Tanaka Kakuei

Japanese: 田中角栄 - たなかかくえい

A representative politician of the late Showa period, Tanaka was the 64th and 65th Prime Minister of Japan. Born in 1918 in the rural area of Kariwa District, Niigata Prefecture (now Kashiwazaki City). After graduating from high school, he moved to Tokyo at the age of 15. He graduated from night school (Chuo Technical School) while working at a construction site. In 1939, he was conscripted into the army and sent to Manchuria, but he caught pneumonia and was discharged. In 1943, he founded Tanaka Civil Engineering, and was on the Korean Peninsula, where he was working, when the war ended. In 1947, he won his second House of Representatives election (he was elected 16 times in a row thereafter), and he also participated in the management of a local transportation-related company, solidifying the foundations of profit-driven politics (money politics). In 1957, he joined the cabinet for the first time as Minister of Posts and Telecommunications in the Kishi Nobusuke cabinet. Under the cabinets of Ikeda Hayato and Sato Eisaku, he served as Minister of Finance, Minister of International Trade and Industry, Chairman of the LDP Policy Research Council, and Secretary-General, supporting Japan's high economic growth.
In July 1972, he became Prime Minister after succeeding the third Sato Cabinet. As a non-elite with a hard-earned education, he created an unprecedented "Kakuei Boom." Two months after taking office, he visited China and announced the "Japan-China Joint Statement" with Premier Zhou Enlai. His decisiveness and drive were highly praised overseas. He was praised by the media as "the modern Taiko" and "the common man prime minister." His popularity was boosted by his publication of "Japan Archipelago Remodeling Theory" just before taking office, but this was the beginning of a dark turn of events. The reform theory was a plan to promote the decentralization of population and industry by expanding expressways and the Shinkansen network, and to simultaneously resolve depopulation and overcrowding, but excessive speculation led to soaring land prices and inflation, and the first oil crisis in 1973 forced Tanaka to go bankrupt. The following year, in 1974, a weekly magazine published an article exposing the reality of the "land speculation" of Tanaka's family company, and his popularity with the public also declined. After facing intense media scrutiny, he resigned from his post as prime minister at the end of the same year, after two years and five months in office.
Furthermore, in 1976, he was indicted on charges of receiving illegal donations (bribery) from the US company Lockheed, and was found guilty by the Tokyo District Court in 1983. However, even while the Lockheed scandal was ongoing, he led the largest faction in the LDP, and helped to establish the cabinets of Masayoshi Ohira and Zenko Suzuki, and supported the cabinet of Yasuhiro Nakasone. As the "shadow general," he continued to exert a great influence on the political world until his confidant, Noboru Takeshita, left the faction in 1985. Even after his death in 1993, there have been frequent resurgences of "Kakuei booms," perhaps due to voices praising his unprecedented political power and charisma, such as his grandiose vision, his ability to execute the normalization of Japan-China relations and the passage of 33 parliamentary bills, and his skillful ability to win people's hearts, as well as voices nostalgic for the past that modern politics has lost. His daughter, Makiko Tanaka (1944-), is also a politician, having served as Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.

(Hideki Osako, Freelance Editor/2016)

Source : "Chiezo" published by Asahi Shimbun Publications Co., Ltd. About Chiezo

Japanese:

昭和後期を代表する政治家、第64・65代内閣総理大臣。1918年新潟県刈羽郡(現柏崎市)の農村地帯に生まれる。高等小学校を卒業した後、15歳で上京。工事現場で働きながら、夜間学校(中央工学校)を卒業する。39年陸軍召集によって満州に送られるが、肺炎にかかり除隊処分となる。43年に田中土建工業を設立し、終戦は仕事先の朝鮮半島で迎えた。47年自身2度目の挑戦となった衆議院議員選挙で初当選(以降16回連続当選)を果たすと、地元の交通関連企業の経営にも加わり、利益誘導型政治(金権政治)の基礎を固めていく。57年、岸信介内閣の郵政大臣として初入閣。池田勇人内閣と佐藤栄作内閣の下では、大蔵大臣、通産大臣、自民党政調会長、幹事長を歴任し、日本の高度経済成長を支えた。
72年7月、第3次佐藤内閣の後を受けて内閣総理大臣に就任すると、非エリート・苦学の経歴から、空前の「角栄ブーム」を巻き起こした。就任2カ月後には中国を訪問し、周恩来首相と共に「日中共同声明」を発表すると、その決断力・行動力は海外でも高く評価された。マスコミに「今太閤」「庶民派宰相」と持てはやされ、就任直前に出版した『日本列島改造論』も人気を後押ししたが、これが暗転のきっかけとなった。改造論は高速道路と新幹線網の拡充によって人口と産業の地方分散を推進し、過疎と過密を同時に解消させるという構想だったが、過剰な投機が地価高騰やインフレを招き、更に73年の第1次石油危機によって破綻(はたん)に追い込まれた。翌74年、週刊誌に田中ファミリー企業の「土地ころがし」の実態などを暴いた記事が掲載されると、国民の人気も凋落(ちょうらく)。マスコミの激しい追及を受け、同年末、首相在任期間2年5カ月で辞職した。
更に76年には、米・ロッキード社からの不正献金(収賄)容疑で起訴され、83年に東京地裁で有罪判決を受けた。しかし、このロッキード事件の係争中も自民党の最大派閥を率い、大平正芳内閣、鈴木善幸内閣を誕生させ、中曽根康弘内閣を支援するなど、85年に腹心の竹下登が派閥を割るまで、「闇将軍」として政界に大きな影響を保ち続けた。93年の死去後も、壮大な構想力と日中国交正常化や33もの議員立法を成立させた実行力、巧みな人心掌握術など、不世出の政治力とカリスマ性を評価する声に、現代政治が失った往時を懐しむ声も重なってか、たびたび「角栄ブーム」が再燃している。なお、娘の田中眞紀子(44年～)も政治家で、外務大臣や文部科学大臣などを務めた。

(大迫秀樹　フリー編集者／2016年)

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