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, 22 September 1878 – 20 October 1967 was a Japanese diplomat and politician who served as prime minister of Japan from 1946 to 1947 and again from 1948 to 1954, serving through most of the country's occupation after World War II. Yoshida played a major role in determining the course of post-war Japan by forging a strong relationship with the United States and pursuing economic recovery.
Born in Tokyo to a former samurai family, Yoshida graduated from Tokyo Imperial University in 1906 and joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He held various assignments abroad, including in China, where he advocated increased Japanese influence. From 1928 to 1930, Yoshida served as vice minister of foreign affairs, then served as ambassador to Italy until 1932. In 1936, he was considered for foreign minister in the cabinet of Kōki Hirota, but he was opposed by the Army, who strongly identified him with liberalism and friendship with Great Britain and the United States. Yoshida served as ambassador to Britain from 1936 to 1938. He largely avoided political participation during the Pacific War. During the U.S. occupation after the war's end, Yoshida served as foreign minister in the cabinets of Prince Higashikuni and Kijūrō Shidehara.
Yoshida became prime minister in 1946, after Ichirō Hatoyama was purged by authorities on the verge of taking office; Yoshida served as foreign minister in his own first three cabinets. He oversaw the adoption of the Constitution of Japan before losing office after the election of 1947. He returned to the premiership in 1948, and negotiated the Treaty of San Francisco, which ended the occupation and saw the restoration of sovereignty to Japan, and a security treaty with the U.S. Yoshida pursued a strategy of concentrating on economic reconstruction while relying on an alliance with the United States for defense, a strategy known as the Yoshida Doctrine. The last years of his premiership were marked by conflict with Hatoyama, who had by then been depurged. This culminated in Yoshida being ousted and replaced by Hatoyama in 1954.
Yoshida's legacy continued to play an important part in Japanese political life, particularly through his two protégés, Hayato Ikeda and Eisaku Satō, who served as prime ministers from 1960 to 1964 and 1964 to 1972 respectively. Yoshida died in 1967 and received a state funeral. His grandson, Tarō Asō, served as prime minister from 2008 to 2009.
Shortly before Yoshida's birth, his biological father was imprisoned for anti-government conspiracy in connection to the Satsuma Rebellion, and his mother gave birth to him at the house of Kenzō Yoshida, a friend of his father. As young samurai, Tsuna and Kenzō had made names for themselves amidst the decades of unrest around the time of Meiji Restoration. Since Takeuchi had several sons and his friend Kenzō Yoshida had none, Yoshida was adopted by Kenzō Yoshida and his wife Kotoko in August 1881. Kenzō Yoshida was a former samurai who had traveled to England as a stowaway in his youth. He then established himself in Yokohama as a branch manager for Jardine Matheson, before becoming a successful businessman in his own right. Kotoko was the granddaughter of the Edo period Confucianism scholar Issai Satō.
Yoshida spent his early childhood in Yokohama. After he graduated from elementary school there in 1889, he was enrolled at Koyo Juku, a prestigious rural boarding school. That same year, Kenzō Yoshida died, and Shigeru inherited a substantial fortune from him. Kotoko subsequently raised Shigeru on the family's estate in Ōiso when he was not at school.
Yoshida spent five years at Koyo Juku. In 1894 he went to Tokyo and spent a year studying at Nihon Gakuen, a school run by the famous educator Jugo Sugiura. He then went on to Higher Commercial School, but soon found he was unsuited for business and dropped out. He then briefly studied at Seisoku Academy and the Tokyo Physics School while preparing for higher school examinations, but he fell ill and had to spend a year at home in Ōiso. Returning to Tokyo in 1897, he entered the prestigious Peers' School, the headed by Prince Atsumaro Konoe. Yoshida advanced to the university department at Peers’ School, which Prince Konoe had established to train diplomats. The university department became defunct after Prince Konoe died in 1904, so Yoshida transferred to Tokyo Imperial University and graduated with a law degree in 1906. He passed the Foreign Service Entry Exam and entered Japan's diplomatic corps that same year, shortly after Japan's victory in the Russo-Japanese War.
In 1919, he was part of the Japanese delegation to the Paris Peace Conference, as secretary to his father-in-law Makino, one of the Japanese plenipotentiaries. When the conference concluded in 1920, he was assigned as first secretary to the Japanese embassy in the United Kingdom. In 1922, he returned to China and served as consul in Tianjin until 1925, then as Consul General in Fengtian until 1928.
In March 1928, Yoshida was first appointed minister to Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, but before assuming the post he was appointed vice minister for foreign affairs in July of the same year, after having recommended himself to the Prime Minister Giichi Tanaka. Tanaka served concurrently as minister for foreign affairs. During this time, Yoshida supported increasing Japanese influence in China, and advocated for the independence of Manchuria and Mongolia to weaken the Republic of China. He acquainted Ichiro Hatoyama, who was chief cabinet secretary under Tanaka. Yoshida remained in his post when Tanaka was replaced as prime minister by Osachi Hamaguchi and as foreign minister by Kijūrō Shidehara in July 1929, until he was appointed ambassador to Italy in December 1930. He returned to Japan in 1932 and, after having turned down the ambassadorship to the United States, for which he considered himself unsuitable, held a nebulous role as an ambassador-in-waiting. He undertook some foreign tours on behalf of the ministry and notably developed a warm relationship with the American ambassador Joseph Grew. Yoshida formally retired from the ministry in 1935.
In the aftermath of the February 26 incident of 1936, Prince Fumimaro Konoe contacted Yoshida to request that he'd help persuade Koki Hirota accept the premiership. Yoshida assisted Hirota in the cabinet formation and was himself considered for the post of foreign minister. However, he was included on a list of potential cabinet ministers unacceptable to the army presented by the incoming War Minister Hisaichi Terauchi. This prevented his appointment. Instead he became ambassador to the United Kingdom. After his ambassadorship to the United Kingdom ended in 1938, he retired, again, from the diplomatic service.
Right before the Pacific War began, Yoshida joined Konoe in unsuccessfully attempting to deescalate the situation. During the war, Yoshida continued to associate with Konoe in trying to get the government to negotiate a peace with the Allies. In April 1945, he was arrested and briefly imprisoned over his association with Prince Konoe.
The first post-war election in April 1946 brought a plurality of the seats in the Diet to the Liberal Party led by Yoshida's old friend Ichirō Hatoyama. Hatoyama was expected to become prime minister, but was abruptly purged by the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers on the eve of his appointment. Hatoyama approached Yoshida to take his place as prime minister and leader of the Liberal Party, despite Yoshida not even being a member of the party. Although reluctant, Yoshida eventually accepted, becoming prime minister of Japan on 22 May 1946. In the same month he joined the Liberal Party and was first made chairman of the general council before being formally elected party president four months later.
In terms of economic policy, Yoshida and Finance Minister Ishibashi initiated a "priority production system" (傾斜生産方式, keisha seisan hoshiki) designed to increase production of steel and coal as they were essential for reconstruction. This system was based on the theories of Hiromi Arisawa, an economic expert who advised Yoshida. A goal was to move Japan to a
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The cabinet had to face significant social unrest due to the impoverished situation and labour disputes at the time. These issues came to a head when the labour movement called for a general strike to take place on 1 February 1947. Yoshida believed that the strike would be an economic catastrophe, which could create the conditions for a communist revolution. The situation was resolved when General MacArthur prohibited the strike before it could take place on January 31. Afterwards, MacArthur communicated to Yoshida that a new election should be called.
Yoshida and his party thus entered the opposition. Yoshida used this time to strengthen his party and consolidate his leadership. Shortly after the Katayama Cabinet was replaced by the Ashida Cabinet in March 1948, the Liberal Party formed into the Democratic Liberal Party by merging with a breakaway group led by Shidehara from the Democratic Party.
In order to fill the places left by purged politicians, Yoshida had recruited a large number of former bureaucrats to serve as candidates for the party, including Hayato Ikeda, Eisaku Sato and Katsuo Okazaki. Many of these were elected for the first time in the 1949 election. This group would be the core of Yoshida’s own informal faction, known as the ”Yoshida School."
Yoshida appointed Hayato Ikeda finance minister later the same month. Although Yoshida and Ikeda had apprehensions about the Dodge Line, they had no choice but to implement occupation policy. The plan was successful in ending hyperinflation, but it also caused severe short-term hardship. The decreased money supply led to a wave of bankruptcies and increased unemployment. Furthermore, spending cuts necessitated mass layoffs in the public sector.
This situation continued until the outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950. The war led to an economic boom stimulated by demand for goods and services from Japan by the American forces in Korea. Yoshida described this as a ”gift from the gods.”
In September 1951, Yoshida signed the Treaty of San Francisco, a peace treaty with the Allies that would serve as a formal peace agreement and bring about the end of the occupation of Japan when the treaty took effect in April 1952. Yoshida also signed the Security Treaty, which inaugurated the post-war military alliance between Japan and the United States. During a stopover in Hawaii on the way back from San Francisco, he also paid a visit to Pearl Harbor.
According to CIA files that were declassified in 2005, there was a 1952 plot to assassinate Yoshida and replace him with Ichirō Hatoyama as prime minister. The plot was led by Takushiro Hattori, who served as an Imperial Japanese Army officer, and had the support of 500,000 Japanese people.
Dissatisfaction with his leadership led to the defection of many Diet members from his party to the new Democratic Party, causing his cabinet to resign on December 7, 1954, rather than face a no-confidence vote. He was replaced by Ichirō Hatoyama on December 10, 1954. Yoshida resigned as party president in favour of Taketora Ogata at the same time. He remained in the Diet until his retirement in 1963.
Shigeru Yoshida died on 20 October 1967 at his home in Oiso. He was baptized on his deathbed, having hidden his Catholic Church throughout most of his life. His funeral was held in St. Mary's Cathedral, Tokyo and he was buried at Aoyama Cemetery.
His state funeral was held in Nippon Budokan on 31 October 1967 in the presence of the Akihito and Empress Michiko.
Under Yoshida's leadership, Japan began to rebuild its lost industrial infrastructure and placed a premium on unrestrained economic growth. Many of these concepts still impact Japan's political and economic policies. However, since the 1970s environmental movement, the bursting of Japan's economic bubble, and the end of the Cold War, Japan has been struggling to redefine its national goals. Yoshida has long been regarded as prioritising the economy over defense, but recent years have seen a reevaluation of this viewpoint.
In his 1982 book "Leaders", US President Richard Nixon praised Yoshida as one of the greatest world leaders during his lifetime for his role in Japan's post-WWII economic miracle.
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