MITI and the Japanese miracle

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TABLE

14

Governors of the Bank of Japan, 19451975

Governor and tenure

Background

Shibusawa Keizo *, 3/4410/45

Yokohama Specie Bank; Dai Ichi Bank.

Araki Eikichi, 10/456/46

Bank of Japan; purged; depurged, 1950.

Ichimada Naoto, 6/4612/54

Bank of Japan; later minister of finance in the Hatoyama and Kishi cabinets.

Araki Eikichi, 12/5411/56

See above.

Yamagiwa Masamichi, 11/5612/64

Ex-vice-minister of finance; Export-Import Bank.

Usami Makoto, 12/6412/69

Mitsubishi Bank.

Sasaki Tadashi, 12/6912/74

Bank of Japan.

Morinaga Teiichiro, 12/7412/79

Ex-vice-minister of finance; Export-Import Bank.

The two great antagonists in this industrial finance debate were Ikeda Hayato (18991965), former vice-minister of finance and minister of finance in the third Yoshida cabinet (February 1949 to October 1952), and Ichimada Naoto (b. 1893), governor of the Bank of Japan from June 1946 to December 1954.

^*

Their conflict was based as much on political and bureaucratic differences as it was on genuine differences over policy. As it turned out, Ikeda emerged victorious and his ministry asserted its dominance over the Bank of Japan (particularly after November 1956, when for the first time in 29 years the ministry named one of its own officials governor of the bank; see Table 14). But Ichimada made his own important contribution to Japan's economic future, despite the bad press he has received from MITI officials because of his opposition to heavy industrialization. During the Dodge Line and Korean War periods, Ikeda and Ichimada each invented one tier of the two-tiered Japanese system of industrial financinga wonderful instrument on which MITI would become a virtuoso player.

Ikeda was not precisely an inflationist in the mold of Ishibashi Tan-

^*

In order to follow Ikeda's activities, the following dates should be kept in mind. While serving as minister of finance in the third Yoshida cabinet, Ikeda also held the concurrent post of minister of MITI from February to April, 1950. Yoshida then named him MITI minister in his fourth cabinet, but he was forced to resign after only a month in office (Oct.Nov. 1952) because of his "slip of the tongue" in the Diet (discussed below). Between 1952 and 1956 he held various Liberal Party posts, including that of secretary-general. From December 1956 to July 1957 he returned to the cabinet as minister of finance. His last cabinet post (June 1959 to July 1960) before becoming prime minister was again as minister of MITI. References to Ikeda's "own" ministry of course refer to the Ministry of Finance, in which he served as a bureaucrat from 1925 to 1948.