TOKYO – “Until I die, I will say what I want, do what I want and I want to be hated by people when I die,” Shintaro Ishihara, former governor of Tokyo, said at a press conference on his retirement from political life in December of 2014.
There has rarely been a politician in Japan who was so deserving of having his wishes granted. When the former governor of Tokyo, pulp fiction writer and ultranationalist Ishihara died this week, he left behind a trail of soured relations between Japan and its neighbors.
However, whether you liked him for his outspoken Trump-before-Trump antics or despised him for his troublemaking rhetoric, the damage he created with his attempt to annex the Senkaku Islands and provoke the government of China lives on, even now.
His legacy of xenophobic and cruel political posturing will probably haunt Japan for years to come. Japan’s conservative press treated his passing as a national tragedy. The right-wing Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan’s largest newspaper, glossed over his failures and his penchant for hate speech.
The other major papers were filled with glowing page after page about his literary career, “bold spirit” and interviews with his surviving children or admirers. On television, few dared to touch upon his costly mistakes in office.
However, not everyone was in agreement. Takao Saito, a journalist who wrote a definitive history of Ishihara, The Man Who Toyed with Tokyo: Shintaro Ishihara, the ‘Empty Little Emperor’, dared to make a comment that few had the courage to say, in the evening paper Nikkan Gendai.
“First of all, I would like to express my deepest condolences. However, the fact that someone has passed away does not exempt them from everything. It is a virtue of the Japanese people not to speak ill of the dead, but Mr Ishihara also broke this moral code,” he wrote.
“He was the first person in public office to openly advocate discrimination against women, the disabled, LGBT, Japanese-Koreans, the burakumin [members of the former outcaste class] and other socially vulnerable groups.
“It was Ishihara who wielded the ideology that discrimination is justice and instilled it in Japan. Ishihara, who became the governor of Tokyo with an appeal to ‘change Japan from Tokyo,’ instilled in Japan from Tokyo the idea that it is only natural to abuse the vulnerable.”
The death of Ishihara was announced on the afternoon of February 1. He was 89. Ishihara was born to wealthy parents and made his debut as a writer with Taiyo no Kisetsu, also known as Season Of Violence, in 1955, while a student at Hitotsubashi University. It won the prestigious Akutagawa Prize.
The work, which revolved around the sexual violence and cruelty of a callous young sociopath, was later made into a movie and became a colossal hit. His younger brother Yujiro also made his film debut with this work and became a star. The term Taiyo-zoku, or Tribe of the Sun, emerged from the book as a trendy word for wayward youth. All of that, combined with young Shintaro’s cool looks, made him and his brother celebrities.
In 1968, he ran for election to the House of Councilors and received more than 3 million votes, which enabled him to move into politics. In 1999, he ran for governor of Tokyo and was elected for the first time and served as governor until 2012.
He did accomplish some things for which Tokyoites were grateful. He successfully battled air pollution by setting limits on diesel emissions for vehicles coming into the city in 2000. At the same time, he also saddled the denizens with huge debts due to half-baked policies and failed efforts.
Under his direction, in 2005 Tokyo erected its own bank, ShinTokyo Ginko, which was supposed to lend money to small businesses with no collateral. Three years later, it had accumulated debts of more than 100 billion yen (US$869 million).
At least some portion of that money went into the hands of Japan’s organized crime groups, the yakuza.
Senkaku Islands debacle
In April 2012, Ishihara announced his intention to purchase part of the Senkaku Islands in Okinawa Prefecture from the landowners. The Senkaku Islands arguably belong to Japan, but China also lays claim to them and the dispute has continued for years.
Ishihara also insisted on building a shipyard on the islands once the purchase went through. At the same time, he pressed the ruling administration to make the purchase.
Yoshihiko Noda, then prime minister and a leader of the Democratic Party of Japan, became increasingly concerned about Ishihara’s move, believing that China would overreact if the Tokyo Metropolitan Government bought the property. He decided to nationalize it in September that year.
This prompted China to step up its opposition and to make even more maritime forays around the Senkakus. Since then, China’s activities in the vicinity of the Senkakus have escalated, forcing the Japanese side to respond, and tensions between the two countries over the Senkakus continue this year, which marks the 50th anniversary of the normalization of diplomatic relations between Japan and China.
If there was any doubt about what Ishihara’s intentions were in attempting to buy the Senkaku islands, he clarified them in a 2014 interview. During the interview, he indicated that if he became prime minister, one of his goals would be to “fight and win a war with China.”
In the interview, he also referred to China using the word Shina, a derogatory term for the country used during Japan’s military occupation.
Indirectly, Ishihara’s meddling in the Senkaku Islands debate also paved the way for the return of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) to power.
Jeff Kingston, historian and author of Contemporary Japan explains:
Ishihara contributed greatly to Abe’s victory in the 2012 election. There were expectations post-Fukushima [the nuclear meltdown that occurred at the TEPCO Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant] that the election would be a referendum on nuclear power, since all 54 nuclear reactors were built on the LDP’s watch.
That would have helped the DPJ since their anti-nuclear energy stance drew strong public support. But by instigating a crisis over the Senkaku islands, and prompting Noda to nationalize the islands, he shifted the discourse to security concerns and the need to improve US alliance ties.
Noda looked over his head on the security crisis and thus got hammered in the elections.
Ishihara was known as a political maverick, but he was an uninspired conservative apparatchik who craved public attention and acted accordingly. It’s a case of a celebrity dining out way too long on an early accomplishment, Taiyo no Kisetsu, and leaving behind a limited legacy of no distinction.
Abe ideologically was very close to Ishihara and shared his belief that the post-war democratic, pacifist constitution, which guaranteed basic human rights, had emasculated Japan.
Abe expressed his deep condolences on NHK news, saying, “Ishihara was a politician who continued to challenge various conventional notions after World War II. He was not afraid of criticism and was consistent in saying what needed to be said.”
Hate speech
Ishihara’s remarks during his political career constantly caused a stir both in Japan and abroad. They have often been criticized as “outrageous” and “discriminatory” – and rightly so.
In April 2000, when he was governor of Tokyo, he delivered a speech at a commemoration ceremony of the Ground Self-Defense Forces, saying: “Sankokujin and foreigners have repeatedly committed heinous crimes and can be expected to riot after a natural disaster. The police can only do so much so I’d like you to come and keep the peace” when it happens.
The term sangokujin was used after World War II to refer to Koreans and Taiwanese still living in Japan – many who had been brought into the country as slave labor – and the use of the word was heavily criticized both at home and abroad.
The comment was distasteful for promoting ethnic discrimination and encouraging unjust stereotypes. The comments were also reminiscent of statements made after the 1923 Kanto Earthquake which resulted in the murders of thousands of Korean residents.
On March 14, three days after the Great East Japan Earthquake, he said: “We need to use the tsunami to wash away our selfishness. We need to use the tsunami to wash away the greed that has accumulated in the hearts of the Japanese people over the years. I think it is a divine punishment.”
There was a rare public outcry and he retracted and apologized on the following day.
In May 2013, he spoke to reporters about the issue of the Imperial Japanese army’s sexual exploitation and abuse of foreign women, the “the comfort women” – and dismissed the problem glibly, saying: “The military and prostitution go hand in hand. It’s like a principle of history.”
In his other remarks over the years, he referred to women who could no longer reproduce as worthless, questioned whether the severely handicapped had personalities and derided homosexuals as genetically deficient.
Popular essayist Kaori Shoji summarized his viewpoints on the world succinctly: “The man was a rightist, elitist, racist, misogynist, patriarchal pig. I hope I didn’t leave anything out.”
The legacy of Ishihara
The bank that Ishihara created has long since folded and it is questionable whether his literary works will endure long after his death, but his impact on Japanese politics may be irreversible.
Japanese politics expert Koichi Nakano, a professor at Sophia University, perhaps sums it up best.
It was as a mini-president, aka Tokyo governor, that he finally gained some serious influence, profiting from his privileged ties with the media at a time when Japanese politics was also quickly shifting to the right.
His hatred, bigotry, misogyny and revisionism not only went unchecked by the fawning media, but he invented the style of domination that is still in currency under Ishin no Kai [Japan Innovation Party] today in full collusion with the increasingly reactionary media.
He continued to lack in vision and in substance [as a young politician on the national level] but [as Tokyo governor] he finally wielded sufficient clout to poison the well and antagonize Japan’s neighbors more than he ever could as a national politician. He may be dead now, but his style of politics outlives him here and elsewhere.