High Modernism and Populism in Post-War Japan: Tanaka Kakuei’s Plan for Remodelling the Japanese Archipelago

Abstract

A sweeping proposal to re-orient development from Japan’s metropolitan core to its peripheries, Prime Minister Tanaka Kakuei’s 1972 “Plan to Remodel the Japanese Archipelago” was published as a bestselling book and helped propel Tanaka to the premiership. This article argues that the Plan was part of an innovative style of politics that defies a standard dichotomy of technocracy and populism in scholarship on Japanese politics. Tanaka’s plan and its genesis are informative on three levels: (i) individual biography, represented by the remarkable political figure of Tanaka; (ii) domestic politics and Japan’s trajectory of regional development; and (iii) the international environment, as it was deeply informed by global forces in the early 1970s. As an embodiment of “high modernism,” the Plan had major potential and pitfalls and shaped the fabric of Japanese life well after Tanaka’s years in office.

Key Words:

• High modernism
• infrastructure
• Japan
• regional development
• Tanaka Kakuei

Acknowledgements

This article could not have been written without the assistance and co-operation of many individuals. The author would like to thank Andrew Gordon and Ian Miller for their valuable feedback on an early version of this article. He would also like to thank Nikkan Kōgyō Shinbunsha for permission to use the cover image of Tanaka’s book. He is grateful to Kōno Etsuo of Yomiuri Shinbun, Chikuma-shi Furusato Mangakan, and the family of Kondo Hidezo, who kindly helped with permission to use the two political cartoons in the article. The article also benefited immensely from the comments of the anonymous reviewers and the editor of The Journal of Contemporary Asia.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 Examples of recent popular works on Tanaka include Ishihara (2016) and Bessatsu Takarajima Henshubu (2015). Tanaka’s folk hero status is also suggested by the fact that a new reprinted edition of Remodelling is scheduled for publication (by Nikkan Kōgyō Shinbunsha) in March 2023.

2 While attention in this article is to Tanaka's report, its context, and its impact, it is acknowledged that Tanaka was a controversial politician. In addition to works discussed in this article, for reaction and criticism of Tanaka's book see some of the reviews of the book (for example, Yamamoto (1972), Yomiuri Shinbunsha (1972a), Hoshino (1973), Wada (1973), and Burks (1976).

3 In this section, sections of the Japanese original (Tanaka 1972a) are cited, but direct quotes are from the English translation (Tanaka 1973) which was approved by Tanaka and his Japanese publisher.

4 There is a long history of dichotomising a more-developed core and less-developed periphery in Japan, with a rough division between the east/Pacific coast and the west/Japan Sea coast. Traditionally, this idea was captured by the words “frontside Japan” (omote nihon) and “backside Japan” (ura nihon), but because they seem to suggest a value judgement, these terms have been replaced by the more neutral “Pacific-side” and “Japan Sea-side,” respectively. “Pacific Belt” (Taiheiyō beruto) is also a more recent term often used to designate the core region described above. All of these designations are imprecise because the Pacific coast north of Tokyo and south of the Kansai region may also be considered “peripheries,” and northern Kyushu facing the Japan Sea may be seen as part of the core region.

5 The General Principles’ nature as a product of the LDP rather than the government is underscored by the fact that it is reproduced as an important party document in the LDP’s official chronicle, Jiyū Minshutō tōshi (see Jiyū Minshutō 1987, 617–628).

6 Other pre-1971 politician-authored books include Yoshida Shigeru’s Kaiso Junen (1957–58), Hatoyama Ichiro’s Watakushi no Jijoden (1951), and Shidehara Kijuro’s Gaikō gojunen (1951).

7 For a comprehensive chronicle of the Satō Administration, see Kusuda (1983).

8 Authoritative studies of Tanaka’s ground-breaking China policy include Inoue (2010) and Hattori (2011).

9 While speculative, there is some plausibility in that the same reformist faction of Chinese communist leaders who favoured Sino-Japanese normalisation would go on to champion China’s economic reforms (see Nakazawa 2022).

10 For more on the perspectives of the opposition parties, see Yomiuri Shinbunsha (1972b). A sample of the debate can be found in the essays of Chuō Kōron (November 1972) and Asahi Jānaru (October 10, 1972).

11 The two bombshell reports were Tachibana’s (1974) “Tanaka Kakuei kenkyū: kinmyaku to jinmyaku” [Tanaka Kakuei Studies: Money and Personal Networks] and Kodama’s (1974) “Sabishiki Etsuzankai no Joō” [The Lonely Queen of Etsuzankai].

12 Remodelling’s success as a bestseller seems to have inspired a new genre of vernacular politician-authored books. Besides Ozawa (1993), notable examples include Morita and Ishihara (1989) and Abe (2006).