MITI and the Japanese miracle

Page 83

Three

The Rise of Industrial Policy

Old trade and industry bureaucrats, looking back on their extraordinary history, like to note that the number 14 has figured prominently in their karma. The Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce (MAC; Noshomu-sho *) was created in the fourteenth year of Meiji, or 1881; the Ministry of Commerce and Industry (MCI; Shoko-sho*) was created in the fourteenth year of Taisho*, or 1925; and the organization of MCI into vertical bureaus, one for each strategic industry, was introduced in the fourteenth year of Showa*, or 1939.

During December 1924, on the eve of the second of these landmark dates, three men sat working in the temporary quarters of MAC in the offices of the Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Otemachi*, Tokyo. Their regular offices had been leveled by the earthquake of 1923. The highly political and bureaucratic task they were attending to, and even the fact that these three men were in charge of it, had as much to do with karma as with any policies or intentions of their own. They were dividing the old Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce into two new ministriesAgriculture and Forestry (Norin-sho*) and Commerce and Industry. The three men were Shijo* Takafusa (18761936), then vice-minister of agriculture and commerce; Yoshino Shinji (18881971), chief of the Documents Section (Bunsho-kacho*); and Kishi Nobusuke (b. 1896), a young official in the Documents Section who had entered the ministry only four years earlier after graduating at the head of his class at Tokyo University's Law School.

These were three very different men, but each would have a significant impact on Japan, particularly through the influence he would have on his juniors. Shijo was one of Yoshino's most important pa-