Many journalists and insiders have explained Japanese politics in the 1970s by mainly focusing on the bitter power struggles within the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). According to Itō Masaya, it could even be considered the sengoku (Warring States) period of the LDP, when the rivalry among factions exhausted many leaders and did not allow them to enjoy long-term premierships. Ohira Masayoshi might be just one such leader in the memory of the Japanese people. In fact, he served as prime minister for only nineteen months (1978–80), during which time he was continuously beset by opposing groups within his own party. His tenure as prime minister came to an end tragically, with his sudden death, and without notable accomplishments during his short time in office.
Yet Fukunaga Fumio, a professor at Dokkyo University, portrays Ohira not as merely a power player, but as a philosophical and insightful statesman representing conservatives in postwar Japan. Tracing the life of Ohira based on intensive research of Ohira's speeches and writings, memoirs, interviews with people surrounding him, and his son-in-law's diary, Fukunaga sheds fresh light on Ohira's thoughts and behavior, the core of which was the political tradition inherited from Ikeda Hayato, his mentor, and from Yoshida Shigeru. This is not only an excellent biography, revealing the personality of Ohira and the age he lived in, but also a concise political history of postwar Japan. Its achievement is to illuminate the essence of Japanese conservatives' governance.
The book is divided into four chapters. The first chapter depicts Ohira in his youth, until he determined to go into politics in 1952. Unlike many elites at that time, Ohira, born in the rural Kagawa Prefecture in 1910, grew up in a small farming family that had many children, which meant acquiring higher education was difficult. Yet his background as a diligent farmer, Fukunaga shows, formed Ohira's personality, which was characterized by perseverance, unselfishness, and toughness. In addition, his devotion to Christianity in his teenage years provided Ohira with a profound understanding of human beings. Finally, his studies at Tokyo Commerce University (Hitotsubashi University) and sixteen years' experience as a high-ranking official in the Ministry of Finance forged his core mission: to pursue harmony in the arena of political conflict.
It was Ikeda Hayato who completely changed Ohira's life. After serving Ikeda, then finance minister, as a secretary, Ohira gave up his career as a bureaucrat and ran for the House of Representatives in October 1952. Chapter 2 follows Ohira's early political career as he cut a brilliant figure in the Ikeda faction throughout the 1950s and 1960s. He played an important supporting role in the Ikeda administration (1960–64), first as chief cabinet secretary and then as foreign minister. The low political posture of the Ikeda administration can be attributed to Ohira and his colleagues, Miyazawa Ki'ichi and Maeo Shigesaburo. This was a dramatic change—greatly welcomed by the public—from the confrontational politics of the Kishi administration, which had been ousted by tumultuous mass demonstrations. Fukunaga offers an insightful analysis of the vision of conservatism they shared, one that sought gradual reform while respecting tradition, public order and freedom, and democratic process. It is also notable that Ohira made an effort to establish diplomatic relations with South Korea and Communist China, while building up mutual trust and understanding between the United States and Japan.
As discussed in Chapter 3, after being shunned by the Sato administration (1964–72), Ohira entered the race for the prime minister's office. Fukunaga finds originality and farsightedness in Ohira's platform for the LDP's presidential election in 1972, captured in the slogan sengo no sokessan, which might be translated as something like “farewell to postwar economy-first society.” In the “garden city state plan,” for instance, Ohira tried to build communities that harmonized urban and rural areas (pp. 153–55). But he was outdone by his rivals—Tanaka Kakuei (1972–74), Miki Takeo (1974–76), and Fukuda Takeo (1976–78)—in the competition for the head of the party. In the meantime, he used his skill to the fullest inside and outside of government, in dealing with the structural changes in international politics and economy caused by the two Nixon “shocks”: the surprise normalization of U.S.–China relations and the floating of the dollar. At last, in December 1978, Ohira, gaining strong backing from Tanaka, defeated Fukuda and became prime minister.
The final chapter discusses Ohira's achievements as prime minister. Fukunaga challenges those who are critical of his performance. Fukunaga emphasizes that the research groups established by Ohira's cabinet chartered the course that Japan should take in the twenty-first century, for example, comprehensive security and smaller government. He attached great importance to U.S.–Japan relations; as prime minister, he was the first to call the United States Japan's “ally,” a framing of the relationship that functioned well for both countries in fighting the Cold War in the 1980s. Furthermore, his idea on the creation of Pacific Rim solidarity later developed into APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation). However, the nineteen-month term was too short for him to bring to fruition all these ideas. Much of his energy in the last eight months of his administration was consumed in rivalry with Fukuda, Miki, and Nakasone, and he died in the midst of the general election.
Fukunaga concludes that Ohira played two crucial roles in postwar Japanese politics. First of all, he was the architect of a postwar conservatism that established a praxis of coexistence between the 1947 Constitution and the U.S.–Japan Security Treaty. Second, he was the man who embodied postwar conservatism in the 1970s, when the LDP's ability to govern was seriously questioned in the face of global structural changes. While maintaining the postwar frameworks of foreign and economic policy, Ohira tried to meet the needs of the emerging multipolar world, on the one hand, and the post-high economic growth society, on the other, by focusing more attention on the Asia-Pacific community and the enrichment of Japanese quality of life as well as inner life. These approaches, Fukunaga argues, marked a decisive departure from those of Kishi Nobusuke and even Hatoyama Ichiro, rather prewar-minded people, and from postwar hawks such as Nakasone. Fukunaga sees a brand of healthy conservatism in Ohira, who knew well what politics could do and could not do.
Fukunaga might cast Ohira career in too idealistic a light, however. What makes one a great statesman is not only a vision based on deep understanding of the world and human beings, but also the firm will and ability to prevail in the political trenches. Fukunaga is somewhat reluctant to discuss the latter side of Ohira's political behavior; after all, Ohira gained control of the Ikeda faction by pushing aside Maeo and his strong ties with Tanaka, who was the consummate bare-knuckles LDP politician in the 1970s through the mid-1980s. This shows that Ohira was something of a power player himself. But this does not at all impair Fukunaga's considerable scholarly achievement. A great contribution of this book is to reveal that Japan had a statesman who possessed great insight and exercised self-restraint in the exercise of power.
