Growing Democracy in Japan: The Parliamentary Cabinet System since 1868

2.Comprador Cabinets and Democracy by the Sword, 1946-1955

83 2 Comprador Cabinets and Democracy by the Sword, 1946–1955 The national government of Great Britain today is controlled by the Cabinet, who, indeed, are His Majesty’s servants, but for all normal purposes servants whose advice the King must accept, and readily does accept. —Arthur Berriedale Keith, The British Cabinet System, 1830–1938 (1939), 1 For all practical purposes, General MacArthur’s supergovernment relied on the Japanese bureaucracy to carry out its directives, creating in effect a two-tiered mandarinate. —John W. Dower, Embracing Defeat (1999), 27 Democracy Imposed When the Shidehara cabinet resigned on May 22, 1946, it was expected that Hatoyama Ichirō, leader of the largest party in the House of Representatives , would become prime minister. But as Hatoyama was preparing to make his way to the Imperial Palace to receive his appointment, word arrived that he had been purged on orders from General Headquarters, which was carrying out the American-led occupation’s policy of removing former militarists from public office. Hatoyama turned over the reins of party leadership to Yoshida Shigeru, a retired career diplomat, who promised to vacate the party’s leadership position upon Hatoyama’s eventual return to public office. But Yoshida occupied the premiership for the better part of the next eight and a half years, during which time he acquired 84 Growing Democracy in Japan the sobriquet “One-Man Yoshida” (wan man Yoshida) for his autocratic leadership style. Even when Hatoyama returned to public life and won a seat in the October 1952 general elections, Yoshida refused to step aside. So Hatoyama took the helm of a rival party, and for the next two years the rivalry between the two men played itself out on Japan’s political stage. Finally, on December 10, 1954, when a corruption scandal forced Yoshida to resign, Hatoyama’s dream of becoming prime minister came true. The period from May 1946 through November 1955 witnessed an institutional reconfiguration as sweeping as Japan’s 1868 Meiji Restoration . During much of this time Japan was governed by an American-led military dictatorship. To assess the extent to which cabinet government became established during the period, I examine the background characteristics of the first cohort of postwar prime ministers and cabinet ministers. Because they acted as intermediaries between the occupation authorities and the Japanese body politic, these ministers played a role similar to that of the nineteenth-century comprador merchants who served as “indispensible go-betweens” between Chinese and foreigners (Hsu 1983, 146).1 The Chinese compradors played a variety of roles, including that of on-the-ground managers for foreign firms, middlemen in the company’s dealings with the Chinese, and negotiators in talks with foreign powers. Some compradors became extremely wealthy and influential (Hao 1970, 446, 454). Because of his ability to communicate with and sometimes manipulate the American military occupiers, Yoshida Shigeru was the quintessential comprador prime minister (Pyle 1996b, 21).2 As a former U.S. occupation official observed many years later, “to be the sole Japanese source of information on MacArthur’s views was a powerful weapon in Yoshida’s hands, which he used often and effectively” (Finn 1992, 212). In addition, diplomats posted to the Central Liaison Office played a critical role in intermediating between the Japanese government and occupation authorities. I then assess the major institutional changes wrought under the comprador cabinets and seek to determine whether or not cabinets came to play their expected role as the foremost executive organ in a parliamentary system of governance. Afterward, I evaluate the ability of cabinets to adapt to important internal and external challenges. But I begin by surveying the efforts of the American occupiers—the foreign mandarinate—who dictated , encouraged, and inspired an array of institutional changes, including some revolutionary departures. Comprador Cabinets and Democracy by the Sword 85 Planning for Occupation In reality, the “Allied occupation” of Japan was an American operation. It began on August 28, 1945, with the deplaning of forty-two hundred paratroopers of the U.S. 11th Airborne Division at Atsugi Airfield. It ended on April 28, 1952, with the formal restoration of sovereignty according to the terms of the San Francisco Peace Treaty. From start to finish, the occupation lasted 2,435 days—more than six years and eight months—and it had been under way for nearly nine months when Yoshida formed his first cabinet. American planning for the anticipated occupation of a...