In Shinjuku, just west of the world’s busiest train station, the colossal towers of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building hover above a mass of skyscrapers. The cathedral-esque facade was designed by architect Tange Kenzo to resemble an integrated circuit; what better symbol could there be for Tokyo, a metropolis whose meteoric rise was predicated on high tech? The whole of Tokyo and its byzantine bureaucracy is governed from within this massive complex. And presiding over it all, and over more than 150 thousand local government employees, is the Governor of Tokyo.
As the head of government for Japan’s capital – the world’s most populous urban area with its greatest single GPD – the governor of Tokyo is a uniquely powerful entity on both a local and national scale. Since 2016, the office has been occupied by Koike Yuriko, a conservative nationalist and Tokyo’s first female governor.
That Koike would be a conservative (and at times even labeled an “ultraconservative”) likely comes as no surprise; Japan’s national government has been controlled by the right-wing Liberal Democratic Party for the vast majority of the country’s post-war history. That Japan’s local governments would also be similarly led by conservative politicians is a rational assumption; indeed, most Tokyo governors have been conservative, or even arch-conservative. But this wasn’t always the case.
In the late 1960s, there emerged a major upswell in local support for progressive politicians. Across Japan, nominees backed by the Japanese Socialist and Japanese Communist parties found themselves newly empowered. Prefecture after prefecture chose left-wing leadership, eschewing the hand-picked nominees of the ruling LDP. And chief among these radical local leaders was Minobe Ryokichi, a Marxist professor, smiling TV star, and the son of a wartime enemy of the state. Minobe would lead Tokyo for three terms, remaining electorally undefeated upon leaving the post in 1979.
For more than a decade following his election in 1967, while Minobe Ryokichi led Japan’s capital from the old government building in central Chiyoda, Tokyo launched a series of groundbreaking progressive policies aimed at increasing quality-of-life for the metropolis’ millions of citizens. And, for a time, one could almost say that Tokyo was socialist.
Born into an Era of Change
Minobe Ryokichi (美濃部亮吉) was born in 1904, the 37th year of the Meiji era. Three days after his birth, the Russo-Japanese War began; by the time Minobe passed away in 1984, Japan was an ascendant economic giant long since recovered from the devastation of WWII. His birthplace was the capital of the Empire of Japan, although Tokyo had not yet taken the administrative form he would eventually govern. At the time, it was known as Tokyo-fu – the Tokyo Metropolitan Prefecture. There was even still such thing as a “Tokyo City,” then composed of a mere 15 wards, its boundaries falling far short of the 23 special wards we know today.
Minobe grew up in a rapidly changing Japan, one which had emerged from its feudal isolation to become an industrializing world power. When he was ten years old, Emperor Meiji passed away. Minobe’s adolescence occurred during the comparatively open and forward-thinking years of the so-called “Taisho democracy,” wherein Meiji’s son and heir, the Taisho emperor, was too frail to effectively project the power of a monarchic state. Minobe’s own father, Tatsukichi (美濃部 達吉), was one of the great constitutional thinkers of the age.
Father’s Theories
The elder Minobe was a professor at Tokyo Imperial University. In 1912, the year of the Meiji emperor’s passing, he published his writings on what would become known as the “emperor organ theory” of state. To Minobe Tatsukichi, the constitution of Japan clarified the emperor’s position within the state as being one organ among many; the emperor had an important role to play alongside the various levers of government and bureaucracy. Together, all the “organs” of state comprised the kokutai (国体)- the national polity. For many liberal thinkers of the day, this was a fitting explanation of the emperor’s place in civic society, and one which paved a path toward Japan’s function as a constitutional monarchy.
While the Taisho emperor yet reigned, the organ theory easily held water. After all, the emperor was not physically able to rule, and could hardly impose his will over the decisions of the government. All the while, however, Taisho’s son, Hirohito, was being raised to occupy a position more like that of his powerful grandfather Meiji than his rarely-seen father. Hirohito read the elder Minobe’s theories, but generally rejected them for oppositional constitutional readings that would grant him greater power. Once Hirohito was enthroned as the Showa emperor in 1926, he quickly developed a much stronger cult of emperor worship than his father – one which would eventually become more fanatical than even that devoted to Meiji. In the increasingly bellicose 1930s, far-right radicals began targeting Minobe Tatsukichi, decrying his “organ theory” as blasphemy against the all-encompassing power of the emperor.
Minobe Ryokichi watched on as his father went from celebrated pioneer of constitutional thought to persona-non-grata. In the early 1920s, the younger Minobe entered the prestigious economics department of the Tokyo Imperial University – the very school where his father was director of the Faculty of Law. He was quickly taken under the wing of the influential Marxist economist Ōuchi Hyōei (大内 兵衛). Via Ōuchi, Minobe would be introduced to the Rōnō-ha (労農派, labor-farmer) school of Marxist thought. In the 1920s, Communist professors could still operate with comparative freedom within Japan – yet Ōuchi had already faced governmental scrutiny for his views. In 1919, the Home Ministry had taken him to court over his assistance in the publication of an academic article the government deemed “anarchistic.” The Russian Revolution had only just occurred; even within the lax environment of the Taisho era, the power structure feared that leftist radicalism spread to Japan.
The Targeting of Minobe and Son
Despite the increasing difficulties both Ōuchi and the younger Minobe would face during the pre-war years, the teacher and pupil remained close. Even into Minobe’s third term as governor in the then far-off 1970s, he would still turn to his old instructor for advice. Back in the 1920s, Ōuchi set Minobe down an academic path focused on the issues Marxism predicted for late-stage capitalism; his specialty became inflation.
In 1927, Minobe graduated, immediately taking on a job as an assistant professor at his alma mater. Soon made a full professor, his matter-of-fact belief in the compatibility of being both a Marxist and an everyday member of society soon brought down the wrath of the anti-communist professor Kawai Eijiro. Life at Tokyo Imperial became untenable for Minobe just as his father’s public life was coming under repeated attack from far-right forces. (Kawai, a firm believer in Democracy, would eventually face his own sustained attack from the right.)
On February 18th, 1935, the radical rightist Baron Kikuchi Takeo took to the House of Peers to publically decry Minobe’s father’s “organ theory.” The theory, the Baron insisted, was “the traitorous thought of an academic rebel.” The Baron called upon the government of Prime Minister Okada to ban Tatsukichi’s writings. The Baron was a retired Imperial Army general; the army was becoming ever more bellicose and unruly, taking action on the Asian mainland and countermanding the Japanese government. Radicals throughout the army wanted to enact a “Showa Restoration,” granting the Emperor unlimited power. Tatsukichi’s theories stood in the way, and he became the target of mass rage.
Son to a Persona non Grata
A week after the Baron’s speech, Tatsukichi gave an impassioned defense of his theories in front of the House of Peers (of which he was himself a member). Outside, protesters aligned with the Imperial Way faction held placards denouncing Minobe as a traitor. Prime Minister Okada bowed to rightist pressure, banning Minobe Tatsukichi’s work and allowing him to be investigated for the crime of Lèse-majesté (insulting the monarch). Minobe stepped down from his imperial appointments; the government began a process of spreading the “correct” conception of the emperor’s place in society.
The banning of Minobe’s father’s books and his retirement from public life did not entirely satiate the anger that had been drummed up against him. On February 21st, 1936, a far-right hoodlum named Oda Juzo (小田十壮) used a falsified business card to gain a meeting at Minobe’s house. Inside a gift basket, he hid a pistol; after exchanging pleasantries with Minobe, he pulled the gun, and unloaded at the older man. Minobe was hit, but managed to flee; he caught his leg up in barbed wire as he ran across the fields near his house. Although badly wounded, the elder Minobe survived the assassination attempt. Oda received only three years imprisonment as punishment. [1]
Only two years would pass from the attempt on his father’s life until Minobe himself was imprisoned. Starting in 1937, with the fall of Nanjing, the Japanese police began making regular mass arrests of known leftists. In 1938, the police came for Minobe, briefly imprisoning him because of his association with the Rōnō-ha group. Minobe’s mentor, Ōuchi, was arrested the next year. Both were fired from their universities and had to look for work elsewhere. The watchful eyes of the Japanese secret police maintained their secretive gaze on the Minobe family until the fall of the Empire of Japan in 1945.
Despite all he had experienced, all the terrible things he had seen happen to those close to him, Minobe Ryokichi emerged through the utter devastation of the war years relatively unscathed. Perhaps because of the persecution he’d experienced, he held firm to his Marxist beliefs – even in his later years as a politician, when many leftists began to doubt his commitment to the revolutionary cause, he’s still call himself a “flexible utopian Socialist.” With the old system in ruins and the US occupation opening up politics to all creeds and backgrounds, the sky seemed the limit for what could be achieved in Japan.
Emerging into the Post-War
Tokyo emerged from World War II as a burnt-out husk of its former self. No longer the capital of one of the largest empires on Earth, it was now merely a city of rubble from which a foreign occupying power ruled. Minobe witnessed the many years of US occupation and rebuilding as both an editorial author for the Mainichi Newspaper, and as a high-ranking statistician for the disempowered government of Japan. Meanwhile, his father, Tatsukichi, became an active advisor in the compilation of Japan’s new post-war constitution. He would pass away in 1948.
1947 saw a major change in the composition of Tokyo itself. The 23 special wards system came into effect; the borders of what had been the City of Tokyo were extended into what was once the countryside (including such major modern population centers as Shinjuku and Shibuya). Meanwhile, the very first popularly elected governor of Tokyo, Seiichiro Yasui, came into power, presiding over both the 23 special wards of the old City of Tokyo and the municipalities that lay beyond in Tokyo’s western boundaries.
The Occupation years were a time of great poverty, difficulty, and malaise, but also of innovation. Unburdened by the oppressive levers of the Imperial State, labor unions and alternative political parties flourished. A true popular vote, including the long-awaited enfranchisement of women, came into effect. Obtaining a liberal education became a goal of many young people, even though the university infrastructure would take years to repair itself and catch up with demand. Socialist and Communist party members, released from imperial prisons, emerged as folk heroes. The Japanese Socialist Party gained in popularity, and through the early 50s proved a powerful force in electoral politics.
The Rise of the LDP
Meanwhile, as the dangers of the Cold War became apparent, and in light of both the threat of the Soviet Union and the victory of the Communist army in the Chinese Civil War, the Occupation forces did an about-face. The United States felt that the desire for a democratic society had been instilled in the Japanese populace, and it was now time to shore up Japan as a bulwark against communism, rather than letting the country move farther to the left. The CIA began secretly funneling money to the various Japanese right-wing parties; in 1955, the conservative side of Japanese politics coalesced from warring factions into a single, powerful party – the Liberal Democratic Party. The Socialist Party could no longer count on competition from within the conservative wing to allow them to eke out victory. From 1955 until 1993, the LDP easily held the reigns of government, and for decades did so with the illicit support of the CIA. [2]
Meanwhile, said US intelligence agency infiltrated “the opposition,” meaning the Socialists, Communists, labor movements, and the burgeoning Leftist student movements. One CIA agent would later remark that preventing gains by Japanese leftists “was the most important thing we could do.” CIA agents believed the Soviet Union was similarly funding the Japanese opposition; the US used the domino theory of geopolitics to push the belief that if Japan went red, so would the whole of Asia. Douglas MacArthur II, nephew of the leader of the US occupation and ambassador to Japan from 1957 to 1961, said that:
“If Japan went Communist it was difficult to see how the rest of Asia would not follow suit. Japan assumed an importance of extraordinary magnitude because there was no other place in Asia from which to project American power.”
The US strategy worked; in the face of a unified and financially stable conservative front, progress made by leftist and liberal candidates on both a national and a local stage was rolled back. The LDP shored up Japan’s postwar relationship with the US, and made sure the numerous US bases throughout the archipelago remained in operation despite local opposition. For a decade, Leftism in Japan became the purview of student radicals, activists, and labor unions whose power was often in the streets, rather than the halls of government.
The Japanese Radical Youth Take to the Street
In 1960, hundreds of thousands of protesters who opposed the United States–Japan Security Treaty surrounded said halls of government in Tokyo’s National Diet Building. On June 15, the protesters breached the walls of the Diet compound. A pitched battle with riot police followed. One female student, Kanba Michiko, perished. A visit from President Eisenhower was canceled, and LDP Prime Minister Kishi Nobusuke – formerly imprisoned as a class-A war criminal suspect (and grandfather to recently slain former Prime Minister Abe Shinzo) – stepped down from his office. Progressive and liberal forces within Japan still had mass support and organizing power, but electoral politics remained beyond them.
(One major exception was Governor Ninagawa of Kyoto, elected in 1950 with Socialist backing. He remained governor of one of Japan’s major prefectures for 27 years despite opposition from the conservative parties. Ninagawa is still by far the longest-serving governor in Kyoto history.)
Minobe on TV
It was in 1960 that Minobe Ryokichi entered into public awareness. Having worked in numerous professorial and advisory offices, it was becoming a television personality that truly made him a household name. Minobe starred in the NHK program “Yasashii Keizaikyoshitsu” (やさしい経済教室, “The Easy Economics Classroom”). He played the “father” of a fictional version of the “Minobe Family,” with Mizuki Ranko playing his wife. Sitting on the living room tatami, Minobe would explicate economic issues to his fictional family in easy-to-understand ways. The show touched on such subjects as Minobe’s specialty, inflation, and also explained kitchen economics and Japan’s changing place in the world economy. The show ran for two years, and Minobe’s gentle, fatherly smile became beloved across the country.
Tokyo in Recovery
The Tokyo of the early post-war decades was not one we’d recognize today. Much reconstruction had been achieved, but there remained massive issues with local infrastructure and poverty. Hardly anyone in the 23 wards had access to sewers; night soil haulers operated in some ways as they had since the days of Edo. Neither Tokyo nor Japan as a whole had really stepped back into the so-called “brotherhood of nations.” A plan was hatched to use the Olympics as a venue through which to reintroduce the world to the new, peaceful Japan. One of the men behind these efforts was Azuma Ryutaro, the head of the Japanese Olympic Committee. In 1959, he was elected as the second post-war governor of Tokyo – in the words of Edward Seidensticker, “as if for the specific purpose of presiding over” the Olympics. That same year, Tokyo won its bid to host the 1964 summer Olympics, and the prefectural government dove headfirst into making Tokyo ready for this monumental task.
During the ramp-up to the Olympics, Japan saw the first hint that left-wing nominees would soon regain a fighting chance with the electorate. In 1963, Asukata Ichio was elected as mayor of Yokohama, one of Japan’s most important cities. Asukata was the founder of the National Association of Progressive Mayors, whose goal was to elect local-level progressive politicians who would campaign on promises of increasing quality of life.
Asukata’s electoral coup, however, mostly served to demonstrate the great difficulty progressive politicians would have upon assuming executive offices. Socialists and communists could compete in mayoral and gubernatorial elections because these were first-past-the-post style competitions, unlike those for the apportioned National Diet. Once a progressive politician gained such an office, however, they still had to deal with the city and prefectural councils and organs beneath them, usually filled with members associated with the ruling LDP. According to Mayor Asukata, becoming mayor amidst the entrenched conservative governmental structure of Yokohama was like “landing alone on the top of Mt. Fuji by parachute: I occupied only the summit, while the whole of the mountain was in the hands of the enemy.”
Asukata’s time as mayor would still see some success, and presaged the oncoming rush of local progressive leadership. The mood of the nation had changed in the 1960s; while the Olympics are remembered as an epochal moment for post-war Japan, the country would shortly be rocked by a series of scandals, all while the youth became increasingly aligned with the Left. (Indeed, the youthful New Left movement was radicalized to such a degree that they broke with the Communist Party, seen as too moderate.) Scandal would also come for Tokyo’s “Olympic governor,” Azuma, and leave the door open for an opposition candidate to eke out victory in the coming elections.
Bribery and corruption have long been open secrets within the political landscape of Japan; only at times do scandals erupt to a great enough scale to bring down those involved. In 1965, the year after the Olympics, the Tokyo Prefectural Council held an election for their president in which the degree of bribery and intimidation involved was such that it slipped the bonds of everyday corruption and entered public discussion. The prefectural president himself was arrested, among others, and the council dissolved. This in of itself was enough to put a great dampener on the perception of Governor Azuma. It was then that an almost literal Biblical plague of flies descended upon Tokyo.
The Tokyo Garbage Wars
Tokyo had a monster-sized trash problem.
Since 1655, in the early Edo era, the city’s garbage had been disposed of via reclamation in Edo Bay. The area that is now Tokyo’s Koto Ward rose from the sea as the Shogunate used trash to form land extensions and islands. Edo was at various times the most populated city in the world; however, it was only from the 1950s and the rise of mass-produced consumer goods that trash became a crisis. The civic battles between different Tokyo wards – those wishing to dispose of their trash elsewhere, and those refusing to take on said trash – became known as the Tokyo Gomi Sensou (東京ゴミ戦争) – the Tokyo Garbage Wars. (A name Minobe himself would coin.)
Under Prime Minister Ikeda’s Income-Doubling Policy, Japan was moving into a state of rapid industrialization, and the disposal of industrial materials, dangerous chemicals, and the increased output of pollution all combined to create serious public hygiene issues. Landfills in the various wards filled up. Incineration stations remained few and far between. The main method of disposing of garbage returned to landfills in Tokyo Bay, and the continuous reclamation of land from the sea. The amount of trash was so massive that garbage plants couldn’t even begin to handle the load; 70% was buried without being treated.
From 1957, the focal point for the disposal of Tokyo’s massive wave of trash became the ironically named Yume no Shima – the “Island of Dreams.” Itself a man-made island in Tokyo Bay, by 1965 the island had already seen a mass trash fire rage across 40% of the island’s surface. The Japanese media took to calling the island by a derisive name: Gomi no Shima – the “Island of Trash.”
Plague of Flies from the Island of Dreams
Then, in 1965, the problems at Yume no Shima began to truly plague the whole of Tokyo. It began on July 16th. An enormous mass of black flies, born from and engorged on the island’s trash, road a strong southern wind towards the Koto Ward mainland. From there, they unleashed a blight upon the people of Tokyo. They were everywhere. Students at elementary schools near the swarm had to carry out fly-killing exercises between classes. Young children were outfitted with fly swatters to wield on walks to and from school.
Efforts by the police and Self-Defence Force at fly eradication only made matters worse. Finally, the fire brigades and the Self-Defense Force united to carry out “Operation Yumenoshima Scorched Earth.” (夢の島焦土作戦.) They spread chemicals and gasoline over the entirety of the garbage mounds from which the flies were emanating; then, they lit a match. Witnesses described an otherworldly scene, as a fire “firefighters who had devoted their lives to putting out flames engaged in arson…” creating a blaze like “a nightmare in the middle of the day.” [3] According to Edward Seidensticker, “dream island was for a time a cinder on which not even flies could live.” In 1967, the local government declared that Yumenoshima would officially cease its operations as a trash dump.
Scandals, public unrest, and a biblical plague of flies all united to bring down the LDP’s stranglehold on Tokyo government. The 1965 Prefectural Council elections were a media circus; indicted former councilors ran for re-election while awaiting their trial dates; numerous yakuza attempted to run for council seats. The conservative wing lost almost half of its seats, and the socialist wing emerged as the leading party in a new coalition. Conservative majority power in Tokyo was broken for decades to come. Governor Azuma chose not to run for re-election – and the path was opened for an even greater socialist sweep.
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Minobe Throws his Hat into the Ring
By the 1967 election, Minobe Ryokichi was a household name. His winning smile and gentle demeanor had especially enamored women in Tokyo – who in the postwar years now compromised a major cross-section of the electorate. As a popular public intellectual, who happened to be a Marxist, but was also known for his pacifism, there could scarcely be a better candidate for the progressive side to put forth.
The 1967 gubernatorial election would be a showdown between the powerful conservative, anti-communist camp and the burgeoning power of the leftists. The time had come for a major push from the kakushin (革新, reformist) coalition, consisting of both Socialist and Communist parties. Their opponents would be the LDP, as well as the conservative Komeito, a party formed just years earlier as the political arm of the powerful “new religion” Soka Gakkai. The Socialist-Communist party would rely on Minobe’s gentle smile to help win the day.
The Communist Party originally preferred Yonehara Itaru, a major figure in the party and former member of parliament. It was the Socialist Party that pushed for Minobe, whose avowed Marxism caused the center-left Democratic Socialist Party to withdraw from the progressive coalition.
Minobe decided to run. Like many local politicians, he did so not as a member of any particular party – although the backing of the progressive wing left little doubt as to his standing amongst the various political blocs. His freshness to the electoral scene and television fame worked wonders in favor of Minobe’s appeal; he could appear as comparatively non-partisan and worthy of trust. He adopted many of the policy aims of the Socialist-Communist alliance, yet made them his own personal pledge; these became Minobe’s “Nine Promises”:
“To fight against inflation; to make Tokyo a place fit for mothers and children; to promote education, culture and sport; to eliminate regional differences with Tokyo by planning; to provide security for the underprivileged; to help small industry; to use citizens’ taxes for their own benefit; to effect scientific administrative reform; to protect local autonomy and preserve peace and democratic rights.”
Minobe’s Nine Promises, as quoted in Rix, A. 1975.
The Power of the “Minobe Smile”
The promises were idealistic and somewhat vague; even Minobe’s own mentor, Ouchi, worried his campaign was creating an image of Minobe as a “savior” bound to disappoint his supporters. But said supporters found Minobe’s campaign inspiring. They filled his war chest with funds raised by purchasing some 700,000 circular, blue-and-white “Blue Sky Badges,” and wore the badges with great pride. Indeed, “blue” was the representative color of Minobe’s whole campaign. Cleaning up Tokyo’s rampant pollution and trash was one of his main policies; his slogan was “Bring the Blue Sky to Tokyo” (「東京に青空を」).
Flyers were also placed featuring a picture of Minobe alongside the popular actress Kashiyama Fumie, then staring in the NHK drama “Ohanahan;” no sooner would a poster be stapled to a public wall than some fan would tear them down and take them for their own. The media began speaking of the famed “Minobe Smile,” which continued to endear itself to the Tokyo citizenry.
Minobe both spoke directly to the people, calling for direct citizen participation, and worked the media landscape as no previous nominee had. Academic Alan G. Rix, writing around the time, said that Minobe “…waged a flamboyantly personal campaign.” He was Tokyo’s first major tarento (TV personality) political nominee and knew how to use the levers of popular media like no other politician. He would be far from the country’s last politician to ride TV fame to a seat of public power.
Minobe’s main competition came from another professor, the conservative political scientist Matsushita Masatoshi (松下正寿). Arch-rightists from around Japan entered the ring in their crusade against the Marxist Minobe; ultranationalist Akao Bin stood for his Greater Japan Patriotic Party (members of which had previously murdered Socialist Party leaders); perennial anticommunist election hopeful Fukasaku Seijiro also made an attempt, losing in the election as he did in all 23 he entered during a decade and a half years in politics. A former reporter named Nonogami Taketoshi, a close friend of Minobe’s main competition, Matsushita, attempted to run as a spoiler; the election committee vetoed his petition to run under the nickname “水戸” (a more common kanji spelling of “Minobe”).
A Historical Victory
Despite the extreme dip in the public’s opinion of the conservatives, the election was a remarkably close thing. Nearly five million votes were cast, the vast majority for either Minobe or Matsushita. In the end, Minobe was victorious – but his victory came by only 130 thousand votes more than his main opponent. Komeito gained over 600,000 votes – if the Soka Gakkai voters had gone instead for Matsushita, Minobe would have lost.
Close though the victory was, it represented an incredible and historic shift in Tokyo politics. Never before had the great capital of Japan been presided over by any politician from the Leftist camp. With the Socialist-leaning prefectural council still in place, Minobe even possessed something of political mandate. And across the archipelago, in Osaka, Kagawa, Fukui, Iwate, Saitama, Okayama, Mie, Shimane, and more, progressive politicians rode a wave of public support into gubernatorial office. By 1975, more than 20% of Japanese mayorships and ten of the 47 prefectural governorships were held by Leftist politicians. Tokyo’s, and in some sense, Japan’s local socialist period had begun.
Early Achievements
Minobe entered his tenure as governor of Tokyo on the back of a certain watchword: taiwa (対話, “dialogue”), which would later be joined by a second, sanka (参加, participation). Previous governors had run the prefecture from behind the steely walls of bureaucracy; Minobe promised that citizens would always have a voice within his government. To this end, he held his first taiwa shukai (dialogue assembly) in July of 1967, inviting citizens in Katsushika Ward to come discuss issues with him. Soon, there were offices set up to allow citizens a pathway to expressing concerns to the government.
He immediately put plans into motion to rationalize the morass of Tokyo government; he promised to do away with the red tape and circular decision-making structures that dominated the gigantic prefectural bureaucracy. Japan remains a country with a shocking amount of red tape, yet the fact that Minobe largely succeeded in making governance more straightforward shows just how much worse bureaucratic roadblocks once were.
Against Gambling
One of Minobe’s first demonstrations of his intent to right perceived social wrongs was revoking prefectural funding for gambling institutions. Previously, Tokyo had funded bicycle, horse, boat, and auto racing venues existing primarily for the purposes of gambling; once the prefecture pulled out, many major gambling establishments were forced to shutter. Others, however, gained private funding, and local ward governments stepped in to prop up still more. The Tokyo City Keiba racehorse track in Shinagawa is one such gambling institution that continues to operate on municipal funding to this day. Gambling certainly did not disappear from Tokyo, but Minobe did at least fulfill his promise of disentangling the prefectural government from its operations.
In 1970, the band Salty Sugar released a horse racing-themed single called “Hashire Kotaro.” The jocular song went on to be a mainstay of the horse race circuits, and even included a section of spoken narration by singer Yamamoto Kotoaru in which he imitates Minobe’s speech patterns, poking fun at the governor’s opposition to public gambling institutions.
Lightening the Load for the Elderly
In 1969, Minobe launched one of his most popular and successful policies. Under his direction, the prefecture government promised to cover all medical expenses for the elderly. The ambitious program was opposed by the ruling national LDP, who disparaged it as a “policy of giving water to a withered tree.” (「枯れ木に水をやる政策」.) The LPD-controlled Ministry of Health and Welfare claimed that “the taking on of personal medical expenses by government is in violation of the Health Insurance Act,” and managed to get Minobe’s policy delayed. But the governor stood his ground, challenging the declaration of the Ministry. He won out, and the statement was retracted; Tokyo citizens over the age of 70 would have medical expenses paid by the prefecture.
Opposition to the popular health care plan had detrimental effects on local elections for the LDP. Prime Minister Tanaka Kakuei, seeing the way the winds were blowing, relented. His cabinet would go on to declare 1973 “the First Year of Social Welfare” (「福祉元年」), appropriating the opposition’s success by implementing total national coverage for health care costs for the elderly. This has been a common tactic by the LDP; while certainly conservative, they can only manage to maintain continuative power by taking on popular progressive policies from the opposition.
In July of the same year, Minobe did the national government one better, reducing the age for free healthcare in Tokyo to 65. He also managed to make much of Tokyo public transit free for the same age bracket.
Minobe’s health care plan was a major coup, and helped gain him immense popularity in Tokyo. Critics would complain that hypochondriac seniors were crowding hospitals, taking advantage of the free care; nonetheless, this was the start of a long line of national policies aimed at reducing the burdens on the lives of Japan’s elderly. He also extended an enlarged safety net by providing services for the disabled and endowments for children.
Environmental Protection and “Pedestrian Heavens”
From 1969, Minobe shifted his focus to even grander designs, conceptualizing the scientific role government could play in eradicating social ills and environmental issues. On October 26th, 1970, Minobe’s government opened Japan’s first-ever local-level Environmental Protection Bureau. This came during a period when pollution from industry was only getting worse, yet both national and local governments had almost no institutions in place to track environmental damage, much less deal with it. He also instituted a system of “civil minima,” tracking the minimum facilities necessary to deal with the needs of Tokyo citizens in each urban locality.
1970 was also the year that Minobe orchestrated the opening of Tokyo’s first “Pedestrian Heavens” (歩行者天国), wherein popular areas of the city were temporarily shut to automotive traffic and the streets were given over to citizenry on foot. These were seen as a way to combat the rapid rise in pedestrian deaths from car accidents. Minobe was also generally opposed to the increase in car infrastructure, having paused construction on major highway projects begun by his predecessor.
The first such “heaven” was arranged for Sunday, August 2nd, when huge crowds of revelers descended upon Ginza, Shinjuku, Ikebukuro, and Asakusa in their thousands. From 10 AM to 5 PM, these great Tokyo sakariba (盛場, amusement quarters) were bereft of the usually omnipresent car traffic; in its place were picnickers who camped out on the streets and throngs bearing parcels to keep out the summer sun; some even brought inflatable pools. Processions of kimono-clad dancers paraded down the streets, as in a traditional summer festival (matsuri). In Ginza alone, 240,000 Tokyoites arrived to partake in the joys of a carless city – ten times more pedestrians than the great window-shopping district usually saw on any given Sunday.
Additional Electoral Victory
1971 saw Minobe rise to his first electoral challenge since assuming office. This time around, he gained support from parties beyond the Socialist-Communist alliance; both the religious, conservative Komeito and center-left Democratic Socialist Party saw a chance to hitch their wagon to Minobe’s star and join a ruling coalition against the LDP. Their rallying cry was the tortured English phrase “Stop the Sato,” referring to Prime Minister Sato and his support for the United State’s actions in the Vietnam War.
The ultranationalist Akao Bin attempted to run against Minobe once again; while campaigning, Akao made such statements as “Minobe should just die”(「美濃部なんて死んじゃえばいいんだ」) and “he’ll end up just like Asanuma” (「浅沼の二の舞になるぞ」), referring to the 1960 assassination of Socialist Party chairman Asanuma Inejirō by a short-sword wielding, 17-year-old member of Akao’s political party. After making these statements, Akao was subsequently placed under arrest. (He would go on to receive only slightly more than 10,000 votes.)
The 1971 gubernatorial election featured the highest turnout of any in Tokyo’s history, at 72.36% of the electorate. The record remains unbroken. Minobe gave his main opposition, a police bureaucrat backed by the LDP, a sound thrashing, taking home 64.77% of the total vote to his opponent’s 34.68%. Minobe had won a convincing victory, and emerged even more capable of taking on the problems he felt afflicted the people of Tokyo.
A Visit to North Korea
In the 1960s and 70s, as now, there remained great suspicion towards the communist countries of China and North Korea. Within Japan itself, large minority populations of ethnic Koreans and Chinese remained from the colonial imperial period. These minorities were often treated poorly, and remained the subject of great disdain. Minobe, however, was interested in bettering Japan’s relationships with both countries and the ethnic minorities within his own prefecture. This generated a great deal of consternation from anti-communists, who saw Minobe as giving preferential treatment to Japan’s erstwhile enemies. To this day, there are those on the far right who view Minobe as a communist traitor.
Perhaps Minobe’s single-most significant contribution to Japan’s foreign relations came in October of 1971. In that month, Minobe became the first and, so far, only Japanese governor to visit the so-called “Hermit Kingdom.” With permission from Japan’s central government, Minobe met with Kim Il-sung, founder and dictatorial leader of North Korea. The two enjoyed each other’s company, discussing possible trade agreements that could be signed between their respective countries. At the time, North Korea remained more economically stable and possessed a higher standard of living than the South, which was still under its own chaotic and repressive government. With the North not yet quite the pariah state it would come to be, the Japanese central government looked upon Minobe’s visit to North Korea as a success. The Japanese Diet set up a “League for Promotion of Friendship with North Korea” and moved towards the signing of trade agreements.
Minobe had already acted to grant funding to schools for ethnic North Koreans within Tokyo. These schools have since been criticized as propaganda machines of the North Korean government acting within Japan; the nationalist Sankei Shimbun Newspaper would later assert that the funding of such schools was a “gift” Minobe brought Kim Il-sung for allowing their meeting. In 2016, the Sankei further published articles claiming Minobe had told Kim of his desire to emulate North Korea in bringing forth a Communist revolution in Japan. Even if so, Minobe never went so far as to act in an especially revolutionary manner within his own country. (Nor did the Japanese Communist Party itself, which, surprisingly unrevolutionary, has remained dedicated to creating change from within the extant Japanese political system.)
Onwards to Beijing
Minobe’s foreign politicking did not end in Pyongyang. The next month, he made his way to Beijing, the capital of the People’s Republic of China. He had been tasked by the central government with yet another important diplomatic task; this time, he went bearing a secret letter, meant only for the eyes of the CCP leadership. The United States had recently reversed course on the recognition of Taiwan as the legitimate government of China, and the LDP had a mind to follow suit. Who better to approach Communist China than Japan’s very own socialist governor?
Minobe handed the secret missive over to Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai. Yet, no matter how truthful the LDP had been in its desire to abandon Taiwan in favor of the CCP, Zhou was not buying it. “It must be a trick – who would believe such a thing?” [4] He returned the letter to Minobe, who in turn returned to Japan. Normalization of Sino-Japanese relations would have to wait until 1972.
Minobe would go on to make a more lasting connection between Tokyo and Beijing, but that would have to wait until later in his tenure as governor.
Minobe’s War on Garbage
In his second term, Minobe continued to lead the way in Japan’s halting shift towards environmental awareness. Part of this was laying the groundwork for prefectural policies of environmental preservation; in large part, however, it involved launching his own personal war against Tokyo’s overwhelming problem with garbage. On September 28th, 1971, Minobe gave a speech at the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly stating that the prefectural government would launch an all-out attack on trash. He stated that garbage represented so dire a problem for Tokyo that he would stake his political life on solving it.
The issue remained the internecine battles being waged between the various wards when it came to whom should bear the burden of garbage disposal. The wards of Tokyo were generating a massive twelve thousand tons of garbage per day; three times the trash output of the previous decade, despite the population only having grown by a mere twentieth in that time. Yet nine of the twenty-three wards had no garbage disposal facilities at all – and poorer wards in the east continued to bear their burdens. Koto Ward, home to Yumenoshima, was still the most beset by this problem. Each day, five thousand garbage trucks made their way through the congested streets of Koto Ward, entering from more financially privileged wards like Suginami and Meguro.
Minobe announced a policy of finally having each ward of Tokyo take care of its own refuse. In particular, there was to be a shift towards the combustion of trash; this would prevent the outbreak of vermin (like the flies of ’65) or disease. Residential Suginami ward, however, had already rejected a plan to build a high-tech new combustion facility in the wealthy Takaido district in the last years of Minobe’s predecessor’s reign. This only further enraged the residents of poorer Koto, and the ward council announced in ’71 that they would begin to prevent entry into their municipality by Suginami garbage trucks – using force if need be.
The threat was no idle one. This was an era of physical political violence; thousands of New Left protesters were constantly battling riot police in the streets of Tokyo. That a ward might physically challenge another was unprecedented, but not out of the question. Minobe promised he would solve the problem, but also ensured Suginami Ward he would do so via taiwa – the democratic discussions he had so touted during his campaigns. There would be no expropriation, he said.
Yet, despite assembling a team of academics, scientists, urban planners, and more, no better site could be found in Suginami than the one in Takaido. The local resistance in Takaido was said to have been a constructed one; mainly led by a wealthy conservative landowner and LDP allies, perhaps looking to withhold another victory from Minobe. Protesters held placards decrying Minobe as attempting a “nationalization of the land,” which was, of course, an old canard against the Communists.
Whatever the truth, however, the governor had overestimated the possibility of real cooperation between the wards and their constituencies. Suginami outright refused to allow a plant to be built in Takaido, and Koto again threatened force against Suginami’s garbage trucks. In November 1973, Minobe had had enough. He recanted on his promise of democratic debate, and instead ordered the expropriation of the Tokaido land for “the greater good” of Tokyo.
This was during the same era in which thousands of young protesters were waging physical battles in the countryside of Chiba in order to stop the national government from expropriating farmers’ land for the building of Narita Airport; that Minobe, the most prominent Leftist in office, would use similar tactics to the state was seen as a betrayal of principle. Nonetheless, the Takaido landowners accepted the payments offered to them and sold the land. The garbage problem was greatly alleviated. By 1977, 90% of Tokyo garbage was being combusted rather than buried. Success was achieved, but, perhaps, at an ideological cost.
One Last Victory
In 1973, Japan became a primary target of the OAPEC oil embargoes led by Saudi Arabia in response to the support of Israel during the ongoing Yom Kippur War. The price of petroleum tripled. Word economies went into a tailspin. Japan was hit especially hard, as 90% of its oil imports came from the Middle East. The incredible economic gains seen since the 1950s sputtered. In Tokyo, Minobe’s progressive policies had run up the largest red leger in prefectural history up to that point; many of his hoped-for policies would have to be scaled back.
And yet, his popularity remained fairly steady. In 1975, he ran for a third term. In the face of his continued support from the citizens of Tokyo, some LDP members even suggested aligning their party alongside him rather than engaging in a competition they could not win. Other Tokyo LDP leaders considered running a center-left candidate, but the national party leadership shot the idea down. In the end, the LDP-backed nominee would be one Ishihara Shintaro. Ishihara was as far from center-left as an LDP politician could be; he’s now widely known as an extreme ultranationalist, infamous for his misogynistic and xenophobic views. He was also, of course, an ardent anti-communist.
The nomination of Ishihara shocked those in the Socialist and Communist parties. Their longtime alliance had been suffering of late, breaking over debates regarding how to approach the issue of discrimination against the Burakumin underclass. With some finding Minobe increasingly centrist, they’d considered dropping their backing of him for reelection, despite his strong electoral standing. Yet the nomination of the ultranationalist Ishihara pointed to the danger of abandoning their governor. Under the slogan “We Will Not Hand Tokyo’s Government to the Fascists” (「ファシストに都政は渡せない」), they reversed course. Allying with Komeito, progressive party support was once again massed behind Minobe.
Ishihara had some wind at his back, both from his fame as an awarded author and as a younger voice in the LDP (at 42 years old to his opponent Minobe’s august 71 years). Yet, as has generally been his style, he managed to arouse great criticism via his unadorned remarks on the campaign trail. One comment led to particular anger:
“Don’t you think it’s about time to switch out the old for the new? Hasn’t the age of leaving politics to the senior citizens in their 60s and 70, with their deteriorated frontal lobes, just about passed?” 「もう新旧交代の時期じゃありませんか、美濃部さんのように前頭葉の退化した六十、七十の老人に政治を任せる時代は終わったんじゃないですか」
Minobe remained a respected figure, and one who had done much for the elderly of Tokyo and Japan as a whole. Ishihara’s comments were not taken lightly.
The election became highly polarized between right and left. Both Minobe and Ishihara presented as charismatic public figures, both capable of influencing media coverage and public opinion – although their ideological stances were worlds apart. Yet in the end, Minobe again emerged victorious. This one had been closer – he’d won by only 7% of the vote. Yet won he had; Ishihara would have to wait decades in order to finally take the reigns of Tokyo government. In 1999, he’d ride a wave of controversial populism to become Tokyo’s new governor. Ishihara would hold a grudge against Minobe and his politics for his entire life.
The End of Socialist Tokyo
Minobe Ryokichi continued his popular leadership of Tokyo until 1979, at which time, at the age of 75, he announced he would not seek reelection. This was in following with his predecessors, none of whom had sought more than three terms.
During those final four years, Governor Minobe continued to enact policies that would shape Tokyo into the future. One of his last actions as governor was to formalize a sister-city relationship between Tokyo and Beijing; despite the rocky relationship between the two great Asian powers, the sister-city relationship would be maintained by Minobe’s conservative successors.
However, the strained financials of the post-Oil Shock put a major dampener on the domestic side of things. Minobe attempted to shore up the prefectural government’s revenue by instigating new taxes, but the Ministry of Home Affairs put a halt to his plans. Minobe again stood up to the central government, but failed to push through the deadlock. He was left with a comparatively disempowered Tokyo bureaucracy and remained unable to fulfill some of his grander plans.
So, like the vast majority of high-minded politicians, Governor Minobe’s tenure was one of success and failure. He changed a great many things for Tokyo, from environmental policies to the expansion of the social safety net. Japan has gone on to be a fairly strong welfare state, which is indeed something Minobe would have wished for the country. At the time time, the power of the Socialist and Communist parties in prefectural government diminished over his years in control. He found himself having to compromise on his values to achieve his bigger-picture goals.
Government became more transparent and open to the average citizen under his tenure, but practical concerns meant his ideals of taiwa and sanka had faded into the background by his third term. So too had much of his leftist credentials, with many proclaiming that, in practice, he was no true Marxist. Minobe’s “flexible utopian Socialism” never quite went far enough for many of the dyed-in-the-wool leftists on the ground.
The end of Minobe’s tenure meant the end of the coalition which had helped keep the progressives in power. Komeito had previously worked alongside Minobe based upon his appeal as a popular incumbent; this time, they switched to supporting the mainline conservative nominee backed by the LDP, Suzuki Shunichi. Meanwhile, the Socialist-Communist alliance put forth labor activist Ota Kaoru as successor to Minobe. Suzuki ran on a platform of rolling back the overspending of the Minobe years, mocking the outgoing governor for his “porkbarrel welfare” policies. (The election also saw the first openly gay nominee in Japanese gubernatorial history, social activist Togo Ken).
All this was occurring amidst blowback from the major Lockheed Scandal then rocking Japanese government; with the major social movements of the 1960s fading, replaced by the political apathy of the 1970s and 80s, turnout crumbled. Only 55.16% of eligible voters turned out, a decrease of 12.13% from the previous election. Suzuki and the LDP coasted back into power in Tokyo on the back of their reliable voting base, combined with Komeito’s religiously-minded followers.
Tokyo’s socialist era had ended.
Farewell, Governor Minobe
Minobe had left the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building behind him, and watched on as Governor Suzuki instigated more conservative policies for Tokyo. And yet Minobe Ryokichi was not done with politics, even at his advanced age. In 1980, he ran for a seat in the national legislature with Socialist Party backing, and won. He joined up with various other leftist and unaligned lawmakers, and continued to press for progressive policies at an even higher level. His health, however, was beginning to fail him. In December of 1984, while still serving his term of office, he passed away from a heart attack while working in his home study. He was 80 years old.
By the time Minobe passed, Japan was recovered from two oil shocks, and was now sitting on the edge of its final rocket into the financial stratosphere with the 1980s Bubble era. Only five years later, Emperor Hirohito would pass, and the Showa era would be replaced with the new Heisei era. For Tokyo, and for Japan, it was truly a world removed from the heady revolutionary days of the 1960s, and even farther from the time of deprivation and war Minobe and his father had lived and suffered through.
Since Minobe’s tenure, the administration based out of the new Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building has been conservative more often than not. From 1999 to 2012, Minobe’s controversial former rival Ishihara Shintaro held the reigns of power, initiating various attempts at privatization and revoking the prefecture’s support for North Korea-aligned schools.
Yet the effects of Minobe’s tenure remain, from environmental agencies to the normalization of public welfare. He shifted the discourse on Japanese politics, opening up more of a space for average people, and demonstrated the power of the female electorate. (Despite all this, Japan would not elect its first female mayor until 1991.) Minobe led a wave of progressives into power throughout Japan, and although the wave subsided, opposition politicians continue to win local seats to this day. While the Socialist Party has lost significance, the Japanese Communist Party remains the most popular non-ruling communist party in Asia; Leftists from Tokyo won re-election to the national legislature just this year. Governor Minobe’s decade-plus of popular leadership in Tokyo shows the country has been far more diverse in its political leanings than is generally described, both internally and externally.
Where Japan’s changing electorate will take it into the future remains anyone’s guess. Who knows – perhaps, someday, another “flexible utopian” will lead Tokyo from atop the Metropolitan Building, looking out towards Shinjuku, and even beyond.
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近藤, 正高. (2017/04/15). ご存知ですか？4月15日は美濃部亮(都知事が誕生した日です. 文春オンライン
Seidensticker, Edward. (1990.) Tokyo Rising: The City Since the Great Earthquake.
Bix, Herbert P. (2000). Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan. New York: HarperCollins.
[1] josaiya. (2014-06-07). 「小田十壮「私にとっては雉様様であった」。定斎屋の藪入り
[2] Weiner, Tim. (Oct. 9, 1994). C.I.A. Spent Millions to Support Japanese Right in 50’s and 60’s. New York Times.
[3] 日本経済新聞社・日経BP社. “東京・夢の島、名前の由来は海水浴場 空港計画も｜エンタメ！｜NIKKEI STYLE”
[4] “日中関係打開めざした「保利書簡」 「いぶし銀の調整役」保利茂（７）”. 日本経済新聞.
