The Enigma of Japanese Power (61 page)

See Chapter 10.
↩

Thomas Rohlen,
Japan’s High Schools
, University of California Press, 1983, p. 209. I consider this one of the best books in recent years on any Japanese subject.
↩

See Robert M. Spaulding,
Imperial Japan’s Higher Civil Service Examinations
, Princeton University Press, 1967, p. 125.
↩

In 1987 these three high schools were Kaisei, Nada and Lasalle, with a combined 387 of the 3,747 successful candidates admitted to the University of Tokyo.
↩

Rohlen,
High Schools
, op. cit. (n. 2), p. 100.
↩

Amaya Naohiro, ‘World leadership for Japan?’,
Japan Times
, 29 June 1986.
↩

Kato Shuichi, personal communication.
↩

The importance of entrance exams for one suburb of Tokyo is well described by Ezra Vogel in
Japan’s New Middle Class
, University of California Press, 1967.
↩

The most elaborate studies of the psychological mechanisms involved are by George De Vos. See, among others, his
Socialisation for Achievement
, University of California Press, 1973.
↩

Griffis, ‘Education in Japan’,
College Courant
, 16 May 1874, as cited in Edward R. Beauchamp, ‘Griffis in Japan: the Fukui interlude, 1871’, in Edward R. Beauchamp (ed.),
Learning to be Japanese
, Linnet Books, Connecticut, 1978, p. 58.
↩

Keizai hatten ni okeru jinteki noryoku kaihatsu no kadai to taisaku
[Topics and Policies on the Development of Human Ability in Economic Development], Keizai Shingikai, 14 January 1963.
↩

Koki chuto kyoiku ni taisuru yobo
[Prospects for Upper-Middle-Level Education], 5 February 1965.
↩

Koki chuto kyoiku no kakuju seibi ni tsuite no toshin
[Advice on the Arrangement and Development of Upper-Middle-Level Education], Chukyoshin, 31 October 1966.
↩

The ranking helps determine the content of the
naishinsho
, the document of recommendation to a chosen school at the next level. Many teachers command obedience by using the possibility of a negative evaluation in the
naishinsho
as a threat – Nikkyoso teachers, personal communication. See also ‘Tensei jingo’,
Asahi Shimbun
, 8 April 1988.
↩

Asahi Shimbun
, editorial, 14 December 1984.
↩

See Chapter 13 for a detailed account of this phenomenon.
↩

In October 1985 Nichibenren held a symposium on ‘Children’s Human Rights and their School Life’ and on the occasion issued a report called
Gakko seikatsu to kodomo no jinken
[School Life and Children’s Human Rights].
↩

Nagase Akiyuki and Ueji Yoshio, both directors of respectable
juku
schools, say that peace of the public schools is maintained by the
naishinsho
system (whereby teachers issue a letter of recommendation evaluating the behaviour of the pupil to the high school which he or she wishes to enter) and the police – ‘Kodomo o dame ni shita no wa gakko to oya da’ [School and parents ruined the children], Gendai, September 1984, p. 383.
↩

Ivan P. Hall,
Mori Arinori
, Harvard University Press, 1973.
↩

James L. Huffman,
Politics of the Meiji Press
, University of Hawaii Press, 1980, p. 96.
↩

Richard Mitchell,
Censorship in Imperial Japan
, Princeton University Press, 1983, p. 55.
↩

Ibid., pp. 42–3.
↩

Harry Wildes,
Social Currents in Japan
, University of Chicago Press, 1927, as cited in L. W. Beer,
Freedom of Expression in Japan
, Kodansha International, 1984, p. 63.
↩

Gebhard Hielscher, in
No. 1 Shimbun
, Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan, 15 November 1982, p. 6.
↩

John Roberts, ‘Zaibatsu no seiji no hishinsei domei’ [The Unholy Alliance Between Big Business and Politics],
Chuo Koron
, April 1974, pp. 118–28.
↩

Young C. Kim,
Japanese Journalists and their World
, University Press of Virginia, 1981, p. 48.
↩

Nihon Keizai Shimbunsha (eds),
Jiminto Seichokai
[LDP’s Policy Affairs Research Council], Nihon Keizai Shimbunsha, 1983, pp. 159–62.
↩

Yamanouchi Yukio, ‘Yamaguchi-gumi komon bengoshi no shuki’ [Notes of a Yamaguchi-gumi advisory lawyer],
Bungei Shunju
, November 1984, p. 400.
↩

Ian Buruma,
A Japanese Mirror: Heroes and Villains of Japanese Culture
, Cape, 1984, p. 168.
↩

Yamanouchi, ‘Yamaguchi-gumi’, op. cit. (n. 28), p. 408; also David Kaplan and Alec Dubro,
Yakuza
, Addison-Wesley, 1986, p. 116.
↩

Kaplan and Dubro,
Yakuza
, op. cit. (n. 30), p. 116.
↩

‘Taoka-ke onzoshi no kashoku no en ni manekareta hitobito’ [Those who were invited to the wedding of Taoka’s son],
Shukan Asahi
, 7 June 1974, p. 139.
↩

Mugishima Fumio, ‘Naze nakunaranu boryokudan?’ [Why do gangs still exist?],
Asahi Shimbun
, 25 February 1985.
↩

For background details, see Ino Kenji,
Yakuza to Nihonjin
[The
yakuza
and the Japanese], Mikasa Shobo, 1973, pp. 254–7.
↩

Walter L. Ames,
Police and Community in Japan
, University of California Press, 1981, p. 107.
↩

Yamanouchi, ‘Yamaguchi-gumi’, op. cit. (n. 28), p. 405.
↩

Mugishima, ‘Naze’, op. cit. (n. 33). Taoka started out by organising longshoremen and blackmailing entertainers, to build up what is probably the largest crime syndicate in the world. In 1984 Yamaguchi-gumi commanded the loyalty of 593 subordinate gangs with a total of almost 13,000 members in 36 out of Japan’s 47 prefectures.
↩

Yamaguchi-gumi Jiho
, vol. 2, October 1971.
↩

Yomiuri Shinbun
, 21 December 1987.
↩

The
yakuza
are active in the Philippines, and after building bases in Hawaii in the 1970s they began to move to the US west coast, where they procure pornography and white prostitutes for Japanese tourists.
↩

Some of this has economic causes. In 1963, when the
yakuza
community reached a peak of about 184,000 members, there were enough victims for the traditional protection rackets and enough gambling to keep the gangs out of each other’s hair. In the 1970s the independent medium-sized and small gangs began to deteriorate. The large syndicates – Yamaguchi-gumi, Inagawa-kai and Sumiyoshi Rengo – flourished as they swallowed these smaller groups. The weakened influence and gradual disappearance of a generation of old-fashioned gang bosses meant that many of these larger gangs have had to contend with more disobedience. A gangster told me in the late 1960s that the youth that were joining his organisation no longer seemed to care about valuable traditions. The problem must have grown worse.
↩

Manabe Shigeki, Chiba Hitoshi, Nakayama Masaru, Matsuzaki Yasunori and Maruyama Noboru, ‘Kokkai giin no shin keibatsu o eguru – sei, zai, kankai o musubu daiketsumyaku’ [The great networks which form political, business and bureaucratic relations, and new cliques of Diet members],
Gendai
, October 1980, p. 158.
↩

Ibid., p. 160.
↩

Ibid., p. 161.
↩

These figures are from a survey over the early 1980s.
↩

Graduates of Harvard in the US bureaucracy number 11.2 per cent. In 1950, 26.5 per cent of Britain’s high officials (higher than assistant deputy minister) were from Oxford and 20.8 per cent from Cambridge.
↩

The important prime minister Ikeda Hayato graduated from Kyoto University, and Ohira Masayoshi from Hitotsubashi, both of which are government schools considered equal to Todai. Both these prime ministers entered politics after a career in the Finance Ministry. Ishibashi and Takeshita graduated from Waseda University, and Miki from Meiji University. Takeshita would never have become prime minister if he could not have used the ‘machine’ that Tanaka built.
↩

Shukan Sankei
, 14 April 1977.
↩

The most famous private universities, Waseda and Keio, were represented by 131 and 159 presidents respectively. See
Cosmos News
, no. 4, Teikoku Data Bank, July 1985.
↩

Kawamoto Taro, ‘Sore demo Todai Hogakubu wa Nippon o ugokasu’ [And yet Todai law department moves Japan],
Bungei Shunju
, September 1972, p. 169.
↩

Ibid., p. 177"
↩

Kusayanagi Daizo, ‘Kofuna nitodate basha: Kensetsusho’ [An old-fashioned two-horse cart: the Ministry of Construction],
Bungei Shunju
, February 1975, p. 143.
↩

For details of Kono’s interference in personnel matters, see Matsumoto Seicho, ‘Kensetsu kanryoron’ [On construction bureaucrats],
Bungei Shunju
, February 1964, esp. p. 144.
↩

Kusayanagi, ‘Kofuna’, op. cit. (n. 11), p. 142.
↩

Both gained close to a million votes. See ‘Senkyo ni deru nara kensetsu kanryo’ [Construction officials have the greatest advantage in elections],
Hyo
, June 1960, p. 19.
↩

For an example from the 1986 election, see ‘Kensetsu kanryo gyokai mem-boku kake’,
Yomiuri Shinbun
, 12 June 1986, pp. 19–22.
↩

Op. cit. (n. 14), p. 21.
↩

Kanryo Kiko Kenkyukai (eds.),
Kensentsusho zankoku monogatari
[The inside story of the Ministry of Construction], Eeru Shuppansha, 1978, p. 119.
↩

‘Tanaka naikaku no “kensetsu daijin” wa naze . . .’ [Why the ‘construction ministers’ of the Tanaka cabinet . . .?],
Ushio
, February 1974, p. 120.
↩

Ito Hirokazu,
Zankoku kensetsu gyokai
[The inside story of the construction industry], Eeru Shuppansha, 1987, pp. 10, 20–2, 27.
↩

Takeuchi Naokazu, Watanuki Joji, Asano Chiaki and Ninagawa Masao, ‘Dokengyo ni nottorareta chihoseiji’ [Local politics hijacked by the construction industry],
Asahi Jaanaru
, 21 January 1977, p. 28.
↩

Ito,
Zankoku kensetsu
, op. cit. (n. 19), pp. 30–2.
↩

Kanryo Kiko Kenkyukai,
Kensetsusho zankoku
, op. cit. (n. 17), p. 75.
↩

Nihon Keizai Shimbunsha (eds.),
Jiminto Seichokai
[LDP’s Policy Affairs Research Council], Nihon Keizai Shimbunsha, 1983, pp. 165–8.
↩

Takeuchi et al, ‘Dokengyo ni nottorareta’, op. cit. (n. 20), p. 29.
↩

Itagaki Hidenori,
‘Zoku’ no kenkyu
[Study of Diet Member ‘Tribes’], Keizaikai, 1987, p. 75; and Nihon Keizai Shimbunsha,
Jiminto
, op. cit. (n. 23), pp. 165–8.
↩

Itagaki, ‘
Zoku
’, op. cit. (n. 25), p. 140.
↩

Ogata Katsuyuki, ‘Doken gyokai to oshoku’ [The construction industry and bribery],
Asahi Jaanaru
, 21 January 1977, p. 24.
↩

Kikuchi Hisashi,
Jiminto habatsu
[LDP Cliques], Piipurusha, 1987, p. 119.
↩

For a list, see Jjji Tsushinsha Seijibu (eds.),
Takeshita sori ‘zen deeta’
[All the Data on Prime Minister Takeshita], Jiji Tsushinsha, 1987, pp. 142–6.
↩

Asahi Shimbun
, 25 December 1987 (evening edition).
↩

Kanryo Kiko Kenkyukai,
Kensetsusho zankoku
, op. cit. (n. 17), pp. 70–3, 82–9.
↩

Mainichi Shimbun
, 10 December 1986.
↩

Ito,
Zankoku kensetsu
, op. cit. (n. 19), p. 16.
↩

Kanryo Kiko Kenkyukai,
Kensetsusho zankoku
, op. cit. (n. 17), pp. 76–8.
↩

Honda Yasuharu, ‘Sekkei no dekinai gemba kantoku: Kensetsusho’ [The Ministry of Construction: an on-site supervisor who cannot design],
Gendai
, February 1974, p. 198.
↩

See the discussion on this in Richard Samuels,
The Politics of Regional Policy in Japan
, Princeton University Press, 1983, esp. p. 234.
↩

For a study of the Ministry of Finance, particularly its pivotal role in Japan’s budgeting process, see John C. Campbell,
Contemporary Japanese Budget Politics
, University of California Press, 1977.
↩

Ibid., p. 19.
↩

The average ratio of debt to equity among Japan’s major corporations is roughly 4 to 1, compared with 1 to 1 in the USA and 2 to 1 in European countries. The ratio of shareholders’ equity to total assets is, at 16 to 18 per cent, the lowest among the major industrialised nations – C. T. Ratcliffe,
Kodansha Encyclopaedia of Japan
, vol. 2, 1983, p. 28.
↩

Mikuni Akio,
Occasional Paper No. 2: Mikuni on Banking
, Mikuni & Co., 1987, p. 6.
↩

Ibid., p. 6.
↩

Jin Ikko,
Okura kanryo:cho-eriito shudan no jinmyaku to yabo
[Ministry of Finance Bureaucrats: Networks and Ambitions of a Super-Elite Group], Kodansha, 1982, p. 139; and Kanryo Kiko Kenkyukai (eds.),
Shin Okurasho zankoku monogatari
[The Inside Story of the Ministry of Finance, Part 2], Eeru Shuppansha, 1980, pp. 39–40.
↩

Yamaguchi Jiro, ‘Zaisei kochokuka kyanpeen no zasetsu to yosan katei no henyo: tenki to shite no showa 40 nendai zenhanki’ [The transformation of the budgetary process: the ‘break fiscal rigidification movement’ as a turning-point], in Kindai Nihon Kenkyukai (eds.),
Nempo Kindai Nihon Kenkyu
, vol. 8, Yamakawa Shuppansha, 1986, pp. 279–304. For a summing up of the problem and the movement meant to solve it, see Campbell,
Contemporary Budget
, op. cit. (n. 37), pp. 241–50; and Ito Daiichi,
Gendai Nihon kanryosei no bunseki
[Analysis of Japan’s Contemporary Bureaucracy], Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1980, pp. 155–206.
↩

Yamaguchi, ‘Zaisei kochokuka’, op. cit. (n. 43), p. 298.
↩

The next failed attempt to expand the discretionary powers of the budget officials was made in 1969 and 1970. This was based on the example of a United States programme, the PPBS (Planning Programming Budgeting System), and was accompanied by numerous translated articles and books, as well as learned studies by instant Japanese experts, and by the dire warnings of ministry officials over the ‘irrational’ intervention of the LDP and interest groups. ‘Ministry of Finance officials seemed to have in mind a Utopia of orderly and efficient planning and policy making, where politicians might play some role in establishing the goals of the nation, but would not get in the way of those responsible for the real work’ – Campbell,
Contemporary Budget
, op. cit. (n. 37), pp. 107–9.
↩

From 1966 the issue of government bonds first began to be of some minor significance in the management of the post-war economy. But in the 1970s, after the two oil crises, and the slackening of domestic demand caused by the lack of large corporate investments, the budget deficit and interest payments on old bonds necessitated ever larger volumes of government borrowing. Japan’s businessmen had become dependent on government stimulation of the economy whenever it slowed down, and such stimulation always came in the shape of a ‘demand package’ for more public works. By the end of the decade, one-third of the national budget was covered by revenue from government bonds. The problem was, however, much greater because a number of public and semi-public corporations were issuing their own bonds. By 1980 the prime minister, backed up by leaders of the business world, gave priority to reducing the dependency on bonds to manageable proportions. Only in 1987 was this attempt beginning to succeed, thanks to increased tax income from the colossal international profits made by Japan’s exporting giants.
↩

The most recent misadventure for which the Ministry of Finance has at least been partly blamed, and which has created an impression of incompetence, revolves around an attempt to change the ratio of direct versus indirect taxation (in 1987 three-fourths of all tax revenues came from direct taxes). For this purpose the officials designed a sales tax, comparable to the VAT levied in the European Community. The tax was to be levied on every transaction from manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers, and it involved a complex tax-voucher system to avoid double taxation. Because a large number of categories of goods and services would not be taxed, and numerous groups with LDP protection had to be accommodated with exemptions, the resulting scheme became so tangled and distorted that opposing forces from within the LDP had no difficulty in exploiting the chorus of criticism for getting the proposed law rejected. Much of Japanese domestic politics in the late 1980s is likely to revolve around another attempt to introduce the indirect tax.
↩

See Kanryo Kiko Kenkyukai,
Shin Okurasho
, op. cit. (n. 42), p. 106.
↩

Ibid., p. 153.
↩

Chalmers Johnson, ‘MITI and Japanese international economic policy’, in R. A. Scalapino (ed.).
The Foreign Policy of Modern Japan
, University of California Press, 1977, pp. 23–45.
↩

Chitoshi Yanaga,
Big Business in Japanese Politics
, Yale University Press, 1968, p. 162.
↩

Ito,
Gendai Nihon
, op. cit. (n. 43), introduction.
↩

This, and other information in this section, is based on interviews and informal conversations with MITI officials conducted over several years.
↩

Tawara Kotaro, ‘Naze ima “Tanaka” na no ka’ [Why ‘Tanaka’ even now?],
Bungei Shunju
, August 1981, p. 93.
↩

This is mentioned in a large body of Japanese literature on the subject. For a summary, see Masumi Junnosuke,
Gendai seiji
[Modern Politics], vol. 1, Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1985, p. 20.
↩

Chalmers Johnson, ‘Tanaka Kakuei, structural corruption and the advent of machine politics in Japan’,
Journal of Japanese Studies
, Winter 1986, p. 11.
↩

Frank C. Langdon, ‘Organised interests in Japan and their influence on political parties’.
Pacific Affairs
, vol. 34, no. 3, 1961. See also ‘Topikku kaisetsu, seito to toshikin’,
Mainichi Shimbun
, 30 November 1955.
↩

According to a report of the Ministry of Home Affairs, politicians of all parties had a total registered income of 167.59 billion yen in 1986. This was 15 per cent more than in the previous year. Very little of the income of the opposition comes from business. JCP has the highest (official) income through the subscription of its party paper, Akahata, which is predictably Marxist but has a reputation of being more honest than other papers regarding certain issues. The JSP must get its funds from the unions. Only the DSP gets money frorh business, which is no surprise as it votes with the LDP.
↩

‘Nosabaru “paatii shoho” oshitsuke ni naku kigyo’,
Asahi Shimbun
, 4 September 1984 (evening edition).
↩

Walter McLaren,
A Political History of Japan during the Meiji Period
, Allen &Unwin, 1916, pp. 364–70.
↩

G. E. Uyehara,
The Political Development of Japan 1867–1909
, Constable, 1910, pp. 266–7.
↩

According to several press reports during that time.
↩

Johnson, ‘Tanaka’, op. cit. (n. 56), p. 25.
↩

Kikuchi,
Jiminto habatsu
, op. cit. (n. 28), p. 204.
↩

Nihon Keizai Shimbunsha,
Jiminto Seichokai
, op. cit. (n. 23), p. 27.
↩

‘LDP–business negotiations never stop’.
Daily Yomiuri
, 29 June 1985.
↩

Itagaki, ‘
Zoku
’, op. cit. (n. 25). pp. 128–9.
↩

Yamaguchi Asao, ‘Kishi, Ikeda, Sato shusho no “kinmyaku” rimenshi’ [The secret history of the ‘money networks’ of prime ministers Kishi, Ikeda and Sato],
Hoseki
, April 1976, p. 108.
↩

Shimizu Ikko, ‘Seizaikai no kage no jitsuryokusha, Kishi Nobusuke no shotai’ [The true nature of Kishi Nobusuke, a shadow heavyweight of the political and business world], Hoseki, January 1976, esp. pp. 90–8.
↩

For an anthology of the most important scandals, see Aritake Shuji,
Seiji to kane to jiken to
[Politics, Money and Scandals], Keizai Oraisha, 1970.
↩

Fujiyama Aiichiro was chairman of the Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and served in the Kishi cabinet as foreign minister. He converted his property, even his home, into political funds. But his
habatsu
did not outlast him.
↩