MITI and the Japanese miracle

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daughter of Kuroda Nagamichi, a former Imperial chamberlain. And Masuda Minoru, director-general of MITI's Natural Resources and Energy Agency in 1975, became a nephew through marriage of Nagano Shigeo, former president of Fuji Steel and one of the great industrial leaders of postwar Japan. Many other examples could be cited.

Before the war the Ministry of Commerce and Industry included in its ranks such high-status figures as Baron Ito * Bunkichi, who was the illegitimate son of the Meiji oligarch Ito Hirobumi and who became the patron of Yoshino Shinji, one of the two or three most important figures in the history of MITI. Kido Koichi*, of noble ancestry, was in the Ministry of Commerce and Industry before the war and became the wartime Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal. Shiina Etsusaburo* was the nephew of Goto* Shimpei, the chief administrator of Taiwan in the Meiji era, president of the South Manchurian Railroad, and the rebuilder of Tokyo after the earthquake of 1923.

These connections and possible influences are important in Japan, and they are not necessarily accidental. A great many young bureaucrats ask their section chiefs to arrange their marriages, and a section chief will often have keibatsu considerations in mind when he promotes a match. Nonetheless, most informed observers conclude that keibatsu is not as important in the postwar bureaucracy as it was before the war.

⁵⁹

Still, some MITI officials report that it is better for one's career to have a good keibatsu than a poor one, and Kubota notes that "on the average the 19491959 higher civil servants [the group that he studied in depth] more often had prominent fathers-in-law than prominent fathers."

⁶⁰

It appears that bureaucrats in Japan are good catches as husbands.

Kyodobatsu* are similarly present among bureaucrats but of comparatively slight influence. A former MITI vice-minister, Tokunaga Hisatsugu (executive director of New Japan Steel after retirement), notes that when he was vice-minister, the minister was Ishii Mitsujiro*, one of the major figures of postwar conservative politics. Ishii was not only his "senior" (

sempai

), but they both came from the same area of Fukuoka prefecturethat is, they both belong to what is called the same

kyoto

* (literally, "village party"). According to Tokunaga, this factor somewhat inhibited him in his relations with Ishii.

⁶¹

Kishi Nobusuke, Matsuoka Yosuke*, and Ayukawa Gisuke all were natives of Yamaguchi prefecture, and each has said that this contributed to their collaboration in the industrial development of Manchuria during the 1930's (Kishi is also the true elder brother of Sato* Eisaku, although Kishi was adopted into a different lineage). The career of Kogane Yoshiteru, a major figure in the prewar Ministry of Commerce