Watanabe Michio

Bust of Michio Watanabe in Nasushiobara

Watanabe Michio ( Japanese 渡 辺 美智 雄 ; born July 28, 1923 in Ōtawara , Tochigi Prefecture , Japan ; † September 15, 1995 in Tokyo ) was a Japanese politician .

biography

MP and Minister

Watanabe began his political career as a candidate for the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in 1955 when he was elected to the Tochigi Prefectural Parliament, to which he belonged until 1963. He then became the deputies of the lower house ( Shugiin selected), in which he held until his death for the LDP the interests of the constituency Tochigi III represented. After 1973 success of the Japanese Communist Party in local elections and elections to the upper house ( Sangiin came), he demanded as a representative of the "Club of the Summer Dream" (Seirankai) called conservative wing of the party of Prime Minister Tanaka Kakuei a return to the values of the LDP to combat the communists.

In 1976 he was first appointed to a government by Prime Minister Fukuda Takeo as Minister of Health and Welfare and was a member of this government until 1977.

From December 1978 to November 1979 he was still Minister for Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries in the first cabinet of Prime Minister Ōhira Masayoshi .

Within the LDP he belonged to the faction Seisaku Kagaku Kenkyūjo ( Seikaken ) of Nakasone Yasuhiro .

In the first and second government of Prime Minister Suzuki Zenko , he took over the influential office of finance minister between July 1980 and November 1982 . In 1981 he was the founder of the non-political group Onchikai. In 1982 there was an economic crisis with an increase in national debt and a decline in the economy . However, the measures he proposed to lower the national debt were not adopted.

Later he was a member of a government during Prime Minister Nakasone's second term from December 1985 to July 1986, holding the important office of Minister for International Trade and Industry . During this time, there was another economic crisis that caused the yen to devalue .

Between October 1987 and June 1989 he was a member of the executive committee of the Japanese Liberal Democratic Party as chairman of the Political Research Council and thus held one of the so-called "three important party offices" alongside Prime Minister and LDP chairman Takeshita Noboru .

Party chairman and unsuccessful candidacy as party chairman

In 1990 he became chairman of the Nakasone faction, which was also renamed Watanabe faction. He became known for his particularly harsh speech and was also criticized for claiming that the Americans of color were immoderate spendthrifts, that many Chinese were still living in caves and especially that Korea had agreed to its annexation by Japan in 1910 .

As chairman of the Watanabe faction, he ran several times unsuccessfully in the election for the office of chairman of the LDP and thus de facto for that of prime minister. First he was defeated in the 1991 election to Miyazawa Kiichi with 120 to 285 votes. Nevertheless, he was Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister in its first and second cabinet from November 1991 to April 1993, but ultimately had to give up these offices for health reasons.

In 1993 he was again defeated in the election for party chairman with 159 to 208 votes Kōno Yōhei . However, for the first time since 1955, the LDP did not provide the Prime Minister, but Hosokawa Morihiro from the New Japan Party . The loss of power was foreseen by Watanabe.

In 1994 he tried to form an alliance with other parties before the election of the prime minister, but gave up because of a lack of support.

A few months before his death in 1995 he was head of a delegation to normalize diplomatic relations with North Korea and to other talks that led to the promise of an aid delivery of 300,000 tons of rice to North Korea.

His son, Yoshimi Watanabe , who had been his private secretary since 1983, was elected as his successor to the House of Commons in 1996.

Web links

• rulers.org

Individual evidence

1. ↑ DER SPIEGEL: "Club of the Summer Storm" (No. 38/1973)
2. ↑ DER SPIEGEL: "Thin Paper" (No. 42/1982)
3. ↑ DER SPIEGEL: "Gets tight" (No. 21/1986)
4. ↑ DER SPIEGEL: "Michio Watanabe died" (No. 38/1995)
5. ↑ DER SPIEGEL: "Revolution from Above" (No. 30/1993)

Japanese name: As is common in Japan, the family name comes before the first name in this article . Thus Watanabe is the family name, Michio the first name.