Tanaka Kakuei

Early Life and Political Rise

Tanaka Kakuei was born on 4 May 1918 in Futata village, Kariwa district, Niigata prefecture (now part of Kashiwazaki). After finishing higher elementary school he went to Tokyo, worked his way through the Chuo Technical School, and in 1943 founded the Tanaka Construction company. He was first elected to the House of Representatives in 1947; the following year he was arrested in a bribery case over state control of the coal mines, but was acquitted at trial. In 1957 he became Minister of Posts and Telecommunications in the Kishi Nobusuke cabinet, and went on to serve as chairman of the LDP Policy Research Council, Minister of Finance, LDP Secretary-General and Minister of International Trade and Industry; as finance minister in the Ikeda and Sato cabinets from 1962 to 1965 he pursued high-growth economic policies. With Fukuda Takeo he was a pillar of the Sato faction.

Prime Minister and the "Remodelling of the Japanese Archipelago"

In June 1972 Tanaka published A Plan for Remodelling the Japanese Archipelago, advocating large-scale investment in transport and other infrastructure. When Sato Eisaku stepped down in July he was elected LDP president and became prime minister on 7 July, aged 54. His rural origins and lack of formal education earned him the nickname "the present-day Taiko" and set off a "Kakuei boom". From 1973, however, land prices soared and inflation ran out of control — the so-called "crazy prices" — and in November 1974 he announced his cabinet's resignation over the "Tanaka money-politics affair", in which the sources of his political funds came under scrutiny.

Normalisation with China

On forming his cabinet Tanaka pledged to speed up normalisation with China, and Zhou Enlai publicly welcomed this on 9 July. On 4 August Takeiri Yoshikatsu, chairman of the Komeito, handed Tanaka and Foreign Minister Ohira Masayoshi the record of his talks with Zhou and his notes of a draft joint statement; this "Takeiri memo" became an important basis for Tanaka's decision to visit China. Tanaka arrived in Beijing on 25 September; in his speech at Zhou's welcoming banquet that evening he said Japan had caused the Chinese people "great trouble" (tadai no go-meiwaku), a phrase the Chinese side criticised. Mao Zedong received him on 27 September and presented him with a facsimile Song edition of the Chuci Jizhu. On 29 September he and Zhou signed the joint communiqué establishing diplomatic relations, in which Japan expressed "deep remorse" for the serious damage its war had caused the Chinese people.

The Lockheed Scandal

In July 1976 Tanaka was arrested in the Lockheed scandal, charged with accepting bribes from the American Lockheed Corporation while prime minister. In October 1983 the court of first instance sentenced him to four years' imprisonment and a forfeiture of 500 million yen, and he appealed. After his arrest he left the LDP but kept control of its largest faction, earning the name "the shadow shogun of Mejiro" and retaining great influence over Japanese politics. He suffered a stroke in 1985 and retired from politics in 1990.

Last Years and Death

In August 1992 Tanaka, in a wheelchair, visited China again and was received by Jiang Zemin, Li Peng and others. He died in Tokyo on 16 December 1993, aged 75, while his case was still on appeal to the Supreme Court. That day a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said Tanaka "made a tremendous contribution to the normalisation of China–Japan relations during his time as prime minister"; the next day President Jiang Zemin, Premier Li Peng and others sent condolences to his family. His eldest daughter, Tanaka Makiko, later entered the House of Representatives and served as foreign minister.