Ōkita Saburō

Ōkita Saburō ( Japanese 大 来 佐 武 郎 ; born November 3, 1914 in Dalian , Manchuria , today: People's Republic of China ; † February 9, 1993 in Tokyo ) was a Japanese economist and politician of the Liberal Democratic Party (Jiyūminshutō) , who, among other things, from 1979 until 1980 was Foreign Minister .

Life

Ministerial official and economic planner

Ōkita Saburō, son of Ōkita Shuji and Ōkita Hana, attended Hibiya Middle School and the Dai'ichi Kōtō Gakkō in Tokyo and began studying at the engineering faculty of the Imperial University of Tokyo in 1934 . After completing his studies, he began his professional career in 1937 as an employee of the Ministry of Communication (Teishin-shō) and worked in the meantime in the Authority for the Development of East Asia (Kōain) , which in 1938 by the first Konoe cabinet to coordinate Japanese policy in the Republic of China was created. On August 26, 1945, shortly before the capitulation of Japan and the associated end of the Second World War, he moved to the Foreign Ministry (Gaimu-shō) , where he worked in a research and study group led by Arata Sugihara with the reconstruction and development in the post-war period concerned. From this research group, he was one of the authors of the final report on the basic problems of economic reconstruction for Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru in 1946, along with Tobata Seiichi and others .

After completing the research group, Ōkita was withdrawn from the Foreign Ministry on April 10, 1947 and moved to the Economic Stabilization Authority founded on August 12, 1947. There he was head of the research section between 1948 and 1951 and the authoritative author of the White Paper on Economic Issues. He then worked from 1952 to 1953 as director of the economic analysis department of the UN Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East (ECAFE). In 1953 he took over the post of economic planning agency (Keizai-kikaku-chō) , which emerged from the authority for economic stabilization, first as head of the economic cooperation section and in 1957 as general director of the planning department, before he finally became general director of the development department of the agency for economic planning in 1962 . During this time, from 1960, he played a key role in the income doubling plan aimed at by Prime Minister Ikeda Hayato , which provided for a doubling of the gross national product as national income by 1969 . To this end, public sector spending should be increased and taxes reduced. At the same time, the plan envisaged measures designed to keep both inflation and interest rates low.

In 1963 Ōkita Saburō took over the post as the first president of the Japanese Center for Economic Research JCER, of which he was chairman between 1973 and 1979. He was also a member of the UN Committee for Development Planning from 1965 to 1980 . In 1971 he was awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Prize in the Peace and International Understanding category. In 1973 he was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . At the same time he acted from 1973 to 1977 as president of the Fund for Overseas Economic Cooperation, from which today's Japanese Bank for International Cooperation (Kokusai Kyōryoku Ginkō) arose. At the same time he was from 1973 to 1977 member of the Japanese delegation of the Trilateral Commission, which is supposed to promote international cooperation between Europe, Japan and North America, and between 1975 and 1977 member of the board of directors of the broadcasting company NHK (Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai) . In 1977 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Michigan . In 1977 he applied for the splinter group New Liberal Club (Shin jiyū kurabu), which emerged from the Liberal Democratic Party (Jiyūminshutō) , without success for a mandate in the House of Lords ( Sangiin ) .

Foreign Minister, Honors and Awards

On November 9, 1979 Prime Minister Ōhira Masayoshi appointed the now non-party kita Saburō as Foreign Minister (Gaimu Daijin) in his second cabinet , to which he belonged until July 17, 1980. On June 22 and 23, 1980, he took part in the G7 summit in Venice in place of Prime Minister kurzhira Masayoshi, who had recently died . From July 1980 to December 1981 he was government representative for foreign economic relations. After retiring from government service, he assumed the post of chairman of the Institute for Domestic Political Studies in 1981 and President and Chancellor of the private International University of Japan from April 1982 to 1987 . In 1984 he also became chairman of the Japanese World Wide Fund For Nature ( WWF ). He was also a member of the 1987 by the United Nations used Brundtland -Commission for sustainable development . In 1990 he was also a member of the jury awarding the Rolex Prize for Entrepreneurship .

For his international merits he was awarded several other honorary doctorates, such as in 1982 from the Australian National University , 1984 from the University of British Columbia , 1987 from Princeton University , 1989 from the Asian Institute of Technology and in 1990 from the University of Hawaii . In addition, he was awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of the Rising Sun (Kyokujitsushō) in 1986. In 1992 he also received the Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament and Development .

His marriage to Kajii Hisako on April 14, 1942 resulted in four children.

Publications

• The Rehabilitation of Japan's Economy and Asia , Public Information and Cultural Affairs Bureau, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 1956
• Causes and Problems of Rapid Growth in Postwar Japan: And Their Implications for Newly Developing Economies , Japan Economic Research Center, 1967
• A Collection of Essays , Japan Economic Research Center, 1975
• Japan in the World Economy , Japan Foundation, 1975
• Australia, Japan and Western Pacific economic relations: a report to the Governments of Australia and Japan , co-author Sir John Grenfell Crawford, Australian Government Publishing Service, 1976
• Population, Natural Resources, Environment and Human Resources in Development , Nihon University, Population Research Institute, 1982
• Democracy Must Work: A Trilateral Agenda for the Decade: a Task Force Report to the Trilateral Commission , co-authors David Owen and Zbigniew Brzezinski , Trilateral Commission, 1984
• Economic Policy and Development: New Perspectives , Auburn House, 1985
• Japan's Challenging Years: Reflections on My Lifetime , co-author George Allen, Australia-Japan Research Center, 1985
• The Crash of '87: cause and consequence, challenge and response , co-authors Mohamed Noordin Sopiee, Cyrus Vance , Institute of Strategic and International Studies, Malaysia, 1987
• Japan in the World Economy of the 1980s , University of Tokyo Press, 1989
• Approaching the 21st century: Japan's role , Japan Times, 1990
• The policy recommendations on "stabilization of the international monetary and trade systems" , co-authors Nihon Kokusai Fōramu, Teruhiko Mano, Japan Forum on International Relations, 1990
• The United States and Japan: Sharing Responsibility for Global Development , co-author John W. Sewell, Overseas Development Council, 1991
• Tightrope. Balancing economics and responsibility in Japanese diplomacy, 1979-1980 , Institute for Domestic and International Policy Studies, 1992
• Postwar reconstruction of the Japanese economy , University of Tokyo Press, 1992
• Saburo Okita: A Life in Economic Diplomacy , co-author Dani Botsman, Australia-Japan Research Center, Australian National University, 1993

Web links

• Entry in rulers.org
• The Governments of Japan 1945 - today

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Japan: Key Ministries

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