, MacArthur surprised everyone by saying that the time would soon be ripe for peace. At that time, relations between the US and the Soviet Union were deteriorating rapidly. I remember Churchill making a speech in Fulton, USA, in 1946 and using the term “Iron Curtain.” That was very early on. After that, George Kennan spoke of containment of the Soviet Union in 1947. These two speeches were not related to the matter of bringing peace quickly to Japan, but rather to the drastic deterioration of relations between the US and the Soviet Union. Under those circumstances, had relations between the US and the Soviet Union improved, a peace deal with Japan would have been more difficult for the US to pursue. But I think that in the absence of US-Soviet cooperation, the US had to consider a peace process in Japan. It was unlikely that the Soviet Union would participate in that kind of peace deal. For the US military, the prevailing idea at the time was the fear of leaving Japan wide open and vulnerable to the Soviet Union and I think that was an objective view of the situation. As I said, a security treaty wasn’t the sort of thing that the United States was able to initiate so the idea came from the Japanese side, from Yoshida himself. Between the Department of State and Department of Defense, with regard to the debate I just mentioned, about leaving Japan vulnerable to the Soviet Union, the State Department lost out. In Japan, the most representative opinion within the military was that of Eighth Army General Eichelberger, who thought it was a ridiculous idea. However, in the middle of all this, MacArthur was saying that it was necessary to achieve a peace deal relatively quickly. I happened to meet MacArthur once, an experience which few people could claim. In 1950, when Finance Minister Ikeda went over to the United States I was asked to go too. I forget why that came to be, but I went as interpreter and did simultaneous interpreting for almost an hour. My impression at the time was that this was a extremely high-­ranking person who spoke with clarity. One thing I remember is that he began by talking about the finance minister. He was talking about a careless remark someone had made

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to Ikeda and said that kind of problem is part and parcel of being a finance minister. Then he started talking about gold, saying gold is this and that, and discussing at great length how it’s a real shame that the level of global trade is limited by it. You could say that gold is a kind of security, but our conversation didn’t turn to that aspect of it. While talking of these matters, he smoked away on his corncob pipe, and paced around the room giving his frank opinions. Listening to him, my impression was that he must be an extraordinary man. I think that as an American military man, he was on a par with Eisenhower, and there was even a movement to put MacArthur up for presidential candidacy. I can’t say for sure what connection there was between him speaking of an early peace for Japan and the US government’s domestic schedule. There may not even have been one. All I can say is that staying a long time in a country such as Japan seemed uncomfortable for him, in his innermost thoughts. There are several points that lead me to think so. He was a man of great power, but I think he felt the dangerous side of power. On that point there must be many other stories to tell about him, but at any rate he was an extraordinary person. He must have ranked alongside Eisenhower. Even though it’s reckless of me to say it on the basis of one meeting with him, that was simply my impression of him. Consequently, at several opportunities, in the middle of disputes between the State Department and the Department of Defense, his stance was along the lines of, “That’s all very well, but we need a peace deal as soon as possible.” On June 19, 1950, a meeting of US Defense Secretary Johnson, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Bradley, and Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers MacArthur took place. As the most senior person in the Army, it is thought that MacArthur himself had already acted as mediator several times before in the conflict of opinion between the State Department and the Department of Defense. However, he suggested that, in the absence of a so-­called security initiative on the part of the USA, the occupying military forces (if that’s what they’re called) could transfer to Okinawa, depending on the circumstances. That was another of the roles that MacArthur is said to have played. For that reason, my impression is that he genuinely wanted to end the Occupation as soon as possible.

The outbreak of the Korean War, and John Foster Dulles Miyazawa: However, the first time that talk of peace actually came about happened to be at the time that Ikeda, of whom I spoke earlier, went to Korea as special envoy. I should probably say that was just a coincidence, but it was around

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April, May, or June in 1950. It was around that time, on June 25 that the Korean War began. It began on June 25 and prior to that [John Foster] Dulles had come over. Sure enough, Dulles had also been to Korea. He came to Japan some time between June 1 and 27, 1950. Nakamura: There is some dispute about the exact date. Looking at your memoirs, the date is slightly different, but the timeline puts it at the first and there’s also a theory that it was the fourteenth. Miyazawa: From the first to the twenty-­seventh is quite a long time, isn’t it? It makes you wonder what he was doing. Even now, the Korean War is something of a mystery, what with Dulles coming over, coincidentally just at that time. In any case, that’s what happened. On May 18, 1950, President Truman, wanting to proceed quickly with negotiations toward a peace deal with Japan, announced that he had appointed Dulles, a special advisor from the State Department, to be in charge of the Japanese peace deal. So I think it’s probably true that Dulles came here having been officially appointed. At that time, debates over the peace meetings were taking place in Japan too, and it was also around May 1950 that Yoshida said of the argument for comprehensive peace by the Chancellor of Tokyo University, Nanbara [Shigeru], that he was an “opportunistic scholar,” who twisted the truth to the times. In the midst of all this, Ikeda went to Korea as the special envoy and at the same time he really started to get to work on things. I don’t know for sure what kind of effect the war in Korea had. One may say that the talk of peace really got going around this time notwithstanding these circumstances, or maybe because of them, or perhaps even without any relation to them. I don’t have the answer. Nakamura: Recently Iwanami Shoten Publishers published a large tome entitled Chōsen sensō zenshi (2002) [translated as Complete History of the Korean War, Iwanami Shoten, 2002], written by a gentleman called Wada Haruki. I felt that it was an extremely well-­balanced book. The author speaks six languages and he studied documents from the US and the Soviet Union. It’s a very good book. As for a possible link with the Japanese peace deal, Wada doesn’t deal with that as there’s nothing written about it. The reason I mention it is that Dulles visited Korea, but apparently he had already left before the North Korean Army came in. Miyazawa: That’s probably right. But after that, Dulles became special advisor for the State Department and if he had been in Acheson’s position, he would have secured the Japanese peace deal. And since he was a man who lived to work, if that had been the case, things really would have progressed.

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Nakamura: Yes. Personally I think that he intended to use Japan. Especially when the Chinese Army came crashing in. At any rate, they must have been planning to mobilize Japan’s munitions manufacturing ability at that time. Miyazawa: Whether the intention was to secure peace in Japan or to hinder it, the situation in Korea didn’t have a direct relationship with it. Nakamura: It was an extremely tenuous relationship, I think. Miyazawa: Tenuous indeed. Nakamura: And, in turn, Japan, and especially its financial community, were desperate to manufacture munitions. Nakamura: Yes, and actually it was also a chance to get rusty old factories working again. Miyazawa: You’re absolutely right. It’s difficult to know whether this cause and effect relationship helped to foster peace or not. Nakamura: Yes, Dulles was probably casting sideways glances at it while making deals with each country. Miyazawa: Probably so. As a consequence, Dulles was told by Truman to secure peace, and being the workaholic that he was, he started work on each individual point and then had a draft drawn up. But in actual fact the following year there would be a game of cat and mouse between Dulles and Japan, or rather, Yoshida. I think that was in January 1951. In October of the previous year Dulles was saying that stage one of the Japan peace deal was mostly complete. That was still the preparation stage. Then on January 25, 1951, he came to Japan and on the 29th, the primary meeting took place. At that time, Dulles was in intense negotiations with Yoshida and was in talks with the opposition parties. When he returned to the US, Dulles said that the Japanese government welcomed the stationing of US forces, and Yoshida himself, as Dulles was leaving, said that the US welcomed the agreement on security guarantees. So we can see that the bones of the deal had been more or less worked out. The draft was completed in March and we also received a copy of this “March Draft.” Although I say that, we didn’t receive it at that time exactly. We got it later, at the peace treaty stage. That was the March Draft. Nakamura: In your memoirs, you comment that you received it at the time the peace deal came into effect.ii

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Miyazawa: The Japanese government received it, but I don’t think they released it to the public so it was only seen by a few of us. There’s no doubt that the March Draft existed. We’ll return to it later on. But on an international level, we told everyone about the draft. Nakamura: Yes. Miyazawa: And so when Dulles came to Japan, in January of 1951, his dealings with Yoshida in January and February were at their most intense. Of course, I don’t know most of what they discussed because it took place in the strictest confidentiality. Nishimura [Kumao], who was Director of the Treaties Bureau, was probably the key figure.iii Even though Nishimura was severely reprimanded by Yoshida, I think he did his job faithfully. Okazaki [Katsuo] probably knew something of the proceedings, being the foreign minister at the time.iv But on the whole, it was all kept rather secret. It is thought that the negotiations between Dulles and Yoshida hit a roadblock on the issue of the rearmament of Japan, and at the time Yoshida was fighting quite hard on this point. One may imagine that he responded stubbornly to Dulles’ attempts at persuasion. It must have been a very heated debate. At the time I didn’t know of any of this, but afterwards I was able to infer various things. The documents related to that exchange haven’t been made public yet. Nakamura: A number of them have been released. Miyazawa: But the Japanese government hasn’t made them public. Nakamura: That’s right. Wasn’t the transcript of the peace treaty written by Nishimura made public as a diplomatic historical record? Miyazawa: Yes, and timing-­wise it would have been wrong not to. So the focus was on the rearmament issue, but there would also have been discussion of reparations, relations with other countries, relations with China. They discussed various things, but I don’t think that the peace treaty was at the center of the discussions at that time. Dulles made the March Draft and I think he passed it around to all of the countries involved. I don’t know the ins and outs of that debate, so I’m not qualified to comment on it here.

From General MacArthur’s reassignment to the signing of the treaty Mikuriya: After that, Truman removed MacArthur from duty, did he not?

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Miyazawa: That’s right. At the time people around the world were astonished. On that day, I went to GHQ to see people’s reactions. Although there had been rumors, I remember everyone in the Occupation forces being absolutely stunned by the dismissal, and thinking to myself, “So this is civilian control.” Two or three days later, someone said they thought MacArthur would probably go back to the US. They were all saying, “Everyone says I’m on his side, but in this situation you find out who’s being sincere.” There was a huge turnout on the day MacArthur left Japan. Ikeda went to see him off, so I went with him to Haneda airport and there were big crowds there. But, how can I describe it? In the silence, as MacArthur was going up the steps of the plane, someone shouted out “General MacArthur, banzai!” [“Hurrah for General MacArthur!”], so I remember everyone felt they should join in shouting “banzai!”. I think the person who initiated it was Masuda Kaneshichi, the Secretary-General. It really was a turn of events that took the whole of Japan by surprise. Everyone at that time was describing President Truman as just “some haberdasher,” even though he’s now seen as one of the great American presidents. MacArthur’s dismissal was one of his actions that led people to that conclusion. A haberdasher is a kind of seller of menswear. But even with MacArthur’s dismissal, the peace process wasn’t affected. [Matthew] Ridgway came in and took over straight away with relative ease. And so, the peace conference was finally held. But even then, Yoshida didn’t explain the security treaty precisely enough in my opinion. He didn’t announce what the treaty was like, as he was working on the premise that the Japanese people knew there was such a treaty. And domestically, in addition to the peace treaty itself, these issues were not dealt with in the Diet by any of the political parties. Moreover, there was some uncertainty whether Tomabechi Gizō’s Democratic Party would participate in the peace treaty or not, and then they said they would not participate. The Socialist Party not only said from the beginning that they would not take part, but were divided on whether to oppose or support it. There was a movement among Yoshida’s inner circle to actively encourage Tomabechi to participate. Ikeda was one of them and tried to win Yoshida over, until finally Yoshida went to visit Tomabechi. As a result, Tomabechi ended up participating. On the other hand, though, Miki [Takeo] was in the picture, making things difficult. He would object to working alongside the opposition and made things difficult in various ways. Tomabechi wanted to participate but since it was seeming unlikely that it would come about, Yoshida went to smooth things over and made it happen. However, during this process the security treaty was subsumed into the peace treaty, as a result of people presuming them to be the same thing. I think that from

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the beginning, when the misunderstanding arose, they didn’t explain it clearly enough for people to understand. Since the security treaty’s contents weren’t known, I feel that no one questioned why it had become part of the peace treaty. Nakamura: And the draft . . . Miyazawa: I don’t think that was made public. Nakamura: Wasn’t it referred to much in your department either? Miyazawa: No, I don’t think it was. Yoshida signed the peace treaty on September 8, then went out to the Presidio [in San Francisco] and signed again. He went alone. I think that may have been the first time the existence of the security treaty had been mentioned publicly. Normally the text should have been publicly debated, but I don’t think it was. Nakamura: If they had publicly discussed offering the US Army bases to station themselves in Japan before signing the treaty, it would have caused an even bigger row for the Socialist Party and the others, wouldn’t it? Miyazawa: Yes, of course, and if there had been an explanation before then, what do you think the Soviet Union would have said in San Francisco? What with the Soviet Union indicating that they would participate. Naturally, it would have caused trouble to debate the security treaty. So, it wouldn’t have been logical to make that kind of thing public. It was no time for bowing to popular opinion. In a sense there was a fairly forceful approach. Foreign diplomacy is subject to confidentiality but it must have been rather a forceful approach. Mikuriya: Within the government, what area of the process did people know most about? Is it true that Ikeda knew about it? Miyazawa: No, Yoshida had total power over that. Only Yoshida and, below him, Foreign Minister Okazaki. In Japan, people were debating what the contents of the security treaty might be, as no one knew. Apart from Nishimura and Yoshida. Nobody really questioned Yoshida on that, since there was always the counter-­ argument that the Soviet Union mustn’t find out. Mikuriya: In Nishimura’s memoirs he writes that he only knew after reading your book Tōkyō to Washinton no mitsudan [Secret Talks between Tokyo and Washington] of Ikeda testing out the peace process and discussing security matters during his trip to the United States.v So Nishimura probably didn’t know either.

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Miyazawa: Yes, probably Nishimura wasn’t aware of it either. Certainly, Ikeda and Nishimura had both attended the same high school, so they were good friends, and yet Ikeda didn’t tell him. Because Yoshida was around, Nishimura couldn’t have wormed it out of Ikeda. So they relied on Yoshida [to lead them]. For the signing of the treaty in San Francisco, they managed to have Tomabechi included when organizing the parties to be involved. Also, Tokugawa [Muneyoshi] of the Ryokufūkai faction in the Upper House, Ichimada [Hisato], and Hoshijima [Nirō] were included. Yoshida said, “In the end, this is my job. Everyone else was just giving the impression of begging to be included.” So Yoshida was running the show. But, strangely enough, even though Yoshida went to the US by plane, he stopped off in Hawaii to meet Japanese expatriates and so on. Apparently, he actually wanted to go on the northern route, but that was totally out of his hands. That way, it could have been a non-­stop journey, but the US Army feared a possible military appearance from the Soviet Union so they went south instead of north. The journey was subject to strict vigilance with luggage being searched. Nakamura: Did Ikeda also have full authority? Miyazawa: Yes. Nakamura: And did you also go with them? Miyazawa: Yes, I went too. At first, Yoshida was apparently thinking about going on to Washington after everything had been wrapped up in San Francisco, and wanted Ikeda and Ichimada to go with him, but it didn’t work out that way. After the peace conference, everyone was so jaded and exhausted that they weren’t prepared to go and work in Washington and eventually abandoned the plan. Ikeda, of course, was one of those who had full authority. I accompanied him as a staff member and I’m now the only surviving member of that delegation vested with full authority. Mrs. Asō [Kazuko] passed away recently, so I’m now the last. In 2001, it was exactly fifty years since the events of 1951, and so the US felt it their duty to hold fiftieth anniversary commemorative events in San Francisco. While the events were being organized, it was decided that the US President wouldn’t be involved, which trivialized the events somewhat. The former US Secretary of State George Shultz was at the center of the organization of events. Shultz had spent so long at Stanford he was almost seen as local aristocracy, and he became the key figure in the fiftieth anniversary ceremonies. At first, Shultz obviously intended to ask the president to attend, if Bush were elected. However, there were power cuts in California then, which was a real nuisance. Then there was talk of Japanese companies having employed forced

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labor (an issue that has raised its head again recently), and a lawsuit ensued. This made it problematic for the president to go to San Francisco for the peace treaty anniversary events, and so he didn’t attend. The Secretary of State attended, but all this had a bearing on the occasion. Since I was the only surviving peace conference attendee at the ceremony, they asked me to make a keynote speech. I thought to myself that this would probably be my final speech and I should take the opportunity, so I accepted. Now, if I may, I will repeat what I said then. What I wanted to do at that keynote speech was give a simple retrospective of the past fifty years, then explain why things happened as they did and what problems we face for the future. I’ll summarize it for you now, if you don’t mind. Mikuriya: Please do.

Fifty years on, reflecting on the peace treaty Miyazawa: Prime Minister Yoshida thought that, at all costs, the peace treaty and security treaty had to come into being at the same time. In Japan, there were voices arguing for comprehensive peace, but our stance was that that was being unrealistic. As a result there are still issues remaining today, such as the lack of any peace treaty between Japan and Russia. Even now, there isn’t any such treaty and that’s why we still have the Northern Territories dispute. The problems with North Korea are another unresolved issue which has come up again. Then there’s Taiwan and the problem of choosing between China and Taiwan. Problems such as these remain because we didn’t wait for comprehensive peace, however, I think that rejecting the unrealistic choice has allowed us to progress to where we are today. By means of the security treaty, Japan has been able to achieve the prosperity that we enjoy today and I myself can actively gauge this. So looking back on the last fifty years, I would say that Yoshida’s decision can still be positively commended today. Reflecting back on those fifty years of US-Japan relations, we can value some of the actions that the US took. For example, the US took the lead with GATT [the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade] following the Bretton Woods system, and acting as the driving force was an extremely big task and Japan was one of its beneficiaries. Another example is the US decision to hand over Okinawa in 1971, which was highly commendable. On this occasion I would like to laud these two actions in particular. One more point, on the security treaty itself: in its aftermath there was a global transition, and in the context of the collapse of the Soviet Union the

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implications of the security treaty have become quite different today from then. In 1996, there was the Hashimoto–Clinton Japan–US joint declaration, and Joseph Nye’s “Nye Report,” written at that time, is starting to serve an important role as a kind of new security treaty for Asia. It is important for both the USA and Japan and I believe it has begun to take on an extremely important meaning for the future of Asian countries in general. However, there are problems with the current system of US–Japan co-­ operation, on the side of Japan. The problem of the right to collective self-­defense brings with it American concern that Japanese behavior is not necessarily clear. Also, there is the problem of preventing unavoidable accidents in connection with the presence of the Marines in Okinawa. I would like to take this opportunity to say that I personally feel these two issues need consideration. Next, I feel that I’d like Japan to continue with its current state of being “lightly armed,” but I’d venture to raise the issue that the biggest problem with that is China. I’ve spoken at some length about China. First, I have said that China has communism clearly laid down in its Constitution and upholds communist values, so many of its decisions lack transparency. From the outside, a country that is not transparent can be of concern to its neighbors in many ways. No matter what system they may operate, I would hope that they become more transparent. Furthermore, China is inevitably bound to become an economic heavyweight, at the same time as becoming a military superpower. This is undoubtedly the case, and I hope that when that comes about, they do not use their power to intimidate their neighbors. On the issue of Taiwan, as will be understood, one of the things we understand about China currently is that they need to protect China itself. This is another of the problems to which I referred. At the same time, however, with the internet becoming so pervasive, we expect the kind of information management that goes along with communism to bring about its self-­destruction. That area is of great concern. What I am saying is that the communist system is the problem with China. If China were not an issue, Japan would probably be able to continue with the system Yoshida established: the basic policy of not using force against other countries, and I think it should be so. That concludes the summary of my speech for the fiftieth anniversary ceremony. From the US point of view, the main point is the collective security guarantees. If Japan did not enter into these guarantees, it would prevent the collaborative action of Japan and the US. That they asked me to come to California, and that whenever there are talks with Japan and its neighboring countries the subject always turns to the collective security system, shows how much it concerns them.

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It’s a stance that is justified; a kind of unease or worry of America’s at the moment. Besides that, Japan is gradually putting into place emergency legislation and at this relatively late stage I believe Japan is establishing a system, a security framework, that will ease the Americans’ fears. One further problem is that despite being an economic superpower, Japan’s reliance on other countries with regard to security causes various problems which we will have to resolve in the twenty-­first century. I’m fine with that, but there’s probably some room for discussion on this point. Back then, Yoshida himself said: “The idea that a country can fulfill its security needs alone is an impractical argument.” That’s one side of the debate, but the nationalist argument is that with so many countries involved, can we simply rely on the US? I must say, I think this will be a much debated topic going forward in this century. Then again, the advent of nuclear weapons has probably made the debate much more straightforward than at that time. Governments don’t easily turn to talk of using nuclear weapons, after all.

People involved in the peace conference Nakamura: Did you return to Japan immediately after the peace conference had finished? Miyazawa: Yes, we went straight home. Nakamura: After you signed the treaty, I imagine that those involved got together for some more “relaxed” meetings, shall we say? Miyazawa: There was a ball, a kind of function. Truman attended the signing ceremony. At the time he wasn’t considered as great a president as he is today, but he came along and said: “It’s splendid that we now have a peace treaty with Japan. Democracy is really progressing in Japan, where the turnout in one of the regional elections recently was 70-some percent. I hope we can obtain the same percentage in the US soon.” I remember that made everyone laugh. Mikuriya: In that situation, what specifically were you feeling? After you left, what did you feel about the future of Japan? Miyazawa: I was just a junior member, so I wasn’t involved enough to feel anything much. Yoshida was to make a speech in English but they say it’s better to use an interpreter and so in the end he did it in Japanese. As for the place itself, we were in San Francisco which happens to have a large Chinatown. So everyone

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had access to traditional scroll paper and calligraphy ink. We joined up pieces of scroll paper into one long piece, and divided up the job of writing the speech on it. There were many little things like that. Nakamura: People still talk about him using that long scroll. Miyazawa: They do. Apparently it looked very strange to everyone, like toilet paper, because scroll paper gradually unfurls. We bought that paper in Chinatown and everyone joined it up together in the corridor. Mikuriya: You helped with it too, didn’t you? Miyazawa: Yes, I did. It probably still exists. Someone must have it. I think I would still recognize it if I saw it. A second-­generation Japanese-American gentleman called Shimanouchi [Toshirō], who served us as a consul general and then ambassador, did the interpreting for us. Mikuriya: He was also known as Henry Shimanouchi, wasn’t he? Miyazawa: Henry Shimanouchi, yes. His son is an ambassador now [Ken Shimanouchi, former ambassador to Spain and Brazil]. Henry was a real expert. If Yoshida skipped over something while he was reading, he would still translate the original in. Mikuriya: At that time, Ikeda was talking to Dodge, wasn’t he? Miyazawa: Yes, naturally Ikeda spoke with Dodge. As usual, Dodge was constantly talking about how achieving peace meant that it was now time for Japan to repay the GARIOA loans. At the peace conference, due to the Philippines’ dissatisfaction with the issue of reparations, it was difficult to get them to sign the treaty, and so Yoshida had to try to persuade a number of countries. He managed to win most of them over, but he also had to think about how to handle China. All this made Yoshida a very busy man. Mikuriya: What was Ikeda’s role at the time? Miyazawa: On the whole, Ikeda didn’t have a defined role, other than the conversation with Dodge we just mentioned. For example, when negotiations finally began with Burma about reparations, Ikeda just stepped in with advice when needed. He was offering his opinions internally but didn’t have a direct connection with the peace conference.

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Mikuriya: And how about the other figure vested with full authority, Ichimada? Miyazawa: Well, there was a whole group of us. Nakamura: In actual fact, it was as if Yoshida was on his own. Miyazawa: Yes, you’re absolutely right. When it comes to the security treaty, you could certainly say so. That was one thing for which you couldn’t use the council system. Especially in the exchange with Dulles, it was mostly Yoshida’s work. If it weren’t for Yoshida, we literally couldn’t have done it. Nakamura: I read that until Yoshida signed the treaty, he didn’t touch any alcohol. Miyazawa: I heard he stopped smoking cigars. Anyway, however you look at it, that was a big task. Mikuriya: To take on all that by yourself is really quite something. Miyazawa: Yes, really something. Since domestic issues were half of the job. Nakamura: Did Yoshida ever say at the time that he needed to discuss any of the issues with someone? Miyazawa: Have you heard of someone called Tatsumi? Nakamura: You mean Tatsumi Eiichi, of the Imperial Japanese Army?vi Miyazawa: Yes, Tatsumi Eiichi. As you may have heard, he was in defense or something. I’m not too sure. There was a small number of those types there. Not many of them. And from the Foreign Office there was Nishimura. Certainly, part of the friction that Yoshida encountered with Dulles was his firm belief that Japan should not have such a big military arsenal. Fundamentally, there must have been something about the army that he couldn’t accept. This probably came from his own experience, and the influence of Makino [Nobuaki], former foreign minister and his father-­in-law. The armed forces and the army are actually two separate entities, however there they were not being distinguished from one another. Yoshida’s strong, inflexible feeling of opposition meant that in Japan, militarization could absolutely not be accepted a second time. For that reason, if you asked him certain questions, “I can’t predict the future” was often his answer. But even in the future, he couldn’t entertain the idea of having a big

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army. I believe he thought to himself, at least that wouldn’t happen while he was in office. Nakamura: We discussed this earlier, but the diaries of Watanabe Takeshi, the liaison between the Ministry of Finance and GHQ, were published. He became a finance official and was sent to the US in 1951. According to one passage, at that time he went to greet Prime Minister Yoshida, who told him, “When you go to America, tell them that rearmament is financially impossible. Tell them one naval destroyer will bankrupt us.” Watanabe stuck to that quite faithfully. Miyazawa: Yoshida really thought so. In the years prior to the defeat, he was the person most harmed by the militarization, so I think he felt he could absolutely not accept that happening a second time. And so he said clearly that it would not happen again in Japan. Mikuriya: In the process of rearmament too, he used Tatsumi as the brains and notably rejected Hattori Takushirō’s faction. In doing so, he acted very much in accordance with what he had seen in defense history. Miyazawa: I see. Also, Hattori worked as private secretary to Tōjō [Hideki]. Nakamura: Section chief, then department chief of military operations—that’s the main career path in the army. Mikuriya: The “Main Street” of the staff headquarters. Nakamura: Tatsumi was stationed as a military officer in the UK while Yoshida was in London as an ambassador. Miyazawa: Apparently so. Nakamura: Yes, and so Yoshida confided in him. Tatsumi was the only appropriate person. I think there may have been someone in the navy too.

Notes i

“50 Years of the Japan-US Security Treaty: Tokyo Symposium” [Nichibei anpo no 50-nen tou; Tōkyō de shinpojiumu], held on July 4, 2001, at the Yūrakuchō Asahi Hall; Asahi Shinbun, morning edition, July 5, 2001.

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ii Miyazawa, Tōkyō to Washinton no mitsudan (Tokyo: Chūkō Bunko, 1999), translated as Secret Talks between Tokyo and Washington (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2007), p. 87. iii Director of the Treaties Bureau from December 1947 to May 1952. iv Succeeded concurrent Foreign Minister Yoshida as foreign minister in Yoshida’s third cabinet (April 30–October 30, 1952). In the same cabinet were Kusaba Ryūen (July 1950–December 1951), and Ishihara Kan’ichirō (December 1951–October 1952) as Secretary of State. v Nishimura Kumao, San Furanshisuko jōyaku, Nichibei anpo jōyaku [San Francisco Treaty: the US-Japan Security Treaty] (Tokyo: Chūkō Bunko, 1999), p. 212. vi Former army lieutenant-­general. Became acquainted with Yoshida Shigeru while he was stationed in the UK. After World War II, when the National Police Reserve Corps was inaugurated, he drew up the list for cancellation of the banishment of ex-­military personnel. Later, chairman of the Kaikōsha [a support and research center for the military].

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The Beginnings of the Kōchikai, and the Anpo Protests Translated by Emanuela Costa and Fiona Michishige

Domestic discussions about rearmament Miyazawa: In 1953, the Ikeda–Robertson meeting took place and I’m going to talk a little about that. But previous to that, in February 1953, there was an incident known as the “Bakayarō Dissolution.” I wasn’t there at the time, but I think that during the discussion in the budget committee, Yoshida [Shigeru] had spoken to Nishimura [Eiichi], then returned to his chair two or three steps away and without a moment’s thought, he said: “Bakayarō” [“You idiot”]. I’m fairly sure that’s how it happened, but at any rate he definitely said: “Bakayarō.” However, at that time everything was rather shaky for Yoshida and his camp. The year before there was the Fukunaga [Kenji] Secretary-General affair.i Just when Yoshida promoted Fukunaga, his most junior staff member who was young and would follow orders, the officials who had been purged1 were starting to reappear. Hayashi [Jōji] and Masutani [Shūji] definitely harbored some disapproval, even if they didn’t say anything at the time, and started to criticize Yoshida about the issue. As a result, Fukunaga couldn’t become Secretary-General after all. Hayashi Jōji was to take the position but declined. So at a press conference, when Yoshida was asked: “What are your hopes for the Secretary-General?”, he replied: “Just to have one would be nice.” That was one thing that happened. Directly after that incident, Yoshida suddenly dissolved the Diet. It was really hot at the time. He didn’t tell anyone about it, and he was in Nasu or somewhere at the time he announced it. Even Chairman Ōno Banboku knew nothing about it, when the Diet was suddenly dissolved by Yoshida. Ōno must have found out later, but that was how it happened. I imagine there are very few other cases of dissolution taking place During the Occupation, GHQ removed—or purged—from office any personnel in the public sector who were considered to have been supportive of the wartime government.

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during adjournment. That happened in August the previous year (1952) and everyone around Yoshida was rattled by it. The Bakayarō Dissolution took place in these circumstances. I think that the Bakayarō Dissolution was the reason why Yoshida was subject to a no-­confidence motion. An outright rebellion took place in which Hirokawa [Kōzen] was implicated and the rift in the Liberal Party became quite clear. Gradually the purged officials were regaining power and Hirokawa joined this group led by Hatoyama [Ichirō], including Ishibashi [Tanzan], Kōno [Ichirō], Miki [Bukichi], and Andō [Masazumi]. The no-­confidence motion was passed so the Diet was dissolved and an election held. During the run-­up to the election that kind of movement increased, led by Hatoyama. In the end, he didn’t really withdraw from the party but seceded, forming an extremely unorthodox separatist Liberal Party, but it only lasted a very short time.ii This rebellion against Yoshida gathered momentum, but not quite enough to split the party. With Hatoyama becoming ill and so on, he could never really make up his mind, and also I imagine that the group members’ motives didn’t necessarily correspond. So that strange separatist Liberal Party only existed for a while. In that election, Yoshida’s Liberal Party garnered around 199 or 200 seats, more than expected. The group of purged and then restored politicians did not make the comeback that was expected and the left-­wing branch of the Socialist Party made progress.iii I remember the Asahi Shinbun’s editorial at the time. The main issue of the election was the question of rearmament, and I remember the editorial advanced the notion that the rearmament issue was the reason for the Progressive Party’s and separatist Liberal Party’s poor performance and the Liberals’ holding on to power. In that context, the Korean War was in its endgame and the arsenal and arms budget the US had thus far prepared for the Korean War became superfluous. There was a movement in the US proposing to distribute the equipment in some way among America’s allies. That was called MSA [the Mutual Security Act of 1951, which created the Mutual Security Agency to distribute aid to US allies] and it was said that they were planning to offer a lot to Japan. The previous election had been fought with the focus on rearmament. These things formed the backdrop to all this. Yoshida had won the election, but the question of Japan’s approach to MSA still remained. The Korean War had ended and the financial sector needed an alternative. On the whole, rearmament, if that’s what I should call it, or armament, strongly inspired positive opinion among them, and MSA was extremely well-­ regarded. I think Yoshida also understood the need for dialogue with the US about MSA. In November the previous year, as you know, Ikeda [Hayato] made a gaffe on the issue of small to medium-­sized businesses. So at the plenary

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session there was a vote of no-­confidence, and he was dismissed from his role. It seems Yoshida thought that since this had happened to Ikeda, he needed to send Ikeda to visit the US, since in any case MSA was a question of finance and rearmament. We knew the financial sector was keen on MSA and we didn’t necessarily think it was so bad either. But no matter how much equipment was provided for Japan, armament might have gone further than Japan had anticipated. This might have been the case, since receiving equipment would entice the [military] units [into expanding]. That’s how it would be, for better or for worse. Furthermore, even supposing we received the arms for free at the time, in the future when replacing them we would have to pay. So Ikeda and I felt that the matter should be fully investigated before taking the bait. With all this happening, we had the embassy in Washington look into the matter. When I say embassy, I mean what was known at the time as the National Safety Agency2 (led by Agency Director Kimura [Tokutarō]). It’s common knowledge that during the Occupation, the Agency teamed up with their American counterparts and information was leaked through there, but that’s all I know about it. In other words, the National Safety Agency and the Pentagon became partners in many ways, and though I don’t know the full reality of it, we asked the embassy from time to time to look into things for us. In the middle of all this, Yoshida told Ikeda to go to the US, and being the policy chief at the time, Ikeda went as instructed. In the election after the Bakayarō Dissolution, we thought about the fact that Hatoyama’s party, the separatist Liberal Party (the Hatoyama Liberals), did not gain much support whereas the Progressive Party held a large proportion of the power. It was well known that Shigemitsu [Mamoru]3 had been an active proponent of rearmament for a long time. The Liberal Party with Yoshida at its head couldn’t be the only ones to decide how exactly the thinking surrounding this MSA business would affect the future of Japan. After all, the US would have to consider the Progressive Party’s opinion too. Without including Shigemitsu in the process, you couldn’t claim to be able to say what Japan’s position was in relation to America. So we thought about possible ways to approach Shigemitsu. However, at that time Yoshida already had a big problem in deciding how to deal with Shigemitsu. The Progressive Party led by Shigemitsu was becoming a threat to Yoshida’s Liberal Party’s grip on power and in particular they were considering a coalition with the Socialist Party in order to topple Yoshida. It made political sense to try and ally himself with the Progressive Party.

It later became the Defense Agency and then the Ministry of Defense. The leader of the Progressive Party (Kaishintō), 1952–1954.

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The Secretary-General at the time, Satō [Eisaku], and Chief Cabinet Secretary Ogata [Taketora] together were to face difficulties with regard to the Ikeda– Shigemitsu talks. They endeavored to somehow bring about the Yoshida– Shigemitsu talks. What I mean to say is, Yoshida’s Cabinet was formed in the wake of the Bakayarō Dissolution, but by allying themselves with all the opposition parties, the Progressive Party could have formed a Shigemitsu government. It was in these circumstances that Ogata and Satō tried to arrange the Yoshida–Shigemitsu talks. So there were reasons for it, but they had some difficulty persuading Yoshida. Common sense dictated that Yoshida was not going to give them an easy yes. I’ll say more about Ogata later, but even before he became chief cabinet secretary, he had made something of a comeback. For Ikeda, as he began thinking about the future of Japan, Ogata was an extremely formidable opponent. Before the war, Ogata was of a higher social status than Ikeda, who then later overtook him in that respect. However, Yoshida gave Ogata his due respect, as did the purged and reinstated group. Whether or not the team of Ogata and Satō could put together the Yoshida–Shigemitsu meeting had become a kind of race for the prize. Regardless of the issue of rearmament and MSA, setting up the Yoshida– Shigemitsu meeting didn’t go particularly smoothly, even though the previous political alignment meant the figures added up. Trying all the different approaches was laborious, I was told. Yoshida wasn’t exactly enthusiastic and Shigemitsu didn’t give them a clear response. Satō would go back and forth carrying Yoshida’s messages. There will be more about Shigemitsu later, but he had a relatively heavy way of speaking. His voice was heavy but, I feel he also had a heavy verbal style. By heavy, I don’t mean that he said many things, but rather he would start his speeches in a rather labored way, with sentences such as, “This situation is extremely grave.” This meant that the Yoshida–Shigemitsu meeting didn’t go very well at that time.iv Despite that, Yoshida and Shigemitsu knew that Ikeda was to go to the US and discuss MSA. For that reason they had to discuss rearmament in order for the visit to have any impact. That being so, they needed to come up with a proposal in the Yoshida–Shigemitsu meeting. That gave them a practical objective, but at the same time, the staging of the meeting became a kind of political feather in the cap. As it happened, Shigemitsu was living in a house in Kamakura (Morrison’s former residence,4 [a Kamakura wooden house] rented from Hayashi Hikosaburō). Since it was a big issue, Hayashi said he would go there and try. Hayashi got together with his fellow alumnus of Keiō University,

Formerly the house of J.P. Morrison, a British merchant.

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Akiyama Kōnosuke (Fujiyama Raita’s head clerk who became Director-­general of Japan Tobacco and Salt Corp.) and decided to persuade Shigemitsu.v To this day there is a building in Hibiya called the Sanshin Building and that was where Hayashi had his office. Meetings with people such as Shigemitsu or Ikeda would have taken place here. However, the talks weren’t really progressing and Shigemitsu was still of two minds. Ikeda was to meet Shigemitsu and sound him out, report back to Yoshida, and somehow get him to settle on one side. But talks were still held back by his indecision. They gradually realized things weren’t progressing, not only because of Shigemitsu’s indecision but also because of his close associates, Ōasa Tadao and Matsumura [Kenzō]. Ōasa was very skilled, and without him Shigemitsu found it difficult to make a move. For that reason, Ōasa’s name came up several times in this affair. Shigemitsu contacted Ōasa several times, especially about Akiyama Kōnosuke’s incident in Thailand. Finally Shigemitsu agreed: “This is for the good of Japan. Ikeda, now I understand why you need to go to the US, so let’s plan for it,” and they planned together what would be said there. The gist of what Shigemitsu wanted him to say was: first, on that occasion, Japan would be setting up long-­term defense measures and revealing its strategy to enhance its ability to defend itself. Second, for the time being we would rename the National Police Reserve the Self-Defense Forces and ready ourselves to face any invasion. If this resulted in any contravention of the Constitution, we would deliberate on that separately. This was rather a difficult matter for Yoshida and so Yoshida had made various allowances on how much he would concede. At any rate, these were the words we ended up using. Yoshida agreed without any difficulty. Yoshida was the kind of person who— how can I put it?—I think he had a bit of a soft spot for Ikeda. When they were attempting the previous Ogata–Satō meeting, Yoshida didn’t have a very positive expression, but the following time he agreed quite easily. In the same way, Ikeda would ask Yoshida to go out to Kamakura, discuss it with Shigemitsu and try to come to an agreement, to which Yoshida would say okay and go off to Kamakura. Shigemitsu allowed him to come, but from then the talks were at a standstill on Shigemitsu’s side. The reason, as we had come to understand, was Ōasa. If Ōasa didn’t give his approval, the talks couldn’t move forward. We continued to contact him as before, but at the final stage Ōasa said: “I heard from Mr. Shigemitsu that he’ll be paid a visit by Yoshida. Then he showed me a paper, but I didn’t get a good look at it so I couldn’t read what was written on it. That is something of a problem.” So he showed him the paper and from then on, the talks started to progress again. In the meantime, they also met in Hibiya at the Sanshin Building and at some high-­class restaurants. In the end the Yoshida–Shigemitsu meeting finally took place and they reached a consensus on the main points.

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The Ikeda–Robertson talks Miyazawa: It was just two or three days before we were to set off for America that they came to an agreement. With that in our minds, Ikeda went to Washington to negotiate MSA. Aichi Kiichi, vice-­minister in the Ministry of Finance, two or three others from the Ministry of Finance and I accompanied him, because the Ikeda–Robertson talks were starting. That was in September 1953, and there had been an Upper House election in May that year. I had become an Upper House Member. I don’t intend to talk for too long about the Ikeda–Robertson talks, but in the end the US granted arms to Japan through MSA on the condition that Japan make it clear what their medium- to long-­term military plans were. The US insisted that Japan should have 325,000 troops in its ground forces. However, although the talks eventually lasted almost one month, in our opinion the Japanese situation made it impossible for the US to hurry things along and so it was a long-­debated series of talks. Eventually, at the end of the talks, Ikeda presented his own proposal. Then at last, over halfway into October, the Japanese camp handed a final memo to Robertson personally. One of the points we made in that memo was regarding the four constraints preventing Japan from having a large defense force. We stated that those constraints were legal, political, socio-­economic, and physical, and so the US proposal was untenable. We thought 325,000 was an unacceptable number and put it to them that we should only have, let’s say, 185,000. After much debate, we came to understand that they were proposing around ten divisions. We asked how many soldiers were in one division, and the expression “division slice”5 came up. This was the problem for us. In a division, there are frontline troops and rearguard troops. [It’s so relaxed for the rearguard that] they can even take Coca-Cola with them and they would be staying on home ground to protect the country from within. So one of those divisions does not necessarily need such a large slice and this is what divided opinion between the two sides. Generally speaking, everything that both sides said to each other was an estimate, making it even harder to come to any conclusion. But Japan worked hard at it and the constraints that I mentioned before were more or less the last thing we settled on, as a result of Japan’s effort. It wasn’t the kind of meeting that required a precise conclusion so that was where we called it a day. However, during that whole month of talks, the US thought that Yoshida’s Liberals were being extremely hesitant about armament. Back then the politician who was most respected by America was Syngman Rhee,6 who was an Miyazawa uses the English expression—a US military term meaning the personnel and resources needed for one division. The first president of South Korea, in office 1948–1960.

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anti-­communist military man. Robertson even had a hanging scroll from Rhee on the wall in his room. Dulles was more proactive, so after a month of hemming and hawing, he put his foot down. However, the following year, Yoshida went back to the US as prime minister, and I went along to assist him.vi At the time, America was silent on the issue of rearmament. A year passed and they said nothing. We would make a statement and they would respond with an “OK, I see, you’re referring to so-­and-so.” It may sound rather flippant of me, but that was the reality of the Ikeda–Robertson talks.

From Yoshida to Hatoyama Miyazawa: I was talking about Ogata earlier and I’d like to return to him now. At a certain stage, in 1954, to be precise, Yoshida’s administration was voted out and it came time for Hatoyama to take over. At that stage I don’t think that Ikeda was thinking very specifically about his ambitions for the future. He probably wanted to be completely loyal to Yoshida, but wasn’t thinking in a concrete way about his future. In 1952, a vote of no-­confidence was passed against him, the origins of which lay in his statement from around 1950 that “poor people should eat barley.” I think the problem with the thinking behind that statement is that it’s dividing people into categories. He doesn’t say: “if you become poor, you should eat barley, and if you become rich, you can eat rice” but simply refers to “poor people.” I felt that this concept would be somewhat problematic for a person hoping to become prime minister in the future. So you couldn’t really say that Ikeda was thinking of the future at that time. Ikeda was friendly with Satō, who had attended the same high school. Of the two of them, Satō was the one who would yield if there was a dispute and so at that point there wasn’t any major rivalry between them. In the meantime, Ogata was gradually moving into the foreground and Ikeda became uneasy. In terms of their status as politicians, Ogata ranked higher, and before the war his network of contacts was superior, even taking into account Ikeda’s connection with Konoe [Fumimaro]. Compared to that, Ikeda was just a section chief in the taxation bureau and even at the time he was a party politician, Ogata Taketora was more looked up to. It was after the war that Ikeda’s career suddenly took off and, probably due to Yoshida, Ogata was politely brushed aside. In the same way, Ikeda would sometimes say of Ogata that he preached broad-­minded tolerance but didn’t practice it. Especially when Ikeda would talk about finance, Ogata wouldn’t listen so intently as it was a subject of which he knew little. They never had a full-­blown argument, but from the beginning they just didn’t get along. Gradually, as Ogata became Chief Cabinet Secretary, he not

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only became close to Hatoyama but also eventually began to argue for Yoshida to step down. Looking at it from the perspective of Ikeda—Yoshida’s devotee—you couldn’t call Ogata devoted to Yoshida. That was their relationship. When the Liberal-Democrat coalition was formed, there was no president but a rotating system of representation. In this rotating system, people felt that the role would fall to Ogata before long, due to Hatoyama’s ill health, but then Ogata passed away suddenly. This must have provoked many emotions in Ikeda, but effectively his rival Ogata had suddenly passed away. That same evening, I was in a bar drinking with two of my good friends from the Asahi Shinbun. My friends were also connected with Ogata in various ways and thought that Ikeda should express his condolences and so I went straight over to Ikeda’s house in Shinanomachi. I told him, “I know you’ve had your differences, but he’s become a Buddha now,7 so I think we should go and pay our respects,” but he didn’t give me an immediate yes. He tried to excuse himself because he didn’t have a car. If Ogata had lived longer he would have become prime minister. The so-­ called Hatoyama group and his group of admirers hadn’t really tried to bring in Ogata. As Miki Bukichi said: “Hatoyama doesn’t need me to carry him. He’ll never need it as far as this coalition is concerned.” For the people who were saying that kind of thing, Ogata would have been a good choice. Ishibashi would also have been good, but then that sort of thing is easy to say now. In that sense, you could always look back with regret.

Relations between Ishibashi Tanzan, Ikeda Hayato, and Kishi Nobusuke Now I’d like to talk about Ishibashi and Ikeda. Immediately after the Fukunaga Secretary-General affair in 1952, Yoshida’s immediate circle started to get into the biggest mess. At that time Ikeda had an IMF meeting in Mexico, came back to Japan in September 1952, and expelled Ishibashi and Kōno on the spot. I remember Hirokawa going to Ikeda’s house for the expulsion meeting, but at the time Hirokawa wasn’t on the side of Ishibashi and Kōno and had come to discuss the expulsion. That was a bizarre affair. Hirokawa voted for disciplinary action [against Yoshida] during the Bakayarō Dissolution the following year. Ikeda had expelled Ishibashi even though originally in terms of policy they weren’t so different. As you know, Ishibashi is a man who is proactive with regard to finance. Ikeda basically shares that characteristic, apart from when it came to the Dodge Miyazawa uses this Japanese expression to mean that Ogata has passed away or “gone on to another world” and should therefore be respected.

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Line, and so the two of them were not on bad terms. In fact, when Ishibashi was Finance Minister, Ikeda worked for him. Nakamura: As Vice-Minister, correct? Miyazawa: That’s correct. After Hatoyama resigned, Ishibashi was supposed to become Prime Minister, but in the end it was Finance Minister Ikeda who took the position. So for Ikeda to expel Ishibashi, makes you wonder what kind of relationship they had [laughs]. Probably from Ikeda’s point of view, Ishibashi was the more senior figure. Who knows? When Hatoyama was Prime Minister, Ikeda did not want to serve in government and wasn’t asked to. However, when Ishibashi became Prime Minister, he asked Ikeda to serve, in which case one can’t help but feel it one’s duty. So during the period that Hatoyama was Prime Minister, Ikeda found himself without a role. One can’t help but feel it one’s duty, but perhaps I may be permitted to say that it was that kind of relationship. Nakamura: In the book Ikeda Hayato sensei o shinobu [In Memory of Ikeda Hayato],vii published after his death, Ishibashi says that he was very close to Ikeda and wrote about him as if he were his protégé. Miyazawa: That may have been the case. Nakamura: Ishibashi wrote: “He [Ikeda] was my policy protégé,” etc. etc. Miyazawa: It may well have been that the circumstances were right for Ikeda to become his protégé. It would seem a bit odd since he had expelled him, but then his own rank was fixed anyway. I agree with you. It would be the human thing to do. Nakamura: In the book, he also said, “At the time he became prime minister, or before, Ikeda was making speeches left and right, pleased that he had expelled Ishibashi a second time and flying off into orations.” Miyazawa: Yes, that’s exactly it. Perhaps I can put this down to the difference in rank again. Ikeda was appointed Finance Minister in Ishibashi’s Cabinet but Ishibashi resigned and Kishi Nobusuke took over as Prime Minister. Everything else remained the same in the changeover, so Ikeda didn’t change his mind but became Finance Minister as planned. However, at the next reshuffle, he was made to step down and Maeo Shigesaburō was made Minister of International Trade and Industry. So he resigned once, but at the following reshuffle he was back in the Cabinet.

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Nakamura: That was as Minister without Portfolio [state minister], wasn’t it? Miyazawa: As Minister without Portfolio, that’s right. But at the end of that year [1958], the three ministers Nadao [Hirokichi], Miki [Takeo], and Ikeda broke loose and then returned to the Ministry of International Trade and Industry [MITI] the next year. The last time they joined MITI, we naturally all thought it was crazy and wondered what these comings and goings were all about. Ikeda’s wife was part of their group and would actually hide the morning edition. But out of that, Ikeda became Minister of MITI. At around that time, Ikeda said, not to me, but to his long-­standing secretary Kimuraviii that: “If this carries on I’m going to need to be nearer the nerve center,” showing that he was starting to get an appetite for power around that time. I don’t think he got along so well with Kishi but even in the middle of the row over security, Ikeda didn’t make any trouble for Kishi at all. It’s true that he didn’t want to rock the boat in terms of the Cabinet, however, at one point Kishi made a gaffe. Apparently he said: “I can’t have a little brother alongside me.” He told me, “I actually said that.” [laughs] Then he would turn to me, saying, “You can’t expect much from the Chōshū region.”8 Nakamura: I don’t understand. Why did Kishi tear into the security revisions so tenaciously, and cause upsets with the draft revision of the Police Act? That’s what I don’t understand. Miyazawa: I can only imagine, but I’d say that his time in Sugamo9 brought about the change in his beliefs. I don’t think he considered himself anti-American by nature. Nakamura: So he wasn’t anti-American? Miyazawa: No, he wasn’t. As such, he thought the Pacific War was a mistake but rather than take a pro-American line, he was faithful to his country. It may have been due to pre-­war Japan’s glory, but he was certainly loyal. That much is clear. Nakamura: He set policy clearly and for several years he gambled on that alone. That’s for certain. Miyazawa: Yes. He even went his own way on the constitutional reforms knowing that his younger brother would succeed him soon. Ikeda is said to have found A name for the western region of Yamaguchi Prefecture. Sugamo Prison, built in the 1920s for political prisoners, and subsequently used during the occupation to house suspected Japanese war criminals and to incarcerate those convicted.

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him a little questionable. But his younger brother was up for the Nobel Peace Prize so you never can tell. [laughs] He didn’t actually win it in the end though. Nakamura: The next thing I’d like to discuss is the term “constitutional revision,” which was constantly falling from politicians’ lips from the time of Hatoyama until that of Kishi. Miyazawa: Hatoyama said it many times. Nakamura: Until Kishi came in, it was essentially a phrase that was skirting around Article 9 of the Constitution.10 Everyone listened relatively happily to the Prime Minister using it. Miyazawa: At that time I felt that it wasn’t easy to comprehend what the Yoshida– Ikeda group was thinking but I still broadly understood they were against [revision]. In that position, I think one would want one’s statements to be clear. Especially for the group of officials who had been purged and then reinstated, it must have felt as if Yoshida had molded Japan into something strange. As for Hatoyama, he said that kind of thing [about constitutional revision] but because of his disability and his difficulties expressing himself, people made allowances. That may seem odd but that must have been how it was for people listening. Thoroughly grilling a person on what they have said, wasn’t something you could do to Hatoyama, in view of his wheelchair disability. That was a characteristic of Hatoyama’s. All this talk of the spirit of fraternity11 meant that Hatoyama was a person who didn’t hesitate to say those sorts of things. Nakamura: At that time most of all, realizing constitutional revision would have caused an even bigger disturbance than the Anpo protests. Miyazawa: Absolutely. Nakamura: They didn’t foresee that so they used the term relatively comfortably. I mean Kishi, in this case, rather than Hatoyama. The official English translation of the original version of Article 9 is: “(1) Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes. (2) In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.” 11 Hatoyama founded the Yūai fraternity group, inspired by the text Totaler Staat—Totaler Mensch (translated as The Totalitarian State against Man) by Richard Nikolaus von CoudenhoveKalergi. 10

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Miyazawa: One can only presume that he believed in it and so the Anpo protests seemed bizarre to Kishi. He must not have realized that public opinion was moving in that direction. Nakamura: He thought that if he just made a decision, it would all go smoothly. Miyazawa: I don’t know if he thought it would go smoothly or not, but around that time Kaya [Okinori] was in Sugamo too, and he seemed fine when he came out. But it isn’t true that he was losing his senses, it’s just that his way of thinking was different. He saw it as an obvious stance to take, and so during that time he didn’t think practically about how he could go about achieving a two-­thirds majority.12 Nakamura: That goes for Kaya too . . . Miyazawa: Yes, that’s how much people’s values conflicted with each other. Nakamura: A pre-­war sensibility, you might say. Miyazawa: Undoubtedly. They must have thought that inconceivable things were happening. Nakamura: That’s a feature of more or less all the top politicians from that era. Especially the purged pre-­war officials. Miyazawa: I never spoke to Ishibashi about his opinion. What did he think? Nakamura: From when he started out, right up until the end, Ishibashi was liberal through and through. Miyazawa: You’re right. In that sense, I don’t think he really had a standpoint. Nakamura: People like Kaya and Kishi became well respected during the war years. Everyone gradually developed that way of thinking. Miyazawa: One could say the same of Ogata. Nakamura: And Yoshida . . .

A two-­thirds majority is the requirement for constitutional amendments.

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Miyazawa: Personally, Yoshida was critical of that. Nakamura: Yoshida himself was ostracized during the war. Miyazawa: That was the reason.

The Kōchikai faction Miyazawa: I’d like to talk about Kōchikai,13 when Ikeda was sidelined during Hatoyama’s Cabinet. One of Ikeda’s friends when he was in the Ministry of Finance was Tamura Toshio, who had gone to Manchuria. He wanted to learn about all of these people, so he brought out a book called Shinro [Routes], and published articles. Even though they were there to research, the focus was on Shimomura [Osamu], Takahashi Kamekichi, and so on. In addition, the Head of the Ministry of Finance and people who were in line for the position: Hirata [Keiichirō], Kushida [Mitsuo], several officials attended. Former Bank of Japan officials Yamamoto Katsuichi, Hoshino Naoki, and Inaba Hidezo also appeared. All of these people enjoyed studying. They met up weekly, discussed various topics and unfortunately, out of these meetings Shimomura gave his theory that from before 1957, Japan’s economy was starting to boom and kept on making this point incessantly. In that sense, Shimomura was probably the driving force of the group. I wonder if someone from the financial community then told Yoshida. There was Takagi Rikurō, for example. Nakamura: He was part of the continental faction that went to Manchuria, wasn’t he? Miyazawa: I’m reminded of something Takagi once said to me: “Hopefully now Ikeda-­kun14 will support big business a bit more.” Nakamura: He belonged to the “continental faction” and had gone to Manchuria, right? Miyazawa: It seems that Yoshida was told something by Takagi, but he also asked the financial circles to support Ikeda. He involved Nagano Shigeo and Sakurada [Takeshi], who came both from the same prefecture [as Ikeda]. Others, like A faction of the Liberal Democratic Party, set up in 1957 and initially led by Ikeda Hayato, consisting mainly of former Liberal Party members. 14 The suffix -kun is used when referring to someone who is younger or junior in status to oneself. 13

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Kobachū [Kobayashi Ataru] and Mizuno Shigeo, came in through other connections. Gradually, they formed a group in support of Ikeda. Anyhow, it was not so much that these people from the financial community were making money for us as that the Japanese economy itself was flourishing. I wouldn’t say they did unscrupulous things, but I think somehow they met favorable conditions here and there to raise money easily. Nakamura: In 1958, there was an economic downturn, though. They said that business was in a prolonged recession in the first half of 1958, then it improved during 1959 and 1960. So don’t you think that the financial circles were in excellent shape? Miyazaki: Yes, it seems that way. I think the situation wasn’t too desperate, so they managed to raise money. The Hozen Keizai [Kai incident]15 and the Shipbuilding scandal16 surely did not help, so I wonder how they managed to get funds. Securities were not bad after all . . . Nakamura: Right then stocks were going up, weren’t they? Miyazawa: That was probably the easiest way to raise capital. Mikuriya: It is often said that the early study sessions of the Kōchikai were meant to formulate a policy line in order for Ikeda to become prime minister . . . Miyazawa: Technically speaking, I don’t think that’s true. There may have been a desire to support Ikeda because they noticed that from time to time no-­ confidence motions were proposed, but he wasn’t someone who naturally made people want to help him. He was a bit of a “rascal.” That’s why I think Shimomura and the others were mostly concerned with engaging in critical debate regarding economic issues. I think they trusted Ikeda as someone who could put into practice what they were discussing. Even if you ask the people I’ve just mentioned, they would tell you they were not actively involved in politics.

The Hozen Keizai Kai was an investment company that solicited deposits from regional farmers with the promise of high interest rates. In 1953, however, the company ended up going bankrupt. The incident resulted in a massive social dispute which was eventually settled when the Diet introduced, in 1954, a law forbidding unregulated bodies from collecting deposits from the public. 16 The Shipbuilding scandal occurred in 1953. Leading Japanese shipbuilding firms bribed the government into revising a law to increase government shipbuilding subsidies. The revision was enacted but the presidents of Japan’s major shipbuilders and many Diet members were charged with corruption and arrested in the following Spring. Satō Eisaku was also involved but when the Public Prosecutor’s office moved to arrest him, the Justice Minister ordered the withdrawal of the indictment, presumably following an order by Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru. 15

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During the meetings, sometimes a member of the Diet would join in, but that doesn’t mean that he was taking part in the study project. The Diet members had their own group. Beginning with the eldest, there were Masutani [Shūji], Hayashi Jōji, Fukunaga Kenji, Suzuki Zenkō, Kosaka Zentarō, Sutō Hideo, Ōhashi Takeo, and obviously Maeo, Ōhira [Masayoshi], Kurogane [Yasumi], Ogawa [Heiji], Niwa Kyōshirō, and me. During the study sessions, we were not applying ourselves too much. Then, from 1957, this group of Diet members gradually started forming a sort of faction. But I can tell you, though, that there wasn’t patronage from the Hatoyama Cabinet. You wouldn’t even say there was any particular patronage, later on, from the Kishi Cabinet. Still, I suppose we turned into a faction gradually. Nakamura: This may not be the best expression in the case of the Kōchikai, but could you say that Shimomura had charisma? Miyazawa: With regard to economic development policy, that might be a valid statement. This seems a bit roundabout but the group was studying very hard and meeting every week. Even though they were not members of the Diet, the fact that they were discussing policy was in itself a driving force, and this was because of Shimomura. He may not have meant to take on a leading role [but I believe he deserves credit for it]. Mikuriya: It seems that, within the Ministry of Finance of those days, people tacitly approved of Shimomura setting up the research group. Miyazawa: Things were like this. I remember that, during World War II, I was lectured by Shimomura on Keynes’ general theory. From around that period, Shimomura’s health kept declining so he was not suited for Ministry of Finance work. Thus, throughout his life, he remained a theorist. Whatever he did in the academic world, he was known as someone who was not responsible for handling practical business affairs for the Ministry of Finance, so he had that much more freedom. Nakamura: He was never appointed director-­general, was he? Miyazawa: No, he went to the Development Bank [Japan Development Bank]. Nakamura: Was he the head of the research department at the Development Bank? Earlier, he was a committee member of the policy-­making body at the Bank of Japan, but that post was a sinecure.

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The Anpo protests: from Kishi to Ikeda Miyazawa: I absolutely agree on that. He didn’t do much office work. Regarding the Anpo protests, I believe that in all those complications Ikeda himself kept in step with Kishi. Indeed, I think there weren’t any disturbances in the meantime. Nevertheless, due to the protests, Kishi resigned. During that time Ikeda was clearly considering running in the elections himself. When Hagerty was prevented from entering the country [through a mobbing at Haneda airport], I was having dinner with Ikeda in a high-­class restaurant and I remember I told him: “Ikeda, officially Hagerty is a press secretary but practically, in Eisenhower’s view, he is more influential than the rest of the US Cabinet. This is a serious incident. Please call an emergency Cabinet meeting right away. I am afraid that if we don’t deal with the situation, it will get more complicated.” Then Ikeda spoke with Kishi and the very same evening an extraordinary Cabinet meeting was held. Ikeda did not venture as far as to take charge of the situation, but he was a very influential voice. In the end, Kishi resigned and it was suggested that Ikeda replace him. I remember that, back then, the chief editor of Asahi Shinbun was Ryū Shintarō, an old friend of Ikeda. The two were very close, so when Ryū asked me if I could come over, I went to meet him. On that occasion he told me: “In such violent circumstances, someone hot-­tempered like Ikeda could hardly get the situation under control. I think someone like Ishii [Mitsujirō] would be better suited; can you tell this to Ikeda, please?” I promised I would report Ryū’s message, even though I had no idea how Ikeda would react. In the end, Ikeda simply said: “Hmm.” [laughs] Mikuriya: At the time when the Kishi Cabinet resigned, were all the members of Ikeda’s faction rather militaristic? Miyazawa: Most of them were. There were also people who thought it wasn’t the right occasion for Ikeda to come forward. As time went by, I believe he became sort of militaristic. In a way, Ikeda did not really mean things like “poor people should eat barley,” but naturally enough, such a phrase affected his reputation. On the other hand, he was the one who proposed the income doubling plan. Thinking about the historical circumstances, the idea of income doubling sounded inconsistent. I don’t really know how this actually worked in favor of Ikeda; I guess he has been evaluated as a politician with a cause . . . who knows? Nakamura: When he put forward his income doubling plan, the press forgot about the Anpo protests and focused on that instead.

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Miyazawa: Yes, that is what happened. To be sure, I never thought there was much substance to the Anpo protests. In other words, if the problem was that the treaty would be terrible, [that wasn’t the case because] in fact, there weren’t any parts that would have really changed the situation. If anything, I think the problem was that Kishi’s idea of arranging a sumptuous ceremony for Eisenhower smacked of a political line which somewhat looked back to the past. In addition, he was also suspected of being a war criminal. Probably, Kishi was not conspiring with the military, but somehow he gave that impression, and this created a huge fuss. In the end, I think there was so little content behind the protest that nothing was left once the fuss was over. Obviously, my viewpoint was that of the Establishment. I wasn’t on the side of the students. Anyway, I do have the feeling it was an empty protest. Nakamura: On May 19, 1960, the proceedings at the Lower House were interrupted though . . . Miyazawa: We let the police in, and the session was extended. Nakamura: The following day the Asahi Shinbun led a sort of alliance among three or five major newspapers and they came up with a common editorial claiming a “crisis of democracy.” Miyazawa: Indeed. Nakamura: I think it stirred up the situation in a flash. The demonstrations turned very violent from then on, didn’t they? Miyazawa: I would say so, but the fact that the police intervened and the session was extended was an attempt to have the treaty ready by the time of Eisenhower’s visit more than anything. Considering that the date was chosen by those in the ruling party, in case of a victory it would have been obviously a victory of the opposition and this wasn’t a clever tactic. What’s more, nobody felt good about seeing that a foreign president could affect the country’s politics to that extent. Nakamura: Maybe. At that time I was just an inexperienced teacher but what I can say for sure is that until then, only a small part of the students, the activists, were attending demonstrations. However, from that point on . . . Miyazawa: They all turned into activists.

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Nakamura: Yes, from that day, May 19, 1960. Only half of the students came to attend classes, that’s for sure. Miyazawa: Don’t you think they were fighting against a certain type of authority? Nakamura: But why were so many students absorbed in the protest? Miyazawa: They never made it clear what in their view was wrong about Anpo. Nakamura: They didn’t. Simply, those who normally would never go to a demonstration began attending them. Then, after July 20, they came back to class as usual. Miyazawa: It was as if they had woken up from a feverish delirium, which proves my theory that the protest was of no great substance. Nakamura: There wasn’t any, I think. Miyazawa: With Kishi’s resignation, it settled down. Nakamura: They were simply satisfied by the resignation of the prime minister. Miyazawa: Actually, I think that Kishi intended to accomplish through his brother what he couldn’t finish himself. I am pretty sure he thought he was doing what had to be done for the future of Japan. Nakamura: I think so too. Miyazawa: If we are talking about democracy, a unit commander shouldn’t get too close to his troops but shouldn’t be too detached either. He got too detached, and the situation became impossible. Nakamura: Back then, I was at the beginning of my teaching career, so I remember those days very well. Miyazawa: Where were you working? Nakamura: I was at the University of Tokyo, in the Faculty of Education. I was in charge of a class of first or second year students, but only half of them were attending the lessons. To be sure, there was a reason why only half

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of the students were in class, and this was due to the fact that there were two factions within the student movement: the Yoyogi faction and the anti-Yoyogi faction, which originated from the Yoyogi faction but later had become independent.17 Students were equally divided between the two groups. Therefore, when the Yoyogi faction was having a demonstration, students from the antiYoyogi faction would come to university, that’s why half of the students were in class. Only on one occasion did both groups skip classes: on July 18, 1960. Mikuriya: For the rest, they were taking turns, right? Nakamura: Yes, they were. [laughs] Miyazawa: Anyway, Ikeda became Prime Minister. I remember that Ōhira told him: “Ikeda, we need to persevere, that’s all we can do,” and from that time on “perseverance” became one of the party’s slogans. Then, because we wanted to add one more slogan, I suggested that we use one of John Stuart Mill’s favorite words, “tolerance,”18 so we made our start with the motto “tolerance and perseverance.” I don’t think Ikeda was a particularly “tolerant and perseverant” person at the beginning, but once he had said it, he tried to stick to [such principles] and naturally became that way. Little by little, he became unable to take off that mask and really became “tolerant and perseverant.” He wasn’t going to restaurants very often, and he wasn’t playing golf very much either. In his villa in Hakone, he would hit an old baseball, facing a lonesome mountain. Indeed, he was a good example of “tolerance and perseverance.” Shortly thereafter, Asanuma Inejirō from the Socialist Party was assassinated by Yamaguchi Otoya. That day, as Treasurer under President Ikeda, I was spending the day at the party office because I was told to collect funds. As soon as I heard what had happened to Asanuma, thinking this was terrible, I put a box on the side of a pillar on the ground floor near the entrance of the building where my office was, and I filled it with black mourning ribbons. Then I instructed the administrators to wear a ribbon on their arms saying: “Let’s put these on. I think we are all in mourning.” Personally, I felt a sense of impending crisis. A little mistake might have given the opportunity to shift the blame for the accident onto the LDP, so we decided to act as though we were victims too. Then, Itō Masaya wrote a beautiful eulogy. Ikeda read it in a rather unrefined way, as he usually read, but the effect was quite poignant. The two things we have The Yoyogi faction was guided by the Japanese Communist Party (JCP). The anti-Yoyogi faction opposed the JCP and often advocated violent tactics. 18 In English in the original. 17

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just discussed caused a great social turmoil. They were critical situations, but they came to an end and we could proceed towards the elections.

Itō Masaya Mikuriya: You have just mentioned Itō Masaya, who was Ikeda’s private secretary from 1957 or 1958. He later recalled his experiences in a book,ix pointing out that, since Ikeda’s appointment as prime minister, he had been in charge of writing his speeches. Miyazawa: He wrote quite a lot of them. He was a bit strange. He was a believer of Konkō-kyō,19 in fact a fervent believer, so when something occurred he would soon come up with explanations such as oracles and the like. That’s why he wasn’t a normal secretary. Mikuriya: Was he some sort of psychic medium? Miyazawa: No, but he thought we should react in a certain way to such “divine messages.” His way of thinking wasn’t exactly the same one that normal people follow. He was active as counselor during Ōhira’s administration too, but I am not sure how close he was to Ōhira. Itō was so outspoken. Mikuriya: Were Ikeda and Itō very close? Miyazawa: For a while they were. It’s probably fair to say they were very close until Ikeda’s death. Nevertheless, sometimes Ikeda found himself in trouble because of Itō. The story about oracles, you know, those were the assertions he was making. I wasn’t too familiar with the situation, but I had that feeling. Overall, though, I think he shared the credit for many great accomplishments within the Ikeda Cabinet.

Relations between Yoshida, Ikeda, and Satō Eisaku Mikuriya: As for beginning the new term with “tolerance and perseverance,” we have a lot of letters exchanged between Yoshida Shigeru and Satō Eisaku or Ikeda Founded by Kawate Bunjirō, Konkō-kyō is a new Japanese religion. It is a syncretic and pantheistic religion. Its followers worship Tenchi Kane no Kami (divine parent of the universe), also called Kami.

19

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himself, which have now been collected in Yoshida Shigeru shokan [Collection of Yoshida Shigeru’s Correspondence] [Chūō Kōronsha, 1994]. Looking at them, it seems that Yoshida himself was reproaching Ikeda for his change in attitude. He wrote that “tolerance and perseverance” were qualities that didn’t really belong to Ikeda’s personality. He remarked that in the end giving up [as mentioned earlier] high-­class restaurants and quitting golf had nothing to do with politics itself. What was Ikeda’s reaction to such letters? Miyazawa: I noticed it, as well. First of all, I have to say Yoshida sent him several letters and I read most of them because later on I was asked by the editor to do so. Yoshida was not the type of person who would use the post. An old man named Anzai served as his messenger. Because of that, on his sealed letters Yoshida would only write the day and month, not the year. So when you read the content you don’t know what year it refers to. If you knew the year, you could evaluate the content of the letter, right? And if he had used the postal service you would find a postmark on the letter. However, that wasn’t the case with his letters, so it was very difficult to read them. There were many letters. Anyway, as for the relations between Ikeda and Yoshida, I can say that in general Ikeda was very devoted to Yoshida, but there were also situations such as the one you have just described. Whenever Ikeda went to Hakone, he would pass through Ōiso and usually he would stop to visit, but there were also times he didn’t feel like dropping in. I am not suggesting that Yoshida ever caused trouble by making unreasonable or specific requests, but implicitly, he implied that Satō should be Ikeda’s successor. Obviously he didn’t say it in plain words but I think that when his letters arrived, sometimes they bothered Ikeda. Especially during the period before Ikeda’s final illness, when they were announcing candidates [for the presidential elections], I wonder what Yoshida’s opinion was. Satō was better suited for governing. You know, Ikeda had a good reputation, even though he wasn’t very refined, but Satō was better suited. Mikuriya: When reading the correspondence, it emerges that Yoshida was pretty straightforward in saying things like Kōno had to be expelled and so forth, don’t you think? Miyazawa: That too emerges quite often. Yoshida accused Ikeda of being irresolute. There is no doubt Yoshida did such things in a crisp manner. He was very quick to put in practice his decisions. In this respect, I believe Yoshida thought Ikeda was only concerned with prolonging his political life and that he wasn’t consistent. Mikuriya: No direct discussions between Satō and Ikeda, am I correct?

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Miyazawa: I am not sure. I guess I have to think it didn’t happen. It sounds strange to say “I guess I have to think” but you know, those two had known each other for a very long time. When they were in school, the education system was as such that students would enroll at a given higher school on the basis of their exam score. I don’t know the details, but apparently, both took their exams in Nagoya with the hope of entering the First Higher School. In the end, however, it didn’t go as they expected and they both entered the Fifth Higher School. This means they had known each other since early adolescence. It seems they got along quite well. Nakamura: But even when you say you are friends from higher school, you might be friends in the sense that you meet once in a blue moon when you gather with all your classmates to catch up on each other’s lives, or in the sense that you are close friends who go out drinking and have fun every now and then in a small party of two or three. What kind of friendship was theirs? Miyazawa: When they entered the world of politics, somehow Satō made way for Ikeda. On some occasions I questioned myself on the nature of their relationship. For the same reason, I think the talk you asked about did not take place. I don’t think they had any arguments. Nakamura: When friends are too close, arguments can occur. I wonder if they weren’t both acting out of deference to each other.

Maeo Shigesaburō Mikuriya: Within the picture we have just outlined, Maeo Shigesaburō became the executive leader of the party, but what was his stance? Miyazawa: Ikeda was older than Maeo by several years. When Ikeda was at the tax office of Utsunomiya he developed a serious illness—apparently there was only one similar case somewhere in Japan at that time—and it wasn’t clear whether it was curable, so he went on a pilgrimage in Shikoku. In the meantime, his wife passed away all of a sudden. A relative who was trained as a nurse kept nursing him and then he recovered, miraculously. They got married. They would talk about Ikeda’s future if he recovered from his illness, and thinking there was no hope of his returning to work as superintendent for the tax office, he hoped that he could at least work as clerk. However, he did recover, and despite the long absence, he went back to his post. This time he was assigned to the office in Tamatsukuri, Osaka.

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At that time, Maeo was superintendent of a tax office nearby, and they became very close. They used to drink together. Maeo was a real drinking buddy. I am pretty sure that Ikeda was the one who dragged Maeo along. Anyhow, looking at Maeo’s side, especially since his entrance in politics, he has been in charge of several things and he was helpful on countless occasions. Ikeda was not the type of person who listens to somebody else’s words but he generally listened to Maeo. Maeo was laconic but there is no doubt he had a very good opinion of Ikeda. And I am pretty sure that Ikeda too had a very good opinion of Maeo, even though Maeo wasn’t an indulgent type. I am not sure whether he actually praised him openly, though. I remember once I told Maeo: “Ikeda is an amazing person, he can remember things from the past surprisingly well.” He replied: “That is because he doesn’t write.” Certainly, Ikeda said that he had written only one piece of writing,20 the explanation of the tax for transfer of securities. He was a person who didn’t write. Even if you watched a film with him and asked for his opinion, he would just say things like “the scene where the moon appeared was beautiful.” Maeo, on the other hand, was an avid reader. The two were very different from each other, but it seemed that Maeo would deal with any troublesome situation if it was for Ikeda’s cause. In this respect, I think he considered it worth the effort. Mikuriya: That’s the interesting part, don’t you think? Miyazawa: Yes, but I don’t know too much about it. One was the president of the party, the other was the chief executive, and it wasn’t uncommon for them not to see each other for days. Maeo would say that he knew what Ikeda wanted, even if he didn’t see him. He was carrying out his duty steadily; Ikeda, for his part, was thinking that Maeo didn’t show up very often, but he had no particular reason to come. Nakamura: It means they trusted each other, didn’t they? Miyazawa: I guess so. Somehow Maeo, how can I put it, he knew quite well how things worked. Ikeda too may have taken a lazy attitude towards him sometimes and thought it was fine even when he asked for unreasonable things. Mikuriya: During the Ikeda Cabinet, the pair—Prime Minister Ikeda and Chief [Party] Executive Maeo—kept cooperating over a long period of time.

The original text specifies writing by hand on the graph paper used for compositions.

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Miyazawa: Yes, they did. In any case, since they weren’t meeting for consultations, there were no disputes and Maeo could work as he pleased. Ikeda too probably might have wanted to have his say on Maeo’s work on a couple of occasions, but I have no particular memories of that.

Notes i July 1–31, 1952. ii On October 24, 1952, Liberal Party member Hatoyama’s hard-­line core group (Andō Masazumi, Miki Bukichi) set up the “Democratization Alliance” (Minshukadōmei). iii On April 19, 1953, the 26th Lower House general election took place. Yoshida’s Liberal Party won 199 seats, Hatoyama’s Liberal Party 35, the Progressive Party 76, the left-­wing faction of the Socialist Party 72, the right-­wing faction of the Socialist Party 66, the Workers and Farmers Party 5, the Communist Party 1, Minor Parties 1, Independent 11, total 466 Diet members. Turnout was 74.22 percent. iv The Yoshida–Shigemitsu meeting took place on September 27, 1953. They agreed to replace the National Police Reserve with the Self-Defense Forces and to make long-­term defense plans for dealing with direct aggression. v Katō Takeo’s name also appears in Shigemitsu’s diary. See also Miyazawa, Tōkyō to Washinton no mitsudan [translated as Secret Talks between Tokyo and Washington, Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2007]. vi September 18–November 7, 1954, Prime Minister Yoshida’s overseas visit. Aichi of MITI also visited the US accompanied by Miyazawa; the date is thought to be October, 1954. vii Matsuura Shūtarō et al., Ikeda Hayato sensei o shinobu [In Memory of Ikeda Hayato] (1967). viii Kimura Kō. Later, in 1957 he set up the Kōchikai while in the Secretariat. In 1961, he became Director-General of the Secretariat. He was also secretary to Prime Ministers Ōhira Masayoshi and Miyazawa Kiichi. ix Itō Masaya, Ikeda Hayato sono sei to shi [Ikeda Hayato: His Life and Death] (Tokyo: Shiseidō, 1966).

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Ikeda’s Visit to America and His Meeting with President Kennedy Translated by Emanuela Costa

Ikeda’s visit to America Miyazawa: I have been in politics for fifty years and, including my time as Prime Minister, I have served as a Cabinet minister for nearly eighteen years. Over time, I have handled issues from various perspectives, and I recently tried to organize my thoughts about each office I held. One was my tenure as Director-­general of the Economic Planning Agency for about five years. During that period there were a lot of negotiations with foreign countries, including the Kennedy Round, and obviously related issues and price matters had to be dealt with. Then, when I was Minister of Foreign Affairs, there were issues with the USSR, China, and the peace treaty between Japan and China. When I was Minister of International Trade and Industry, the textile issue came into the spotlight. Needless to say, such issues are not enjoyable topics for conversation, yet I believe they are worth mentioning. We can certainly talk about my role as prime minister, but first we need to discuss the events that occurred before. Mikuriya: You have been Chief Cabinet Secretary as well . . . Miyazawa: Yes, I forgot to mention that. There was also that issue. However, that was less a question of work I carried out as Chief Cabinet Secretary per se, than issues related to the fact that the question of whether or not to become Chief Cabinet Secretary came up several times. Following the order I outlined last time, Ikeda was elected prime minister in 1960, and I had not yet become cabinet minister. [Just before that], the visit of President Eisenhower to Japan had to be cancelled, causing a lot of trouble. Once the atmosphere had become less tense, in 1961, Prime Minister Ikeda became aware of the necessity, first of all, to visit the United States. A consultation was

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arranged with Reischauer, who had arrived in the capacity of ambassador,i and it was decided that Ikeda would visit the United States. Japan had witnessed a deterioration of its diplomatic relationship with the US the previous year and was dealing with the Chinese question, while the United States had just inaugurated a new administration. Because Kennedy became President in January 1961, the Japanese government arranged for an official visit and I joined the mission. The visit took place on June 20 and 21, and topics on the agenda included the suspension of nuclear tests, the Berlin question, the China–Korea relationship, the Okinawa question, and that of aid to developing countries. Soon after he became President, in the same year, Kennedy had met President Khrushchev in Vienna. Somehow Kennedy felt that Khrushchev slightly looked down upon him for his young age, and the mass media back then were also reporting that. However, if we read the notes that Khrushchev took, he writes that Kennedy made a favorable impression on him as a suitable leader. It could have been that Kennedy misunderstood Khrushchev’s opinion of him. As for Kennedy, he talked about Khrushchev and the Berlin question, remarking that the situation in Berlin was not proceeding well. This conversation occurred in June, and in August the Berlin Wall was erected, as you know. The talks between Ikeda and Kennedy took place over two days. Usually such events require that the Minister of Foreign Affairs as well as the authorities concerned work together at a summit, but the second day it was decided that the talk between Ikeda and Kennedy would be arranged separately. The venue was the presidential yacht Honey Fitz anchored in the Potomac River. At that time Kennedy was suffering from severe back pain. Because he was using a cane when getting on and off, it had been perhaps more comfortable to arrange the chairs for the meeting inside the boat [he was familiar with]. The administrative officials were having their talks on the deck, while Kennedy and Ikeda were meeting in a stateroom. I was there even though there was no one from the [Japanese] Ministry of Foreign Affairs. For the American side, there was [James J.] Wickel, an American who was very proficient in Japanese. I think we talked on the yacht for three hours. Later, however, I realized that no record of the talk was left. Usually during a summit you have official interpreters from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and it is customary to keep records, even though they aren’t made public. On that particular meeting, on the other hand, I did not take any notes, and since there was no one else from Japan, no records were left, I believe. In America, there should be some but there are none in Japan; I realized this after I became Minister of Foreign Affairs. Nevertheless, the conversation we had was very interesting and my frank impression was that Kennedy was extremely intuitive and quick to make

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decisions. To be sure, he was not the type of person who would ponder over a situation for a long time, probably because he was young. Indeed, he was extremely sharp. At least I was under that impression, though it was probably my own interpretation. The following year, when the Cuban [Missile] Crisis caused great turmoil, Kennedy displayed a great deal of perseverance, so my previous impression was probably just a feeling. Still, he was really decisive. He also knew Japan very well: he was well informed on the relationship between Japan and China and he had an accurate understanding of the desire of Japan to emerge on the world scene as a trading nation. The main issue was the Okinawa question. The previous night we had stayed at Blair House and [there] Ikeda and I were wondering about the topics to be discussed the following day. We were pretty sure we would talk about Okinawa. We tried to figure out how the discussion would proceed but it was pointless to talk about such a delicate situation beforehand. We talked for a while then Ikeda concluded: “Oh, whatever! I’m the oldest, so I’ll come up with something!” [laughs] When we discussed the Okinawa question with Kennedy, he claimed that he was aware of the problem, yet he did not know what troubles might arise with the bases in the Philippines. In fact, problems did occur later on. “If we can’t rely on having the air base at Clark Field and we lose Okinawa,” Kennedy said, “then we would have to retreat to Hawaii. This would be problematic for the United States so we want to at least keep the bases in Okinawa.” Ikeda knew that this was inevitable, but [said that] though it was a symbolic matter when the daily lives of Okinawans were most important, didn’t it seem a pity that they couldn’t even fly the Japanese flag? Ikeda discussed how, even if not on a daily basis, it would be good if the population could display the national flag on special occasions. “How about allowing people to raise the Japanese flag on New Year, national holidays and so forth?” Ikeda kept asking, and Kennedy seemed to consider it. However, as soon as the talk was over and we went back to the deck, we saw that the same sort of debate was occurring between Minister of Foreign Affairs Kosaka [Zentarō] and the Secretary of State Rusk. I translated for Ikeda, communicating that Rusk was giving a sort of report to Kennedy saying that they had decided to allow the raising of the Japanese flag on New Year’s Day. Then I added my own comment in Japanese saying: “It isn’t that silly, right?” Possibly, they understood what I had just said. Ikeda said: “That sounds odd! If it is fine to display the flag on New Year’s, then the same rule should apply to the other national holidays.” In a way, the statement made both Rusk and Kosaka look as if they had not been thorough enough, but indeed we had discussed the issue down in the stateroom. Kennedy thought about it for a while, and eventually asked Rusk how many public holidays

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there were in Japan. “All right,” he said rather clearly, “I will do it,”1 and that’s how the decision was made. Thinking about it from a contemporary perspective, the question seems trivial, but it had a significant impact on domestic politics. Symbolically, it meant that we had managed, to some extent, to make the US show consideration for the Okinawa question. Surprisingly, however, the order was not conveyed to Okinawa immediately, or rather it was not conveyed directly by Kennedy. “We are following the decision taken by the president,” Rusk said, “but we would like the High Commissioner of Okinawa to announce it.” We agreed on that, but the following day the High Commissioner did not make the announcement, and for a couple of days the situation did not go very far. I believe that was truly proof of the complex relationship between the government and the army, between the young president and the army. Anyhow, the order was later put into practice. Then, as for our visit to the US, we received a warm reception from the American government and I believe they were very attentive. What makes me say so is the fact that the Kennedys invited the Eisenhowers to join the luncheon held in our honor. Such an occurrence is not unique, but it is certainly rare. The President invited his predecessor probably because of the incident concerning the US-Japan Security Treaty of the previous year. When Ikeda reciprocated and gave a dinner at the Japanese Embassy, Kennedy too was expected to participate. That was an extremely unusual fact, considering that Ikeda’s political role was that of prime minister, not of sovereign. Actually, due to lower back pain and fever, the president eventually could not come, but his wife Jacqueline came. Ikeda’s visit to the US thus was seen as a relatively important event. It received consideration by powerful individuals such as Kennedy and Reischauer. In Japan, there were also talks on whether Ikeda’s wife [Mitsue] should have joined her husband in his visit to the United States, just as Jacqueline was doing with Kennedy. After the war it was not customary to bring women on such missions. Especially considering that every dollar was [as precious as] a drop of blood, would it have been alright to bring a wife? You know, it reminds me of that controversy over Tanaka Kinuyo,2 blowing kisses from the airplane on her way back from Hawaii . . . Mikuriya: That was in the 1940s.ii Miyazawa: Indeed, there were things like that. I worried about whether if it was alright for the prime minister’s wife to go along, nonchalantly. I asked Yamaguchi In English in the original. Tanaka Kinuyo (1909–1977) was a popular actress and film director. She starred in several of Mizoguchi Kenji’s movies.

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Matsutarō for his opinion and I remember he said: “[Sure,] no problem!” I felt we had a generation gap. In the end Mrs. Ikeda went to the US too and she acquitted herself well. Then, when we arrived at Haneda and got off the plane, Ikeda let his wife get into the car first and it became a big topic of conversation. It became the talk of the newspapers! Mikuriya: May I ask your impression of Jacqueline Kennedy? Miyazawa: Well, I am not sure, really . . . Everybody says she was an elegant woman and I guess she was. You could say her face looks a bit like [Audrey Hepburn’s in] Funny Face. She is very popular among young and old, men and women, and I have never heard rumors about her. Still, once Kennedy passed away, she married Onassis, right? Let’s say that some people wondered what kind of woman acts like that. But then, you may well think that there were more rumors about Kennedy, beginning with the gossip about his relationship with Marilyn Monroe. She went to the White House at night, right? Then she said—I am not sure whether she really said it—she wanted to go home but she didn’t know how to get back. And then Kennedy suggested that she take a taxi. You can’t have taxis coming to the White House though. I have heard stories such as this. There were a lot of rumors about Kennedy, so from that perspective, it is not clear to me what kind of person Jacqueline was. Presumably, she was not a prattler; she was a decent3 woman with a good reputation. I also knew Kennedy’s younger brother Robert. Both brothers were assassinated, and a descendant recently has been charged with murder. I wouldn’t say it is a family with a brilliant reputation. Some think that the father made a fortune [in questionable business deals] and then became the United States ambassador to the United Kingdom. Not only were the two of his sons assassinated, but his other son Edward [supposedly] caused the death of a person. The victim drowned at a place called Chappaquiddick. Mikuriya: It was a car accident, wasn’t it? Miyazawa: Yes, it was. The Kennedys might be legendary, but I have no idea what kind of family they are. Anyhow, I see that, no matter how many years pass by, President Kennedy still enjoys a great deal of popularity. In October 1961 there was the Cuban [Missile] Crisis, during which it was unclear whether the two sides would use nuclear weapons against each other. It was with great difficulty that he got past the crisis. The same year, I had been appointed Cabinet Minister and on In English in the original.

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my way to a Cabinet meeting in Europe, I stopped in New York. There, I was surprised to find out that on every subway entrance there was a sign saying “Shelter.” The Cuban incident had happened in October and my trip took place in November. It was quite a shock for me. Of course I knew about the crisis, but I did not expect that news would have spread among the public to such an extent. On that occasion, I realized how hard it had been on people. I also remember a conversation with Kennedy’s younger brother Robert during the period when Khrushchev was threatening to use nuclear weapons. For days they had been playing a kind of subtle game, as if they were staring each other down. One of those days, Robert said to me: “When I look out of the window, I see workmen painting the walls of the White House and I realize that maybe at this point, it doesn’t make any difference anymore.” How Kennedy settled the question was truly remarkable. That November, at a luncheon held at the White House, McNamara was sitting next to me. He was a very resourceful person. McNamara drew a picture on the back of the menu and said: “The boat is moving forward from that side, and our side is like this . . .” It seems it was their idea to think of the word “quarantine.” Instead of using war jargon [such as blockade], they thought of something that sounded like a weapons inspection. They wanted to discover the enemy’s intentions through quarantine and eventually they were able to confirm that the enemy had no intention of breaking through. Perhaps it was a boast for McNamara. Afterwards, he wrote a memoir about the Vietnam War or something like that . . . Nakamura: Was that a sort of confession? Miyazawa: He is writing his confessionsiii but, if you think about it, quite a long time has gone by. He says he still doesn’t know the details of the assassination of President Kennedy . . . it is quite a strange story, I think. Anyway, what we have discussed so far were the major points concerning the talk between Ikeda and Kennedy. Apparently, there are no records of it at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Head of the Upper House Steering Committee Nakamura: In 1961, at the Upper House Steering Committee meeting, the question concerning the normalization of the Diet was raised and a “Miyazawa proposal” was submitted to the faction in order to be re-­examined. In the timeline it figures as an agreement related to the reallocation of the standing committee chairmanships and to the normalization of the Diet. Mikuriya: It took place on December 23, 1961.

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Miyazawa: When the Ikeda Cabinet was formed in 1960, I was Member of the Lower House but then, in 1961, I was made its chairman. I also took on a completely different duty as Director-­general of the Treasury Bureau of the LDP, and for two years I was carrying out both functions. As you have mentioned, over that period labor unions were very powerful, so powerful that we were getting nowhere. If we disagreed on something, they would make use of gyūho tactics for one or two nights. Most of them were younger than us, so we were at a disadvantage, even physically. It was ridiculous. For instance, when they had a bill we wanted to postpone to the following morning, they would enter someone’s vote of no-­confidence. A long speech would accompany the motion and then they would use gyūho tactics during the voting. These were some of the means of obstruction. In the Diet I assume such things are often allowed for the sake of protecting minority parties but then they happened so much that I said “I understand. I realize that you can go on because you have a certain number of seats, so let’s follow ‘international law in time of war.’ If you really plan to gain eight hours tonight, then I accept this, but for my part I declare an eight-­hour recess so that everyone can go to sleep.” It was something like the “international law in time of war.” I remember doing things like that. The “Miyazawa proposal” applied to such situations. Calling it a proposal sounds a bit lofty. We were wasting a lot of time and the opposition was preventing everybody from sleeping . . . it was predictable, wasn’t it? So instead, the proposal served the purpose of letting them know we acknowledged they had a number of seats. At that time there were also awful people. Debating with us is one thing, but they were hitting members of the secretariat. That was unacceptable. I still remember an episode like that. They hit a member of the secretariat. That’s what happened during those days. Towards the end of my experience as head of the Upper House Steering Committee, the use of gyūho tactics greatly decreased. At least, because we were following the “law of war” we could find some way of overcoming the obstructions—just as during wartime international law remains valid, [we managed to consult with each other even though we were fighting]. The main reason why gyūho tactics decreased was television. Politicians could not stand to have people in their hometowns say: “You were using gyūho tactics, weren’t you?” It was as if they were going to ask, “Isn’t it stupid?” Kids would say “Dad, what were you doing?!” For that reason, the gyūho tactics all but disappeared. All the same, they started one more time later, after I became prime minister. It didn’t happen for a while though. Nakamura: I did remember it happened later on too.

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Miyazawa: It lasted for a long time. However, it was particularly embarrassing when such hackneyed use of gyūho tactics was revealed on television. If you look, you could see that even within the opposition there were all sorts of individuals. If asked to walk for five minutes, there were people who would diligently do so, but there were also people who, out of embarrassment, would just walk for a minute or so. There were different kinds of people. Nakamura: It was the heyday of Sōhyō4 and thus, it was a time when a chairperson who had just completed his tenure might become a member of the Upper House. Miyazawa: The hierarchies were respected and order was preserved. I think there were different internal structures, but I am not very familiar with Sōhyō. Then, on the other hand, I was in charge of raising funds for the party as Director-­general of the Treasury Bureau [for the LDP]. At first, I asked for the cooperation of Keidanren.5 Ishikawa Ichirō and Uemura [Kōgorō] were there. Nakamura: Shall we focus just on Keidanren? Regarding the Dōyūkai . . .6 Miyazawa: As it turned out, at the time, Keidanren thought this through and divided the task among the organizations for us. Later this system was organized under the name Kokumin Kyōkai [National Association]. It was in charge of dividing up the tasks and collecting the funds on our behalf, so we did not need to do every little thing. Similarly, the companies that belonged to the Dōyūkai were part of Keidanren as industries, so it was mainly Keidanren that organized them. Mikuriya: At the time of the gyūho tactics, I assume the House was in a tumult. Were there bouts of heckling towards those who were using gyūho tactics?

Sōhyō, in full, Nihon Rōdō Kumiai Sōhyōgikai, General Council of Trade Unions. Founded in 1950 as a democratic trade union movement, it was the most powerful labor organization in postwar Japan and had close ties with the Japan Socialist Party. The union frequently used political action as its members did not have much economic power. In 1989, Sōhyō was dissolved, and its members were mainly absorbed in Rengō, a trade-­union confederation involving the non-­communist segments of organized labor in Japan. 5 Keidanren (Federation of Economic Organizations; abbreviation of Keizai Dantai Rengōkai) is the Japanese association of business organizations. It was established in 1946 and it aimed at mediating between affiliated industries and the government. From May 2002, it came to include affiliates from both Keidanren and Nikkeiren (Japan Federation of Employers’ Associations). 6 The Keizai Dōyūkai (The Japan Association of Corporate Executives) is one of Japan’s most influential business organizations. It is distinguished from Keidanren because its members (company owners and executive officers) join as individuals. 4

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Miyazawa: Whenever our opponents were trying to obstruct us, it would take approximately three hours, and we would end up exhausted. Both parties were left so downhearted that we were just sleeping, in the end. Mikuriya: I see. [laughs] What a waste! Miyazawa: It was really a waste. On the top of that, there were only six ballots for approval or opposition: three cards for approval and three for opposition. If everyone had been totally in favor or totally against what we were voting on, there would have been no problems, but in fact there were also indecisive people who were for some things and against others. In turn, this meant that after four votes, we would run out of cards and need to take a break. The motion to approve a break itself would take some time. The replacement of cards took hours as well. We were truly spending days doing meaningless, mind-­numbing things. However, back then it wasn’t publicized, so the most resolute supporters of the gyūho tactics weren’t embarrassed. Nevertheless, there were people who agreed with me when I said that it was a waste. Mikuriya: That is why that solution was proposed.

Ikeda’s third term and subsequent retirement Nakamura: I would like you to talk briefly about Ikeda’s third term. On that occasion Satō Eisaku was announced as candidate [in the party leadership election], and Fujiyama Aiichirō was running for it too. Miyazawa: It occurred in July 1964. Ikeda came in first, followed by Satō, and then Fujiyama. Ikeda gained a majority in the fourth vote. At that time we did not know about his illness yet, but anyhow his tenure had been quite long. Within the Ikeda faction there were people, including myself and Maeo [Shigesaburō], who thought a change in the presidency would have been desirable. Obviously, we didn’t openly speak about our opinion but somehow it was in the air. I am pretty sure Yoshida thought it was the right time for Satō to succeed Ikeda. Meanwhile, Ikeda seemed to be finding it hard to bring himself to go to Ōiso [to visit Yoshida]. That’s what the election was like. Ikeda won in the fourth vote that time. Yet the Ikeda camp was glad to hear Matsumura Kenzō say that, no matter how narrow a victory is, it is nevertheless a success. In any case, it was July and the elections were over. I remember that when I suggested that perhaps Ikeda’s career had been long enough, I was harshly rebuked. In September the plenary session of the International Monetary Fund was scheduled, and in October the Tokyo Olympics were to be held. I guess

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Ikeda wanted to deal with those occasions but I also think he couldn’t help feeling that he had already done enough. Over the same period, around August, I heard that Ikeda had konnyaku7 or something similar and he remarked on the fact that he swallowed it easily. He wondered what had happened, and this episode prompted him to see a doctor. He had always had a hoarse voice, and it wasn’t as if it were easy for him to speak. But when it became a question of [food] being able to slip down or pass through his throat, he underwent an examination. In fact, his elder brother had died of cancer. Several renowned doctors saw him, and some diagnosed him with a precancerous condition. However, having so many well-­known doctors actually made the situation more difficult, and I thought that at the time too. As they were all esteemed doctors, I do not intend to critique. Still, every diagnosis was different, and it was not clear who was going to take responsibility. I started to realize the difficulty of using a sort of committee system. At a certain point, even Ikeda couldn’t help questioning himself on which doctor’s version he should trust. In any case they were taking very good care of him, but then, during the plenary session of the IMF . . . Nakamura: The meeting was held on September 7, but on September 9 Ikeda had to be hospitalized in a cancer center. Miyazawa: Exactly. He entered the hospital on the 9th. Then on October 10, he left in order to attend the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics. On October 25, the day after the closing ceremony, he announced his retirement. To set aside his illness and talk about Ikeda’s feelings as a politician heading into his third term, I can say that he felt deeply uneasy about the changes economic growth had brought about in the mindset of the younger generations. He often said that the situation couldn’t go on the way it was and that it was necessary to rethink education. Perhaps his statement also had some personal overtones, but he repeated it often and on various occasions. The environment had not yet become an issue, and there was no awareness of the problem of destruction of the land. But Ikeda realized that people’s feelings had changed. He realized that the world was changing, and whenever he had a chance to discuss it, he stressed the need to address the issue. He took no concrete action, but he was undoubtedly aware [of the on-­going transformations].

Produced from the tubers of the plant devil’s tongue (Amorphophallus konjac), it is mainly used to make gelatinous bricks employed in various recipes of Japanese cuisine. The dry powder is also used as a low-­calorie substitute for gelling starch in confectionery, drinks, and edible films.

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When Satō took office right after Ikeda, the new Chief Cabinet Secretary Aichi [Kiichi], remarked in the same vein, right in the middle of the economic growth, that individuals should be put before machines.8 Ikeda left the hospital once, but he was later readmitted to the hospital and eventually passed away the following year, in August. I was deeply moved by something Ikeda’s wife said. They he had been married for many years, and she always took good care of him even though he enjoyed drinking and, being the bossy type he was, he was particular about his food. When he fell sick, his wife told me: “Up until now, I’ve known for decades that dinners would last about two hours. However, these days he doesn’t drink, and even dinner is over in fifteen minutes. What a pity!” I didn’t know what to say. During the time Ikeda was temporarily out of the hospital, he was invited by some friends to go to a golf course. It was after the hospitalization so he couldn’t really play golf, he just went to the course. During his later hospitalization, the party leadership election had begun. I think Kawashima Shōjirō was Vice-President, Miki Takeo was Secretary-General and Ōhira was Deputy Secretary-General. They handled the election. Kawashima and Miki were particularly involved in it. Ikeda did not make his intentions clear early on, and the situation was quite complex. Following the thread of the story, it would seem that things would go smoothly for Satō, but that was not the case, probably because the previous election for the head of the party had grown heated and there had been aggressive disputes too. There was also the fact that Kōnō [Ichirō] had backed Ikeda up [and this played a role in making the situation more tangled], and so while in the hospital Ikeda did not disclose his decision. I was trying not to go to the hospital too often, but whenever I happened to go, Ikeda’s voice would be as usual. However, on this one day, he said he had no voice and asked me to bring a note pad. He wrote a note with a pencil and then asked me to hand it to Maeo. I still have it. It says “a certain somebody is doing an ‘Ultra C’.”9 “Ultra C” was a buzzword during the Tokyo Olympics. In midsummer Ikeda underwent surgery. I was in Tokyo, but I left for Karuizawa after hearing from the doctor that the operation had gone extremely well. However, I was called up all of a sudden in the middle of a round of golf and went back. The situation between [the time of the surgery and then] was not clear to me. Mrs. Ikeda’s brother was a doctor somewhere in the In the original Miyazawa metaphorically uses the expression, “the rule that pedestrians have the right of way.” 9 “Ultra C” referred to an extremely difficult maneuver that gymnast Endō Yukio successfully performed, winning several gold medals. Such performances were punctuated by NHK announcer Bunya Suzuki’s shout of “Ultra C”, which referred to the fact that the difficulty of the exercise exceeded the “C” score (the maximum possible score back then). 8

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countryside and sometimes he would go with her to the hospital. According to the local medical bulletin he wrote afterwards, Ikeda died of gastrointestinal perforation. There is no way for a layman to understand such things, but I presume something went wrong and the medications ended up escaping from his stomach. Nakamura: Stomach perforation is something terrible. In fact, a relative of mine was barely saved thanks to a major operation. This is indeed a frightening problem. Besides, it comes on suddenly. Miyazawa: Perhaps, as a result of multiple operations, he was given a lot of medications and somehow they perforated his stomach. I am not going back to what I previously said, but I wonder whether the problem was the treatment by committee. This is what happens when you try to be on the safe side. I don’t want to blame anybody, but I did hear from the doctor who performed the operation that everything went very well. I heard that Ikeda would recover around the spring of the following year, but he passed away in less than two weeks, I think. I wonder whether Ikeda himself was prepared for such a sudden end. I don’t know to what extent he was aware of it, though, and the doctors definitely did not see it this way. From their perspective, they thought the operation had been successful. There was an incredibly big storm on the night he died. It was August 13. Moving back to the “Ultra C” matter, in the end Ikeda did write the name of the candidate he recommended as his successor: it was Satō. That’s how the situation was eventually settled, but I wonder whether there was any kind of intervention from Satō’s side. Since Ikeda was sick, I don’t believe they discussed it directly, and as for what Yoshida may have thought, I don’t know because I haven’t looked at all of his correspondence. Nakamura: This may be a delicate topic, but . . . The relationship between Ikeda and Satō had become somewhat tense during Ikeda’s second term, and then when Ikeda was running for his third term, Satō actually ran against him. May I ask what your memories of that period are? Miyazawa: I have nothing to add to what I have just said. In the end, the Japanese economy was showing significant improvements, and perhaps Ikeda wanted to keep going a while longer. Kōno and Fujiyama were also acting behind the scenes, and several factors contributed to make the situation rather involved, so he probably didn’t feel at ease with the idea of stepping down in favor of Satō right away. In particular, Ikeda must have been pretty emotionally distressed when Yoshida suggested that he do so.

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Becoming Director of the Economic Planning Agency in the second Ikeda Cabinet Mikuriya: Talking about something that occurred a bit earlier, I would like to discuss your work in the second Ikeda Cabinet, when you were appointed Director of the Economic Planning Agency. You saw the Ikeda Cabinet from the inside all through Ikeda’s second and third terms, right? Miyazawa: Indeed. Mikuriya: First of all, I would like to ask you whether your appointment as Director of the Economic Planning Agency had already been decided at the time of Ikeda’s re-­election. Miyazawa: Apparently, there was some talk of making me Chief Cabinet Secretary. However, I could not have served as Chief Cabinet Secretary because, not only was I young, but I was already a member of the Upper House. Therefore, I was made Director of the Economic Planning Agency. Technically, I don’t believe it was unreasonable for me to join the Cabinet considering that, setting aside the age matter, back then I was Head of the Upper House Steering Committee. I wasn’t particularly asking to serve in the Cabinet; it happened naturally. I worked for two years as Director of the Planning Agency in the Ikeda Cabinet, then after a short while I was asked to continue for three more years. Back then, the main duty of the Director of the Planning Agency was price control. The price of rice was a particularly thorny issue. Not much could be done because of the way rice prices work. The question of the gap between producer and consumer prices for rice always kept us working day and night. Furthermore, it was impossible to liberalize the market. [Rice] was both the most troublesome and the most important of the commodity prices, but there was also the matter of public utility charges such as public transportation, electricity bills, and so on. Nakamura: Water service as well . . . Miyazawa: Water service, exactly. Bus service was another very unpleasant matter to deal with. In fact, charges for public utilities are set by the Cabinet and subject to approval of the Cabinet committee on issues related to commodity prices, so I had to approve them. Now you see, even with public utility charges, no one would complain too much as long as the enterprises were competing freely, but when I said something,

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it was annoying. When you force prices down, it is obvious that somebody will be negatively affected in the process. I really believe that boasting about having haggled over prices is worthless. In most cases public utility charges are not subject to free competition; any talk of competition involved in municipal bus fares for the [relatively distant] cities of Kōchi and Kōbe would be suspect. This applies to private railways and to electricity rates too. Even when you have a formula, troubles might arise. This is what I kept saying to myself. Nevertheless, I put forward pitiable arguments, and I bargained prices down on many occasions. In addition, Shufuren10 often told me they were counting on me; there was no use getting angry about that. That’s how public utility charges work, right? It is irrelevant to talk about the prices of onions and cabbage. It is not a matter of calculating costs. If you’re asked to simply force prices down, you can’t import. I had to deal with public utility charges many times over the five years [that I served in the Economic Planning Agency]. [Once] Hatoyama Ichirō told me that “even if you move the elevator indicator, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the elevator itself will go up.” Still, I really felt that the task they required me to do was truly awful. In spite of everything though, I received a lot of help. I received help from you, Professor [Nakamura] and from Professor Nakayama Ichirō. He really did his best to help me. From his insightful perspective, Professor Nakayama believed that instability in commodity prices and public utility charges were problematic in terms of both politics and economic policy. In fact, I am grateful that he scolded us in that way. I think he really believed in his philosophy, and I felt sorry for the way the situation was. Even now, I shudder every time the topic of public utility charges comes up. Among them, only the question of rice has yet to be resolved, first with GATT, and now the WTO [World Trade Organization]. Japan is the only place where the trade of rice hasn’t been liberalized. Instead, [imported] rice is subject to “tariffication”11 of several times its value. For this reason, no matter how we discuss free trade, we can’t build a relationship of equality with other countries that produce agricultural products. Rice is an extremely complex issue. There is no doubt that, even if we hold a new round [of trade negotiations] at the WTO, the question will come up again. Recently, we happened to have a controversy with China over spring onions, shiitake mushrooms and rushes [for tatami mats].iv I was a Cabinet Minister and, on that occasion, I contended that we had been working hard for a very long time to liberalize trade. I myself had been working on promoting free trade since I was in my thirties, so it was truly embarrassing to see that we were taking The Japan Housewives Association. In English in the original.

10 11

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measures against imports from China. I wouldn’t say it was a matter of power relations within the party. Rather, there was a very small number of people who had an influential voice [in the matter]. The Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries proved unable to do anything about it. It was an embarrassing situation. Some people asked me whether China might retaliate, and I answered that I didn’t know. On the other hand, I heard comments from people saying that the Japanese trading companies were having spring onions grown [in China] after teaching Chinese how to do it, so in fact the Japanese trading companies were the ones producing spring onions. The situation was awful. However, one thing surprised me. Usually, consumers oppose restrictions [on trade] but in this case, there were many housewives who thought it was better to use Japanese onions. After all only a small amount of the family budget was needed to purchase fresh vegetables and, in their view, it was better not to buy products that might have been treated with strange pesticides. So I could not look to consumers for an ally. I realized the situation was different than in the past. After that, it seemed that towels would be next, and I opposed [import restrictions]. Of course, I couldn’t really depend on consumers that time either. [Those regulations] did not go through, but [generally,] it is difficult to win the support of consumers when it comes to inexpensive items. There are even consumers who pity the farmers; I don’t get it. That’s the situation now. At the time, such issues made the question of public utility charges really troublesome, and even today there are still unresolved problems. That was one aspect of my job as Director of the Economic Planning Agency.

The Comprehensive National Development Plan Miyazawa: You were just asking me about the Ikeda years, so I’d like to discuss the Comprehensive National Development Plan, which was conceived during that period. The idea, which lasted until recently, was to designate new industrial cities. Maybe you remember it. That was my job. So-­called “regional hubs” would be chosen within the framework of the Comprehensive National Development Plan and designated as new industrial cities. The plan was to allocate funds for investment in appropriate public works projects. From the beginning to the end, the “mastermind of national land development” was Shimokōbe [Atsushi]. When I was a Cabinet Minister, he was assigned to me as a section manager. I have known Shimokōbe since those days and from then on he has been working [on the plan]. For this reason, from time to time he played either the role of genius or of the scapegoat. Every now and then he had tough times, but his authority could in no way be undermined.

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The designation of new industrial cities led to massive “lobbying battles.” It was incredible. I think the fact that there were no scandals amidst such fierce fights was impressive. The Economic Planning Agency was relatively “inexperienced” about such things, because it had no connections. However, the lobbying battle was intense. In order to improve the plan, we also added special areas for industrial consolidation, which completed the overall administrative system. From our present perspective, how shall we evaluate the plan? Clearly some aspects were successful, and some others weren’t. There were also places where things ended in the middle [of the project]. Hokkaidō was probably the most unfortunate. In a few more years, it would have been ready to take off. What a pity! Nakamura: I once went to see a place called Tomakomai Higashi, and I was really surprised. Miyazawa: So, you have been there? Nakamura: Yes, but it was much later, when the period of high growth was already over. When I went there, what I saw was a vast area where streets had been laid out in a grid pattern. There had been a plan to lure factories, and breakwaters had been made for them. However, apart from power plants and several oil storage tanks, there was nothing else. When I was driving around the area, I could see foxes! How awful! Miyazawa: You mean the area known as Tomatō. It was such virgin soil! It had a great potential for development. If only the world situation would turn favorable for it, and if there were no oil crisis . . . It is really sad. Even now I sympathize with the people there, and despite the new reorganization which has recently occurred, I still have hope. To some extent, it is probably better to focus on the positive outcomes brought about by the plan in the new industrial cities nationwide. Nakamura: There were many, I believe. Miyazawa: Perhaps it wasn’t a huge success, but you know, expressways and bullet train lines are large-­scale undertakings, as are communications [facilities] and harbors. With the changing times, Shimokōbe’s ideas themselves were extremely popular or harshly criticized. It must have been hard for him to deal with both. But that was his job, and he knew it well. That was the administration system behind the new industrial cities.

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Then there was also the preparation of the economic outlook, which is usually put out at the end of the year. An outlook for the next year is drawn up in conjunction with the budget compilation. Accordingly, an estimate of tax revenue is given. Following the same guidelines, in principle the finance authority calculates the annual expenditure and revenue of the budget. When I actually tried this task, I felt that trying to determine the amount of taxes in relation to growth was a sort of back-­of-the-­envelope calculation that had to be justified retrospectively. Anyhow, that is what the job was about [in a nutshell]. I think I did this seven times, and it always felt like the same annoying process. Politically, it was troublesome every time. You couldn’t really say whether it was correct or not: could we really say that somebody had the correct data? Besides, if you consider the extent of our economy, could you really make an estimate? We were trying to administer something that you know better than anyone, Professor Nakamura. In addition, as I said before, the question of commodity prices was involved. You couldn’t draft the economic outlook saying from the beginning that the consumer price would be up 6 percent. Nakamura: During those days it was 5–6 percent, right? Miyazawa: In the end, that was the result, but if asked in advance whether that represented what the government would permit, we couldn’t say that. At the beginning, foreign account balances were confusing, though halfway through they ceased to be a problem. Such decisions regarding the economic outlook were one of the duties assigned to me as Director of the Economic Planning Agency.

The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade Miyazawa: Due to my long-­term engagement with the work at the Economic Planning Agency I repeatedly traveled to Geneva and Paris to discuss multilateral tariff negotiations, and now I would like to talk about it. Mikuriya: You mean about GATT, right? Miyazawa: Exactly. At the so-­called Kennedy Round, President Kennedy intended to express America’s firm determination to reduce tariff rates in response to the offensive inflicted by Europe. The round began in 1963, and so it feels like it was the last thing he said before he died. It lasted from 1963 until 1967. During these five years the objective of the round was to reduce by 50 percent the tariff rates for agricultural and industrial products. The round was

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an epoch-­making event because it promoted a completely different approach to negotiations. Before the round, negotiations on tariff rate reductions were carried out in a bilateral fashion. In other words, imagine a situation where Mikuriya and I, on one hand, and Nakamura and Takeda, on the other, are involved in their respective negotiations without any relationship to what other parties are doing. Instead, the round was conceived as a multilateral one, on the premise that countries should cooperate with each other and also with third parties to ensure mutual benefit. This was the revolutionary implication behind the Kennedy Round. If this were actually accomplished, all the participating countries would reduce their tariff rates simultaneously, and no exceptions would be allowed. In exchange, everybody was expected to “let out what they had” [to ensure that business is carried out in a fair way]. In this respect, the Round was quite ambitious. In my view, the results of the Kennedy Round were excellent. It initiated several meetings such as the Tokyo Round and the Uruguay Round, and even now there are plans for further follow-­ups. This was because, at the very least, there were a lot of topics and a lot of work to do the first time. In that sense, I believe the Round was a success. On that occasion, the location chosen for the negotiations was Geneva. The Kennedy Round was held under the GATT system, which has now been replaced by the WTO, and it was managed by a very capable individual, Mr. Wyndham White. When I was managing the Economic Planning Agency under the Ikeda Cabinet, in other words at the beginning of the Kennedy Round, I joined the Round as the representative for Japan. I was accompanied by five or six secretaries from the various government offices. At that time only industrial nations could join such multilateral rounds. So the participating countries were America, Europe—European countries were actually participating all together as the EC [European Community]—and Japan. Back then Japan was not a major world power yet, but nevertheless it was more industrially advanced than countries such as Canada and Australia, which were more agricultural. In that sense, these were negotiations between the US, Europe, and Japan. I was fortunate to have the chance to deal with people from many countries who later made names for themselves. Among them, there were Giscard d’Estaing, [Ludwig Wilhelm] Erhard, [Sir Edward Richard George] Heath from the United Kingdom, Christian Herter [who later became US Secretary of State], and [Werner Michael] Blumenthal. They attended the Round as ministers of finance or of economy, and later in their careers most of them went on to became presidents. I am referring to the first year of the Round in 1963, but I can’t count the number of times I went to Geneva or the number of negotiations I attended over the following five years. Back then, Japan was not as big a power as it is nowadays, but because its industry was developing quickly, we felt that we could accept a certain

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degree of [currency] devaluation in the Round, as long as it was a small one. Obviously though, those were negotiations, so our partners were careful not to show their hands. A moment I still remember with embarrassment occurred when we were debating lowering custom duties on automobiles. I said I had nothing against it because I thought it would be good for Japan to import foreign cars, but then the group that had come from MITI told me, “This is serious. Soon Japan will export cars. We will do our best, so we beg you not to say such things any longer.” Indeed, they worked hard. However, in my own experience, when Prime Minister Ikeda once went from Tokyo to Osaka to deliver a speech, he chartered an aircraft for himself and the press. The plane stopped in Nagoya and couldn’t go any further. There were dozens of people, and they hired cars to drive from Nagoya to Osaka. There were no problems with foreign cars, but a Japanese car, in which four or five journalists were traveling, was slow on hills. This was back in those days, so when I heard that Japan was going to export cars, I thought “You’ve got to be kidding!” I thought they said that because it was their own country, or because they thought our agency would yield as the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries had done. For that reason I warned them not to say things like that any more, but clearly it was my mistake. We’ve since become such a major exporter of automobiles. Nakamura: In a few years after that we managed to export them. Miyazawa: Yes, it only took a few years. Nakamura: If that was 1963, then the steady increase in exports started in the late 1960s. Miyazawa: That’s right. I’m embarrassed to say that I wasn’t able to foresee that development, but you know, it shows how quickly Japan’s production system for automobiles was implemented! Nakamura: Those days were really something. Miyazawa: So you see, those government officials’ attempt to protect their own turf may have been called international negotiations, but in fact, there were elements of both international and domestic concerns. Multilateral negotiations are difficult and very complex. However, around that time, ambassador-­level specialists emerged in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. For instance, the most talented of them was the father of Aoki Morihisa, the ambassador who some

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time ago went through such difficulties in Peru.12 I was traveling from Tokyo with a group of a few dozen people and occasionally we had to stay at the ambassador’s residence, where we would have to make onigiri or eat our meals. Among those who helped us make onigiri was Li Xianglan [Yamaguchi Yoshiko].13 She had just married a young secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In the end, I worked for five years in that position. When I thought I was finally done, I was re-­appointed Director of the Economic Planning Agency in the Satō Cabinet. I started traveling again. I was often working beyond the scheduled time, postponing the approaching deadline and changing venues. As expected, the discussion concerning agricultural products remained until the very end. In particular, there was a surplus of wheat around the world, and wheat-­producing nations wanted to stabilize the prices. For that reason, they wanted to use wheat as food aid, but I contended that the purpose of the Kennedy Round was to discuss tariff rate reductions. It wasn’t the right time to talk about aid. Not only that, but Japan didn’t grow enough wheat to send it as aid. I pointed out that we couldn’t be expected to contribute something we didn’t grow. My line of reasoning was flawless, and I “stopped the clock” for two days to defend it. Then, the day after the deadline set to complete the Round, the representatives of the “Big Three” gathered in the middle of the night in the official residence of the British ambassador, or somewhere, and everyone told me to compromise. I contended over and over again that we couldn’t export wheat, considering that we were not a wheat-­producing country. At that point, they played some background music: it was “Curlew River,” a work by the British composer Britten, which I think was inspired by the Noh play Sumidagawa. I said to myself: “Ah, they are playing Japanese music!” They pressed me more and more to think of something. In the end, I said it was definitely impossible for us to buy wheat to supply food aid, but instead we could provide agricultural machinery, fertilizer or rice. As soon as the compromise was found, somebody knocked at the door and brought in some champagne. They were a pretty clever group, weren’t they? In this way, everything was settled in a grand bargain. The Kennedy Round had reached its conclusion, even though it had been delayed by twenty-­four hours. However, I then had an accident. You see, the Kennedy Round was finally over after several years. Many journalists had come to report about the event, so we On December 17, 1996, members of the Movimiento Revolucionario Túpac Amaru (MRTA) assaulted the Japanese Ambassador Aoki Morihisa’s residence in Lima, Peru, taking hostage over 700 people who had gathered for the celebrations for Emperor Akihito’s 63rd birthday. On April 22, 1997, a rescue operation was organized by Peruvian counterterrorist forces, who killed all fourteen terrorists involved in the kidnapping, successfully rescuing 71 of the 72 hostages. Aoki felt responsible for the accident and eventually resigned from his post. 13 Yamaguchi Yoshiko (1920–2014). Nicknamed “the Manchurian orchid” and also known as Li Xianglan, she was a Manchurian-­born Japanese actress and singer who made a career in China, Japan, Hong Kong, and the US. She was elected to Japan’s Diet in the 1970s and served for eighteen years. 12

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planned a luncheon aboard a boat in Lake Geneva and invited them. The Round had finished during the night, so there was still some time to spare before lunch and someone suggested that we go to play golf. When we arrived at the spot, however, we found out that it was the day of the Ascension festival, when the ascension of Christ is celebrated, and so the golf course was closed. Nevertheless, there was someone very considerate at the embassy and, having explained that we had come from Japan and that we had just concluded a meeting the previous evening, he asked whether we could play golf that morning. In reply, he was told that it was possible but without caddies. While playing golf, however, I slipped and ended up breaking my leg. On a short hole I couldn’t cross a bridge, so others were carrying me on their shoulders. It felt like I was between heaven and hell but, well, it was more or less alright. Anyway, I was impressed by the fact that almost everybody had crutches in their houses. I guess it was because we were in a country where people go mountain climbing and skiing. Some were quickly brought out. To tell you the truth, I was also very glad to use the western toilet and not the Japanese one. In the end, it was all right, but I could not tell the journalists that I was playing golf because the golf course was supposed to be closed. So we said I had slipped on the stairs. Nakamura: Officially, you had slipped on the stairs in your hotel. Miyazawa: Yes, that was the report. Nakamura: The press said you slipped on the stairs of your hotel and were injured. Miyazawa: We decided on that version of the story. Then when I went back to Japan, I remember that Director-General Wyndham White sent me a letter of sympathy saying: “It seems you went back like a wounded soldier.” This was my experience with the epic Kennedy Round. Overall, I would say that what lingered in my mind from the discussions was an awareness of the problem of what to do about the various non-­tariff barriers. As far as tariff barriers were concerned, we devoted plenty of attention to agricultural and industrial products as well as to mining, but we didn’t discuss non-­tariff barriers. We didn’t take into consideration the service industry either. All these issues were left for later. Moreover, as long as the prerequisite to attend the Rounds is to be a nation which produces both agricultural and industrial products, then countries like Canada or Australia will never be treated as equal. [Participation in the talks] only extends as far as Japan. I was left with an awareness that we should do something in order to gradually involve those countries too. As for Japan, the

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question of rice [prices] will be a source of concern for a long time, and even during the next Round we never reached a solution for the rice issue. Now in Japan we are considering free trade agreements. We signed one with Singapore recently, but we were able to do it because there are no problems with agricultural and marine products. Singapore doesn’t export them, so it is not difficult to reach an agreement. Indeed, we signed one. By contrast, if we wanted an agreement with Mexico, we would meet difficulties because they have [exports of] agricultural and marine products too. So, as long as Japan has rice and fisheries . . . In the case of fruit, we also hear complaints sometimes. If we’re told that cherries are a problem, for example, we could try to say that’s not a big deal, but then cherry farmers in Yamagata Prefecture would get upset. Mikuriya: They’d definitely get upset. [laughs] Miyazawa: That’s why, even though we are planning to start another Round, there is no way to make progress if we rehash such matters. Anyhow, in that sense, it’s fair to say that the Kennedy Round during the 1960s brought positive results. Mikuriya: It is extremely rare that a person would represent his country over such a long span of time, from the beginning to the end of the negotiations, as you did. Miyazawa: Indeed. It is very unusual to have only one Secretary-General. They are all replaced. One more thing I realized keenly is that French is a very useful language. I can’t speak it, but it is the kind of language that, during a debate, allows the speakers to express two opposite concepts in a single line of reasoning. I thought I should learn it, so I started to study it. In the end though, I gave up halfway through. The aspect I am talking about is a distinctive trait of the French language, isn’t it? I often wonder whether [native speakers of French] learn such oratory techniques at school.

Notes i He arrived at Haneda on April 19, 1961. ii She went to the US on a goodwill mission in 1949. In 1950, during a parade for her return, she was heavily criticized by the press for blowing a kiss to the crowd of admirers. In the same year, she left Shōchiku [one of the biggest movie studio and production companies in Japan].

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iii Robert S. McNamara, In Retrospect: the Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam (New York: Times Books, 1995). In Japanese, Makunamara kaikoroku: Betonamu no higeki to kyōkun (translated by Naka Akira; Tokyo: Kyōdō Tsūshinsha, 1997). iv During a Cabinet meeting held on April 17, 2001, the Japanese government officially determined emergency import restrictions (safeguards) on spring onions, shiitake mushrooms and rushes (igusa) imported from China. The safeguard measures aimed to control the massive flow of such imports from China. This was the first time Japan had taken such measures on the basis of WTO regulations.

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The Japan-US Textile Negotiations Translated by Kristin Williams

Appointment as Minister of International Trade and Industry Miyazawa: Today, I would like to talk about the textile negotiations between Japan and the United States. Right around New Year’s, 1970, I had received a rare invitation to play golf with Minister of International Trade and Industry Ōhira [Masayoshi], so I went to the Three Hundred Club [in Chigasaki]. Satō and Nixon had met in Washington [DC] in November 1969,i just the year before, and a general election had followed in December. So Ōhira and I went to the Three Hundred Club just before the establishment of a new Cabinet. Since it seemed likely that Minister Ōhira would remain in his post as Minister of International Trade and Industry, he would have to handle the textile negotiations. I think that Minister Ōhira wanted to ask about my experiences with GATT [the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade] because the textile negotiations had many connections to GATT. Afterward, I heard from Satō Shinji, who later became a Diet representative, that he and his father, Prime Minister Satō [Eisaku], happened to be playing golf at the Three Hundred Club as well. When he saw us, apparently Prime Minister Satō said: “Oh, there go the old and new ministers of international trade and industry.” At that point, Satō was planning on making me the head of MITI [the Ministry of International Trade and Industry] in the new Cabinet. I didn’t know anything about this. Ōhira did not expect this either, which must have been why he was trying to ask me all about textiles. That is how I was appointed Minister of International Trade and Industry. This was completely unexpected, and MITI did not seem to have anticipated it either. When the minister changes, the minister’s secretary changes, but the ministry did not seem to have made arrangements for a secretary. However, I took on my sudden responsibility. As I now recall, I was immediately thrust into situations like press conferences. I tried asking Vice-Minister Ōjimi [Yoshihisa]: “I’m sure I’ll be asked about the textile problem, but do you suppose we could issue a foreign trade control order for the textile problem?”

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Vice-Minister Ōjimi said: “That would be difficult,” and he gave me two reasons why. The first reason was purely legal; the management of international trade is done with laws controlling everything from international currency exchange to international trade, and the Minister of International Trade and Industry can allow restrictions on the export of strategic goods. To be specific, a trade control order would be used to curb the export of strategic goods. “Strategic goods” refers to those which “hinder the maintenance of international peace and security.” As that suggests, an order can be issued to restrict foreign trade only for the purpose of preventing strategic goods from heading somewhere when a war is in progress. Moreover, given this standard of a hindrance to maintaining international peace or security, the only sensible legal rationale in the case of American and Japanese textiles would have to assume some unlikely scenario in which world peace was threatened by an extremely large amount of Japanese textiles going to the US and upsetting the American economy. The other reason given by Vice-Minister Ōjimi was that up to this point there had been restrictions on the export of things like steel and televisions, but since these were all from a few manufacturers, there had been no need to cast a wide net [for offenders]. Even supposing we’d tried to oppose the will of the manufacturers, it would have been unreasonable to police them as well. On top of that, it was not as if there were many kinds of products. You could have unilaterally imposed restrictions if you tried. In reality, there were many things that were done with the consent of the manufacturers, but it would have been technically possible to force them. On the other hand, “textiles” as such don’t really exist, at least not in any essential form. When it comes to the question of how to define “textiles,” there is a vast variety of goods, everything from thread to, at the very end, apparel. So even if you were to regulate it, you would have to make regulations about so many dozen blouses or X pairs of trousers, for example. In addition to this vast variety of goods, the number of manufacturers handling things from thread to apparel, when you include small and medium-­sized enterprises, becomes almost infinite. So regulating [the industry] unilaterally with laws would be impossible in practice without the consent of those affected. Even if you were to try, it would only be possible if all those affected agreed [to the regulations] and cooperated to form an association or some such thing. So with something like the textile problem, which concerns an infinite variety [of manufacturers] rather than an industry per se, if MITI attempted to govern while ignoring consistent opposition, it would face practical problems: insufficient knowledge and technical expertise as well as the lack of a system through which to enforce the regulations. “For both reasons, this is impossible in practice. Maybe you could get a regulation if, in response to your arguments, [the industry] said, ‘That’s fine. We

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understand. Please put us in handcuffs.’ Otherwise, it can’t be done. It’s legally suspect and impossible from a practical standpoint.” Ōjimi is a very prudent man, and that is how he explained it to me. This may be a weakness of my personality, but I don’t like to do things that cannot be done legally. I can’t help thinking that it’s wrong to do something by force when clear regulations are in place, no matter how desirable it might be for the government. I can’t do it. In fact, my own feelings were resolved on the matter relatively quickly. Skipping ahead, the problem finally settled down two years later after Tanaka Kakuei became Minister of International Trade and Industry. In a story that shows the industry’s self-­interest, Tanaka accomplished this by spending well over ¥100 billion for structural reforms.ii Otherwise, I don’t think it could have been done. That’s how it all happened.

Japan-US textile negotiations prior to ministerial appointment Miyazawa: On the American side, the issue arose much earlier. There was a presidential election in 1968, and Nixon was desperate to win this time. To do that, he wanted to win the South, where the textile industry was very important [with many people and organizations involved in the industry]. So Nixon pledged to impose restrictions on Japanese textiles. Nixon won the 1968 election, and the next year, Secretary of Commerce [Maurice] Stans came to Japan with this talk of regulating the textile industry. Stans came with the hope of persuading Japan to impose some kind of regulation of its own. In the textile industry at the time, apart from cotton, the largest items left unregulated were synthetics and wool. Naturally, that’s what he targeted. There is a long-­term agreement on cotton. Stans came to Japan to sound out the possibility of something like that. That was 1969, and Stans met with then Minister of Finance Ōhira. But the Japanese industry was absolutely opposed to the idea, feeling that the US had no place suggesting it then. Which is to say that a legal and commonsense condition when imposing a regulation is that the other party is bearing a commensurate amount of actual hardship. At the root of the unified opposition of the Japanese industry was their disbelief that the admittedly substantial expansion of Japanese textiles and of synthetics, in particular, had caused any great damage on the American side. That was all too clear, even unquestionable. On top of that, despite the usual conflicts of interest due to the diversity of the textile industry, in this case the industry organized extremely quickly due to their shared concern—they could all agree on a problem like the one with synthetic fibers. At that point, Secretary of Commerce Stans went home.

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Later, during the Japan–US Cabinet meetings, Stans met with Ōhira again and asked him to please do something quickly. Ōhira responded: “I can’t insist on regulation if there has been no damage, so I’ll send a study group to assess the damage.” As promised, a study group went out from MITI. Although they may have done a study, they were certainly not going to publish results showing significant harm [to the American textile industry], so this was a way to buy time. At the same time, our fundamental position was that any talk of regulations should be conducted through GATT, rather than with the US, and that we should avoid pursuing two-­country discussions [on the subject]. That was the general situation up to the previous year, 1969. When Ōhira and I talked in January 1970, we expected that the new Cabinet would finally have to talk with the United States; there seemed to be no way of avoiding this. Minister Ōhira sought my opinion about this.

Visiting America for talks with Maurice Stans Miyazawa: So at that point, I unexpectedly entered the picture. The ministry, of course, opposed [regulations] too, emphasizing the absolute opposition on the part of the industry. Approval for regulations was nowhere to be found since the industry and the ministry were completely united in their position. However, Satō thought that we had to try, no matter what, and he asked for my help. To give my own guess at how Satō saw things—Satō and Nixon met in November of the previous year and decided on the reversion of Okinawa [to Japan]. Textiles became mixed up with that issue because of Nixon’s circumstances during the election, as I have mentioned. Maybe Nixon thought he could somehow use the reversion of Okinawa to get Japan to regulate its textiles. Secretary of Commerce Stans, Attorney General Mitchell, and Kissinger were probably thinking that, too. Apart from Kissinger, all of them were later involved in the Watergate scandal. They were a smooth-­talking, shrewd bunch. I think they pressured Satō, trying to win his consent by simultaneously raising the issue of Okinawa. On the other hand, Satō—now I’m just guessing—but up to this point, Japan had made its own regulations on televisions and cameras, protesting all the while. So Satō might have thought there was no reason that only textiles could not be regulated. Naturally, Satō had no way of knowing how complicated the textile industry was. After all, the government had somehow accomplished its aims in the past through persuasion, so I imagine Satō thought this was something that he could accomplish by putting all his effort into convincing people. Even so, Satō would not have written his agreement down on paper, ventured into specifics, or gotten into a discussion of what to do with how many

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pairs of trousers. However, I imagine his general response was probably that he would handle the matter. There were various issues, and Wakaizumi Kei has written a detailed book on the topic.1 I imagine that Satō probably thought that regulations would help [Japan] regain Okinawa, a national priority, and additionally would serve the national interest, especially if the Japanese textile industry was causing the US so much trouble. That was reasonable enough. At the time, I imagine he thought that it was feasible, that it was something that could be done no matter how opposed the industry might be. As a practical problem, even if the legal problems were forcibly resolved, the administration could not take a single step if the industry refused to cooperate. Products would have to be controlled one by one. But Satō, understandably enough, did not know that. At least, that is what I imagine. I think Satō gave Nixon the impression that he would do his best. This was the background. The American side seemed to try to take advantage of this situation to reach an agreement between Japan and the US. Consequently, I had to deal with these discussions between Japan and the US as soon as I became Minister of International Trade and Industry. I went to the US on . . . Mikuriya: Wasn’t it June 19, [1970]? Miyazawa: Yes, that was it. I left on June 19, but before that there was an OECD [Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development] meeting in Paris around May 20. That time the [textile] industry sent many representatives to Paris because they guessed that I would be holding some discussions at the OECD. During the OECD meeting, I asked to speak to the head of the GATT office, a man named Long. Since the story related to GATT, in any case, I explained the situation to him. After that, Shimoda [Takesō], Ambassador to the United States, came from the US to meet me in Paris. The industry representatives were watching closely for meetings between Shimoda2 and me because Shimoda’s aim was to somehow accomplish what Satō was talking of doing. But in the end, nothing happened there. When it was decided that I would go to the US in June—it just so happened that one of my few close friends from the days of [Joseph] Dodge, a man called [Ralph W. E.] Reid, was in the US. He’s since passed away. He called me to say: “I hear you’re coming to speak with Stans. Actually, Stans asked me a favor.” Reid

See Kei Wakaizumi, The Best Course Available: A Personal Account of the Secret US-Japan Okinawa Reversion Negotiations, ed. John Swenson-Wright (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press in association with Program on Education and Training, East-West Center, 2002). 2 Miyazawa refers to Shimoda in a familiar way, as “Shimoda-­kun.” 1

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was a businessman who had many friends in the political world as well, having once served in such positions as Assistant Director of the Bureau of the Budget. He said Stans had asked him to call with this message: “There’s a one-­page document with the prime minister. Stans says to go and look at it before you leave. I don’t know what this is about. He said to tell you, so I’m telling you.” I didn’t know what it was either, but I agreed and went to see Satō. I told Satō, “I will be leaving soon. Before I go, I was told there was a document I should look at. Do you have something like that?” Satō responded, “There’s nothing of the sort. Go and don’t worry about it.” I’ll talk about that later, but I set off and met with Stans in Washington [DC] for three days beginning May 22. Before that, I had asked Minister of Foreign Affairs Aichi [Kiichi] to come along to the meeting as well. I just couldn’t come to an understanding with Stans, and I was afraid the talks would break down, in which case there could be problems later unless the foreign affairs minister was there to resolve the situation So I asked, “Mr. Aichi, I’m sorry, but could I ask you to lend a hand?” and Aichi was kind enough to come along. Incidentally, Minister of Foreign Affairs Aichi’s position on the textile negotiations was completely different from that of the prime minister. Aichi was rather strongly inclined to handle the negotiations over Okinawa properly without making the mistake of allowing it to become tangled up with the textile [issue]. That meant he would be an ally. That’s why he came along, but I held the negotiations with Stans by myself. Stans had an apartment at the Watergate, which would later become famous. I went there in the morning. It seemed as though Stans must have been fond of safaris—all the chairs were elephant feet. (everyone laughs) Dreadful hobby, isn’t it? I thought it was a really bad hobby for this guy, in particular. Then we met for about four hours, until it was close to lunchtime. Though just an amateur, I had done my best to study up on the subject, but Stans actually knew it well. When I asked, I found that he had started as a certified public accountant. That’s why his grasp of the subject was so strong. I was impressed that he knew the issue so well, but because of that, we got nowhere after four hours of discussion. We would talk about details, and we couldn’t seem to make progress on the broader issue. After a while, Stans turned to me and said: “Actually, there is a sheet of paper that I had wanted you to see before leaving Japan. But I have a sheet of paper here from the meeting between Satō and Nixon last year.” I said: “I made sure that there was no such document before I left. I won’t look at it,” and I didn’t. However, according to Stans’ explanation, on that paper was written an agreement for the self-­regulation of textiles for five years. It pertained to a comprehensive list of items. In short, it included everything, without exception, with regulations for each individual product. The regulations would automatically adjust from year to year with the intent of setting the annual growth at 5 percent for synthetics

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and 1 percent for wool, using 1969 as the base year. “That’s what Satō and Nixon discussed,” he said. I said, “There is no such document. I don’t know anything about this.” But Stans emphasized that Satō and Nixon had come to that agreement. Even when I think back on it now, as I said earlier, I imagine that Satō would have thought textiles could be regulated just as televisions and cameras were regulated. But Satō would not have ventured further to say that textiles would be regulated for five years or that the annual growth would be set at whatever amount. He wasn’t familiar with things like that. Even supposing Stans had said: “For example, what about this?” I think that, at most, Satō could possibly have said something like, “I’ll discuss it with the officials in charge.” Still, Stans was saying: “An agreement has been reached.” I said: “I haven’t heard about this. I don’t buy that story.” After about four hours of this, the day ended. I was already starting to think [these discussions] wouldn’t work. Still, I tried again the next day because I had three days to at least try my hardest. This time, Stans said that, although the regulations were [supposed to be] for five years, he could give a little on the five years. [I told him that] even if Japan were to try this, it would be for about a year at most; no matter what the conditions, the Japanese industry could not possibly think of doing this for more than a year or a year and a half. Stans said that in that case, three and a half years might be acceptable and continued talking. To me, the biggest problem was a fundamental mismatch—we were talking at cross-­purposes. I thought, “This is impossible!” and the second day ended. As I was heading to the Department of Commerce on the third and final day, twenty or thirty people from the industry came to my hotel. It would be nice to say they left Japan to cheer on the Minister of International Trade and Industry, but actually they came with the idea that I had to be watched closely. However, I was thinking that the talks in fact had broken down. On the third day, UnderSecretary of State [U.] Alexis Johnson came, in addition to Stans, so there were four of us including Reid and me. At this point we were supposed to finalize things, but Stans spoke about that document once again, saying “Satō and Nixon had an agreement about this.” I was angry, and I wanted to speak my mind clearly for once since I figured that the negotiations were already breaking down, in any case. So I said: “You keep saying that, but you yourself know that there was no such agreement.” UnderSecretary of State Johnson was there, and as there was no point of continuing the discussion just between Stans and myself, I asked [Johnson]: “I will ask the Department of State because this has to do with diplomatic relations. Do you think this document exists?” I asked Johnson recklessly because I was so angry. When I said: “If you think it exists, say you think it exists,” Johnson said something vague like, “That’s just a secondary problem. It has only a secondary

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meaning.” So I said: “That’s not what I’m asking. If the Department of State really thinks the document exists, then say so. I heard from the prime minister that no such thing exists. Why don’t we clarify this?” Johnson responded: “I think it is as the Japanese prime minister said.” “Very well, then. These talks were breaking down, in any case, and the fact that it’s now clear that this strange paper doesn’t exist just confirms that.” Then we had to issue a joint statement saying that the discussions had broken off. The joint statement read, “After fully examining the problem from all angles, the minister and the secretary came to the conclusion that, at this point in time, it is not possible to come to a mutual agreement through negotiations regarding the self-­regulation of the export of textile products from Japan to the United States of America.” The previous day, Kissinger and Secretary of State Rogers visited Minister of Foreign Affairs Aichi, completely apart from me, to ask him to do something to avoid having the negotiations break down, but nothing came of this. Kissinger himself had no direct connection to the textile industry. However, as Wakaizumi3 says, Kissinger would have known [the situation] because of course he was affected by its relation to the Okinawa negotiations as a whole. As far as I know, Rogers expressed reluctance at becoming involved in such an irregular situation. I heard that Rogers said he would have nothing to do with it, and this was discussed at the time as well. So to its credit, the Department of State was not involved. However, that means that the White House itself was involved. So the final result of the three days was that the negotiations broke down. I knew that Satō wanted to try to do something because [the textile industry on] the American side seemed to be having trouble, too. Still, I thought there was nothing to do but break off the negotiations since the two sides were so far apart that it was impossible to compromise. As soon as I returned to Tokyo, I submitted my resignation to Chief Cabinet Secretary Hori [Shigeru] with the explanation: “Considering the circumstances under which I became Minister of International Trade and Industry, I am submitting my resignation because I feel that my mission has ended in failure.” Then Hori met with Prime Minister Satō, who rejected my resignation letter. Given the situation as I’ve described it, it became clear to me that Satō wanted me to settle the matter. Among my memories from those times is one point when Satō said: “Miyazawa,4 in the end this is all about business. When it comes to buying and selling, it’s fine to use logic to a certain degree, but buying and selling aren’t completely logical, right?” I thought: “Well, yes, that’s all true,” and yet, I had no way to control the industry. I couldn’t reach an agreement, but I Miyazawa refers to Wakaizumi as “Wakaizumi-­kun.” Satō refers to Miyazawa as “Miyazawa-­kun.”

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couldn’t take control of them by force. So there was just no way to settle the issue. That was the general course of things up until the negotiations with Stans ended in an impasse. As I think back, Stans and Attorney General Mitchell—closely involved in the so-­called Watergate Scandal—were part of Nixon’s “inner circle,” and surely schemed over the textiles issue as well. That’s what I think now, and I imagine it was done with the intention of protecting the Nixon Administration somehow.

Self-­regulation by Japan Miyazawa: Anyway, after the meetings between Stans and me broke down, discussions stopped for a time but there is a long story about what happened later. This involved a member of the House of Representatives called Wilbur Mills. Mills was the extremely powerful chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. This man’s approach was rather different from the government’s: he knew about textiles, thought of introducing a regulatory bill of some kind, and tried listening to both sides. The Japanese [textile] industry also expected something of Mills. I met him too. Eventually, the discussion of textiles turned to proposals from the Japanese industry about what should be done, instead of ridiculous demands such as those Stans was making. That was because even the industry could see that Japan–US relations were not going well, and the Japanese economy as a whole was in an uproar, just because of the textile industry. At the time, there were various people like Taniguchi Toyosaburō and Ōya Shinzō, who probably felt that they, in particular, had to do something about the situation because they were representatives of the business community. That’s how a proposal for self-­ regulation was formed on the Japanese side. The proposal for self-­regulation on the Japanese side that was drafted by the textile industry in October of that year had four points, which addressed such issues as whether the regulatory framework should be a comprehensive system. What did this mean? With trousers, for example, if the number were set at however many dozen pairs, then the quota would quickly be filled by whatever was popular at the time. When that happened, [the manufacturers] would have no flexibility. If they worked within a comprehensive framework, then it would be an issue of borrowing from the limits somewhere else, so they were opposed to a framework based on regulating each thing separately. And then, second, they could not accept a limit on the growth rate of exports that was set at less than 10 percent. Third, the base year was to be set at the most recent year. Fourth, the regulation was not to be enforced only between Japan and the United States but was to apply to the three East Asian countries of South Korea, Taiwan, and

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Hong Kong at the same time. If the government were to make an agreement that ignored [the industry’s demands], the industry would oppose [the agreement] even if that meant calling for forceful measures, including a simultaneous shutdown of all operations. Such was the content of the proposal. That was our proposal for self-­regulation, which the textile industry had decided upon. It mentioned Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong because the Japanese industry had branches5 or competitors in those places and everyone, especially Japan, was [engaged in similar negotiations with] the United States. One of the key points of the problem was to act together because if one country acted first, it would cause trouble for the others. This was the basic line put out by the industry. And in November, the industry made a final decision on its proposal for textile self-­regulation of seventeen products in six categories. In February of the following year, Representative Mills suggested that, in the event that the negotiations between governments did not result in an agreement, unilateral self-­regulation by the Japanese government and industry alone might work. Accordingly, we finalized a policy for unilateral self-­regulation on the Japanese side since Mills agreed and, after all, this was supposed to be self-­regulation. When things reached this point, the US protested that these were to have been negotiations between governments, but Mills actually got involved and the declaration of [Japan’s] proposal for regulation went forward. We notified the US via Ambassador Ushiba [Nobuhiko] that the negotiations between the governments would now be cut off because the Japanese industry had already imposed its self-­regulation. In fact, we saw this as the resolution. Mills himself told the American industry to accept it. The Japanese government was relieved to be done with the long discussions, and Chief Cabinet Secretary Hori issued a statement. An article in the Asahi Shinbun on March 9, 1971, stated, “Declaration of Textile Self-­regulation. Sense of Relief for the Government. Duty to the President Fulfilled.” But the next day, March 10, there was a column reading, “White House Dissatisfied with Textile Self-­regulation. Settlement of Governmental Negotiations Undecided.” By March 11, it was, “President Nixon Effectively Rejects Japanese Industry’s Declaration of Self-­regulation. Endorses Legislation to Impose Quotas on Textile Imports,” meaning that the US was talking of making laws. After some consideration, the Japanese industry voluntarily announced a proposal that it could follow regardless. Mills was quite sympathetic as well, and the proposal was made. But the White House was unhappy that Satō had never made an intergovernmental agreement. Even though everyone was

Miyazawa uses the English word, “branch.”

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saying that this finally cleared up the situation, the White House was not amused and remained very dissatisfied.

Reaching an agreement between the two governments Miyazawa: In the midst of all this, I was allowed to step down as Minister of International Trade and Industry in July 1971, and Tanaka Kakuei became Head of MITI. Around that time, Nixon’s special envoy, a man called Kennedy, began visiting Japan. He and Tanaka, the new Minister of International Trade and Industry, were steadfast in their attempts to reach an intergovernmental agreement. Kennedy threatened that the US would impose import quotas unilaterally if an agreement between the governments really could not be reached. Given the urgent situation, Mr. Tanaka pressed on toward concluding an agreement between Japan and the United States by September or October. And on October 15, “US Ambassador-­at-Large Kennedy Signs Intergovernmental Memorandum of Understanding on Japan-US Textiles with Minister of International Trade and Industry Tanaka.” At that point, Ōya Shinzō was furious, and he said: “It’s the same as if Tanaka6 had done nothing at all—utterly deplorable. None of the items has been met. It’s so bad, it’s impossible to talk about it.” Ōya’s criticism reflects the industry’s sense of pain over the agreement. Among the events that followed was a no-­confidence vote against Minister of International Trade and Industry Tanaka in the Diet. Mr. Ōya said something like: “In the next election, we won’t donate money, and we won’t vote [for the LDP]. This was [all a result of] Nixon’s bid for popularity in the election.” Ultimately, on February 17, the news had become, “Cabinet Meeting: Decision to Pay ¥127.8 Billion in Textile Industry Rescue Plan to Accompany Japan-US Textile Agreement (Equipment purchases; long-­term, low-­interest financing for working capital; etc.).” Textiles are an industry of permanent recession, so there is always equipment left over. There’s always something the industry wants to sell off. Also, the industry holds accumulated freight, so it always needs low-­interest capital and is thus forever in need of structural improvements. Even so, the industry includes everything from thread to apparel, so depending on how much money you spend, part of the industry will stop whining. In the end, after everything that had happened and everyone that was upset, the situation settled down because Tanaka finally told the industry he would distribute money and that cry as they might, he would handle the situation with a trade control order. Ōya refers to Tanaka as “Tanaka-­kun.”

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In the end, I tried to do what I could according to my own philosophy but never resolved the problem. With Minister of International Trade and Industry Tanaka’s decision to spend over ¥100 billion, the industry finally stopped whining.

The key players Mikuriya: Names of people in the textile industry came up just now—Taniguchi and Ōya as well as Miyazaki [Kagayaki] of Asahi Chemical—and these were all leaders in the industry for a long time. What impression did you have of them when you actually sat down together for negotiations? Miyazawa: Since you ask, I’ll be frank. I thought Mr. Taniguchi was a fine man. Prior to this, I had not known him very well, but sure enough, I was impressed with him. However, Taniguchi was relentless when he rolled up his sleeves7— nothing got in his way—but that was inevitable. Since Mr. Ōya was half politician, it was hard to know what he was thinking when it came to discussions like these. On the other hand, Mr. Miyazaki was the king of theorists. He was well-­informed, and he spoke very logically. But he didn’t seem to think about much outside of textiles. In fact, Miyazaki emerged as the central figure, and I think he generated ideas that the others followed. You probably don’t know the name, but there was also a man called Kondō Komatarō, who was from Ōsaka. He was from a group of small to medium apparel enterprises. He was quite successful. Kondō was an entertaining man and also quite a leader, though of course not the same type as in the finance community. Also, there was Mr. Yasui in the finance community. Mikuriya: Toray, right? Miyazawa: Yes, Mr. Yasui Kizō. Mr. Taniguchi is the one I remember best. Mr. Miyazaki was the one who gave me the most trouble. Keidanren would be about to say: “Shouldn’t we do something since it’s become such a big problem between Japan and the US?” But the textile industry would say: “Then what are you going to do to make it up to our industry? How can you talk when you don’t know anything?” So Keidanren found itself unable to voice an opinion the whole time. Individually, members spoke their minds freely and said things like: “What is this? The textile industry only thinks of itself, doesn’t it?” But there was no one who could say such things to their faces.

Literally, tied on a headband (hachimaki), which implies getting down to work.

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Mikuriya: So there wasn’t anything you could say to their faces. When you were Minister of International Trade and Industry, I imagine you reported to Prime Minister Satō when you returned from Japan after the negotiations ended. What was your sense of Satō at the time? Miyazawa: I saw Prime Minister Satō sometimes during the day, and I would report to him about this or that in the evening, even sometimes after a banquet. Now that you mention it, I thought he was thinking something like: “Aren’t you going to try to do something, Miyazawa? You never say the kinds of things that other public officials say. Aren’t you going to try to do something?” I understood, and I knew I should probably do something. I realized that this was why I had been appointed, but things never seemed to go the way I planned. At times, I thought Satō was absolutely right when he said: “It’s all just business in the end, isn’t it?” Even so, I myself was stuck on the idea of a trade regulation; I felt I couldn’t do it in clear conscience. The industry was opposed to anything and everything, but that’s not to say that overcoming the opposition with a trade regulation would have been fine. While they really were opposed [to any trade regulation], it would have been different if the industry had said: “Please make such-­and-such a trade regulation and get it over with,” but they never went that far. The interests of the industry as a whole didn’t coincide to that degree. For example, the big [manufacturers] “upstream” might be Toray or Teijin for something like thread, and the final point downstream for apparel might be blouses and trousers. Speaking for the smallest [enterprises], Kondō Komatarō voiced strong opposition, saying: “We can’t have the people at the top making an agreement that only suits their own interests.” There was no one person in the industry who could speak for everyone. That was a particularly difficult aspect of the process. For example, if it were the steel industry, even if Inayama [Yoshihiro] had been fighting with everyone, you could say: “Alright now,” and you could probably make it happen. In fact, it would probably get done without any fighting at all. The [textile] industry isn’t organized in the same way. It’s incredibly diverse, the numbers are large, and on top of that, there are Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Korea to consider—it can’t be organized. So while I was continually in opposition to them, when I think about it, I’m sure the people in the industry were in a fairly difficult position, too. Mikuriya: You must have held some lively meetings. Miyazawa: I don’t know how many times it happened. It was rough—I had to roll up my sleeves and press on. I guess that’s what happens when you have that kind of pressure from below.

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Mikuriya: On the other hand, how was your relationship with MITI? Miyazawa: MITI was, in short, against regulating. Setting aside what bureau heads not involved with administering this might have thought, the textile bureau, in particular, was absolutely opposed. They were always watching me, thinking I might compromise somewhere. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it surveillance, but [the bureau] had close ties to the industry. They were involved in it together; they didn’t seem to need to be forced to cooperate. Instead, in the end, when the money was paid and the plan was decided—when it came to that stage, MITI seemed to have guided the industry. Or, rather, there was no reason for it to have made a management system together with the industry, had the industry been so inclined. From MITI’s standpoint, this issue was something it couldn’t help opposing since you could say that we sold out textiles to buy Okinawa. In the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, there seemed to be both those who saw it that way and those who thought we would be better off compromising after all. Well, I suppose the compromise faction might have been larger. Mikuriya: What did you make of Mr. Shimoda? Miyazawa: Mr. Shimoda firmly believed that since this was in the national interest, we ought to do as the Prime Minister said. That was how Ambassador Ushiba really felt too. I think people like Ambassador Ushiba were probably thinking: “It will be a problem if the US makes unreasonable demands, but isn’t it best to compromise, considering the various circumstances?” It’s a complicated world, isn’t it? When I returned to Japan after finally breaking off the meetings with Stans, there was even an editorial saying something like, “You did well.” There was a sort of nationalistic element to this story, I guess. Mikuriya: How did Hori seem to view things? Miyazawa: I don’t know about Aichi [sic], but you might say that everyone except me was anxious to somehow get this wrapped up. They may have been receiving appeals from the industry, but I suppose there were many people who thought: “It wouldn’t be good if Japan and the US were unable to settle the matter because of this.” The others were all probably the same. In addition, when you start telling the story of textiles, everyone generally understands the beginning easily. But when you wade in, you quickly find yourself in deep water. The first part is easy to understand. However, characteristically, when it came to actually taking action, the situation always became difficult to understand. That’s why novices generally believed it would be fine if we just did something.

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Satō was also becoming nervous. With the textile problem alone, there were probably various storylines besides mine, each progressing a little at a time. It was bound to turn out like that once the discussion actually turned to trousers and blouses. So telegrams from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs were constantly full of names of goods. There were even stages of negotiations concerned with how many dozen of whatever [product]. At that point, [the messages] might include a mixture of things that were someone’s ideas, rather than the government’s negotiations. In some cases, some of these might have had a slight connection to the Prime Minister. I don’t know about that because even those would come, unmarked, in telegrams from Washington. The Prime Minister would look at the numbers on the telegrams, and all the telegrams would be sent to him because he had asked that they all be forwarded to his office. Sometimes a number would be skipped, and in those cases, apparently Satō would ask: “Don’t you have telegrams you haven’t forwarded to me?” Actually, we weren’t doing anything wrong. It so happened in the interval a telegram would come in related to some minor office work, someone’s passport maybe, and that would take up a number. So it wasn’t that anyone was preventing telegrams related to the textile problem itself from reaching the Prime Minister’s office. Instead, telegrams we would never dream of—about trousers of all things—were coming in. As you know, Ambassador Shimoda and Ambassador Ushiba were in Washington. I realized from time to time that they were receiving some ideas from Satō. The route of negotiations had diversified, hadn’t it? Wakaizumi didn’t write about textiles in that book, did he? Mikuriya: He announced that he wouldn’t write about textiles. Miyazawa: Oh, is that so? He didn’t write about it? There was a part that somehow seemed related; the busy Prime Minister had no choice but to use telegrams because it would be impossible to get anywhere talking about trousers over international telephone calls. Maybe there was something about that. Mikuriya: So Satō read the telegrams closely. Miyazawa: He looked at them. Mikuriya: So to put it another way, in a sense, the textile problem was the Prime Minister’s affair. Miyazawa: Absolutely, it was. That’s why, as I said earlier, Satō said he would do his best, at first thinking in general terms that he would be able to do something. But as he tried, he gradually waded into deep water, and in fact, he seems to have

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gotten himself into a predicament. However, no matter how much he tried to tell Nixon that, Nixon didn’t understand, so the fact of the matter was that he ran into trouble midway through. Nakamura: You mentioned Secretary Stans’ sheet of paper earlier. Did Satō really not know about it? Miyazawa: This is only my guess, but according to what Stans said, the period of self-­regulation was to be for five years. Up to that point, the story is not so complex that you can’t understand it with common sense. The fact that it would cover all varieties of goods is another thing you can understand with ordinary words. And it’s not that you couldn’t understand the question of how much the annual increase should be since a base year would be necessary. That was about as much as Stans said was included. Those three are within the bounds of what you can begin to grasp with ordinary common sense. But I really can’t imagine that Satō and Nixon went that far in their discussions. When Satō said: “Right, I’ll take appropriate steps,” even if—I don’t know if anyone was there or not but—even if someone had been there to interject something like, “For how many years?” or “All textiles?” or “What will we do about growth?,” Satō would surely have said: “Well, let’s have the appropriate officials handle that.” I don’t think he would have responded to that by agreeing to everything. So I can’t believe that, having come to that point and eventually having promised to take appropriate steps, Satō would have accepted a document written down by the other side. Because there was no reason for them to go into such detail. Satō was a cautious man, so he surely said: “Why not have the appropriate officials handle such things?” I believe there’s a discrepancy on this point. Accordingly, he would never have put down on paper that he would take certain steps. But what might have happened as they were leaving the meeting is this: the other party could have written up a paper and asked Satō to take it back with him. But even that seems unlikely. Nakamura: Especially if it specified a certain percentage per year. Compared to that, talk of textiles as a whole or something like that is still understandable. Miyazawa: That’s still within the realm of common sense, and if you made an effort, you could roughly grasp the question of what annual growth to see based on a set year since there is growth each year. But this degree of detail would never have been written down on paper. Mikuriya: When you spoke to Stans, did he make it seem that that was a fait accompli?

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Miyazawa: That was my impression. That’s why I turned to Under-Secretary of State Johnson and demanded: “What do you think?” Stans may have thought it was true. Stans himself didn’t put the paper in Satō’s hand, and he might have heard about the meeting from someone else. Then it becomes a question of who was actually there. Maybe Kissinger was there. Maybe Mitchell was there. I don’t know. I find it hard to see that paper exchange being based on fact. But I do think Satō may have said something like: “I’ll take appropriate steps.” Mikuriya: When you went to Stans’ place, you said that he had a terrible hobby. Was he a little different from the people with whom you had negotiated up to that point? Miyazawa: I was most impressed with how well-­informed Stans was. In that respect, he was different from ordinary American politicians. That’s what I noticed most. I’m sure he had studied, and he had also worked in that field. So really, Nixon’s close associates—take Stans or Mitchell for example—they were all men of considerable ability, weren’t they? Rogers was the only one who—didn’t I say he didn’t like this kind of situation? Kissinger claimed he didn’t know anything about textiles, but [the textile issue] was right there in the whole secret agreement. That Nixon was an incomparable schemer, so he was probably at the bottom of it. Nakamura: This is a bad way of putting it, but [was their attitude] something like “Let’s really get those guys” . . .? Miyazawa: In this case, between Okinawa and the textiles, that does seem plausible. I don’t know how much Wakaizumi did. He just appeared and disappeared. Nakamura: As for Satō himself, were there examples of him using personal messengers other than legitimate ones from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or elsewhere in the government? Miyazawa: I don’t know that, but Wakaizumi might have served as a messenger for him. Nakamura: I think so. To give just one example, I have a close friend who is a China specialist, Etō Shinkichi. After Mr. Satō passed away, Etō wrote a biography of Satō, just a slim volume.8 In that book, Etō writes that Satō summoned him to

See Etō Shinkichi, Satō Eisaku (Jiji Tsūshin sha, 1987).

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his private residence from time to time and that they exchanged information about China. Mikuriya: That is the only reason a person so unlikely to write about Satō’s life could write a biography of Mr. Satō later. I have that book because I received it as a gift. Nakamura: I don’t think it’s a lie. He isn’t the type of person to make up something like that. So there’s no mistake that it happened. In which case, I have a feeling that there might have been other such people; Wakaizumi and Etō are rather different types. Miyazawa: I suppose so. Why did Wakaizumi move to Fukui? He was at Kyōto Sangyō University. Nakamura: I think he was a professor there for a long time. Miyazawa: I wonder if he decided not to show his face in public any more because he was entrusted with this work—what you might call a secret life. What do you think? Mikuriya: I had asked that, too, but according to Kasuya Kazuki who was the chief editor of Chūō kōron,9 he got burnt out and lost almost all his energy. On top of that, he could not speak about it. So feeling very depressed, he quit Kyōto Sangyō and secluded himself in Fukui. However, I remember hearing that when he learned that he had cancer, he felt that he had to leave a record of what had happened, so he wrote that bookiii as a sort of battle with cancer.

Qiao Guanhua Miyazawa: When I became Minister of Foreign Affairs—it was 1975—I had the task of drafting the Sino-Japanese Peace and Friendship Treaty. That year, the first order of things was to go to Moscow to continue earlier negotiations for a peace treaty. It was in January 1975. Under those circumstances, the creation of a Sino-Japanese Peace and Friendship Treaty became a pending issue. However,

Chūō kōron (The Central Review) is a long-­running monthly magazine that includes both literary selections and articles on current affairs.

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China happened to have the fourth National People’s Congress in January of that year, and it issued a new Constitution. According to the preamble, up to this point China had claimed an enduring friendship with the Soviet Union, but that was changing.10 The Constitution’s preamble said that China must “oppose social-­imperialist policies of aggression and war and oppose the hegemonism of the superpowers.”11 That reflected the fact that relations between China and the Soviet Union had suddenly worsened. It just so happened that with the Sino-Japanese Peace and Friendship Treaty, the question of whether or not to include a clause stating our mutual opposition to hegemonism had originally been discussed by the Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs and the ambassador to Japan, but that part [of the discussion] had not gone very well. On our side was Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs Tōgō Fumihiko, and on the other side was Ambassador to Japan Chen Chu. The normalization of relations between China and Japan had occurred in September 1972, and in the joint statement made at that time it was written that neither country should seek hegemony. So [Chen Chu] asked why we wouldn’t include in the treaty what we said in the joint statement, and he emphasized this point. On our side, we saw the treaty as settling rights and obligations, so if we said that neither would seek hegemony, we would have to say who we had in mind. We couldn’t say such a thing, and the two parties could not reach a consensus on this point. Since that was the case, I decided to set out general principles at that time. First, we were opposed to hegemony, not only in the Asia-Pacific region but throughout the world. Additionally, the clause was not aimed at specific third parties, it did not imply joint action by Japan and China, and we did not oppose the spirit of the Charter of the United Nations. I suggested that we negotiate after establishing a definition for “hegemony.” However, while we were working on this, the power struggle that accompanied the Cultural Revolution in China seemed to be growing more complicated. It became very difficult to make progress on the treaty negotiations. Around that time, I left to attend the United Nations General Assembly, which happened to be held in New York in September. Since the Chinese Minister of

The changes in China’s relationship with the Soviet Union are mentioned, not in the preamble to the Constitution, but in a report given a few days prior to the adoption of the Constitution. Among other statements of the Soviet Union is this: “The Soviet leadership have taken a series of steps to worsen the relations between the two countries, conducted subversive activities against our country and even provoked armed conflicts on the border.” Chou En-­lai,“Report on the Work of the Government,” in Documents of the First Session of the Fourth National People’s Congress of the People’s Republic of China (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1975), p. 61. 11 Miyazawa’s quote is almost exact. The line is “oppose the imperialist and social-­imperialist policies . . .” in the official English translation of the preamble. “The Constitution of the People’s Republic of China,” in Documents of the First Session of the Fourth National People’s Congress of the People’s Republic of China (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1975), p. 9. 10

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Foreign Affairs Qiao Guanhua was also attending, we decided that the two of us might as well negotiate the treaty directly. Qiao Guanhua and I met for treaty negotiations twice: on September 24 and September 27. I carefully explained that our opposition to hegemony neither referred to specific third parties nor implied joint action between China and Japan. I think Qiao Guanhua understood me well on that point. But Qiao Guanhua himself was saying: “Relations between the two countries aren’t bad now. There’s no need to rush to make a treaty of peace and friendship this time, is there? The sky won’t fall.” On the first day, we met at the home of the Japanese ambassador. We talked about this and that and ate dinner. My impression of Qiao Guanhua was that he was a delightful man. We’d finished talking, we had a drink . . . What was the story? It was September and mid-­autumn, so I told the story of Li Bo’s “Emei Mountain Moon.”iv Qiao Guanhua said: “In that case, what about “Changan— One Slip of Moon?”v Both of us told our stories in a fairly amusing way. Qiao Guanhua said: “I’ll show you a little dance for ‘Chang-­an—one slip of moon; / in ten thousand houses, the sound of fulling mallets.”’ He danced for me to his own singing, and it was really entertaining. Qiao Guanhua was the one who said that there was no need to worry about making the treaty of peace and friendship right now. You might even say we were a good match. I enjoyed being with him. The second day, we met at the official residence of the Chinese ambassador, and at that time it was virtually impossible to make progress on the treaty negotiations regarding the problem of hegemonism. One reason was that power relations in China were growing complicated. Qiao Guanhua’s wife had come as well. I heard she was a favorite of Madame Jiang Qing. All of them wore the same uniform-­type clothing, but the material was different. She was wearing something first class. [laughs] Nakamura: Yes, those were the days of the Mao suit, weren’t they? Miyazawa: In the midst of the power relations surrounding Mao Zedong, I really felt I didn’t know what on earth was going on. Then [Qiao Guanhua and I] parted ways, and after I returned to Japan, I communicated that I wanted to finalize what we had discussed. However, I was afraid that with the slight differences between Japanese and Chinese characters, we might be speaking at cross-­purposes. Especially with the phrasing of “neither one seeking hegemony.” Because of that, I thought I might just try writing it in English. I had a specialist from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs write the whole treaty in English. It was the Treaties Bureau. This is a story that never got out. Our UN ambassador went to the Chinese UN ambassador in New York and handed him the treaty, asking him to have it conveyed back to his country.

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I don’t know what happened after that. It was probably sent back to China. But I have no idea what became of it. The country was likely in shambles at that point. I never heard any news of Qiao Guanhua after that time, either. I heard something about someone seeing him in Hong Kong, but I’m not at all sure. So that is the story of how the English-­language treaty draft became an apparition. In the end, the treaty was made after the Cultural Revolution had ended and everything was at peace, but there was this [earlier] episode.

Andrei Gromyko Miyazawa: Also, on the Russo-Japanese side, I went to negotiate a peace treaty with Gromyko in January of that year [1975]. That was not the first time I had met Gromyko. In fact, he was the Soviet representative at the San Francisco Peace Conference in 1951, so he was terribly long-­lived. After I became Minister of Foreign Affairs, I went to negotiate the Russo-Japanese treaty that, in the end, we had not been able to conclude at that time.12 Actually, since this was ’75, it had been twenty-­some years. At that time, Gromyko basically denied that the territorial dispute existed. His only response was: “Anyway, we have to think about things realistically, don’t we?” Since he was saying things like: “I think those issues are in the past,” I said: “By ‘realistically,’ do you mean that the Soviet Union took the territories because Japan lost and that, if we’re upset about it, we should just try going to war again?” He responded: “No, that’s not what I’m saying. That discussion is long since over. There’s no use bringing it up again at this late date, is there?” He kept saying that the whole time. Also, we met for several days, but on the first day, we went into the reception hall. Anyway, I’ve heard that the walls have ears and the sliding doors have eyes. When I went to the restroom, the horseshoe-­shaped toilet seat fell down while I was taking care of business. I told everyone, “The Soviet Union is hopeless— they’re such an advanced country that they can come up with things like Sputnik, but they can’t handle something like this.” When I went to look the next day, it had been completely fixed. Now maybe it was a coincidence, but . . . I thought, “What a strange country this is.” When we tried to make a joint statement, we had a very difficult time writing the text because Gromyko’s official stance was that the territorial dispute did not The USSR left the 1951 San Francisco Peace Conference without signing the resulting peace treaty. In the treaty, Japan renounced its claims to the Kurile Islands, but the matter is complicated by the fact that the USSR was not party to the treaty. Japan still claims the southern Kuriles, the islands closest to Hokkaidō. The territorial dispute mentioned in this section concerns these islands, which are claimed by Japan but occupied by Russia.

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exist. Also, Gromyko was supposed to come to Tokyo the following year, but that was not clear either. So we just couldn’t write a joint statement. Meanwhile, since at the time we didn’t travel on our own planes but on Japan Airlines commercial liners, the departure time was approaching. I felt that at this point we didn’t need something like a joint statement. It wouldn’t really matter if I returned to Japan with something like that. If the other party was not amenable, I would give up on making one. I told everyone we might as well pack up our bags and go to the airport. I had everyone put together their luggage. I planned to start my own packing, but just then Gromkyo unexpectedly arrived at our lodgings. I wondered what had happened, but he said, “We’re still making a joint statement, right?” We started writing, and just when I thought it was over, Gromkyo said he was riding along with me in the car to the airport. When we got to the airport, the plane had been waiting for hours. Gromkyo brought out tea and sake. I said: “I have to hurry because the plane is waiting.” Gromkyo said: “No, the plane can’t leave until I say it can leave. Don’t worry about it.” [everyone laughs] In the end, had it been necessary to spend so much time on the joint statement? What a strange experience it was. The next year, Gromyko came to Japan. When he got here, he said: “I don’t like that all the Japanese newspapers wrote about the territorial dispute when I was coming to Japan. I guess you made them write that.” But I said: “Made them write it? Japan is not the kind of country where you can do such things.” We ate dinner at the Shinkiraku and had a really good time. Gromyko had a funny side, and he liked to use English. He’d tell jokes even though the people around him didn’t like it. But I guess he’d been doing that for decades. In a country like that, where the battle for survival was fierce, he had to have been skilled at getting along in the world to hold the position of highest authority over diplomacy. However, in this case, his official stance seemed to be that there really was no territorial dispute. The reality hasn’t changed at all, but as you’d expect, these days no one says such things. Nakamura: In Hatoyama Ichirō’s time, they admitted the existence of the territorial dispute, didn’t they? Miyazawa: They acknowledged only Shikotan Island and the Habomai Islands at that time.13

Shikotan Island (Shikotan) and the Habomai Islands (Khabomai Rocks) are the smallest of the disputed islands. The remaining two islands in dispute are Etorofu Island (Iturup) and Kunashiri Island (Kunashir).

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Notes i The 1972 reversion of Okinawa was decided at this meeting. ii On October 15, 1971, Special Envoy to Japan Kennedy and Minister of International Trade and Industry Tanaka signed the Japan-US Intergovernmental Memorandum of Understanding and Agreement on Textiles. On January 3, 1972, the agreement was signed. iii Kei Wakaizumi, The Best Course Available: A Personal Account of the Secret US-Japan Okinawa Reversion Negotiations, ed. John Swenson-Wright (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press in association with Program on Education and Training, East-West Center, 2002). iv Li Po (701–762). [As translated by David Hinton, the poem reads, “O-mei Mountain moon half-­full in autumn. Tonight, / its light filling the P’ing-­ch’iang River current, / I leave Ch’ing-­ch’i for Three Gorges. Thinking of you / without seeing you, I pass downstream of Yü-­chou.” In Li Po, The Selected Poems of Li Po, trans. David Hinton (New York: New Directions, 1996), p. 4.] v Also by Li Po. [As translated by Burton Watson, who translates the title as “Tzu-­yeh Song,” the poem reads, “Ch’ang-­an – one slip of moon; / in ten thousand houses, the sound of fulling mallets. / Autumn winds keep on blowing, / all things make me think of Jade Pass! / When will they put down the barbarians / and my good man come home from his far campaign?” In Burton Watson, trans. and ed., The Columbia Book of Chinese Poetry: From Early Times to the Thirteenth Century, Translations from the Oriental Classics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1984), p. 207.]

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From the Plaza Accord to the Collapse of the Bubble Economy Translated by Kristin Williams

The Plaza Accord Miyazawa: What is known as the Plaza Accord was [concluded] around the time of the autumnal equinox in September 1985. I was the party chairman, but I was home that day. Minister of Finance Takeshita [Noboru] went to New York and signed the Plaza Accord there. At the time, one dollar was about ¥241.70 on the Tokyo Exchange. The price started moving that day, and on December 30, it was ¥200.50. It had changed that much in the three months following September 23. As it happened, I became Minister of Finance on July 21 of the following year. That day, the rate was ¥155.50. There had been an extremely steep rise in the yen. In later years, I tried asking people involved in the Plaza Accord approximately how much they had originally intended the dollar to decline, but it seemed that no one had had any definite idea. I imagine they probably expected it to fall about 20 percent. In fact, the yen was up ¥40 against the dollar in three months, and it rose another ¥40 to ¥50 in the half year or so that followed. I think it was remarkable that the yen kept rising that way. Later, as I followed the various problems of bad debt that were debated in Japan, I couldn’t help thinking that surely [the situation] went back to the Plaza Accord. I can’t provide much empirical evidence, but it’s rare for the value of a country’s currency to change so much. In response to that, the Japanese economy adjusted, and it faltered. On more than one occasion, I’ve thought that the current situation must be a result of that event. I myself became Minister of Finance the year after the Plaza Accord, and I spent about three years dealing with the economy. After that, I became Prime Minister and again became involved in one thing and another. Also, I struggled with [the economy] again when I was Minister of Finance for another three years in the Obuchi [Keizō] cabinet. When I look at the kind of situation we face today, I am struck by how very deep-­rooted the problems must have been.

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Initially, the Japanese financial world and especially the business community were wondering what the government was doing in response to the yen’s abrupt and continuing rise. They understood the logic [behind what was happening], but they had no way to make business plans. What was the government doing about it? I was intensely aware of their complaints. At one point, economic activity became so difficult that, given its relationship to hiring, the ratio of jobs to applicants was severely affected. That went on for a year or two. In July, I succeeded Takeshita as Minister of Finance. Every single day, when I would meet with businessmen at evening banquets, everyone would say, “It’s up by ¥2 again today.” Surely they were wondering what the Minister of Finance was doing. It wasn’t that I wasn’t doing anything. That very morning, I would have been in my office consulting with the appropriate people about whether or not to buy $2 billion. That is a large amount of money; it’s worth about ¥300 billion. But even buying that much was like throwing money into a black hole. There were times when the market didn’t seem to move at all. Although I might have wanted to say, “I bought $2 billion again this morning,” it would have been no use to say that sort of thing. On top of that, the $2 billion I bought would have gone down in value after five or six days. It’s truly depressing to think about that—what kind of fool puts all his effort into daily purchases like that as Minister of Finance? That period in particular was really miserable. In addition, I had discussions with businesses about whether they should make plans to move their factories to Southeast Asia since in this situation there was nothing else they could do. I would try to take a break at lunch, but there would just be more talk of another ¥1 rise. In fact, because of this, economic activity was half-­paralyzed, and employment was affected gradually as this paralysis spread. In particular, the ratio of jobs to applicants in “company towns” fell as low as 0.1 percent. Shipbuilding was significantly impacted at that time.

The first talks between Miyazawa and James Baker Miyazawa: The fact is that I experienced an inability to accomplish anything under those circumstances. I took the position of Minister of Finance in July, and James Baker, the US Secretary of the Treasury, said he wanted to come to Japan, if only to speak to the new Minister of Finance. Baker wanted to come secretly, but there was no way he could have done so. That would have been impossible. Thinking that there was a better chance that I could go secretly, I said: “I’ll go to San Francisco in September, around Labor Day.” I recall we spoke in San Francisco. What Baker said was that he wanted Japan to create domestic demand [in order to] respond to the situation somehow. I replied: “I follow your reasoning.

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I understand the logic of raising domestic demand and lowering interest rates. I can’t give you an answer on interest rates right now, but I see what you mean. I will pass the message to the Governor of the Bank of Japan. But even if we tried to raise domestic demand, we couldn’t because business activity has been nearly paralyzed. If the situation doesn’t settle down somewhat, there’s nothing we can do on this side, either. We can’t move quickly on a supplementary budget (since this was September) because we still have to start putting it together. It would be very difficult to put together a supplement by the end of the year, at the earliest.” Given the [economic] situation, the Ministry of Finance itself had begun to see revenues decrease and public finance was also short of money, so talk of a supplementary budget, of all things, didn’t go anywhere. Since each ministry had completely different concerns, discussion of making money, putting together a supplementary budget, and somehow confronting the situation didn’t seem to go anywhere. That’s why we spent about a half year without accomplishing anything. In addition, it seemed as though the yen was rising every single day. In the office of the Vice-Minister, right next to my office, there was an electric sign with the market prices, and my stomach hurt when I looked at it. It really did. And that very year, when we finished the work of writing the budget for the next year at the end of 1986, the Vice-Minister [Administrative Vice-Minister of Finance Yoshino Yoshihiko] was kind enough to say: “I realize that you were in a hurry, but at any rate, we can now start making the necessary arrangements with the various ministries to put together a supplementary budget.” The end of the year finally came, and under the circumstances, the Ministry of Finance leadership decided to focus exclusively on the supplementary budget. On September 6, 1986, the newspaper reports read, “First Meeting between Miyazawa and Baker. US asks Japan to Lower Interest Rates.” That was the discussion with Baker that I mentioned earlier. On October 30, 1986, [the news] was, “Joint Statement by Miyazawa and Baker: Emphasis on Currency Exchange and Reduction of Interest Rates for Exchange Rate Stability.” We met and discussed these things in September, and we released the joint statement on October 30, as planned. In the interval, I had spoken to Sumita [Satoshi], the Governor of the Bank of Japan, about lowering interest rates. Even Sumita said we couldn’t avoid lowering them. So when Baker and I made our joint statement on October 30, the Bank of Japan lowered the official discount rate. On November 1, it went from 3.5 percent to 3.0 percent. As for the supplementary budget, a ¥6 trillion emergency countermeasure was decided in June of the following year. Land prices [were affected] too; the average rate of increase in published land prices for Tokyo was 53.9 percent in 1987. Naturally enough, excess liquidity gradually increased, and there were

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headlines like, “Yasuda Kasai Purchases Van Gogh’s ‘Sunflowers.’ ” On the other hand, we had to pursue emergency economic countermeasures as well. More and more, we had to run to catch up in both directions. Later, we’d often be told in the Diet, “Minister of Finance, it was you who laid the foundation for excess liquidity at that time” and “Governor of the Bank of Japan, it was you who kept lowering interest rates.” True though that may have been, I could always honestly reply, “In that case, when and how should I have acted? Even now, when I think back, I don’t know.” In fact, the business world suffered greatly, and the movement of businesses to Southeast Asia continued gradually. Somewhere around that time, I suppose the Japanese economy was transforming into a system that allowed it to adjust to some extent. When was that? On one hand, the land prices in Tokyo went up by over 50 percent, but in towns around shipbuilding companies, such as Innoshima, the ratio of jobs to applicants dropped drastically and the situation was just impossible. So I don’t think there is anyone who could successfully analyze the true effect of the Plaza Accord on the Japanese economy.

Black Monday Miyazawa: One thing that stands out very clearly in my mind is the headline from October 19, 1987, “Crash (Black Monday): NY Dow Average Drops $508 from Previous Day.” I had already been recording the exchange rate in my notebook for a long time. Black Monday occurred October 19–20, 1987. In Tokyo, the stock market dropped ¥3,836, a fall of 15 percent. I think New York’s was 22.6 percent. I remember having a clear sense that, “Japan will have to stand firm since New York has had a great fall. [The US] might be relying on Japan instead if the situation [worsens].” Although everyone in town had been struggling because of the abrupt rise of the yen, a certain calm was starting to emerge in Japan’s response. As the current Minister of Finance, that was my sense of things around the time of Black Monday. The Black Monday stock market crash happened after [Alan] Greenspan had replaced [Paul] Volcker as Chairman of the Fed [Federal Reserve] in the US. After the crash, I remember Greenspan asking people to please calm down and reassuring them that the Fed would be generous with its funds. I think Greenspan said this because of the experience earlier in the century when the primary cause of the Depression in 1929 was that the money disappeared. However, at that time I remember responding in a relatively calm way, so even though we were constantly told how bad things would be for Japan, by that time I think I had probably begun to understand somewhat how to react.

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It was the end of the year, December 1987. I was in the car on New Year’s Eve, returning to Tokyo from a vacation, when a friend called me and said, “The state of the yen seems strange somehow. I think we might drop below ¥120 [against the dollar] over New Year’s. This is the current atmosphere, and as the Minister of Finance, you should take precautions.” Hearing this on New Year’s Eve, there was nothing I could do—the office was closed, and I was tired, too. Somehow I got a hold of someone at the office, so I said, “On New Year’s, we’ll have a gathering to exchange business cards1 at the Mita conference center (the former home of Shibusawa [Keizō]). Everyone will still be on holiday, so why don’t we discuss this then?” Actually, I think there was some kind of problem related to the market for corporate investment funds in addition to the issue of the stock market. I remember that on January 4, in the Mita conference center, we secretly decided on countermeasures and leaked them to the markets. At the time, January 4, the yen was at its highest point, having reached ¥120.45 to the dollar. Exchange rates are always this way, but when it comes to something like what the yen will break through at, you have to defend that position seriously. However, when I looked back after some weeks had passed, I thought: “The world that now seems harsh may then appear sweet and good.”2 Now all that is long past, and I sometimes think of what times those were. I recall thinking that at least I defended the ¥120 position, which was a significant barrier at the time. However, these days it’s become clear that the Japanese economy responded [to such changes]. Considerable excess liquidity emerged, and the economy clearly responded to that in the form of the so-­called “bubble.” Tax yields increased furiously, and I believe that was around 1988. There was a year around that time when we abruptly stopped issuing deficit bonds. I think it was either the 1989 fiscal year or the 1990 one. Nakamura: Things quickly improved around then, right? Miyazawa: The tax yields were incredible. Usually, with taxes, what’s called the value of elasticity is around 1.2 or 1.1. But I’m certain that around then there was a tax yield with a huge value of elasticity of 3 or more. I think that period might have been the peak for Japanese tax yields up to now. Given those factors, it’s clear that the entire economy was in a bubble. That may be thought of as the most mature period [of the bubble economy] before the collapse. A typical New Year’s networking activity. Fujiwara no Kiyosuke (1104–1177). As translated by Peter McMillan, the poem reads, “If I live long, / I may look back / with yearning / for these painful days— / the world that now / seems harsh / may then appear / sweet and good!” Peter McMillan, One Hundred Poets, One Poem Each: A Translation of the Ogura hyakunin isshu, Translations from the Asian Classics (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008), p. 86.

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After that, the bubble burst. Whether there might have been some way to stop it somehow sometime between the 1985 Plaza Accord and 1989—that’s a question I faced in the Diet many times afterwards . . . The Bank of Japan raised its official discount rate on May 31, 1989. In retrospect, it seems as though we should have understood the shift in policy then. However, even when I look back now, I feel that I don’t know when or how we should have done something differently. At the Diet, I was asked that many times, but I replied honestly that I don’t know what we could have done then. Even now, I think the problems were really difficult to understand. Mitsubishi bought the Rockefeller Center in October 1989. Also, on the last trading day of the year, the Nikkei average reached its highest point. Yes, I think it was the end of the year in 1989. That was under the Kaifu [Toshiki] Cabinet. Nakamura: May I ask you about that, sir? Black Monday was in 1987. I was only looking at the economic conditions from the outside, but I thought that the Japanese domestic economy began recovering significantly in early spring, 1987. The way that I understood it at the time was that the business world had distinct areas of light and shadow because the higher yen hurt exporters but provided an extremely beneficial situation for businesses that imported. The businesses in the light were not complaining, but those in the shadow were vocal in their dissatisfaction. However, those in the light felt that, after the milestone of mid–1987, economic conditions would continue to improve because profits were steadily increasing and investments had emerged. I think Black Monday arrived with all of that in the background, at a time when domestic economic conditions were improving and stocks were rising. So the blow was relatively slight even though Japanese stocks dropped significantly, of course. Stocks shot up again. I think if you drew a graph, the Japanese stock prices around Black Monday would represent no more than a dent. Miyazawa: That’s true. Nakamura: So what I want to ask—of course, at the time of Black Monday, it would have been problematic if Japan had enacted a tight [money] policy, but how long did you continue thinking that Japan absolutely could not follow a tight policy since low stock prices and recession were problems world-­wide? I think Germany was already raising interest rates by the following Spring. Miyazawa: Professor Nakamura, as you’ve just explained, our sense at the time of Black Monday was that there could have been a crisis if Japan had not acted in a level-­headed way.

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Nakamura: Yes, of course, that seems clear. But the problem in that period was determining when to recover our independence, so to speak, or for example, if you thought it better to raise interest rates, determining when conditions had improved enough to allow you to raise them. Miyazawa: As I said earlier, I was worried about the yen hitting ¥120 at the end of that year, so I was focused entirely on that. Actually, I have the feeling that I didn’t really consider raising interest rates. I just remembered it now, but the yen seemed likely to hit ¥150 at the beginning of 1987. I was really troubled at New Year’s. It’s shameful to tell you this, but I went to Washington to petition Baker, saying: “This is a real problem.” Nakamura: The Fourth Miyazawa–Baker Meeting on January 21, 1987, right? Miyazawa: Yes. This was before the Louvre Accord. I went as a true supplicant, defenseless. I shared some story, and I remember asking: “Please show us that the US really understands.” At that time, I was struggling at ¥150. Then the US helped with a joint intervention. I happen to remember that at the time, I needed to return to Japan immediately after my attempt at petitioning Baker in Washington, but a blizzard kept me from going home. I couldn’t make it from the embassy in Washington to the airport. As you know, Washington does not handle snow well at all. The snow quickly accumulates, and everyone stops [in the middle of the street], leaving their cars in the snow. So the cars behind can’t move either. I remember being seen off as I finally escaped to Chicago in a military aircraft. That was when we were at ¥150. For me, the biggest concern was the exchange rate, and as a person concerned with policy, it didn’t occur to me to wonder whether we should raise the official discount rate. The “Louvre Accord” [was signed] in Paris in February of that same year. The mood at the time of the Louvre Accord was such that, after various discussions, everyone seemed to want to fix the yen at ¥150 [to the dollar]. I remember insisting, “¥150? Don’t be ridiculous. That’s too high.” But in fact, that was February 22, and we reached ¥137 in April. So, in fact ¥150 was not impossible, after all.

As Prime Minister, dealing with the collapse of the bubble economy Miyazawa: I’ll jump ahead now and speak about the time after I had become Prime Minister. This time I had to deal with the gradual collapse of the bubble

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economy. The Dow3 [sic] crashed in the summer of 1992. In August 1992, it was at ¥14,309. At this point, the Bank of Japan was already lowering the official discount rate again to respond to the bursting of the economic bubble, and the country was also front-­loading spending for public works. Despite that, stocks had fallen to ¥14,309. I thought that if it broke ¥14,000, I would have no choice but to return to Tokyo from Karuizawa and close the stock exchange for a day. Mieno Yasushi was the Governor of the Bank of Japan. I spoke with him by phone and told him: “If it breaks ¥14,000, I’ll come back to Tokyo. I think everyone will do something to help because they can’t ignore the situation if the Prime Minister returns.” Mieno responded with something like: “I understand. I’ll do whatever I can at that time.” At the same time, I was speaking with the secretary for the Ministry of Finance. On August 18, the Ministry of Finance announced [a package of emergency measures called] “Current Operational Policy for Financial Administration,” so the market calmed down accordingly. Then, at the end of August, there was an LDP seminar in Karuizawa. I gave an address there, and I remember saying something like: “In the present circumstances related to the banks’ bad loans (as we called them then), don’t we need some kind of public involvement by the government on a case-­by-case basis?” This was not something my office had written into the manuscript but rather something I thought of myself. It became a big item in the news, but it gained almost no support. When the subject came up in the Diet, this was often quoted. I was told many times, “You were so aware that there was a need [for government involvement], but you couldn’t carry it out properly.” At the time, however, first, the idea of the government helping banks was very unpopular with the business world. Even in the financial world itself, depending on the bank, there were strong opinions along these lines: “Our institution is not so bad. There may be bad places, but that is their own affair. It’s ridiculous for the government to interfere by giving money to banks.” Even Keidanren (was it Hiraiwa [Gaishi] at the time?) said:“Keidanren does not support this, of course.” Government officials said things like: “Real estate prices will probably recover soon, so there’s no need to do that sort of thing now,” or they would explain that they were too busy continuing their work to possibly engage in such discussions. So, in the end, my speech turned out to be only words. That was the summer of 1992. The question of whether there was something I could have done then is another one I was asked later. But when I think back, [it’s clear] we were not prepared for circumstances of that degree. Though I pointed out the problem when I realized it, the fact is that I could not get everyone to acknowledge it and agree to work together. Miyazawa specifies the Dow, but in fact, it was the Nikkei that crashed in August 1992.

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Dealing with the jūsen problem: public investment in the banks Miyazawa: Ironically, some years later there was the jūsen problem during the Murayama [Tomiichi] Cabinet.4 The government suddenly appropriated ¥685 billion in its end-­of-the-­year budget compilation because housing loan companies (jūsen) were in trouble. That’s what the December 25, 1995, headline refers to: “Plan to Deal with Housing Loan Companies Includes ¥685 Billion Bailout.” This was a Murayama Cabinet budget, and the public was deeply opposed because they didn’t know what was going on. There are various ways to look at it. In resolving the jūsen problem, the financial system (Nōrinchūkin Bank and Agricultural Cooperative) could not bear more than a certain amount of burden, and any attempt by them to bear it would have had a direct effect on financing at regional agricultural cooperatives. So in the end (though no one ever explains it this way), I think the actual situation was that the country paid ¥685 billion in order to protect farmers who were depositors at agricultural cooperatives (nōkyō). That’s the kind of budget they made. It was incredibly unpopular, and the Deputy Minister of Finance [Shinozawa Kyōsuke] resigned. As it happened, the Murayama Cabinet soon resigned. That was January 1996. Since the Murayama Cabinet resigned quickly after making the budget, plans were made for the next Cabinet, under Hashimoto [Ryūtarō], to explain the budget in the Diet. Hashimoto did not feel responsible for the ¥685 billion spent on the jūsen problem, so he did not explain it adequately. Under the circumstances, the ¥685 billion [bailout] was passed without really being understood. As I recall, this made the resolution of bad loans even more confusing. In fact, if this had not been done quickly, the regional branches in the Agricultural Cooperative would have faced bank runs. All the local notables are bank officials, so from that point of view, I think the effect on the regions would have been considerable. For that reason, I still think that [spending the] ¥685 billion was unavoidable. However, even now there are various arguments for and against the money that was spent, and the story is complicated by talk of government officials issuing drafts in order to fulfill their promises to other officials. On top of that, I think problems remained because Prime Minister Hashimoto did not explain the situation.

Housing loan companies (jūsen) were effectively bankrupt due to non-­performing loans. Their problems threatened major banks, which had lent money to the housing loan companies. See J.A.A. Stockwin, Governing Japan: Divided Politics in a Resurgent Economy, 4th edn (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2008), p. 90.

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Nakamura: Also, this was unpopular with the media. Bailouts of financial institutions became almost taboo, didn’t they? Miyazawa: They became extremely difficult. Nakamura: I feel as though that was a problem. Miyazawa: The ¥685 billion had that effect. In any case, that large sum of money appeared suddenly in the last phase of finalizing the budget that year, in December 1995, so very few people were able to understand it. I think even the newspapers, beginning with the Asahi Shinbun, continued their commentary without fully understanding [the situation]. Because of the circumstances, the problem was terribly obscure. Later involvement by the government in the economy became extremely difficult. Nakamura: Afterward, when financial institutions such as the Hokkaido Takushoku Bank collapsed, newspapers and so forth began to agree for the first time. Until then, you couldn’t even speak of public funds. Miyazawa: Was it 1998 when we started the bailouts, after Hokkaido Takushoku and the collapse of Yamaichi Securities? Nakamura: Yes, because the incidents occurred in November of the previous year, 1997. It was during the Hashimoto Cabinet, and Mitsuzuka Hiroshi was Minister of Finance. Miyazawa: Sanyo Securities, Hokkaido Takushoku, and Yamaichi all fell in November 1997. Around that time, Hashimoto told me we would have to have the LDP resolve this or else the government would not be able to act in time. I was made chairman of a committee on emergency countermeasures within the LDP, and the party decided that this was unavoidable and that there was nothing to do but inject public funds. And, that year I’m sure we had the Diet open very early in January. I recall that’s how we got a decision made on the emergency countermeasures. As a result, we distributed ¥1.8 trillion all at once in March. That is what happened, but because of the previous jūsen problem, there was strong resistance to distributing public funds. This time it was unavoidable, and I made the decision within the party. We did it because I was told the government would never do it if the decision was not made by the party. That’s how it was. And to speak of myself, Hashimoto resigned as Prime Minister in 1998, after a vote in the Upper House. Then the Obuchi Cabinet was formed on July 30.

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After strong persuasion by Obuchi, I agreed to become Minister of Finance. This time I tried in earnest to do whatever I could, and speaking of bailouts, on March 31 of the following year [1999], we distributed ¥7.5 trillion in public funds to fifteen institutions.

Victim of a violent attack Miyazawa: Now I’ll share a completely different story, if you don’t mind. This was March 1984, and around that time, I was gradually assuming responsibility for young people from the Kōchikai faction. In relation to that, there happened to be a person named Niwano Nikkyō who was chairman of the Risshō Kōseikai at the time.5 Diet members from the Risshō Kōseikai made a lot of trouble during the elections, so Niwano and I knew each other and would occasionally see each other. I happened to get a message from my secretary: “Mr. Niwano said he would like to meet. He’ll be waiting in his hotel room tomorrow morning.” The date was March 8. When I went to the indicated room at the New Otani, I was told: “Mr. Niwano is coming soon, so please wait.” There was a man in the room who seemed to be a secretary, and I thought he was waiting there. Since he said, “I’ll escort you to the chairman’s room soon,” I entered the room. Then I sat down in a chair across the table from him. When I tried to start a conversation, the man brought out a piece of paper and said: “Just look at this.” I looked, and what was written there was: “Mr. Takeshita is ¥20 million,” or something like that that made no sense. I looked up, and suddenly a knife was thrust at me from across the table. He started circling toward me, and I realized I’d been tricked. I have a record in my diary from the time, so I read it to remind myself. I started grappling with that man in that room at the Hotel New Otani at 8:25. It was completely unexpected. Even I don’t know why it happened. When I try to analyze it, I think the man was probably a little crazy. He told me to just hand over the money, but I wasn’t carrying money at the time and couldn’t very well send away for money. If I had sent for it, nothing would have come of it. When I asked him what he was doing, he didn’t give a clear answer. He said: “My partner’s coming soon.” If there were two attackers, I thought my life would be over in the end, but fortunately, the man was alone the whole time. I tried this and that, and we wrestled wildly. I got the knife away from him, but he hit me with an ashtray.

The Risshō Kōseikai is a politically active Buddhist organization founded in Japan in 1938.

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Somehow I got to the door, I think. Even though the door opened inward, it slammed back with a heavy thud. Although I grasped the knob once, it was no good because I was pulled back again. This all took about thirty minutes, though I thought at the time that it was forty or fifty minutes. Mikuriya: That’s amazing. Nakamura: Such strength . . . Miyazawa: But after all, anybody would try his hardest if he thought he was going to be killed. I got my hand on the door a number of times, but I couldn’t get it open. I’m not sure what my attacker was saying. If he had said to give him money, I couldn’t have given him money under those circumstances. Also, I didn’t really understand what he was hoping to accomplish. In the end, I finally got my hand on the door and opened it, but I was pulled back again. We went at it again with the door partway open. With all the noise going on for thirty minutes, employees had to have noticed. A couple employees came by, but they didn’t do anything. I thought that was terrible. Finally, I escaped. I went out through the door, leaving the attacker behind. An ambulance was called for me. I was asked whether I wanted Toranomon Hospital or the police hospital, and I said I wanted to go to Toranomon Hospital. However, the police were there in the ambulance, after all, asking me about the exact circumstances of the attack. I was completely exhausted and in no state to answer such questions. But I realized that they were just doing their job. I was half-­angry and half-­impressed. Then I was taken to the hospital. Later, at the hospital, I received first aid, and I got a CT scan and X-rays. The doctor stitched up a cut I had gotten somewhere. The cut was from being hit on the upper jaw with an ashtray or something. The blow still affects my teeth to some degree. My eye, too. I had my eye treated, and I had surgery on it, as well. Afterwards, the police interviewed me for a while, and I believe I was in the hospital for about eight days. I have some after-­effects from having my upper jaw hit so hard, but otherwise, there are almost no traces left. I don’t know if you’ve ever had an experience like that, but I still have the fear that I might suddenly be attacked with a knife when I’m invited to have an ordinary conversation with someone. For a while, I had trouble trusting anyone. At any rate, I was determined not to be killed, so I resisted with all my might. In the end, what was his goal? I think the man was a little crazy because it wasn’t as if he could have gotten money from me in that situation. It’s not clear what he intended to do. Nakamura: Where were you injured?

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Miyazawa: I think it was part of my face and the back of my head. I was hit with an ashtray because, fortunately, the knife was lost somewhere in the fight. Mikuriya: For those thirty minutes that you were struggling with each other, were you silent? Miyazawa: We were silent, in fact. We were fighting with all our might. Of course, I might have said something like: “What are you trying to do?” But we couldn’t very well have a full dialogue, and the man absolutely had to keep me from escaping through the door. In that sense, it was a continuous struggle. Nakamura: So, that man had called and given Niwano’s name falsely? Miyazawa: Yes, that’s exactly right. He probably knew that our relationship was such that, if it were Niwano, I would feel obligated to go and see him. My eye was badly injured, but it soon healed. That was March 1984, so a lot of time has passed.

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Miyazawa as Prime Minister Translated by Kate Dunlop

Peacekeeping operations Miyazawa: I would like to begin discussing my time as Prime Minister, and today will focus on the subject of PKO [United Nations peacekeeping operations]. My Cabinet was established on November 5, 1991. The subject of peacekeeping operations had been discussed in the Diet, and deliberations were set to begin on November 18.i The Gulf War had ended in February, but due to such factors as the international criticism of Japan’s war contribution of money rather than people, and domestic debate over the issue, the previous administration had felt it was necessary to pass some sort of legislation on the issue. I believe that in the course of events leading up to this legislation, Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) Secretary General Ozawa [Ichirō] and his followers took the lead and worked to win over Kōmeitō and the Democratic Socialist Party (DSP), while the Cabinet Secretariat took on the administrative work of preparing the legislation. There were various discussions within both Kōmeitō and the DSP, and ultimately it was decided that we would prepare the bill with the inclusion of “five principles”ii concerning peacekeeping operations. The first of the five principles was the condition that warfare had effectively ceased and peaceful conditions were in place. In the course of deliberations additional stipulations, such as that the countries in question had no objection to the deployment of outside peacekeeping forces, and that the forces remain neutral, were also confirmed and the three parties [the LDP, Kōmeitō, and the DSP] were apparently set to promote this legislation. I thus found myself in the position of having to take over the deliberations on the legislation, and this occurred on November 18, immediately after the formation of my Cabinet. I had studied the bill itself and felt that I understood the main points, but I was not necessarily aware of all the negotiations with Kōmeitō and the DSP that had led up to it, and there were some complications. Apparently Kōmeitō and the DSP were prepared to support the legislation with the inclusion of the five

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principles, but after I took over, DSP committee chair Ōuchi [Keigo] additionally came to insist that activities involving the PKF [United Nations Peacekeeping Forces]—the PKF were responsible for the dirty work of overseeing the withdrawal of troops, exchange of prisoners, and so on—must first be approved by the Diet. There was a feeling that this was a rather abrupt change, as apparently [DSP] Secretary-General Yonezawa [Takashi] and others had not brought this up during previous attempts to consolidate the position of the three parties. But Ōuchi suddenly raised the issue. The DSP weren’t satisfied to simply follow along behind Kōmeitō, which was so actively promoting the bill. Additionally, the DSP prides itself on its expertise on such issues,1 and so Ōuchi insisted that while he had no objection to Japan’s participation in PKF activities, civilian control in the form of prior Diet approval had to be introduced into the bill. With this, deliberations in the Diet began. And while I answered questions on the bill in the Diet, I didn’t have sufficient understanding of the background to this legislation, and in the end the bill was more or less steamrollered through in the final committee vote. It should have passed then, but it was later sent back to committee for more questioning from the speaker before finally being passed. For me, it was an exceedingly clumsy handling of a bill immediately after taking office. A newspaper reporter questioned me on my handling of the matter and apparently I replied by saying that: “No, this is [rather] a matter to be decided by the Diet.” This was deemed to be a really bad reply, and I apparently sounded as if I had no understanding of the matter. But in fact the situation was exactly as I had stated it to be. While the general mood was one of waiting to see how the new government would fare, it is also well known that the Kōchikai consists of a “bunch of aristocrats” and is particularly bad at handling Diet affairs.2 There is no doubt that this was yet another example of that. Chief Cabinet Secretary Katō Kōichi, the chairman of the Diet Affairs Committee, and the committee chair all worked very hard to reach out to various people. Apparently Katō and others met over and over with Ōuchi, for instance, but these activities were not systematically reported to the Prime Minister—or should I say, they didn’t even have the time to make such reports. Everyone was working to fulfill their own responsibilities and didn’t seem to have time to report back, so this bill was prepared with the Prime Minister left completely out of things. At this time I became keenly aware of my own inexperience.

Many DSP members were hawkish on matters of foreign policy. The Gulf Crisis of 1990–1991 also convinced many within the DSP of the need for a more robust role in international affairs. 2 Comprised of many former elite national bureaucrats and second or third generation politicians of aristocratic lineage, Miyazawa’s faction was known for its policy expertise rather than its skill at political maneuvering. 1

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Partly because of this experience I convinced Kajiyama [Seiroku] to become chairman of the Diet Affairs Committee shortly after [on January 17, 1992]. Then for the first time I understood perfectly both why we were referred to as a “bunch of aristocrats” and what it was that the Takeshita faction was so expert at doing.3 In the end the bill passed the Lower House but encountered problems in the Upper House and was carried over to the next Diet session for further deliberation. As I’ve mentioned, due to various processes already underway when I became Prime Minister, both Kōmeitō and the DSP had various points they insisted upon. In the new year, at a Sōka Gakkai4 assembly or some such event, the Married Women’s Section of Sōka Gakkai criticized Kōmeitō leaders for being so dedicated to the PKO bill. I think Ichikawa [Yūichi] was Party Secretary at the time and his position was a complicated one. This wasn’t limited to Ichikawa; I think there were many opinions both within the party and within Sōka Gakkai when it came to this issue. It was felt that Kōmeitō had been too good to the government. In other words, while the DSP had refused to play along, Kōmeitō’s cooperation had allowed the bill to pass the Lower House, and internally this cooperation was criticized as excessive. And so, at a 2002 Lower House budgetary committee meeting, Ichikawa ended up suggesting that a freeze be put upon the bill’s provisions for Self-Defense Forces (SDF) involvement in the so-­called PKF activities. Having been told that Kōmeitō had been an over-­zealous tool of the government, Ichikawa proposed freezing just the parts of the bill that provided for SDF involvement in PKF activities, such as overseeing the withdrawal of troops and exchange of prisoners. Within the government as well, the feeling was that if something wasn’t done, the process was doomed to endless repetition, and that we had no choice but to accept this proposition so that the bill could go forward. But the next to object was Ōuchi, who from a typically DSP perspective felt that placing a freeze on PKF participation would be perceived negatively as an attempt by Japan to avoid the more dangerous activities, and thus not a good thing. Ōuchi argued that: “It [the freeze on PKF involvement] is not necessary; provisions for PKF participation should be included. What I have been pushing for is prior Diet approval for peacekeeping operations, and I can’t agree to the exclusion of PKF activities.” Here once again the three parties fell out of step, but finally, after various complications, we reconciled and it appeared that the government together Kajiyama was then a leading member of the powerful and politically adept Takeshita faction. Sōka Gakkai, a lay Buddhist organization, is the parent body of the Kōmeitō, and Sōka Gakkai members provide the party with a highly organized voting base.

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with Kōmeitō and the DSP would be able to jointly prepare the legislation. The result was that PKF activities were dropped from the bill and the condition of prior Diet approval for peacekeeping operations was included. On May 26, 1992, I joined the other party leaders to discuss freezing the PKF provisions of the bill. In this way we resolved the issues between the three parties, but the Japan Socialist Party (JSP) made strong objections to the bill, and repeatedly broke up committee deliberations. Finally, the bill was amended and at 3:00 a.m. on June 5, after the LDP submitted a motion to end questioning on the matter, the committee vote was held. From there the bill went before the general session in the Upper House, but there as well the JSP and Japanese Communist Party (JCP) employed various tactics to delay deliberation of the bill. The speaker had to use his authority to open the session, and motions for the dismissal of the chairman of the Diet members’ caucus and a motion of censure against me were submitted by the opposition—true gyūho tactics were used. All-­night sessions continued and finally, seventy-­five hours after the general session convened, the bill was approved. The bill then moved from the Upper to the Lower House, and there as well the JSP submitted a motion for the dismissal of the chairman of the Diet members’ caucus and employed other gyūho tactics. While the bill eventually passed, in the interim, all the members affiliated with the JSP or Shaminren [Social Democratic League] took the unusual step of submitting their resignations to the speaker. This was done in order to dissolve the Diet: had the speaker accepted their resignations it would have led to the dissolution of the House and an election, but in the event the speaker did not accept their resignations. The LDP responded to the opposition’s gyūho tactics by submitting a motion of no-­confidence in the Cabinet and other such measures.iii This was also a very unusual act. Only after such measures and a long period of challenges was the PKO bill finally passed into law. I was typically viewed as opposed to the deployment of the SDF overseas, and in fact I was asked directly whether I was not rather unenthusiastic about the PKO legislation. But I was thinking about the criticisms leveled at Japan at the time of the Gulf War, in 1990 and 1991. This was when other countries first became aware of Japan’s Constitution, and I felt that unless Japan could clarify what we were unable to do or what we could contribute, we would fail to meet with international understanding. I thought the bill was a very good thing, as it demonstrated the types of activities Japan could engage in overseas. In that sense, I sincerely supported the passage of the bill. The freezing of the PKF provisions was something that I felt was unavoidable,

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nothing more. Naturally I felt that the passage of the PKO bill was quite an accomplishment.

The human cost of peacekeeping operations Miyazawa: As it happened, at that time there was a high possibility of achieving peace in Cambodia after thirteen years of civil war,iv and so in September, based upon the provisions of the PKO law, an SDF engineering battalion deployed to Cambodia.v This was the first time such a mission had taken place. From my standpoint, the deployment of SDF forces represented the first meaningful operation that Japan had undertaken, and as a practical issue, an election would be held during the operation.vi There were reports that the Cambodians all came out for the polls, even dressing up for the occasion, and the general opinion was that the SDF deployment had been a good thing. What was extremely regrettable for me was the fact that someone died in the course of the operation. This was Takada Haruyuki, an assistant police inspector from Okayama Prefecture. The government had requested a suitable representative from each prefecture to take part in monitoring the election, and Okayama sent Takada. Assistant Inspector Takada was participating in election monitoring together with Dutch troops when he was shot and killed.vii This occurred in May 1993, and it so happened that I was in Karuizawa, having returned to Japan during the national holidays following official visits to Australia and New Zealand in late April.5 I was notified that a civilian police officer named Takada, attached to the SDF forces in Cambodia, had been killed. A volunteer named Nakata Atsuhito had already been killed,viii but in this case, Takada had gone out at the request of the government and with the assurance that he had nothing to fear as Cambodia was no longer a dangerous place. I felt a deep sense of responsibility. It was the middle of the night in Karuizawa when I received the notification from Tokyo. I felt I needed to return to Tokyo that night, and I traveled back by car. According to the detailed report phoned in from Tokyo, there were already strong sentiments that the death of a civilian policeman necessitated the withdrawal from all peacekeeping operations in Cambodia. While nothing specific was said, this seemed to be the sentiment at the official residence as well. I told them: “Wait until I can get back. At any rate, I’ll arrive back soon after midnight, so wait a while longer.”

Miyazawa is referring to the “Golden Week” of consecutive national holidays in late April and early May.

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As I expected, when I returned to the Prime Minister’s residence, the general mood somehow seemed to favor withdrawing. I told everyone: “I’ve also thought about this in the car, and I oppose withdrawing. We have an obligation to carry on with this mission.” This was the middle of the night, and the government’s decision one way or another would be reported in the morning papers. Time was of the essence, so I made a firm decision to continue the operations in Cambodia. This was the night of May 4, so it may already have been May 5 at this point. In response to the prevailing atmosphere, I made a decision as Prime Minister. That’s the way I thought at the time, and since then I occasionally think that while most Japanese are not opposed to such operations as the peacekeeping mission in Cambodia, when one person dies, the climate can change very suddenly. To be frank, I felt that this was a weakness. Ending a job that had been entrusted to us by the United Nations because one person had died is hardly something that the world would accept. This should have been something that everyone understood, and I was disappointed that somehow the general mood should still favor Japan’s withdrawal. I feel very strongly about this and did so at the time as well. Of course, I reflected on many things. The job was not supposed to involve the more dangerous, so-­called “PKF” activities. The civilian police were working to make the elections a success, and this should not have been a life or death activity. Our participation in the peacekeeping operation was based on the premise that peace had already been established between the warring parties, and yet Takada had been killed. I reflected that peace cannot come so easily after thirteen years of war. And when I thought that had I not made the decision to send forces to Cambodia, Takada would still be alive, I also felt a strong sense of responsibility. At the same time, I felt great unease at the fact that at times like this, public opinion could shift so suddenly. The strength of public opinion on the matter was such that, while I had made the decision to commit troops myself, I actually don’t know if I could have maintained my position if one or two more deaths had followed Takada’s. I don’t know if I alone could have supported the cause. When I think about this, it is apparent to me how unacceptable the situation was at that time. I later visited Takada’s relatives, in Kurashiki, I believe it was, to pay my condolences. In a sense, Takada’s relatives understood my situation very well. This was a terrible thing to have happened, but it wouldn’t inspire confidence if someone’s decisions were suddenly to change after something like one death. Since then, based on the PKO law we have sent help to various places, and this has generally been well received. There is no doubt that the work gives the SDF forces themselves a sense of purpose, and so I think that overall the passage of

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the PKO law and the fact that it has been put into practice have been good for Japan. I think the law supports our earlier insistence that we are unable to wield military force overseas, while allowing us to do what we can to help. This [whole thing] was a very complex affair. Mikuriya: What was your stance as Prime Minister during the period after the PKO bill was first completed, during the tussles over the bill in the Upper and Lower Houses? Miyazawa: This is something that the Prime Minister would not normally become involved in, but if everyone involved is experienced, it is common for the main actors to keep the Prime Minister up to date on the situation. That’s what the chairman of the Diet Affairs Committee is there for, or the SecretaryGeneral. But when talking about this I probably shouldn’t begin at the time when my Cabinet was formed in November 1991, but rather from when I was elected party president. All the senior members of my faction were busy working with the Takeshita faction, telling them: “If we can just form a government, all the personnel matters will be left up to you,” making it very difficult for me to do anything in advance. While I suppose I had some say in the selection of Cabinet members, when it came to the top three party executive positions, I was a novice and even my faction cronies didn’t necessarily take my views into account. Within the party as well, everyone was waiting to see how my government would fare, and we were all inexperienced, so I wasn’t thoroughly updated on what was happening. In particular, the very beginning of this process took place in the second week or so after I took office, so while you could say it was unavoidable, I really felt as if I had been kept out of the loop. So when I made my reply to the journalist’s question that [the bill] was “something to be decided within the Diet” it was an honest reply, even if it was in fact a very bad answer to the question. And when you get into the internal party politics of the Kōmeitō or the DSP, there are many complicated issues that are difficult even for the direct players to understand, much less for me. So while I made telephone calls and so on, in the end, all the parties had their own internal circumstances. I believe the situation was particularly complex for Kōmeitō. I should think there are a number of issues related to their relationship to Sōka Gakkai, for example, or their [internal] hierarchy. The DSP also probably had their share of such problems. The passage of the PKO bill, with its long series of the now uncommon gyūho tactics, doesn’t really leave a nice, clean image, now does it? Mikuriya: You mentioned gyūho just now. As Prime Minister, were you watching the Opposition’s revival of these old gyūho tactics from the Prime Minister’s seat throughout?

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Miyazawa: Well, I had to sit there, so I had no choice but to watch. Mikuriya: At those times, were you not allowed to do anything else? Miyazawa: Well, in truth I did other things too, but by midnight I was worn out. It wasn’t as if I could get a lot done. Mikuriya: Didn’t the JSP members get tired as well? Miyazawa: That’s something I may have already mentioned, but because the session is televised, people are watching, and it’s very unpleasant for those employing the delay tactics as well. You could really tell that some of their hearts weren’t in it. Some people really couldn’t make it to fifteen minutes even when they’d been told to take that long to cast their vote, and then there were others who were very resolute, so it was difficult for the Opposition as well. I’ve never used such tactics, but I’ve watched them any number of times and I really think it’s tough on those using them. These tactics haven’t been used for a while, but there was a time when they were.

The Miyazawa Cabinet, Kanemaru Shin, and Gotōda Masaharu Mikuriya: You headed Cabinet meetings during your administration. What was the tenor of the Miyazawa Cabinet? You’ve served in many cabinets and I imagine different prime ministers have their own way of doing things? Miyazawa: As it’s frequently said, there isn’t much debate at Cabinet meetings themselves. There are two Cabinet meetings a week, but they meet a day after the bi-­weekly administrative Vice-Ministers’ meetings, and whatever is decided there comes before the Cabinet. So we sign [things] and make set statements, and free discussion is very rare. On the contrary, Cabinet members avoid debate because they dislike the idea of reports coming out describing heated discussion or divided opinions within the Cabinet. In the past this wasn’t the case, but these days time is provided for free discussion. Once all the Cabinet members have finished signing documents, the Chief Cabinet Secretary announces the end of the Cabinet meeting and opens up time for discussion. I suppose you could say they speak somewhat frankly during this time, but even if someone were to go so far as to suggest keeping a certain discussion off the record, there isn’t much expectation that this would be honored, so truly free statements are rare.

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The practice of having discussion [after the meeting] wasn’t yet established during my time, so people spoke freely during the Cabinet meeting itself. I had absolutely no objection to such remarks, and while I didn’t encourage it, neither did I attempt to quell discussion. I believe that our Cabinet meetings had a relatively open atmosphere. In any case, the matters at hand have already been decided upon, so it’s all more or less the same regardless of who happens to be prime minister. Mikuriya: In that case, do Cabinet members have little time for discussion outside official Cabinet meetings as well? Miyazawa: Yes, that’s the case. There might be some time for discussion while waiting for everyone to assemble for a Cabinet meeting . . . But even then discussion is rare. There’s little more than an exchange of formalities, and if there are matters to discuss, there are a few other venues such as the informal meetings of all Cabinet members with portfolios related to the economy, and issues are taken up there. But overall, there isn’t much discussion, I suppose. Everyone may have their own ideas about how to foster free discussion between Cabinet members, but I don’t have the sense that these are being put into practice. Nakamura: Were there occasional discussions between the three top party executives and such people?ix Miyazawa: There is now a monthly gathering of all ministers with economy-­ related portfolios, centered around the monthly report on economic conditions, and the three top party executives attend this. That is where discussion occurs between the three top party executives. There are also times when party members join in on other meetings of Cabinet ministers with certain portfolios. But these also aren’t really places for big, open debates. I don’t know if this would be the case in any country, but in my experience Cabinet members don’t hold really free discussions on the issues. What’s more, it’s almost certain that any such discussions would be leaked, so people don’t really make an effort. In something like a question of jurisdiction between two government offices, for instance, matters are settled at the level of the administrative vice-­ministers, so it’s not common for ministers themselves to get caught up in such issues. There’s also a certain code of conduct that precludes weighing in on someone else’s turf, so debates arising out of policy differences between ministers are also rare. I really don’t know whether this is also the case in other countries or not, but I should think it’s hard to have such debates without brewing trouble for the future. Bad feelings always linger. It would be nice if that were not the case, but no, that kind of debate isn’t common.

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Nakamura: During your administration there was quite a famous party vice-­ president, wasn’t there? Miyazawa: You mean Kanemaru Shin? Yes, Kanemaru was there throughout. Once I became party president in October 1991, I thought a lot and because of the various issues at the time that I have been talking about, I felt I had to get the party into order and decided to ask Kanemaru to act as party vice-­president. There are many sides to Kanemaru, but I held him in high regard and wanted him for vice-­president. Towards the end of the year I sounded out Kanemaru about becoming vice-­president. There was no problem on my side, but Kanemaru worried that he was viewed as being anti-American, even though he himself really regretted this. I wonder why he should have felt that way. Perhaps because he had made a trip to North Korea, or because some statement of his had been misunderstood. I had never thought of Kanemaru [as being anti-American], but I learned that he was very worried about this perception. This was at the end of 1991, and it so happened that Bush [Senior, the forty-­ first president of the United States] was to visit Japan early in 1992. Since that was the case, I decided that I should use the opportunity to get Kanemaru to stop worrying over such a trivial matter. I asked Bush if he would help me, saying: “I need Kanemaru’s help within the party. He’ll be coming to your dinner, so please strike up a conversation with him when I give you the sign.” Bush agreed, saying: “I’m good at that sort of thing.” At the dinner, Bush told Kanemaru: “I’ve heard all about you from Miyazawa. Please help me with something . . .” This incident took place, though it wasn’t reported anywhere, and Kanemaru agreed to become party vice-­president. He helped me in many different ways. Kanemaru was involved in a number of scandals, however. Nakamura: The scandal involving his concealment of large sums of money? Miyazawa: Yes, there was Sagawa Kyūbinx and various other scandals. Kanemaru resigned as Deputy Prime Minister and there were many other consequences. It’s difficult for me when I’m asked what I think about Kanemaru. I was at a loss when people asked me: “How could you make such a person party vice-­president or Deputy Prime Minister?” But for me, these were things that Kanemaru thought about and did himself that had no connection to me. In a sense, when it comes to Kanemaru, my feelings of gratitude for his assistance on many matters are stronger than anything else. There were many furious arguments within that [Takeshita] faction surrounding the Kanemaru issue. Those between people such as Ozawa and Takeshita, for example, were really terrible, even though in my case, on balance

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the feeling was one of gratitude for the ways that Kanemaru had helped me. He was extremely intelligent. He knew the job very well, and didn’t make many demands when it came to such things as appointing Cabinet ministers. The requests he did make were very modest, and in that sense I think he was someone who respected the order of things. Now things must have been terrible [within the Takeshita faction] at that time, but I don’t know anything about that. But with someone like Kanemaru, relations between my Cabinet and the party—or perhaps I should say the large Takeshita faction—were kept under check, and in that sense, things were much easier for me. Mikuriya: What about Gotōda [Masaharu]? Miyazawa: Gotōda joined my Cabinet and helped me in a lot of ways, but he was a very different type from Kanemaru. As you know, on many occasions he chose to make the kind of statements that are popularly understood as “dovish.”6 Mikuriya: He was the Minister of Justice during your administration, correct? Miyazawa: Yes. When Nakasone was Prime Minister, [Gotōda] really controlled things inside the Cabinet as Chief Cabinet Secretary. When the PKO bill was stuck in protracted deliberations and the Opposition were using their gyūho tactics, a problem arose concerning Abe Fumio, who was then Secretary-General of my faction, accepting contributions from Kyōwa, a steel manufacturing company.xi I had become Prime Minister in November, and in December this scandal broke. Abe was eventually arrested, but there was the question of whether or not he should be summoned before the Diet, and this remained an issue for a long time. I don’t remember how long the budgetary committee was on break, but there was a long vacuum. The matter of the PKO bill was still outstanding, but the budgetary committee had been brought to a standstill by the Abe Fumio scandal. It was also said that Suzuki Zenkō was involved.7 When this sort of scandal occurs, everything else is swept to the side. Mikuriya: It was right about the time that you made your address before the United Nations that Abe was arrested, correct? Was that around February 1992? Miyazawa: Yes, it was. Gotōda belonged to the pacifist line within the LDP and opposed the deployment of SDF forces during the first Gulf War in 1991. He would also later criticize Koizumi’s deployment of SDF forces in Iraq. 7 Suzuki Zenkō was a former Prime Minister (1980–1982) and member of the Kōchikai. 6

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The Emperor’s visit to Chinaxii Miyazawa: And then in April of 1992 Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Jiang Zemin visited Japan, and extended an official invitation to his Majesty the Emperor to visit China. I told Jiang that I would consult with his Majesty and make a reply, but already people such as Foreign Minister Watanabe [Michio] were of the opinion that we should ask him to make the visit. I also thought things over, and had just about decided that we should ask the Emperor to make the visit, as in China there would be absolutely no security concerns or other worries, and nothing offensive was likely to occur. Domestically, however, there was of course still the question of who needed to be convinced, so with the Deputy Cabinet Secretary taking the lead, we all did our part to reach out to various concerned parties. In some cases this was no problem, but in other cases things were more difficult, so overall it took a lot of work. Most of this I can’t speak about publicly, but it was indeed a lot of work. But his Majesty himself was interested in making the visit, and I believe his feelings were already decided on the matter. Because his feelings were more or less clear, apparently some parties felt it wouldn’t be right for them to try to put a stop to the visit. At the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Hashimoto [Hiroshi], who would later become ambassador to China, helped us quite a bit, traveling to China and going so far as to warn them that “if anything happens [during the imperial visit] it will become a major incident.” He was the one who made this visit happen. The most important thing was to decide what the Emperor would say on his visit. This is another story, but some years later I accompanied his Majesty on a visit to the United States. He himself went over and revised the entire speech that he would give the next day. He put a lot of work into this, and her Majesty the Empress remarked that he had fallen asleep while polishing his manuscript the night before. The Emperor takes great care over this sort of thing, and in the case of the China visit as well, he made his speech after thinking a great deal about what he would like to say in his presentation, in addition to what the government had requested. For the Chinese as well, and especially in Shanghai, there was reportedly a very good atmosphere, as people spontaneously moved in closer, and overall I think it was a successful visit. I was glad that I had decided upon the visit. I think that most likely the Emperor and Empress were also satisfied. Within Japan, however, there were concerns regarding the affair.

President Bush, Senior Mikuriya: We’ve been hearing all about your Cabinet, but what would you like to talk about next?

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Miyazawa: I think I should also probably talk about Bush, Clinton, and Yeltsin. Mikuriya: There was the episode in which you helped Bush after he became ill at an official reception, wasn’t there? Miyazawa: Yes, that’s true, but I’ll start with the business sidexiii of things before getting to that. Bush was in Japan on January 8–9, 1992. If you include things like working lunches and so on, we were in conferences for as much as five hours, spending a great deal of time on the issues of our joint declaration and action program. At that time Japan’s trade surplus had become fairly large. America’s trade deficit was equally large, and Bush came to Japan to do something to improve the US-Japan trade relationship, bringing with him many businessmen from the US auto manufacturing industry. They went first to South Korea and then to Japan, where the two of us discussed and reached an agreement on the action plan, a fairly detailed plan to deal with this economic problem. I’ll explain. In terms of automobile parts, we made a commitment to increase the total import of American-­made parts by Japanese manufacturers, both in Japan and through local procurement, to $19 billion in 1994, more than double the 1990 total of $9 billion. In terms of American-­manufactured automobiles themselves, the top five Japanese companies would also make efforts to import 20,000 automobiles. We committed to a total purchase price for American-­made parts and to the import of American automobiles. As a practical question, whether or not we could double the total amount of purchased parts by the next year was something that couldn’t really be determined in advance and was proving difficult, but MITI had laid the groundwork and we decided to move forward on this premise, and talks were about completed. In terms of actual results, this is also more or less what we were able to achieve. This was the general mood, so the main point of the meeting was to determine the extent to which Japan would cooperate with the United States. This came up again when Bush and I held a joint press conference. Without any malicious intent, I said: “As the United States is having a very difficult time right now, Japan will also make as great an effort as possible [to cooperate],” but the American journalists in the audience didn’t react well to this. It was interesting to observe what struck me as the very typically American reaction of the press, something akin to “we don’t need your sympathy!” This wasn’t the case with politicians or financiers, but there was this kind of sentiment among the press, and it made me think that I needed to choose my words more carefully. This was my first meeting with Bush, and when I compare him with Clinton, being of an older generation I found him a very pleasant associate and I continue to have a friendship with him today. In 1990, exactly ten years ago, the Gulf War began. Actual combat took place in January and February, and ended on February

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twenty-­something.xiv The ceasefire came very quickly, and at that time forces were only two or three days away from Baghdad. They only had to cross the desert. There was no resistance. In response to the question of why they did not [take Baghdad], at that time Bush told me that: “If we do that, this will become a war between Islam and democracy. I believe that I need to avoid turning this into that kind of conflict. That is how I made my decision.” At the time I thought that it was a good decision, and I still do today. But recently many Americans argue that: “If only we had settled the matter then, we wouldn’t have the kinds of problems we do today.” They say that the forty-­third President will do what the forty-­first President did not, but even today Bush maintains that top military leaders followed his opinion in deciding against entering Baghdad. In that sense, I feel very close to him. It so happened that a dinner was held at my official residence on January 8 [1992] and this was when Bush collapsed. He had been in South Korea the night before, and had come from there, and while he disappeared from the receiving line once or twice, I assumed he had to take a telephone call and didn’t take special note of it. It’s likely that he was already feeling a bit poorly at that time. Apparently South Korea is extremely cold at that time of year, and he may have taken some medication that did not agree with him. At any rate he was probably not in good condition. Without my being aware of his condition, the dinner began, and halfway through he began to feel poorly and vomited. By chance, the dinner was televised. There is an orchestra stand in the large dining hall of the official residence, and the television crew was stationed there, where it could film from above, with cameras focused directly on us. When Bush collapsed, security staff immediately flew to his side, though it was less that they flew to his side than that they must have been standing by all along. All the guards were there at once and I told them, “You stand up on top of the table. We’re right in front of the television cameras, so stand up there.” That is how we hid Bush from view. Barbara Bush was immediately at his side, so while I was using both arms to try to hold up Bush she was also doing her utmost to support him. When I talked to Barbara a few days later she told me that she had mistakenly been trying to hold up my legs instead. At any rate, that was the situation. When I asked Barbara if she would read Bush’s address, she replied that she would have [Brent] Scowcroft [Bush’s presidential aide] read it instead. So Scowcroft read the address in place of Bush. At that time Barbara said: “I will stay here. Bush has been taken away, but if I were to leave it would send the wrong signal to the world, so I’ll stay.” She is very level-­headed. She usually makes a lot of jokes, but I really thought at the time that she was a level-­headed, sensible person. Barbara also wrote about this evening in her autobiography, but she made a short address at the dinner. I think it was intended to relieve the atmosphere

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after Bush had been forced to leave. She said: “The truth is that my husband lost at tennis today with the Crown Prince (he had played, even in that condition!). That may be what made him sick. The Bushes are not allowed to lose at tennis. He did his utmost, but he may not have been able to handle losing.” In the July of that year I stopped in the United States to meet with Bush on my way to a European summit, and we went to Camp David together. Over dinner Barbara said to me: “George was just hopeless then. It must have been expensive to have your suit laundered!” [laughs] Usually you wouldn’t say such a thing! I didn’t quite know in what spirit her remark was intended, but I think that for her the incident was not particularly mortifying, but rather a natural occurrence. Then Bush told her; “Oh stop!” I traveled from the White House to Camp David by helicopter with this happy couple. But it was on an occasion during this trip that I really came to admire Bush. After a late lunch at Camp David, I decided to join the Bushes at a recital by Pavarotti in Washington that evening. But the weather grew worse, and the helicopter wasn’t able to take off at the scheduled time. When one of Bush’s aides told him that he would have the start of the recital delayed, Bush replied: “You can’t do that sort of thing. A lot of people are attending, so please have the recital begin on time. We’ll go late if we can, that’s all.” He is a very sensible person in such ways. I like someone who can take this approach to things, and this is probably his personality. It was in the middle of the presidential campaign. The election was in November, so it was right in the middle of the re-­election campaign that Bush said: “Miyazawa, there’s something unlucky about this election for me.” He said it was “weird.”8 “Weird” is the word for this kind of situation, isn’t it? Bush was so popular during the Gulf War that he had no challengers, but he told me: “I just have a weird feeling when I’m campaigning.” I wonder what it was that he sensed. The economy was certainly bad—perhaps that? Maybe there was something like a generation gap that he was aware of. I didn’t think that he would lose the election, but I remember what he said at the time. At that time we were talking about his own campaign, but there were several times later when I had the chance to talk with him. When it was still unknown whether his son, the Governor of Texas [George W. Bush, the forty-­third President] would run for president, Bush gradually got his hopes up that his son would run, but told me: “everyone keeps saying that it’s his brother who is better suited to politics.” The one who was the Governor of Florida [Jeb Bush]. That is what their father said. Bush Senior was quite worried about his son, and once when we dined together in Tokyo he told me: “I’ve brought someone called Condoleezza Rice Miyazawa quotes Bush using the English word “weird” in this passage.

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with me.” She is that special presidential aide [later Secretary of State]. He told me: “I brought her with me so that she can hear about Japan from you,” and so we had a meal together. At that point it was still unclear whether his son would run for president, but Bush must have been thinking that if he did, he wanted this Condi to be a foreign policy advisor. He told me that she was originally a Soviet expert, and he probably wanted to begin exposing her to other areas. Bush had many people working under him, but I think he must have had very strong trust in Scowcroft. Bush gave me a very unusual book that he had written together with Scowcroft. In this book they both describe how they discussed addressing various events that occurred within a period of a few years.9 Bush must have had an enormous amount of trust in Scowcroft. Scowcroft was much more cautious on the subject of the current war in Iraq, however. But I think Scowcroft was an excellent presidential aide.

President Clinton Miyazawa: I didn’t have such a long relationship with Clinton, but ultimately Bush lost in the November [1992] election, and Clinton was elected. I went to Washington to meet with him in April 1993. Trade issues between the US and Japan were at their most contentious, and to make things worse, we had been driven to the wall by the Americans’ insistence that things like our export controls or trade surplus regulations be expressed numerically. It was a question of how far to go in setting numerical targets. Mikuriya: Numerical targets?10 Miyazawa: Yes. We opposed this from the beginning, saying this was impossible to do as it would lead to managed trade. We were absolutely opposed. However, this was the biggest issue and so Clinton and I met in Washington that April. Clinton had only recently been elected, and I think he did a bit of posturing as the younger of us two, treating me as the old veteran. But in truth, I think that he is a very quick learner and had really studied the issue in a short amount of time. And we really argued over the issue. After I had spent a long time arguing that Japan could not commit to numerical targets, we held a joint press conference. This was a very awkward press conference. It wasn’t a very cheerful affair. I George Bush and Brent Scowcroft, A World Transformed (New York: Knopf, 1998). Here Mikuriya confirms in Japanese the meaning of the term “numerical targets,” which Miyazawa has used in English in the previous sentence.

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remember that our differences in opinion came out very clearly. I’m sure he also felt that he couldn’t afford to lose on this issue and had worked very hard. After that came the July summit in Tokyo . . . Mikuriya: This began on July 7. Miyazawa: That’s right. At that time, according to figures announced by the Ministry of Finance in a preliminary report of fiscal 1992 trade totals, our trade surplus had reached $110 billion, a really bad situation. So Clinton must have been all the more intent upon getting numerical targets in place. I was equally intent on opposing these, and in the end it looked as if this issue would be carried over to our bilateral talks scheduled during the summit. So on July 5, the two of us met to talk, but as expected we couldn’t reach an agreement. But while we were making small talk, as a vote of no-­confidence in my Cabinet had already been passed,11 I told him: “I’m here arguing with you but in fact I’m being called a lame duck.” To which he replied: “Well, if that’s the case, I’m the ‘late come kid’ (Is that what he said? Someone who arrives late.)12 Getting out of those sorts of situations is my trademark, so I can help you. Tell me what’s going on.” I told him that the situation couldn’t be helped. This was one episode from that time. But getting back to the issue of numerical targets, of course Clinton wanted to talk about this again, so he suggested that “as neither of us has much time, maybe we can sit down and talk over a snack or something.” I told him that if we were going for a snack in Japan, that meant a sushi restaurant, and so we went to the sushi restaurant at the Hotel Okura. According to my records we met from nine-­thirty to eleven-­thirty. We had a major, two-­hour discussion in the middle of the night. But I also remember talking about other things on that occasion. We also talked about America’s suspension of China’s preferential trade status. There’s such a thing as most “favorable treatment” towards many countries. Mikuriya: Most Favored Nation? Miyazawa: The Most Favored Nation clause. In the United States, doesn’t Congress always stop [the inclusion of] a Most Favored Nation clause for China? Following the Miyazawa government’s failure to achieve consensus on electoral law reform, all non-­ communist Opposition parties submitted a no-­confidence motion against the Miyazawa government on June 18, 1993. The motion also won the support of thirty-­nine LDP members (another sixteen abstained). The Lower House was dissolved and in the subsequent general election of July 18, the LDP lost its majority. A flurry of party reorganization ensued, as many LDP members left to form new parties. On August 9, 1993, an eight-­party coalition government took power, with Hosokawa Morihiro as Prime Minister. 12 Clinton probably referred to himself by his nickname, “the comeback kid.” 11

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This topic came up, and this is what I told Clinton. “It’s a foolish idea, so please stop. The Most Favored Nation clause isn’t a favor or anything of the sort. It’s used all over the world, and while the United States might not enjoy [extending this status] to China, even if you were to stop, it would not be significant. But I’m not saying this to you because I think that if you give up on the idea [of suspending China’s MFN status], China will become a democracy. It’s not that kind of thing, so just put an end to this matter.” I remember persuading him considerably on this point.13 At any rate, Clinton is an exceedingly quick student. The way his mind works is uncanny. If you wonder if he knows about something, it turns out he knows all about it. He’s quite a talented person. I don’t understand how he got himself into such trouble, but then he’s a curious person. [laughs]

President Yeltsin Miyazawa: Then there is Yeltsin to discuss. I was still a rank-­and-file bureaucrat at the time of the San Francisco Peace Treaty talks, where in 1951 the subject of the Northern Territories was raised.14 The Soviet Union left the peace talks midway through, and the matter could not be concluded. This issue was never-­ending. During my time as Foreign Minister I had also met with Gromyko, and then as Prime Minister it was my fate to meet with Yeltsin. I first met Yeltsin when I went to New York for a gathering to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the United Nations in January 1992. Yeltsin was also in attendance, and the two of us talked. I told him that I had heard that he planned to visit all the [G7] countries before the summit in July, and asked him to please come to Japan as well. Yeltsin replied that while the summit was in July, he could visit Japan in September, suggesting that by that time the domestic situation in Russia would be more settled, and that this would also allow time to begin the process at the administrative level of preparing to conclude a peace treaty. He was very positive about the prospect of visiting Japan in September. He even picked up the appointment book of Foreign Minister Kozyrev and suggested September 14 and 15 as the dates for his visit. So we had discussed meeting in the middle of September.

In 1994, President Clinton renewed China’s trade privileges, reversing his earlier campaign pledge to link MFN status to progress on human rights. 14 Russia and Japan both claim the islands of Shikotan, Kunashiri, Etorofu, and the Habomais (a small group of islands). Russia includes these islands in its definition of the Kurile Islands, and has effectively maintained control of them since the end of World War II. Japan defines these four island groups as the Northern Territories, and defines the Russian Kurile Islands from the island of Urappu (to the northeast of Etorofu). 13

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For some time I had wanted to have the issue of the Northern Territories raised at the summit. I had of course spoken of this to Bush, and also talked about it to Mitterrand during a visit to Europe that year. I had thought that Mitterrand would make some objection, but unexpectedly he did not, saying: “Good. I’ll raise the issue myself. We’ll support Japan’s position.” There was no objection from the UK or from Germany, so we had the issue raised at the Munich summit. We had the issue raised in Yeltsin’s presence, and the Summit proclamation includes the statement that: “We welcome Russia’s pledge to engage in foreign policy based on law and justice. We believe this pledge by Russia will pave the way for the full normalization of Russo-Japanese relations through the resolution of territorial issues.” With this I had at last managed to push the Northern Territories issue on to the summit level. With this as the backdrop, Yeltsin said he would come to Japan from around September 13 to 16, but on September 9 he said he wanted to speak by telephone, and around eleven that night I received a call from Yeltsin.xv He told me that he had intended to visit Japan, but due to the fierce debates underway [in Russia], he was left with no choice but to postpone the trip until a later date. He said it was certainly not the case that he had any problem with Japan, and that he believed the situation would improve in a few months. He asked for my understanding. When I told Yeltsin that this was extremely regrettable, but that in any case it was due to circumstances within Russia, not Japan, Yeltsin repeatedly explained: “November and December will be the most difficult time, so please allow me to postpone the trip this time. Russia is in the middle of its greatest transition, at the point where we must cross the Rubicon, and conditions will worsen if the president is not in Russia.” This is what happened. The next year the summit after Munich was to be held in Tokyo, and in April I chaired a meeting of G7 foreign and economic ministers regarding support for Russian [reforms]. Russia was not a member of the G7, but we were to invite them to join the summit in Tokyo. At the time I said that we had to treat Russia’s participation in the summit as a separate matter from any discussion of territorial issues. But I also made a point of wondering aloud rather sarcastically whether Yeltsin really wanted to attend after having cancelled his earlier visit. Well, we also invited Russia. I sent a letter inviting Yeltsin to attend the summit on July 9, 1993. There was some talk that it wasn’t really appropriate for Yeltsin to come to Tokyo just for the summit and leave immediately afterwards, but when Yeltsin arrived in Tokyo he himself made a statement in which he apologized for not having visited Japan the previous year, and said that he was prepared to work to overcome past obstacles and achieve a peaceful and complete normalization of relations between our two countries, based on law and justice. He made this speech by himself upon his arrival in Tokyo. Things always get confused during a press conference, so he made this statement to clear up the affair before visiting me.

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I told him that, as he was here for the summit, I did not intend to raise the territorial issue or enter into any negotiations on the subject. I told him that his statement at the airport that day had been very important, and asked him when he might return to Tokyo, as he had promised to do in his statement. Yeltsin appeared to be at a loss when I asked him that, so I said: “How about September?” The Foreign Minister raised his hands and came over to stop this conversation, but Yeltsin took out his own diary and asked me: “How about September 27 and 28?” I knew that this was bad timing due to some engagement of the Emperor’s, so we decided on October 12 to 14. That evening during the banquet at the palace the Foreign Minister’s expression clearly showed that he thought we had just taken on a really troublesome affair, but this was how Yeltsin’s visit to Japan was decided upon. I had already stepped down as Prime Minister, but between October 11 and 13, Hosokawa Morihiro and Yeltsin issued the Tokyo Declaration.xvi The declaration refers to the “problem concerning the islands of Etorofu, Kunashiri, Shikotan and Habomai,” with the islands listed in that order. I think that whatever the end result, the fact that Kunashiri and Etorofu appeared in the document was quite something, and that Hosokawa did well.15 Apparently Yeltsin is a very strong drinker, and it’s often said that he fails to raise some issue or another in discussion. But I happened to meet him when he was not drinking, and he gave me the impression of being very well mannered, and of knowing what he was talking about. According to public opinion, he was a disgraceful figure, but that was not the way he appeared to me, and I think his failure to visit Japan earlier was simply unavoidable. That was my impression.

Notes i

The Lower House Special Committee on International Peace and Cooperation began deliberations on the PKO bill on November 18, 1991. ii The five principles of PKO participation are: 1 A ceasefire agreement has been concluded between the warring parties. 2 All warring parties, including countries within the region in which peacekeeping forces will operate, have agreed to the operations of peacekeeping forces and to Japan’s participation in them. 3 Peacekeeping forces shall not be partial to any party and will maintain their neutrality.

The islands were listed in order from the most northern (and thus closest to the Russian Kurile Islands), Etorofu.

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4 Japan may withdraw its troops if any of the above conditions cease to be met. 5 The use of weapons will be limited to cases of absolute necessity, such as to protect the lives of peacekeeping personnel. iii On June 14, 1992, a motion of no-­confidence in the Miyazawa Cabinet was passed in a plenary session of the Lower House, the first such measure in the postwar period. iv In 1978, Vietnamese forces supporting [Khmer Rouge defector] Heng Samrin entered Cambodia, beginning a civil war with the government of Pol Pot. Vietnamese forces withdrew from Cambodia in 1989. In 1991, a peace treaty was concluded in Paris. v On September 17, 1992, the first deployment of the Self-Defense Forces left for Cambodia to participate in United Nations peacekeeping operations. SDF forces entered Phnom Penh on September 25. vi Under the auspices of the United Nations, general elections were held on May 23–28, 1993. The Cambodian People’s Party emerged from the election as the largest party. vii In the northwestern Cambodian province of Banteay Meanchay, a United Nations Transition Authority for Cambodia (UNTAC) car came under gunfire from guerillas believed to be sympathetic to the Pol Pot regime. Takada Haruyuki (Okayama Police), a Japanese civilian, was killed and four police officers were either severely or slightly injured in the attack. viii On April 8, 1993, in the central Cambodian province of Kampong Thom, a car carrying United Nations volunteer election monitor Nakata Atsuhito and his Cambodian interpreter came under fire. Both were killed. ix LDP Secretary-General Watanuki Tamisuke, executive committee Chairman Sato Kōkō, and PARC [Policy Affairs Research Council] Chair Mori Yoshirō. x On August 27, 1992 LDP Vice-President Kanemaru acknowledged accepting ¥500 million from Tokyo Sagawa Kyūbin and announced his resignation as party vice-­president and Takeshita faction chief. [The Sagawa Kyūbin scandal was one of the largest in Japan’s political history.] xi On December 9, 1991 it was revealed that Assembly Member Abe Fumio, former Director of the Hokkaidō Development Agency and Secretary-General of the Miyazawa faction within the Liberal Democratic Party, had accepted over two hundred million yen in contributions from Kyōwa, a steel-­frame manufacturer exposed for fraudulent activities involving fictitious steel transactions. xii Between October 13 and 28, 1992 the Emperor and Empress of Japan visited Beijing, Xi’an, and Shanghai. xiii On January 9, 1992, Prime Minister Miyazawa Kiichi and President Bush announced the Tokyo Declaration on the US-Japan Global Partnership. On the issue of automobiles, Japan agreed to increase its imports of both American-­made automobiles and parts. xiv On August 2, 1990, the Iraqi Army invaded Kuwait. On January 17, 1991, international forces began aerial raids on Baghdad and elsewhere within Iraq and Kuwait as the Gulf Crisis became the Gulf War. The war ended on February 28.

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xv In a telephone conversation on September 9, 1992, President Boris Yeltsin, who had planned to visit Japan on September 13, informed Prime Minister Miyazawa Kiichi that he would postpone his visits to Japan and South Korea. xvi President Yeltsin made an official visit to Japan (through October 13). On October 12, during a general meeting with Prime Minister Hosokawa Morihiro, Yeltsin made the first apology by a Soviet or Russian leader for the postwar treatment of Japanese prisoners-­of-war in Siberia. During a meeting between the two leaders, a declaration was issued on the necessity of resolving the (Northern Territories) territorial dispute. The Prime Minister accepted an invitation to visit Russia. On October 13, the two leaders signed the “Tokyo Declaration” specifying the four island groups [under territorial dispute] and confirming the continuation of negotiations on the issue, and an “Economic Declaration” signaling the strengthening of economic cooperation between the two countries. It was confirmed that all treaties and international agreements concluded between Japan and the former USSR would continue to apply between Japan and Russia, and President Yeltsin announced that this would include the Soviet-Japanese Joint Declaration of 1956. Prime Minister Hosokawa and President Yeltsin also expressed their support for the reforms being pursued in both countries.

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Considering Twenty-­First-­Century Japan Translated by Kate Dunlop

Koizumi’s politics Mikuriya: In October 2003, you left the world of politics and again became a private citizen. Has your view of the world changed since the long period in which you served in the Upper and Lower Houses, and carried the title of a politician? Miyazawa: I was a politician for fifty years, so I really don’t know about anything else. I’m embarrassed to admit this, but as I now have some opportunities to ride the train or go shopping, I have a somewhat better understanding of everyday life, but basically there has been no real change. It has changed only to the extent that I now have the opportunity to hear from a wide variety of people. Mikuriya: But in terms of time, you must have much more flexibility these days? Miyazawa: Yes, in that sense, I can observe what Koizumi is doing as a disinterested party. I think Koizumi is conducting politics in terms of “from public to private,” “from the center to the regions,” and free market competition, and I think that this in itself is fine. Of course there are specific issues, such as that of the [Japan] Highway Public Corporation and the postal services,1 which are creating a great deal of confusion and this state of affairs cannot remain, but I think his way of thinking is good. So in that sense, I can support him on domestic affairs. But if he follows through with this, the traditional LDP support base itself will be destroyed. There is no doubt that support organizations will disappear, so it

Koizumi’s neoliberal agenda of privatization and market-­oriented reform collided with the long-­ term policy preferences of the LDP, and challenged the entrenched interests of many LDP politicians and voters. Koizumi’s postal privatization legislation was passed in October 2005, although subsequent revisions limited the impact of reforms. His attempts to privatize the Japan Highway Public Corporation were less successful.

1

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really is no joke when Koizumi says that he will destroy the LDP. If he truly goes through with it, the LDP’s support bases may gradually disappear. The LDP has many incumbent politicians in place, so it’s difficult for new people to become official party candidates. It is the Democratic Party of Japan [DPJ] that offers the shortcut to success. So I should think that in the future, among those aspiring to enter politics, even among government officials, the number who join the DPJ will increase considerably. If you ask me, the DPJ is still an unknown quantity, but I think that they will take on the image of a party that could achieve a change in government. If they can get good candidates, I think they will grow even bigger. In the past, there was a strong distrust of the Japan Socialist Party (JSP) in rural areas, if not in the cities, but the DPJ is working in a way that doesn’t arouse those kinds of feelings. The LDP is depending quite heavily on Kōmeitō in some places, so I predict that the DPJ will grow to quite a good size. Moreover, if Koizumi’s reforms are a success, the LDP support base will weaken considerably, and I feel that this may well lead to some unexpected developments. In terms of diplomacy, I think that Koizumi has rushed into too much with Bush. You could say that this is rather a problem to do with Bush. The so-­called neoconservatives in the [US] government have gained a prominent voice in the past two or three years, and it seems as if Bush has fallen under their influence. In terms of the Iraq War, they waged a pre-­emptive strike that would have previously been unthinkable for the United States. Because, as it turns out, there were no weapons of mass destruction, and even though the Vice-President and others [in the government] repeatedly told the American public that the “9/11” attacks were closely linked to Iraq, it has become clear that the two were not directly related. Despite all this, and without the agreement of the majority of Security Council member nations, the United States ultimately went to war, launching a pre-­emptive attack on Iraq. I do not believe that this was in the tradition of the United States, and there were many other such problems with the Bush administration’s Iraq policies. Given this, I feel that Koizumi rushed into too much with Bush. Of course, it is desirable for the leaders of the United States and Japan to be close; this is more important than anything else. Bush has been pulled so far towards neo-­conservativism, however, that I have some misgivings about the commitments Koizumi has made to him,2 though he has not gone so far as Blair. Koizumi is correct when he says that only the United States, only the US-Japan Security Treaty, can protect Japan if North Korea does possess such things as After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Koizumi introduced special legislation authorizing the dispatch of Maritime Self-Defense forces to the Persian Gulf in a refueling mission supporting US operations in Afghanistan. In 2003, another bill was passed authorizing the dispatch of SDF units to Iraq as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

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weapons of mass destruction. But I wonder if it is right to rush into things with the United States to this extent just because this is the case. Ultimately it is the prime minister who decides where the national interest lies, and I don’t intend to criticize his decision at this late date. Fortunately the SDF forces deployed have not come under attack and are carrying out their work. At the same time, they are not able to do as much as they had hoped when they leave their camps, and the threat of a guerrilla attack remains. While they are in supposedly non-­combat areas, the situation could change at any time, so there is no doubt that they are in considerable danger. That does not mean that our country is exercising military power abroad. It is clear that we are not using military force, but if our troops come under attack they will be forced to exercise legitimate self-­defense. In that case it is likely that they would either be killed or kill others. I wonder if placing the SDF in such a position is really provided for under the Japanese Constitution. I have some doubts about this. I have some misgivings regarding our foreign policy.

Thoughts on Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution Mikuriya: Problems relating to the Constitution are beginning to be talked about once again. Mr. Miyazawa, as a politician you have naturally been involved with this issue throughout the postwar era. Would you like to say something on this point? Miyazawa: It has been a long time since constitutional revision was first discussed, but at first this was discussed mainly in reference to Article 9. I have always felt that there was no need to undertake a revision centering upon Article  9. Since that time, however, many Japanese have come to feel that the Constitution does not sufficiently reflect an awareness of issues relating to the environment, for example, or human rights, and in that sense I think that there is a growing public mood favoring a complete re-­examination of the Constitution. I don’t think that this in itself is a bad thing. If the majority of Japanese feel that way, it may be a good thing to do. If this is not an attempt at constitutional revision centering upon Article 9, but rather a desire to revisit the Constitution prompted by a new awareness of issues that have emerged with the considerable passage of time, then I am not opposed. Mikuriya: What about in relation to Article 9? Miyazawa: I think there may be room for debate if there is concern regarding what is written in Article 9, and probably especially what is written in the second

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clause,3 because in reality we do have the SDF. Admittedly it is strange that the Constitution stipulates that we have no army when it is certainly true that the SDF is in fact an army, but—and this is a rather Anglo-American approach to the law—my feeling is that it’s fine for such odd things to be written in the Constitution. Despite these legal provisions, the SDF has evolved over the past fifty years into its current form. That is a fact, and I don’t think it is necessary to go back and change the actual constitutional provision itself simply because of the way things have developed. No one is calling for an end to the SDF, and most Japanese accept the fact that our country cannot exercise military force overseas, so there is nothing that necessitates a change to these constitutional provisions. My feeling is that they can remain as a kind of product of our history. But there isn’t much understanding for this point of view and I would be accused of deception if I were to voice it. I don’t speak loudly on the subject, but those are my feelings. Mikuriya: As we are speaking of constitutional revision, a two-­thirds majority in both Houses, as well as a simple majority in a national referendum is required, correct? What is your opinion on this? A regular government is established with a majority of the vote, so you could say that a two-­thirds majority among all Diet members represents quite a high hurdle. Miyazawa: It’s an extremely severe regulation. While I don’t oppose debating constitutional revision, the actual revision is no easy matter to undertake, and I don’t have any particular grievance with the fact that the provisions for revision are so stringent.

Cambodia and Iraq Mikuriya: This is related to our current discussion. When you led the Cabinet, there was the issue of peacekeeping operations in Cambodia. Are there any differences between that issue and the current government’s deployment of SDF forces in Iraq? Miyazawa: At the time of the Cambodian operation, the United Nations Transitional Authority (UNTAC) had been established and the warring parties had agreed to an armistice, and Japan’s participation had been requested. Based upon the The second clause of Article 9 prohibits the maintenance of ground, sea, or air forces. Throughout the postwar period, the Cabinet Legislation Bureau has issued different interpretations of this clause to justify the existence of the SDF.

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conditions that the war had ended and the collection of weapons was already at quite an advanced stage, the SDF forces were deployed. Moreover, forces were deployed for a limited purpose, which was ultimately to oversee an election. Unfortunately, even with all of these conditions in place a life was lost, but in actual fact, of course there was never an eruption of real warfare with the SDF forces coming under attack. In Iraq, by comparison, the SDF is working in a situation in which there is a theoretical division between combat and non-­combat zones, but in which the danger from a stray bullet or bomb is undeniable. So I think the situation is considerably different from that in Cambodia. The SDF are not able to leave the barracks easily—only one hundred of the six hundred people do, I would say— and under rather restricted circumstances they are doing such work as providing drinking water, supplying doctors to hospitals, and repairing schools and roads. I have some doubts about whether that kind of work really necessitates the deployment of the SDF. That Japan has also taken a positive interest in Iraq, and worked hard on its behalf, may have been a good thing for our relationship with the Iraqi people, but even so I wonder if the situation truly necessitated the considerable resolve needed to deploy several hundred members of the SDF. Mikuriya: To put it conversely, would you say that in your case, Mr. Miyazawa, there was ample justification for deploying troops, whereas in this case there is some doubt on this point? Miyazawa: I think we’ve gone a bit too far [in Iraq]. In the event, no calamity has occurred, so it could be said that as a nation we seized an opportunity. But in fact more than one thousand American soldiers have died since Bush declared the war to be effectively over on May 1, 2003. It was a great risk to send the SDF, even at a remove [from combat], into such a dangerous environment. Mikuriya: There are various debates on this issue within the LDP, and within the DPJ as well. The decision was made despite divided opinions within both the ruling and opposition parties. Koizumi is a man of conviction, and if he has decided something, he will see it through to the end. What are your thoughts on this? Miyazawa: This is a question of how to assess the national interest at such times, and there is no other way but for the Prime Minister to make that assessment. I can only say that it is fortunate that, as of now, the types of situations people have feared have not occurred.

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Turning points in postwar Japan Mikuriya: I’d now like to ask a question from a different angle. When you look back at your life as a politician over the past fifty years, was there something that you thought of as a turning point for postwar Japan? Miyazawa: One would be the so-­called Anpo (US-Japan Security Treaty) protests in 1960. I believe this was the turning point from which postwar Japan really began in earnest. That is to say, the revision of the Security Treaty then under dispute was not in itself a significant thing. People initially thought it to be important, but in the end it was not. More important was the national energy at that time, which probably emerged in revolt against the authoritarian politics of Kishi and those pre-­war types, which sought to restore the pre-­war order. It just so happened that Kishi made the revision of the Security Treaty a goal in this process, and even went so far as to invite the American president to attend the ratification of the treaty revision. That is why people revolted to such a degree. The so-­called purged politicians said that they were working to regain the honor of the pre-­war days and [the Kishi] Cabinet was established towards that end, but ultimately they were unable to achieve any significant results and were done in by the so-­called Anpo protests. In that sense, one can say that the efforts to return to the pre-­war system ended there. And I think one can also say that a new democracy was born at that time. Mikuriya: You yourself promoted the process of establishing this very “new democracy,” did you not? Miyazawa: Yes, that’s right. Mikuriya: And then, beginning with the Ikeda administration, high economic growth began to be achieved, but do you think there were any later turning points as well? Miyazawa: This may sound strange, but after that I think it was the 1985 Plaza Accord. This marked the end of the high economic growth you were just speaking of, and also marked the starting point for what came next—I want to say that the Plaza Accord represented the occasion for such a start. Not enough time has passed, however, so I don’t have enough confidence to make that conclusion. There was the problem, however, of how the public would accept such dramatic fluctuations in our currency, as the Japanese yen, which had been ¥242 [to the dollar] [in 1985], at one point in 1995 plunged to ¥79. There have been enormous fluctuations: an extraordinary boom period and then a reversal,

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followed by a bleak economic decade that might now finally be beginning to brighten. In the interim I think that the lives of Japanese have changed considerably. It’s not simply a matter of currency, but employment, for example, has also changed considerably. There has been a change in attitude towards things such as lifelong employment, furītā [temporary, irregular workers] have emerged, and I think that 1985 made such ongoing changes possible. It’s still not possible to draw a thorough conclusion, but I think that this was most likely a second turning point. Mikuriya: And now almost twenty years have passed. These two past turning points, one being Anpo in 1960, which you described as a change from pre-­war to postwar values—and I think the latter could be described as high economic growth—and then this period of rapid economic growth changed again with the [second turning point], the 1985 Plaza Accord. Miyazawa: I think it was a case in which an economic power inevitably reached a turning point.

Views on postwar democracy Mikuriya: And with that we arrive at the present day. Earlier turning points in economic and political values notwithstanding, assuming that we have today arrived at a certain point of attainment, how would you evaluate the postwar democracy of the past fifty years? What are your thoughts in this regard? Miyazawa: At the level of society as a whole I think one could say that democracy is developing. But at the individual level, I think there is a problem with the lack of individuality, or the tendency to follow blindly, which is a peculiarity of Japanese society. As this may be the national character I don’t mean to say that it absolutely must change, but from the perspective of Western democracy I feel that we could be a bit more individualistic. It’s said that harmony is important in many ways, and it is important from the perspective of social cohesion. There are times, however, when under the rubric of harmony sufficient competition or thorough debates do not necessarily occur. I do have the feeling that this is a special characteristic of Japanese society. Mikuriya: Do you mean that this has not changed? Miyazawa: Yes. It has not changed definitively.

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Mikuriya: In your opinion, is it desirable for everyone to establish themselves as individuals, becoming assertive and argumentative? Miyazawa: There is a certain national character, so I don’t think it’s necessary to become Western. But I feel that we could have a bit more individualism.

The qualities of a politician Mikuriya: These may be your thoughts on the general public, but I’d like to ask you now about politicians. You were a member of the Diet for fifty years and have observed politicians for a long time—wouldn’t you say that the qualities of politicians have changed considerably? Miyazawa: They may be in the process of changing, but I can’t say definitely that there has been a major change. I think there could be still more debate [on various matters]. Mikuriya: Since the 1990s the influence of television on politics has grown, and younger Diet members in particular have taken to making statements on television. Greater importance is placed on what they have said on television [than in the Diet], and there is a trend of numerous politicians appearing on television debate programs. Koizumi himself has made considerable use of such outlets. What is your opinion of this trend? Miyazawa: I think it’s a good thing. But what I would really like to do for young Diet members is to provide them with public funding for policy secretaries and other staff. Recently bureaucrats have stopped answering questions in the Diet and legislators have replaced them, but legislators are still involved within the ministries as parliamentary officials and in other capacities. This is good, [but given how much they do] Diet members themselves lack the staff to advise them on policy matters. If I’m not mistaken, at present they only have public funding to hire three secretaries. There are outrageous cases in which politicians use secretarial salaries for their own purposes, and while this is out of the question, I think the state ought to pay the salaries for around ten secretarial staff members per legislator. Usually it takes around ¥5 million a year to employ one secretary. Even the youngest Diet members employ around ten secretarial staff, so that amounts to ¥50 million. A Diet member cannot possibly pay that sum by himself. Diet members have to raise that money all over the place. They have to work hard, holding parties to raise that money. Even if they do such things, ¥50 million is a sum that isn’t so easily raised. This is why the state ought to provide funding for around ten secretaries per legislator in order to

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promote policy-­making. If they did, I think that Diet members would have the time to study, and thus not only better participate in interpellations as members of the government but also come to express their own opinions a bit more. Mikuriya: What you are saying is that there is very little time for them to study [policy]? Miyazawa: Yes, because at present they try to do anything and everything by themselves. If something isn’t done to provide them with more staff, there will just be too much for them to do on their own. As cases of politicians appropriating funds for secretarial salaries have become more conspicuous, things are now moving in the other direction, but at the very least I’d like to suggest another possible course.

Challenges for Japan’s international relations Mikuriya: Next I would like to ask you about a few issues in Japan’s international relations. Just now you were speaking of President Bush. You were saying that Koizumi has done too much for Bush, and I’d like to ask you about postwar US-Japan relations, including this topic. While I suppose various things have changed, what is your view of the big picture? Miyazawa: There is the issue of the Iraq War, but fundamentally I think the USJapan relationship is maturing in a healthy fashion. Our interests may not coincide on individual issues, but generally speaking, at both the governmental and popular level, or at the level of business, or culture, or anything else, there is a great deal of contact. I think both sides would agree that our values are in alignment. In that sense, the ties that bind us together are strong. This is important for Japan. In terms of [our] security, the foundation is the US-Japan Security Treaty. While in some respects this is not a bilateral but a unilateral agreement, and this is always an issue for Japan, I don’t believe it’s something that we can extricate ourselves from further. Actually, I think it is better that we do not. I don’t think acquiring nuclear weapons and becoming a military power is in Japan’s interests, so it is inevitable that our guarantee of security lies with US-Japan relations. At the same time, as I’m sure you are about to ask, the question of how to deal with China is becoming a big issue in the region. Mikuriya: You mean that we have to keep a close eye on both our relations with the US and with China?

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Miyazawa: Yes. It’s difficult to predict what will happen over the long term. In the next twenty years, I don’t think there will be a reversal in the military power relations of China and the United States. Given this, I think that it would be desirable if the United States, Japan, and China, along with Russia, could engage in regular dialogue to maintain peace in the region. Mikuriya: What kind of efforts can Japan make towards this goal? Miyazawa: There is no other way but to engage sincerely with both the US and China. We have to maintain a continuous dialogue. Mikuriya: In your view Bush has gone a bit too far and Koizumi in turn has over-­committed Japan [in Iraq]. In such cases, as there are many different avenues of engagement between the United States and Japan, don’t you think that Japan could use these to correct the current relationship or to better explain Japan’s position? Miyazawa: There are already forces within the United States that are extremely critical of Bush, and with whom Japan is in continuous contact, so I think such efforts can be advanced through that avenue. Mikuriya: Well then, what about Japan’s relations with China? Unlike our relations with the United States, there are quite a few ideological issues to deal with, ranging from the question of war memory to that of a formal apology [for the war]. Miyazawa: Some time ago there was an article in the British news magazine The Economist that said that trade with China and investments related to such trade together comprised one-­third of Japan’s economic recovery in 2003. This analysis may be correct. The value of Japan’s total trade is about ¥100 trillion. Of that, trade with the United States amounts to roughly ¥20 trillion, while if you include Hong Kong, trade with China also amounts to over ¥20 trillion. So our trade with China is set to exceed trade with the United States in 2004 or 2005. This isn’t something in the distant future—right before our eyes China has come to wield considerable influence in Japan, and if we don’t analyze this situation correctly our response will come too late. China is a big country and one that is difficult to understand, so it’s not easy to grasp how things will develop, but this is the situation at the macro level, and deciding how to interact with China is a big issue for Japan. We have come to understand how to maintain our relationship with the United States, but with China there are many things we don’t understand even when it comes to our

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economic ties. And when it comes to politics, visits between our heads of state have been suspended at present. Something has to be done about this. I think that the heads of state must remain in continual contact with one another. This is one problem with Koizumi’s diplomacy. Mikuriya: On a related note, what are your thoughts on Taiwan? Miyazawa: I don’t think there has been any major change in this regard in the past twenty years. There is the additional problem of what to do with Southeast Asia. As Finance Minister, I made the momentous decision to disburse $30 billion after the Southeast Asian financial crisis in 1997. At the time this was referred to by such names as “the Miyazawa Fund,” but I think it was helpful in getting various Asian countries back on their feet after the crisis. In the end my decision was evaluated highly. I think this was the starting point for more free-­flowing economic interaction between Japan and other Asian countries. Later on we were able to conclude currency swap agreements such as the Chiang Mai Initiative, which brought Japan and other Asian countries much closer together on currency issues as well. So I think that what is important right now is the question of how to conclude free trade agreements. But in this regard there are constant problems from Japanese agriculture, and—while we managed one with Singapore—Japan’s agricultural and marine products sector becomes a problem whenever we try to conclude a free trade agreement. Without some bold action on this front, it won’t be easy to conclude any far-­reaching free trade agreements. China, on the other hand, in the past decade has said it would conclude free trade agreements [in Southeast Asia] and it seems that they are actually beginning work on these. I worry that Japan will be left behind if we handle this ineptly. The ultimate conclusion to be derived here is that Japan needs to reassess its policies on agricultural and marine products. Unless we can somehow take that plunge, I don’t think we’ll be able to maintain relations as we would like with Southeast Asian countries. Mikuriya: Agricultural and marine products were an issue under the GATT system, and are now the biggest issue at the WTO as well. Miyazawa: That’s right. They are the biggest issue. Mikuriya: In Japan’s case, what is the biggest obstacle to change? Miyazawa: That would of course be the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries and the handful of people behind it. These include both legislators and bureaucrats. In a lot of senses, really decisive action is necessary.

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Mikuriya: As far as these people are concerned, they are protecting the national interest. Miyazawa: Yes, that’s true. Mikuriya: The Miyazawa administration made quite a considerable effort to break away from such policies, did you not? Miyazawa: Yes, we tried hard. This is quite a deep-­rooted problem, so resolute action wherever possible is needed to address it. Mikuriya: In a sense this is where resistance to change is strongest. Miyazawa: Resistance is strong. However, in recent years there have also been moves within the agricultural sector to build foreign ties, especially based on the export of fruits and other products.4 In fact, I am serving as director for such an organization, but more time is still needed. Mikuriya: Is that so? Well, I’d also like to ask you about relations between Japan and the Korean Peninsula. Miyazawa: In 2002 Japan and South Korea co-­hosted the soccer World Cup. I was surprised by how the event eased relations between the two countries and demonstrated what was possible if we tried. I was the chairman of the parliamentary committee [on the 2002 World Cup bid], but I really felt that things went off much better than I’d expected. I think that young people were able to create a venue where they could get together without prejudice. So, as has been the case with “Yon-­sama,”5 it may be surprisingly easy to improve relations if we make an effort. On the South Korean side as well, it appears that they have gradually relaxed their policies related to showing Japanese cinema, for example, so relations may improve rapidly. Mikuriya: What about North Korea? Miyazawa: I’m afraid that there is nothing that we can do. Rather, I think we have to wait a while and see how the North-South relationship develops. Miyazawa is referring to the recent shift in Japanese agricultural policy away from traditional protectionism to the more aggressive promotion of Japanese agricultural products in foreign markets. 5 South Korean actor Bae Yon Joon, popularly referred to as “Yon-­sama” by his Japanese fans, has been held up as a symbol of warming relations between Japan and South Korea. 4

Considering Twenty-First-Century Japan

235

Mikuriya: And what about the abduction issue itself?6 Miyazawa: I don’t know much about it. Mikuriya: Well then, it’s a case of waiting and watching for a while? Miyazawa: I think so. Mikuriya: I think perhaps Japan’s relationship with Russia is another such case. There has been little change because of the Northern Territories issue, but what are your thoughts on this and issues like Siberian development? Miyazawa: Basically I think it’s a question of what Japan can do in terms of Siberian development. At present there is talk of extending the [oil] pipeline to Nakhodka. This is something that will require a great deal of time and money. I don’t know whether Russia will actually go through with this or not, but it will be to Russia’s benefit if Japan can positively express its views on these kinds of projects, one by one. We have to accept that the Northern Territories issue will take a long time to resolve. Mikuriya: One recent issue for Japanese diplomacy is whether or not to participate as a permanent member of the UN Security Council. Every few years there is a move to increase the number of permanent members. To state the matter as our Ministry of Foreign Affairs does, this chance will not come again soon, so we need to take this opportunity to somehow obtain a permanent seat. There are many ideas on this subject, and it looks as if the matter will be decided in the next year or two. What are your thoughts on joining the Security Council as a permanent member? Miyazawa: While I don’t know the specifics of the current situation, I don’t hold out much hope for this. I don’t think anyone would disagree that Japan ought to become a permanent member, but when this in turn leads to the question of what to do with the Security Council as a whole, the discussion breaks off in different directions and goes nowhere. So for the present I don’t have much hope. And I don’t feel this is something to be concerned about.

Mikuriya is referring to the abduction of at least thirteen Japanese nationals by North Korea between 1977 and 1983, which has been a major issue in Japan-North Korean relations since Koizumi’s visit to North Korea in 2002.

6

Politics and Power in 20th-Century Japan

236

Mikuriya: You mean that at the very least, Japan’s status will not be affected by whether or not it joins the Security Council as a permanent member? Miyazawa: That’s right.

Japan’s aims for the twenty-first century Mikuriya: Finally, I’d like to ask you to talk about what you think Japan should aim for in the twenty-first century. Through the postwar recovery period, the period of high economic growth, and the post-­high growth period, Japan has somehow managed to continue growing, but unfortunately there can no longer be economic development to that extent. What should Japan, which has matured and begun to lose the energy to develop, seek as a new goal? What goals should the Japanese people move towards? Miyazawa: One aim should be to avoid becoming a military power. What we must really endeavor to do is to avoid becoming a military power. And the second thing would be to continue to place importance on economic aid. Mikuriya: The first and second things you’ve just mentioned are related, aren’t they? Miyazawa: Yes. Mikuriya: Are you saying that Japan should maintain as small a military presence as possible, while on the economic side of things provide various forms of assistance to foreign countries, especially in Asia? Miyazawa: In this century I should think that aid to Africa and other places will increase considerably. In that sense, Japan must resolve to become the world’s major power in economic aid. Mikuriya: Japan’s ODA [official development assistance] is flagging at the moment. Miyazawa: Yes. With the recession it’s become much worse. Now we have to raise these numbers back up. Mikuriya: What are your thoughts on ODA itself?

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Miyazawa: There are many things to think about, but I think it would not be good to lower the amount of our ODA. At the very least I’d like to make sure that we do enough so that Japan can call itself the world leader in terms of its total ODA. Mikuriya: I’d like to ask one more question related to this point. I think that the question of the extent to which Japan is willing to accept immigration will likely become an increasingly big issue in the future. We have never before been in circumstances in which we had to decide whether or not to admit immigrants, and this may become an important point when considering Japan’s future. Whether you look at the case of Germany or any other country, immigration creates great difficulties. In light of this, do you think that in the future Japan will become not only a major power in economic aid, but at the same time resolve to accept immigration as well? This is also a major issue from the policy perspective, and I’d like to hear your thoughts. Miyazawa: I think that immigration is unavoidable. My hope is that something can be done to avoid ghettoization [of foreign migrants], but in any case, accepting them is now unavoidable. I don’t think it’s something that will bring only trouble. In reality, there are also positive cases, like that of the Filipina nurses. Japan’s population is declining, so in any event immigration will become inevitable. Mikuriya: Will Japanese society change somewhat as a result? Miyazawa: I think it will change. Change might take the form of diversification. I don’t think the changes will only be bad ones. Mikuriya: Has there ever been anyone else who, from a position similar to yours, held discussions with the United States and other countries? My feeling is that it will be difficult to find your successor, but what are your thoughts? To put it the other way around, this is about developing human talent for the future. I think this is extremely important for Japan . . . Miyazawa: But recently many young people—and this can be said about legislators as well—are being educated in the United States and in Europe. So I’m not pessimistic on this point. They’ve become more international, should I say, or more cosmopolitan. Mikuriya: But as I’ve been listening to your oral history, what I’ve been struck with is the fact that at such an early stage you went to the United States as part of the Japan-America Student Conference, and then immediately became a

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negotiator with GHQ. In one fell swoop, you accumulated practical experience in dealing with the United States at an extremely young age, and then, under Ikeda, shouldered responsibility for US-Japan relations throughout. To be sure, the number of legislators with a wide range of experiences is growing, but there are very few who have had so many experiences at such a young age. Miyazawa: My experiences were acquired as a result of Japan’s defeat in the war, and such sad events should not occur frequently. But even today, everyone travels abroad to study at a young age and gains many new experiences, because there are far more extensive opportunities for contact than in the past. Mikuriya: What is your view of this younger generation? Miyazawa: To be perfectly honest, I have no idea. However, I take hope from the fact that they seem to be willing to go anywhere in the world without regard for national borders, and try anything. They are surprisingly carefree, and while I wonder if they can speak the language, they don’t seem to worry about that. That is a good thing. I should think that chances to travel abroad will increase more and more if there are no wars, and if Japan maintains its current degree of prosperity. Mikuriya: Just now I raised the topic of your hopes for young people, but on the other hand, life expectancy has increased and a growing number of people are living their lives as so-­called rōjin [elderly], with the first members of the postwar baby-­boom generation reaching retirement age in 2010. In light of this, many problems such as that of pensions or health insurance are being discussed. Do you have a message for the growing number of elderly? Miyazawa: Yes, well, I think they are a relatively prosperous generation, so they should do whatever they enjoy. Mikuriya: Thank you very much for all the time you have given us.

Epilogue On completion of the interviews Mikuriya Takashi Translated by Jo Lumley

I am very relieved to at last be able to share with you the oral history of Miyazawa Kiichi. This is because, as a former Prime Minister, there were many things Miyazawa was reluctant, in various senses, to discuss. I had imagined that Miyazawa was not someone keen to tell his own life story, and that preparation for the interviews would be tough. However, I felt, as the leader of the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies’ COE Project for Oral History and Policy Enrichment, that it was essential to record Miyazawa’s recollections given his experience as a bureaucrat in the Ministry of Finance and later as a politician through fifty long years of the twentieth century. It was Nakamura Takafusa, Professor Emeritus of Tokyo University, who aided me in this task. As he writes in the Preface to this volume, he was well acquainted with Miyazawa through their work together in the Economic Planning Agency. Miyazawa gave cautious consideration to Nakamura’s request, and after a number of discussions following his return from Karuizawa in the autumn of 2001, he kindly agreed to assist in our attempt at recording his oral history. And so, in Miyazawa’s offices in Ichibanchō near the British Embassy in Hanzōmon, we recorded his oral history over the course of one two-­hour interview per month: a total of ten interviews over one year (from December 2001 until November 2002). Furthermore, the interview which makes up Chapter 11 was recorded separately (in September 2004) for this publication. Each time as I set out for Miyazawa’s offices accompanied by Nakamura Takafusa, our transcriptionist Niwa Kiyotaka, and our administrator Takeda Tomoki, we felt some trepidation. When we arrived, Miyazawa, standing erect, would welcome us in with a gentle nod of the head. Then the real work began: in two hours, just how much would we be able to get from the man said to be the fastest thinker in politics? Those crucial two hours always passed in the blink of an eye . . .

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Epilogue

Miyazawa dealt with us with great integrity. As you can see from this volume, Miyazawa’s recollections center on his early life through to the Ikeda Cabinet. After this, he concentrates largely on matters of policy when discussing his time as Minister of International Trade and Industry (Satō Cabinet), Minister of Finance (Nakasone and Takeshita Cabinets), and Prime Minister. I am sure this is a conscious decision on his part, signifying that, at present, this is everything he is able to discuss in his current circumstances. I wonder whether we have been able to show a side of Miyazawa somewhat different from that of the public debater we have seen in his numerous dialogues, lectures, and interviews. This will be for the reader to evaluate. However, in the interaction between listener and speaker, it is clear that a previously unknown side of Miyazawa is revealed in his stories of pre-­war childhood, wartime and postwar experiences in the Ministry of Finance, the formation of the LDP and the activities of the Kōchikai, and his character sketches of Yoshida Shigeru, Ikeda Hayato, Ogata Taketora, Shigemitsu Mamoru, and Maeo Shigesaburō, among others. It is my hope that in some small way, we have been able to shed some light on the “real” Miyazawa, as a human being. If I may add one further comment as a scholar of oral history, it is that there is a richness in Miyazawa’s recollections that can only be present in one who has witnessed history with his own eyes. I have perhaps said too much in my attempt to communicate the singular nature of oral history. Finally, I would like to express my profound gratitude to Miyazawa Kiichi, of course, as well as to all the staff at his offices, who cooperated so fully with the oral history project. I would also like to thank all the staff at Iwanami Shoten for their efforts in bringing this volume to publication. In fact, the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies’ COE Project for Oral History and Policy Enrichment comes to the end of its five-­year term this March. I trust that after this, its legacy will be continued by the newly formed Oral History Project in the Mikuriya laboratory of the Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology, Tokyo University. Mikuriya Takashi Early Spring, 2005

Appendix

Chronology of Miyazawa Kiichi’s Life and Related Events

Year

Miyazawa’s life

Events in Japan and the rest of the world

1919

October

January

Beginning of the Paris Peace Conference

1920

January

First meeting of the League of Nations

1921

November

Prime Minister Hara Takashi assassinated

1923

September

Great Kantō Earthquake

1925

April

Peace Preservation Law promulgated

May

General Election Law promulgated

May

May 15 Incident

March

Japan withdraws from the League of Nations

February

February 26 Incident

July

Marco Polo Bridge Incident

Born in Fukuyama, Hiroshima Prefecture as the eldest son of Miyazawa Yutaka (father) and Koto (mother)

1926

April

Enters Tokyo Normal High School Elementary School

1932

March

Graduates Tokyo Normal High School Elementary School

April

Enters Musashi (seven-­year) High School

1933 1936

1937

March

Graduates ordinary division (four years), Musashi High School

Appendix

242 Year

Miyazawa’s life

Events in Japan and the rest of the world

1939

March

Graduates higher division (three years), Musashi High School

May

Nomonhan Incident

April

Enters Tokyo Imperial University

July

Travels to America for the Japan-America Student Conference October

Creation of the Imperial Rule Assistance Association (Taisei Yokusankai)

December

Japan declares war on the United States and the United Kingdom (beginning of the Pacific War)

1940

1941

October

Passes the administrative and diplomatic higher civil service exams

December

Graduates from the Department of Political Science, Faculty of Law, Tokyo Imperial University

1942

January

Enters the Ministry of Finance

1943

January

Head of Numazu Tax Office in Shizuoka Prefecture

August

Head of Shiba Tax Office in Tokyo

November

Marries Yōko, the second daughter of Ijichi Sumimasa, a professor at Waseda University

1944

October

Administrator in the Ministry of Finance

1945

August

Assistant Secretary to August the Minister of Finance

1946

Acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration; formation of the Higashikuni Naruhiko Cabinet

October

Formation of the Shidehara Kijūrō cabinet

May

Formation of the Yoshida Shigeru Cabinet

Appendix Year

Miyazawa’s life

243

Events in Japan and the rest of the world

1947

May

Creation of the new Japanese Constitution; Formation of the Katayama Tetsu Cabinet

1948

March

Formation of the Ashida Hitoshi Cabinet

October

Formation of the second Yoshida Shigeru Cabinet

1949

March

Secretary to the March Minister of Finance (including secondment to the Minister of International Trade and Industry)

1950

Announcement of the Dodge Line

August

Shoup Report

June

Beginning of the Korean War

August

National Police Reserve established

September

Conclusion of the Treaty of Peace with Japan

1951

August

Attends the San Francisco Peace Conference as an aide to negotiators

1952

December

Leaves the Ministry of May Finance

May Day Incident

1953

April

Elected for the first time to the House of Councilors

February

Regular television broadcasting begins in Japan

October

Attends the Ikeda– Robertson talks

November

Attends the Yoshida– Eisenhower talks

February

Shipbuilding Scandal (zōsen gigoku)

December

Formation of the Hatoyama Ichirō Cabinet

October

Japan’s split socialist parties merge to become the Japan Socialist Party (JSP)

November

Liberal and Democratic parties merge to become the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)

1954

1955

Appendix

244 Year

Miyazawa’s life

Events in Japan and the rest of the world

1956

December

Formation of the Ishibashi Tanzan Cabinet; Japan admitted to the United Nations

1957

February

Formation of the Kishi Nobusuke Cabinet

May

Forced approval of the renewal of the US-Japan Mutual Security Treaty

July

Formation of the Ikeda Hayato Cabinet

October

Assassination of JSP leader Asanuma Inejirō

1959

June

Elected for the second time to the House of Councilors; Parliamentary ViceMinister of education (reshuffle of the second Kishi Cabinet)

1960

1961

June

Attends the Ikeda– Kennedy talks

October

Head of the House of Councilors Steering Committee

1962

July

Director of the October Economic Planning Agency (second reshuffle of the second Ikeda Cabinet)

1963

May

Attends the GATT ministerial conference

July

Retained as Director of the Economic Planning Agency (third reshuffle of the second Ikeda Cabinet)

November

Attends a meeting of the OECD

December

Director of the Economic Planning Agency (third Ikeda Cabinet)

November

Cuban Missile Crisis

Assassination of President Kennedy

Appendix Year

Miyazawa’s life

1964

1965

245

Events in Japan and the rest of the world October

Tokyo Olympic Games

November

Formation of the Satō Eisaku Cabinet

February

America begins bombing of North Vietnam

1966

December

Director of the Economic Planning Agency (third reshuffle of the first Satō Cabinet)

1967

January

Elected for the first time to the House of Representatives

February

Director of the Economic Planning Agency (second Satō Cabinet)

May

Attends the Kennedy GATT trade round

November

Retained as Director of the Economic Planning Agency (first reshuffle of the second Satō Cabinet)

1969

December

Elected for the second time to the House of Representatives

July

Apollo 11 lands on the moon

1970

January

Minister of International Trade and Industry (third Satō Cabinet)

March

Opening of Osaka Expo ’70

June

Attends a meeting of the OECD Ministerial Council

December

Elected for the third time to the House of Representatives

May

Okinawa returned to Japanese administration

July

Formation of the Tanaka Kakuei Cabinet

September

Reestablishment of diplomatic relations between Japan and China

1972

Appendix

246 Year

Miyazawa’s life

Events in Japan and the rest of the world

1973

April

August

Kim Dae-­jung kidnapped in Tokyo

October

First Oil Shock

Deputy head of the Liberal Democratic Party’s Central Price Policy Unit

1974

December

Minister of Foreign December Affairs (Miki Cabinet)

1975

September

Representative of the Japanese government at the 30th session of the United Nations General Assembly

November

Attends the first G6 summit (Rambouillet Summit)

June

Attends the G7 summit (San Juan)

February

Lockheed bribery scandal comes to light

September

Elected for the fourth time to the House of Representatives

July

Arrest of former Prime Minister Tanaka Kakuei

December

Formation of the Fukuda Takeo cabinet

August

Signing of the Treaty of Peace and Friendship between Japan and the People’s Republic of China

December

Formation of the Ōhira Masayoshi Cabinet

June

Elections for the House of Representative and the House of Councilors held on the same day

1976

1977

November

Formation of the Miki Takeo Cabinet

Director of the Economic Planning Agency (reshuffle of the Fukuda cabinet)

1978

1979

October

Elected for the fifth time to the House of Representatives

1980

June

Elected for the sixth time to the House of Representatives

July

Chief Cabinet Secretary July (Suzuki Cabinet)

Formation of the Suzuki Zenkō Cabinet

Appendix

247

Year

Miyazawa’s life

Events in Japan and the rest of the world

1982

December

Acting leader of Kōchikai

November

1983

December

Elected for the seventh time to the House of Representatives

1984

October

Chair of the Liberal Democratic Party’s Executive Council (second Nakasone Cabinet)

1985

December

Retained as chair of August the Liberal Democratic Party’s Executive Council

1986

1987

1988

Crash of Japan Airlines Flight 123

September

Plaza Accord

May

Terrorist attack on the Hanshin offices of the Asahi Shinbun

July

Elected for the eighth time to the House of Representatives; Minister of finance (third Nakasone Cabinet)

September

Leader of Kōchikai

June

Attends the G7 summit (Venice)

November

Minister of Finance and November Deputy Prime Minister (Takeshita Cabinet)

Formation of the Takeshita Noboru cabinet

June

Attends the G7 summit (Toronto)

July

Recruit insider trading scandal

April

Introduction of consumption tax in Japan

June

Formation of the Uno Sōsuke Cabinet

August

Formation of the Kaifu Toshiki Cabinet

November

Fall of the Berlin Wall

1989

1990

Formation of the Nakasone Yasuhiro Cabinet

February

Elected for the ninth time to the House of Representatives

Appendix

248 Year

Miyazawa’s life

Events in Japan and the rest of the world

1991

November

January

Persian Gulf War

December

Dissolution of the Soviet Union

June

Passing of the PKO law [allowing Japanese Self-Defense Forces to participate in UN peacekeeping operations]

August

Formation of the Hosokawa Morihiro Cabinet, marking the end of 55 years of LDP dominance

April

Formation of the Hata Tsutomu Cabinet

June

Formation of the Murayama Tomiichi Cabinet

January

Kōbe earthquake

March

Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo Subway

January

Formation of the Hashimoto Ryūtarō Cabinet

1992

1993

Prime Minister

July

Attends the G7 summit (Munich)

December

Reshuffle of the Miyazawa Cabinet

July

Hosts the G7 summit (Tokyo); elected for the tenth time to the House of Representatives

August

Resigns as Prime Minister

1994

1995

1996

October

Elected for the eleventh time to the House of Representatives

1997 1998

July

Minister of Finance (Obuchi Cabinet)

June

Jūsen Shori Law passed

November

Bankruptcy of Yamaichi Securities

April

Founding of the Democratic Party of Japan

July

Formation of the Obuchi Keizō Cabinet

Appendix Year

Miyazawa’s life

1999

January

Retained as Minister of August Finance (first reshuffle of the Obuchi Cabinet)

October

Retained as Minister of Finance (second reshuffle of the Obuchi Cabinet)

April

Minister of Finance (first Mori Cabinet)

June

Elected for the twelfth time to the House of Representatives

July

Minister of Finance (second Mori Cabinet)

January

Minister of Finance (reshuffle of the second Mori Cabinet)

April

Resigns as Minister of Finance

2000

2001

2003

October

2007

Events in Japan and the rest of the world

Formation of the Mori Yoshirō Cabinet

April

Formation of the Koizumi Jun’ichirō Cabinet

September

September 11 attacks in the United States

[Passes away at home in Tokyo]

Start of the Iraq War

July

Special Measures Law for Iraq authorizes deployment of SelfDefense Forces

December

Japan dispatches an advance team from the Self-Defense Forces to Iraq [Formation of the Abe Shinzō Cabinet]

September June

Act on National Flag and Anthem [formally establishes Japan’s flag and national anthem]; Wiretapping Law is passed, [allowing the use of wiretaps in investigation of organized crime]

April

Retires from the House March of Representatives

2006

249

Index Abe Fumio 211 Abe Nobuyuki 16, 29, 31 Acheson, Dean 93, 105 Aichi Kiichi 123, 152, 170, 172, 178 Aiura Tadao 13 Akabane Takao 12 Akihito (Heisei emperor) 212, 220 Akiyama Kōnosuke 121–2 Akutagawa Hiroshi 3 Amakasu Masahiko 8 Andō Masazumi 119 Anpo (Security Treaty) protests 128–9, 133–7, 228–9, see also Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security Anzai (messenger for Yoshida Shigeru) 138 Aoki Morihisa 160–1 army (Japan) 14, 30, 115 Article 9 128, 225–6, see also Constitution of Japan Asanuma Inejirō 136 Ashida Hitoshi 56, 65, 88 Asō Kazuko 97, 110 Asō Takakichi 69, 97 n. 20 atomic bomb see nuclear weapons Axis Pact 33

Cambodia 205–6, 226–7 capital levy 55–7 Carter, Jimmy Central Liaison Office 96 Chen Chu 183 Cheney, Dick 224 Chiang Mai Initiative 233 China 111–12, 114, 142–3, 155–6, 182–5, 212, 217–18, 231–3 Churchill, Winston 90–1, 103 Clinton, Bill 112, 213, 216–18 Cohen, Jerome 82 n. 7 Cohen, Theodore 60 collective self-defense 112 “comfort women” xii Commerce and Navigation Treaty see Treaty of Commerce and Navigation Communist Party see Japanese Communist Party Comprehensive National Development Plan 156–8 Constitution of Japan 96, 122, 128–9, 204, see also Article 9 Control Faction (Tōseiha) 6 corporate tax 84 Cuban missile crisis 144, 146–7

Bakayarō Dissolution 118–21, 125 Baker, James 189–90, 194 Black Monday 191, 193 Blair, Tony 224 Blumenthal, W. Michael 159 Bradley, Omar 104 Bretton Woods system 111 Britten, Benjamin 161 bubble economy 192–5 Bush, Barbara 214–15 Bush, George H. W. 210, 213–16 Bush, George W. 110, 214–15, 224, 227, 231–2 Bush, Jeb 215 Butterworth, William 93, 95

Democratic Liberal Party (DLP) 73, 76, 78 Democratic Party (in early postwar Japan) 108 Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) 224, 227 Democratic Socialist Party (DSP) 201–4, 207 Diplomatic Service Exam 34 Dodge, Joseph 38, 70–3, 75–83, 85–90, 92–5, 114, 125, 169 Dokō Toshio 62 Draper, William 77 Dulles, John Foster 93, 105–7, 115, 124 Eichelberger, Robert 91, 103 Eighth Army (US) 78, 91, 103 Eisenhower, Dwight 86, 104, 133–4, 142, 145

Index Eldridge, Robert D. xi, 92–3, 95 Erhard, Ludwig 159 Etō Shinkichi 37–8, 181–2 Etō Toshio 38 Etorofu see Northern Territories exchange rate (¥/$) 80–2, 89, 188–92, 194, 228 export subsidies 77–8 February 26 Incident (1936) 6 Fine, Sherwood 71–2, 75, 79, 81 forced labor (in wartime) 110–11 foreign aid 143, 236–7 frozen assets 57 Fujiyama Aichirō 150, 153 Fujiyama Raita 122 Fukunaga Kenji 118, 125, 132 Funada Naka 1 Fuwa Tetsuzō 12–13 GARIOA (Government Appropriation for Relief in Occupied Areas) 76–7, 114 GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) 111, 142, 155, 158–63, 165, 168–9, 233 general strike (February 1947) 60 German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact 16 Giscard d’Estaing, Valéry 159 Gotōda Masaharu 211 Great Kantō Earthquake (1923) 1–2 Greenspan, Alan 191 Gromyko, Andrei 185–6, 218 Gulf War 201, 204, 207–8, 213–15 gyūho tactics 148–50, 204, 211 Habomai see Northern Territories Hadley, Eleanor 60–1 Hagerty, James 133 Hashimoto Hiroshi 212 Hashimoto Ryūgo 52 Hashimoto Ryūtarō 112, 196–7 Hatoyama Ichirō 63–64, 119–20, 124–6, 128, 130, 132, 155, 186 Hattori Takushirō 116 Hayashi Hikosaburō 121–2 Hayashi Jōji 118, 132 Heath, Edward 159 Heisei emperor see Akihito Hepburn, Audrey 146

251

Herter, Christian 159 Higashikuni Naruhiko 51, 55, 63 Higher Civil Service Exam 19, 34 Hinohara Setsuzō 67 Hiraiwa Gaishi 195 Hiranuma Kiichirō 16, 29 Hirata Keiichirō 130 Hirohito (Shōwa emperor) 6–8, 49 Hirokawa Kōzen 119, 125 Hirosawa Kinjirō 20–21 Hirosawa Naoko 20–21 Hong Kong 36–7, 174, 177, 185, 232 Hori Shigeru 172, 174, 178 Hoshijima Nirō 73, 78, 110 Hoshino Naoki 130 Hosokawa Morihiro 220 Hozen Keizai Kai incident 131 Ichikawa Yūichi 203 Ichiki Kitokurō 5 Ichimada Hisato 81, 87, 110, 115 Ikeda Hayato 19–21, 39, 44–5, 51, 55, 59, 65, 68–71, 73, 75–83, 86–95, 100, 103–5, 108–10, 114, 118–28, 130–1, 133, 136–48, 150–4, 156, 160, 228 Ikeda Mitsue 145–6, 152–3 Ikeda Shigeaki 67 immigration 237 Imperial Rescript to Soldiers and Sailors 9 Imperial Way faction (Kōdōha) 6 Inaba Hidezō 130 Inayama Yoshihiro 177 income doubling plan xii, 133 income tax 78 Industrial Bank of Japan 65 International Monetary Fund (IMF) 125, 150–1 Inukai Michiko 7 Inukai Tsuyoshi 6–7 Iokibe Makoto 92 Iraq War 224, 227, 231–2 Ishibashi Tanzan 58–60, 119, 125–6, 129 Ishii Mitsujirō 133 Ishikawa Ichirō 149 Ishiwara Kanji 67 Ishizaka Yōjirō 9 Itabashi Namiji 29 Itō Masaya 136–7 Iwasaki Hisaya56 Izumiyama Sanroku 67–8, 75

252

Index

Japan-America Student Conference 10–11, 13–16, 28–33, 237 Japan Self-Defense Forces (SDF) 122, 203–6, 225–7, see also National Police Reserve Japan Socialist Party (JSP) 102, 108–9, 119–20, 136, 204, 208, 224 Japan Tobacco and Salt Corp. 122 Japanese-American Conversation Institute 29 Japanese Communist Party (JCP) 22, 204 Japanese-Manchurian Financial and Economic Research Society 67 Jiang Qing 184 Jiang Zemin 2121 Johnson, Louis 104 Johnson, U. Alexis 171–2, 181 jūsen (housing loan companies) 196–7 Kabayama Aisuke 95 n. 17 Kabayama Masako see Shirasu Masako Kades, Charles 61, 66 n. 7, 71–2, 98 Kaifu Toshiki 193 Kajiyama Seiroku 203 Kakei Katsuhiko 18, 34–5 Kammuri Matsujirō 12 Kanemaru Shin 210–11 Kanō Hisa’akira 87 Kantō Earthquake see Great Kantō Earthquake Katayama Tetsu 65 Katō Kōichi 202 Kawakami Testutarō 97 Kawashima Shōjirō 152 Kaya Okinori 23–4, 129 Keidanren 149, 176, 195 Keizai Dōyūkai 149 Kennan, George 91, 103 Kennedy, David 175 Kennedy, Edward 146 Kennedy, Jacqueline 145–6 Kennedy, John F. 143–7, 158 Kennedy, Robert 146–7 Kennedy Round see GATT Khruschev, Nikita 143 Kimura Kō 127, 141 n. 8 Kimura Tokutarō 120 Kishi Nobusuke 25, 126–9, 132–5, 228 Kissinger, Henry 168, 172, 181 Kitamura Tokutarō 65

Kiuchi Jūshirō 56 Kiuchi Nobutane 56 Kiyoura Keigo 1 Kobayashi Ataru (“Kobachū”) 131 Kobayashi Hideo 97 Kōchikai faction 130–2, 198, 202, 211 Kodama Yoshio 64 Koizumi Jun’ichirō 223–4, 227, 230–3 Kojima Kazuo (Kojima Koichinen) 7 Kokumin Kyōkai 149 Kōmeitō 201–4, 207, 224 Kon Hidemi 97 Kondō Komitarō 176–7 Konkyō-kyō 137 Kōno Ichirō 64, 119, 125, 138, 152–3 Kōno Statement see Kōno Yōhei Kōno Yōhei xii Konoe Fumimaro 17, 33, 51, 69, 96, 124 Korea 111, 143, 173–4, 177, 210, 213–14, 224, 234–5 Koreans in Japan 1–2 Korean War 93, 104–6, 119 Kōsaka Masaaki 10 Kōsaka Masataka 10 Kosaka Zentarō 132, 144 Kozyrev, Andrey 218, 220 Kunashiri see Northern Territories Kurogane Yasumi 70–1, 132 Kurusu Takeo 65, 86 Kushida Mitsuo 130 Kwantung Army 8 Li Bo 184 Li Xianglan see Yamaguchi Yoshiko Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) 125, 136, 148–9, 152, 201, 204, 223–4, 227, see also Kōchikai; Takeshita Noboru and Takeshita faction Liberal Party 63, 119–20 local tax system 84–5 London Naval Treaty 15 Long, Olivier 169 Louvre Accord 194 MacArthur, Douglas 52–3, 60–1, 71–3, 79, 86, 90–1, 93–4, 96, 101, 103–4, 107–8 Maeo Shigesaburō 37, 55, 65, 86, 126–7, 132, 139–41, 150, 152 Maide Chōgorō 17–18 Makino Nobuaki 115

Index Manchukuo see Manchuria Manchuria 8–9, 16, 32, 37–9, 130 Mao Zedong 184 Marquat, William 58, 75–6, 87, 90, 93–4 Marxism 9–10, 17–18, 23 Masuda Kaneshichi 108 Masutani Shūji 118, 132 Materials Mobilization Plan 21–2 Matsudaira Norimitsu 68 Matsumura Kenzō 122, 150 Matsuoka Yōsuke 33 May 15 Incident (1932) 6 McNamara, Robert 147 Meiji Constitution 18 Michiko, Empress 212 Mieno Yasushi 195 Miki Bukichi 119, 125 Miki Takeo 108, 127, 152 military training in schools 9 Mill, John Stuart 136 Mills, Wilbur 173–4 Minobe Tatsukichi 18–19 Minobe Yōji 23–4, 45 Mitchell, John 168, 173, 181 Mitsuzuka Hiroshi 197 Mitterand, François 219 Miyajima Seijirō 69–70, 75 Miyazaki Kagayaki 176 Miyazawa Kenji 41 Miyazawa Koto (mother of Miyazawa Kiichi) 1–2 Miyazawa Toshiyoshi 18, 34–5 Miyazawa Yutaka (father of Miyazawa Kiichi) 1–4, 19–20, 59–60 Mizuno Shigeo 131 Mochizuki Keisuke 20 Monroe, Marilyn 146 Mōri Hideoto 22–3 Morinaga Teiichirō 20–4, 35, 52 Morrison, J. P. 121 Moss, Harold 85–6 mountain climbing 11–13 Motoori Norinaga 5 Murayama Tomiichi 196 Musashi Higher School 4–6, 8–11 Mutual Security Agency (US) 119–21, 123 Nadao Hirokichi 127 Nagano Shigeo 130 Nakamura Shōgo 93

253

Nakasone Yasuhiro 20, 211 Nakata Atsuhito 205 Nakayama Ichirō 18–19, 155 Nanbara Shigeru 91, 105 Naruhito, Crown Prince 215 National Police Reserve 122, see also Japan Self-Defense Forces National Safety Agency 120 National Tax Agency 83–6 Navy (Japan) 14–15, 30 newsweek 60 new yen 57 Nezu Kaichirō 5 Nine Principles of Economic Stabilization 76–7, 79, 81 Nishida Kitarō 5, 9–10 Nishimura Eiichi 118 Nishimura Kumao 107, 109–10, 115 Niwa Kyōshirō 132 Niwano Nikkyō 198, 200 Nixon, Richard 165, 167–71, 173–5, 179, 181 Noh drama 13 Northern Territories 111, 185–6, 218–20, 235 nuclear weapons 48, 113, 143 Nye, Joseph 112 Ōasa Tadao 122 Obuchi Keizō 188, 197–8 Occupation of Japan 32, 51–104, 108 ODA (official development assistance) see foreign aid OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) 169 Ogata Taketora 51, 121–2, 124–5, 129 Ogawa Heiji 132 Ogawa Heikichi (maternal grandfather of Miyazawa Kiichi) 2–3, 6–7, 20 Ōhashi Takeo 132 Ōhira Masayoshi 51, 53–4, 132, 136–7, 152, 165, 167–8 Ōjimi Yoshihisa 165–7 Oka Yoshitake 17 Okada Keisuke 6, 24 Okazaki Katsuo 107, 109 Okinawa 100, 104, 111–12, 143–5, 168–70, 172, 178, 181 Okumura Kiwao 23–4 Onassis, Aristotle 146

254

Index

Ōno Banboku 64, 118 Ōnuki Mitsue 20 Osano Kenji 64 Ōuchi Hyōe 55 Ōuchi Keigo 202–3 Ōya Masako 69 Ōya Shinzō 68–9, 75–6, 173, 175–6 Ozawa Ichirō 201, 210 Packenham, Compton 60–1 Palembang 31 Philippines 114, 144 PKF (United Nations peacekeeping forces) and PKO (United Nations peacekeeping operations) 201–7, 211 Plaza Accord 188, 191, 193, 228–9 Poland, German invasion of 15, 31 price controls 33–4, 89 private railway bribery scandal 7 Progressive Party 119–21 public utilities 154–5 purges 118 n. 1 Qiao Guanhua 184–5 rationing 33–4 rearmament 115–16, 119–24 Reconstruction Finance Bank 67, 76 Recruit scandal xii Reid, Ralph 72, 78, 92, 169–70 Reischauer, Edwin 143, 145 reparations 114 Rhee, Syngman 123–4 Rice, Condoleezza 215–16 rice market 154–5 Ridgway, Matthew 108 Rikken Seiyūkai see Seiyūkai Risshō Kōseikai 198 Robertson, Walter 118, 123–4 Rogers, William 172, 181 Rusk, Dean 144 Russia see Soviet Union Ryder, William 86 Ryokufūkai faction 110 Ryū Shintarō 133 Sagawa Kyūbin scandal xii, 210 Sakai Yoneo 94 Sakomizu Hisatsune 21–5, 35, 45

Sakurada Takeshi 70, 75, 130 San Francisco Peace Conference and Treaty 90–4, 96, 100–16, 185, 218 Sasakawa Ryōichi 64 Satō Eisaku 69, 121–2, 124, 127–8, 137–9, 150, 152–3, 161, 165, 168–72, 174, 177, 179–82 Scowcroft, Brent 214, 216 Security Treaty (US–Japan) see Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security; Anpo (Security Treaty) protests Seiyūkai 7 Self-Defense Forces see Japan Self-Defense Forces Shaminren (Social Democratic League) 204 Shibusawa Eiichi 55 Shibusawa Keizō 55–6, 192 Shidehara Kijūrō 55, 59, 63 Shiga Yoshio 22 Shigemitsu Mamoru 53, 120–2 Shikotan see Northern Territories Shimanouchi Ken 114 Shimanouchi Toshirō (Henry) 114 Shimoda Takesō 169, 178–9 Shimokōbe Atsushi 156–7 Shimomura Osamu 22–3, 130–3 Shinozawa Kyōsuke 196 shipbuilding 61–3, 189 shipbuilding scandal 131 Shirasu Jirō 93, 95–8 Shirasu (Kabayama) Masako 95, 97 Shiroyama Saburō 31–2 Shoup, Carl 78, 82–6, 88 Shōwa Denkō scandal 66–7 Shōwa emperor see Hirohito Shultz, George 110 Singapore 37, 233 Sino-Japanese Peace and Friendship Treaty 182–5 Sino-Japanese War 8–9 special procurements (for Korean War) 59 Social Democratic League see Shaminren Sōhyō 149 Sōka Gakkai 203, 207 Soviet Union, Russia 90–1, 94, 103, 105, 109, 110–11, 142, 182–3, 185–6, 218–20, 232, 235

Index Specie Bank 87 Stans, Maurice 167–73, 178, 180–1 Sugimoto Yukio 56 Sumita Satoshi 190 Sutō Hideo 132 Suzuki Daisetsu 5 Suzuki Zenkō 132, 211 Taishō emperor 3 Taiwan 111–12, 173–4, 177, 233 Takada Haruyuki 205 Takagi Rikurō 130 Takagi Sōkichi 45 Takagi Yasaka 19 Takahashi Kamekichi 130 Takata Yasuma 19 Takayanagi Kenzō 17 Takeshita Noboru and Takeshita faction 188–9, 203, 207, 210–11 Tamura Toshio 130 Tanabe Jūji 11 Tanaka Giichi 7–8 Tanka Kakuei 167, 175–6 Tanaka Kinuyo 145 Taniguchi Toyosaburō 173, 176 Tanimura Hiroshi 66, 74 n. xvi Tatsumi Eiichi 115–16 Tawara Kazuo 24 Tawara Magoichi 24 Terauchi Hisaichi 36 Tōbata Seiichi 18 Tōgō Fumihiko 183 Tōjō Hideki 45, 65, 116 Tokugawa Muneyoshi 110 Tokyo Declaration 220 Tokyo Olympics 150, 152 Tokyo Round see GATT Tomabechi Gizō 108, 110 Tomabechi Hidetoshi 35 Torio Norimitsu 66 Torio Tsuruyo 66 Treaty of Commerce and Navigation (between US and Japan) 14, 30 Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security (between US and Japan) 91–3, 101–4, 106–9, 111–13, 134, 224, 231, see also Anpo (Security Treaty) protests Truman, Harry 75, 105–8, 113 Tsuji Karoku 64

255

Tsushima Juichi 51–2, 54–5, 71 turnover tax 78 Uchida Nobuya 82 Uemura Kōgorō 149 Ultra C 152–3 USSR see Soviet Union Uehara Etsujirō 73, 78 UNCTAD (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development) 72 unemployment 86 United Nations Security Council membership 235–6 Uruguay Round see GATT Ushiba Nobuhiko 174, 178–9 value added tax 84 Vickrey, William 82 Volcker, Paul 191 Wada Haruki 105 Wagatsuma Sakae 19 Wakaizumi Kei 169, 172, 179, 181–2 Wakatsuki Reijirō 21 war insurance 45–6 Wartime Finance Bank 23–24 wartime indemnity payments 57–8, 60–1 Wartime Profits Tax 57 Watanabe Michio 212 Watanabe Taeko 22–23 Watanabe Takeshi 60, 71, 78, 93, 116 Watergate 168, 173 Wyndham White, Eric 159, 162 Whitney, Courtney 61, 93–4, 96, 98 Wickel, James 143 Willoughby, Charles 61, 96, 98 World Trade Organization (WTO) 155, 159, 233 Yabe Teiji 17, 45 Yamaguchi Matsutarō 145–6 Yamaguchi Otoya 136 Yamaguchi Yoshiko 161 Yamakawa Kenjirō 5 Yamamoto Katsuichi 130 Yamamoto Ryōkichi 5–6, 10 Yamashita Harue 68 Yamashita Kamesaburō 2 Yamashita Kisen 1–2 Yamashita Tomoyuki 36

256 Yamazaki Takeshi 67, 71, 88, 96 Yano Shōtarō 65–6 Yasui Kizō 176 Yeltsin, Boris 218–20 yen see exchange rate Yokota Kisaburō 18 Yonai Mitsumasa 14 Yonezawa Takashi 202

Index Yoshida Shigeru 51, 59, 63–4, 67, 69–70, 73, 75–7, 89–98, 100–1, 103, 106–16, 118–25, 128–30, 137–8, 150, 153 Yoshikuni Jirō 67–8 Yoshino Yoshihiko 190 zaibatsu 56, 59, 61 Zhang Zuolin 7–8, 15