MITI and the Japanese miracle

Page 169

functions of MCI in the area of international trade were transferred to the Greater East Asia Ministry. MM also established nine regional Munitions Supervision Departments (Gunju Kanri Bu), which are the concrete origins of the contemporary MITI regional bureaus. Finally, the factory inspectors of the Army-Navy Aviation Headquarters were integrated into a new Aircraft Ordnance General Bureau within MM under Lieutenant General Endo * Saburo*.

From the perspective of 1945 Allied intelligence, Bisson thought that this structure plus the Munitions Companies Law had "largely rectified" the chaotic situation that had prevailed in Japan's war economy during 1942 and 1943. He was, however, astonished that MCI"this old-line standby of the business interests"and not the military, as had been supposed in Washington, had been responsible for creating the new ministry.

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The MCI officials who went to MM, a contingent that included all of MITI's later industrial faction, were much less sanguine about their prospects for success. Even Shiina, despite his own Manchurian background, later complained bitterly about having to work with arrogant military officers; and many able officials, such as Ueno Koshichi* (MITI vice-minister from 1957 to 1960), found their effectiveness reduced because of clashes with military officers.

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One of the first things the former MCI men did when the war was over was to kick out the military officers while retaining the ministry's expanded jurisdiction.

The chief significance of MM for later industrial policy is that MITI managed to retain all of the functionsincluding electric power, airplane manufacture, and industrial planningthat had first been brought together in MM. The experience of working as factory supervisors was also important for later MITI cadres. And for some the Munitions Ministry would have a great personal meaning: two MITI vice-ministers, Sahashi (196466) and Morozumi (197173), met and married women who served in MM's Women's Volunteer Corps. Perhaps also worth mentioning, Prime Minister Tojo* evicted the prestigious Board of Audit (Kaikei Kensa-in) from its offices in Kasumigaseki and moved his new MM there from the old MCI headquarters near the Kabuki theater. As a result of the war, the industrial policy bureaucrats finally made it to the Tokyo equivalent of Whitehall, never again to leave.

At the level of top leadership some arrangements were made for MM that would soon have serious political consequences. After November 1, 1943, Tojo served concurrently as prime minister, minister of the army, chief of the General Staff, and minister of munitions. He took on MM not simply as a gesture to give it more prestige, even