MITI and the Japanese miracle

Page 248

mer bureaucrats but had also become very skilled politicians. This is something Sahashi did not understand.

The LDP was quite prepared to leave basic policy-making to the bureaucracy, but when bureaucrats began to try to use politicians in their own intrabureaucratic struggles, they had to be prepared to provide a quid pro quo. For example, while still director of the Heavy Industries Bureau, Sahashi had a brilliant idea for the promotion of exports of Japanese machineshe would send a ship outfitted as a floating industrial exposition to call at American and European ports. For this purpose he first used a converted cargo vessel, but he really wanted a new ship, to be constructed at government expense and specifically designed as an oceangoing trade fair. Officials of the Budget Bureau were not convinced that the new ship was needed. In order to bring some pressure on his budgetary colleagues to change their minds, Sahashi sought the assistance of Ono * Bamboku (18901964), a powerful LDP faction leader, strong man of the "party-men's factions" (as distinct from the ex-bureaucrats' factions) in the Diet, and a fellow native of Gifu prefecture. Ono came through, Sahashi got his ship, and everyone agreed that it was a splendid idea. (Ironically enough, seventeen years later the Japanese loaned the ship, the

Sakura Maru

or

Cherry Blossom

, to the United States so that it could bring

its

products to show off in Japanese ports.)

⁸

Sahashi made only one mistake; he forgot to thank Ono. A few years later, after Sahashi had tried this ploy with a few other politicians (some of them Ono's rivals), Ono got evenand Ikeda could not help Sahashi since Ikeda had political problems of his own. The

Sakura Maru

was very effective as a kind of waterborne JETRO, but it came back to haunt Sahashi in 1963 when he sought the vice-ministership.

⁹

While Sahashi was thus engaged in the Heavy Industries Bureau, a fellow member of the class of 1937, Imai Zen'ei, was busy dealing with the prime issue of the time: What should be the country's response to demands from international organizations and from Japan's allies that it liberalize its controls over the economy? Imai had had a career in MITI very different from Sahashi's. Born in Niigata on October 5, 1913, helike Sahashigraduated from Todai* Law, although he came to Tokyo University via the more elite First Higher School (Ichiko*) in Tokyo. During the war he worked on the materials mobilization plans, which was good preparation for his occupation-era assignments in the Coal Agency and the Economic Stabilization Board (see Appendix C). Many leaders of the ministry had identified Imai as one of the most capable officials from the class of 1937 well before Sa-