Unrest in Japan III

With the American occupation ending, Japan in the 1950s seemed to have a bright future ahead. This however was not the case, for virtually the entire decade of 1950 Japan went from protest to protest which brought chaos and instability to the land. Nobusuke Kishi having garnered mass power and political connections would eventually assume the premiership, can this former war criminal, with his brutal methods, bring stability to Japan?



Topics Covered
Bloody May Day
Sunagawa Struggle
Nobusuke Kishi becomes Prime Minister
Girard Incident
Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the United States and Japan
ANPO
The May 19th Incident
Anti-treaty protests
The Hagerty Incident
The Anpo Protests

Transcript

Unrest In Japan

Bloody may day riot

In the US and Canada we celebrate Labor Day, however the rest of the world celebrates May Day, aka International Workers Day, a day commemorating the historic struggles and gains made by workers and the labor movement.

on May 1st 1952 a Large Crowd began protesting in Central Tokyo, attempting to occupy the plaza in front of the Imperial Palace. 

Peaceful protests had been sporadically occurring all over Japan in opposition of the Security Treaty Between The US and Japan.

Japanese Leftist and Communists had been being purged since as early as 1948

supported by the American occupation, the Japanese Government with a number of private corporations ousted large numbers of communists and leftist sympathizers from their jobs. 

Upon Josef Stalin’s orders the Japanese Communist party began mobilizing and joined the peaceful protestors

a bloody struggle commenced in which protesters armed with paving stones, baseball bats, wooden staves, pachinko balls, bamboo spears, and even some Molotov cocktails faced off against police armed with pistols, tear gas, and batons.

 the police fired what they later claimed were “warning shots” with their service pistols, but some of these shots were aimed directly into the crowd, killing two protesters and wounding twenty-two others.[1]

With the eruption of gunfire, many protesters panicked and attempted to flee the plaza, leading to further clashes with police. Retreating protesters overturned and set fire to dozens of American-owned military vehicles parked along the road. With chants of “Yankee go home!” (yankii go homu), they also attacked American bystanders, including reporters and American soldiers.[1] Three American GIs were hurled into the palace moat and stoned before they were saved through the intercession of other Japanese

Sporadic violence continued across the country throughout the summer of 1952. For example, anti-American protesters clashed with police in Osaka in June, and hurled Molotov cocktails at police and American military vehicles in Nagoya in July.

The Japanese populace was horrified by the violence and punished the JCP by not electing even a single communist representative in the 1952 election. It would take decades for the JCP to regain its former strength.

Sunagawa Struggle

US military base were always a point of contention for the Japanese

In 1955 a US Air Force base in Tachikawa (a suburb of Tokyo) gave an order to expand into a nearby village Sunagawa, for a new Arsenal of Larger Jet Fueled Bombers. This would lead to the eviction of 140 families. The families protested and barricaded their land.

Their struggle attracted the attention of the nation, especially the anti-base movement. Many of the same groups that were involved in the Bloody May Day protests arrived to support the villagers. Including the Sohyo labor federation, a confederation of trade unions and the Zengakuren league of student associations, a confederation of communist and socialist student movements.

The struggle escalated dramatically when police were sent in to remove the barricades. Since Sunagawa was very close to Tokyo, Zengakuren began busing in large numbers of students from Tokyo-area universities to bolster the manpower of the farmers.[1] The protests began to take on larger, nationwide implications, to resist American imperialism.[1] Soon the struggle became a media spectacle.

the Sunagawa protesters made a point of sitting in unarmed. Wearing white shirts and white headbands to make the blood more visible, they deliberately allowed the police to beat them without resisting.[1] The one-sided violence at Sunagawa proved successful in attracting sympathy to the protesters, leading to more favorable media coverage and further growth of the movement, and earning the struggle the sobriquet "Bloody Sunagawa"

Protests continued for years, resulting in thousands of injuries by 1957 the police realized they were unable to dislodge the protestors. The protests were a victory for the civilians. And showed the Eisenhower administration the severity of Japanese Antipathy towards US bases, and the US in general. 

The Security Treaty which permitted US-Bases on Japanese soil being the largest reason for this disdain

KISHI

Nobusuke Kishi had become extremely wealthy due to his ventures in Manchuria, over the years he also garnered a large base of support in the Japanese Diet, Japan’s Bicameral legislature. 

Prime Minister Ichiro Hatoyama described him as an Omikoshi a type of portable Shinto shrine carried around to be worshipped.[4] Everyone bows downs and worships an omikoshi, but to move an omikoshi, it must be picked up and carried by somebody.

Kishi buttered up American politicians and businessmen

Telling the American ambassador John Allison that "for the next twenty five years it would be in Japan's best interests to cooperate closely with the United States."

His old moniker “The Monster of Showa” was replaced, he was now referred to by Americans as “Our Man In Japan”

Elections in Japan are extremely expensive and using his personal wealth and support base he was able to reach the premiership in 1957 right at the tail end of the Sunagawa Struggle.

Kishi first and foremost set out to revise the American-imposed constitution, especially Article 9.

 Kishi wrote that in order for Japan to regain its status as a "respectable member (of) the community of nations it would first have to revise its constitution and rearm: If Japan is alone in renouncing war ... she will not be able to prevent others from invading her land. If, on the other hand, Japan could defend herself, there would be no further need of keeping United States garrison forces in Japan....Japan should be strong enough to defend herself.”

Kishi visited the United States a few months after becoming Prime minister. He was given the honor of throwing the opening pitch for the New York Yankees in a baseball match and being allowed to play golf at an otherwise all-white golf club in Virginia, which the American historian Michael Schaller called "remarkable" honors for a man who as a Cabinet minister had signed the declaration of war against the United States in 1941 and who had presided over the conscription of thousands of Koreans and Chinese as slave labor during World War II.[41] The Vice President of the United States, Richard Nixon introduced Kishi to Congress as a "honored guest who was not only a great leader of the free world, but also a loyal and great friend of the people of the United States", apparently unaware or indifferent to the fact that Kishi had been one of the closest associates of General Tojo.

Named after his uncle, the American legend Douglas MacArthur, Douglas MacArthur II became ambassador to Japan

During this time he reported to Washington that Kishi was the most pro-American of the Japanese politicians, and if the U.S refused to revise the security treaty in Japan's favor, he would be replaced as Prime Minister by a more anti-American figure.[41] The U.S. Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, wrote in a memo to President Eisenhower that the United States was "at the point of having to make a Big Bet" in Japan and Kishi was the "only bet we had left in Japan.

Girard Incident

On January 30th 1957 A Japanese Housewife named Naka Sakai went to an American airbase to collect scrap metal from spent shell casings. She was the mother of 6 and this was a common way to make ends meet for civilians located near American bases. A US soldier named William S Girard who was on duty defending an unused machine gun saw her. 

Girard who was described by his colleagues as a “bumpkin clown” reportedly had an IQ of 90 and was held in little regard by his fellow soldiers. He drank excessively and ran up debts at many Japanese establishments.

He lifted up his M1 Garand rife with a mounted Grenade Launcher and fired, The Grenade hit her in the back and killed Sakai.

This prompted a strong Japanese outcry and caused a major diplomatic crisis. The Japanese wanted to try Girard but The U.S. Army maintained that Girard had acted while on "active duty" and was thus under the jurisdiction of U.S. military courts in accordance with the terms of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty.

Eventually, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson, fearing that trampling on Japanese feelings would jeopardize the status of crucial U.S. military bases in Japan, ruled that Girard's specific action "was not authorized", and he was turned over to the Japanese authorities for trial.

This outraged American citizens who saw Eisenhower’s decision as sacrificing an American soldier to appease Japanese public opinion. 

With tensions between the vitally important Japan at a fever-pitch this was the final straw, Eisenhower opened negations with Kishi for the revisal of the 1952 Security Treaty.

As negotiations on the newly revised treaty began Kishi anticipated public opposition.

he brought before the Diet a harsh "Police Duties Bill," which would give the police vastly expanded powers to crush demonstrations and to conduct searches of homes without warrants.

This outraged Left-leaning groups such as Sohyo and the Japanese Socialist Party.

They launched a variety of protest activities in the fall of 1958 with the aim of killing the bill.[53] These protests succeeded in arousing public anger at the bill and Kishi was forced to withdraw it.

By late 1959 negotiations on the treaty were being completed,

The newly revised treaty was from a Japanese perspective a significant improvement over the original treaty. Putting Japan on an equal footing with the US. The US would now have to defend Japan if attacked, and the US would have to consult the Japanese government if they wanted to use bases located on Japanese soil. The treaty also specified a 10 year term limit, after which it could be abrogated by either party with one year's notice.

However, this didn’t address the main problem, American Bases on Japanese Soil

Kishi arrived in Washington DC to celebrate The Treaty,

he appeared on the January 25, 1960 cover of Time magazine, which declared that the Prime Minister's "134 pound body packed pride, power and passion—a perfect embodiment of his country's amazing resurgence" while Newsweek called him the "Friendly, Savvy Salesman from Japan" who had created the "economic powerhouse of Asia."

He Invited US president Eisenhower to visit Japan beginning on June 19, 1960, in part to celebrate the newly ratified treaty. Making Eisenhower the first US president to visit Japan. This was significant for Japan-US relations and would be significant for Kishi’s reputation.

As the deadline for the Eisenhower visit drew closer the Treaty now known as The Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the United States and Japan.

 Or as it is known in Japan ANPO treaty, still needed to be ratified by the Japanese Diet.

Kishi gathered a large amount of enemies both within his party and without, the Japanese Socialist party as well as members in his own party refused to ratify the largely unpopular treaty and instigated a parliamentary sit-in.

Kishi grew nervous as the Eisenhower trip drew closer. He on May 19th he called for a snap vote on the treaty. When Socialist Diet members attempted a sit-in to block the vote, Kishi brought 500 policemen into the Diet and had his political opponents physically dragged out by the police.[63] Kishi then passed the revised Treaty with only members of his own party present. This became known as the May 19th Incident.

This anti-democratic move stunned and infuriated the nation, even much of his own party.

He received criticism from across the political spectrum, with even conservative newspapers calling for his resignation.

Protests which had never really died down, only transferring from one blunder to the next exploded after this event. The Anti-Treaty protests included ordinary citizens who took to the streets to express their outrage, and the aims of the protests expanded from protesting the Security Treaty to ousting Kishi and "protecting democracy."

US-backed Strongman in Korea Syngman Rhee was ousted from power the previous month which added fuel to the fire as it showed that autocratic governments could be defeated by popular protests, even if they had the backing of the United States.

While all this was going on Eisenhower’s press secretary James Hagarty landed in Tokyo to make preparations for the Eisenhower visit. He was picked up in a black car by Douglas MacArthur II. MacArthur (the bad one not the good one) deliberately provoked an incident.

Upon seeing a large crowd of protestors blocking the street he ordered the car to be driven into the crowd.

The protestors surrounded the car, cracked its windows, smashed its taillights and began rocking it back and forth for more than an hour while standing on the roof and chanting anti-American slogans and signing protest songs.

 Ultimately, MacArthur and Hagerty had to be rescued by a US Marines military helicopter,[23] creating indelible imagery of the so-called Hagerty Incident that was transmitted by newswires around the world.

MacArthur had hoped that the image of the car surrounded by protesters would incentivize the Japanese government to crack down harder on the protests. He mis-stepped 

A few days later hundreds of thousands of protestors marched on the National Diet in Tokyo. 

In the late afternoon, the protestors were attacked by right-wing ultranationalist counter-protestors, who rammed them with trucks and attacked them with wooden staves spiked with nails, causing dozens of injuries from moderate to severe, including several hospitalizations

Just a few minutes later, Left-Wing activists from Zengakuren smashed their way into the Diet compound itself, precipitating a long battle with police,[1] who beat the unarmed students bloody with their batons in front of mass media reporters and television cameras.[3] The police finally succeeded in clearing the Diet compound after 1 a.m., but in the struggle, a young female Tokyo University student and Zengakuren member named Michiko Kanba was killed.

Historian Nick Kapur says Kanba's death was viewed as a "triple tragedy," first because she was so young, second because she was a student at Japan's most elite university, and third, because she was a woman, at a time when it was still novel for women to participate on the front lines of street protests.

Kanba’s death evoked memories still fresh of the many young who lost their lives in World War II.

A political cartoon that ran in the popular journal Sekaia month after Kanba's death depicted a yakuza gangster lighting a cigarette for a policeman as they both stand over her dead body in front of the National Diet Building.

Illustrating Kishi’s ties to police and the Yakuza.

After the violence and storming of the Diet, Pressure mounted on Kishi to cancel Eisenhowers visit.

Kishi who would have been profoundly embarrassed called out the Japan Self Defense Forces (the Japanese national guard) 

And tens of thousands of right-wing thugs, provided by Yakuza-friends he had made during his tenure in Manchukuo, to crack down on the protestors 

At the last minute he was dissuaded from doing this by his cabinet and he was forced to cancel the Eisenhower visit.

Newspapers across the nation which had previously supported the protestors in their struggle to oust Kishi, issued a joint editorial condemning violence on both side and calling an end for the protest movement 

Nevertheless, the largest single day of protests in the entire movement took place on June 18, the day before the treaty would automatically take effect.[29] Hundreds of thousands of protesters surrounded the National Diet, hoping to somehow stop the treaty at the last moment. The protestors remained in place until after midnight, when the treaty automatically took effect.

 By the fall of 1960, sixteen million Japanese people were reported to have participated in the demonstrations against the revision of the US-Security Treaty.

By July Kishi realized it was over, the country was in open revolt and he and his cabinet resigned en masse to take responsibility for the violent ANPO protests.

It wasn’t enough to calm the leftists and rightist groups. The anger that had plagued Japan for decades was deep seated.

The day before Kishi’s resignation he was hosting a garden party to celebrate Hayato Ikeda’s ascension to the premiership. While leaving the prime ministers residence he was attacked by a knife-wielding assailant and stabbed 6 times in the thigh. Causing Kishi to bleed profusely and be rushed to the hospital.

While on the operating table reporters raced after him and climbed on stepladders to peer into his hospital room, with nurses angrily closing the curtains on them.

The assailant Taisuke Aramaki, was arrested and told reporters he had visited the family of Michiko Kanba, the University student, prior to the attack. Suggesting he blamed Kishi for her death. According to Court Records Aramaki told police he was angry at Kishis mishandling of the Security Trearty Crisis and wanted to “encourage Kishi to feel remorse”.

Aramaki had connections with Right-wing Ultranationalist political groups.

Kishi’s daughter wrote that Aramaki was “a paid assassin who new how to use a knife, who was hired by someone who hated my father and wanted to hurt him”

Whether he was a sympathetic leftist, a far-right thug or a hired assassin remains unknown. What we can surmise from the attempt is that political tensions in Japan had become Gangrenous 

Whatever the Truth, Kishi survived the attempt, and the premiership passed to Ikeda.