Ishihara Shintarō

Ishihara Shintarō (born September 30, 1932, Kōbe, Japan—died February 1, 2022, Tokyo) Japanese writer and politician, who served as governor of Tokyo from 1999 to 2012.

Ishihara grew up in Zushi, Kanagawa prefecture, and attended Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo. While still in school, he published his first novel, Taiyō no kisetsu (“Season of the Sun”), to great acclaim, winning the Akutagawa Prize in 1956, the year he graduated. He wrote plays, screenplays, and several more novels and acted in several movies (including the film adaptation of Taiyō no kisetsu) before winning a seat as a member of the Liberal-Democratic Party (LDP) in the upper house of the Diet (Japanese legislature) in 1968. He moved to the lower house in 1972. Although he lost the 1975 Tokyo gubernatorial election, he served as director-general of the country’s Environment Agency in 1976 and as minister of transport in 1987–88.

A self-proclaimed nationalist and an outspoken critic of the central government and of what he perceived as the submissive role of Japan in its relationship with the United States, Ishihara attracted international attention in 1989 when he cowrote, with Sony Corporation chairman Morita Akio, the nationalist essay Nō to ieru Nihon (The Japan That Can Say No). Intended for publication in Japan only, where it became a best seller—although it subsequently appeared in English without Morita’s comments—the essay argued that Japan should wean itself from its reliance on the United States and that Americans were guilty of anti-Japanese racism. In 1995 Ishihara resigned from the LDP to protest the established political system.

In March 1999 Ishihara announced that he would run for governor of Tokyo as an independent. His opponents included the LDP candidate, former UN undersecretary general Akashi Yasushi, and former foreign minister Kakizawa Kōji, who was expelled from the LDP for running against the party’s wishes. Ishihara was the front-runner from the start of his campaign, and he easily outdistanced his nearest rival in the April 11 election.

Although some commentators feared Ishihara’s win signaled widespread endorsement of his hawkish nationalism, others credited his victory to his name recognition as a popular novelist, a growing dissatisfaction with the LDP, and the public’s desire for a strong leader unafraid to speak his mind. Although early in his first term Ishihara called for control of the Yokota Air Base to be returned from the U.S. military to Japan (a sensitive issue in Japanese-U.S. relations), he later advocated joint civilian and military use of the base. He also focused on Japan’s relationship with China, declaring his disapproval of China’s communist government, its human rights record, and its treatment of Taiwan and the Tibet Autonomous Region. Aside from his forays into foreign policy, Ishihara’s greatest challenge as governor of Tokyo was his handling of the city’s economic problems, particularly its massive debt. His economic policies included cutting government spending and implementing new sources of revenue (e.g., a hotel occupancy tax). Ishihara also strongly backed Tokyo’s unsuccessful bid to host the 2016 Olympic Games. He was reelected to office in 2003, 2007, and 2011.

Ishihara continued to spark controversy during his tenure as governor. His characterization of the devastating March 2011 earthquake and tsunami in northeastern Japan as “divine punishment” for the errant Japanese people provoked widespread protest, and he later retracted his remarks. In April 2012 his announcement that he intended to buy some of the privately owned islands in the Senkaku (Diaoyu in Chinese) chain southwest of Japan—an archipelago hotly disputed between Japan and China—forced the Japanese government to preemptively purchase them, which then set off mass protests in China and worsened relations between the two countries.

In 2010 Ishihara had helped form the Sunrise Party of Japan (Tachiagare Nippon), consisting of former LDP members and others who espoused nationalistic and other politically conservative policies. On October 31, 2012, he formally resigned as governor of Tokyo in order to seek election to a seat in the lower house of the Diet. One month earlier, fellow conservative Hashimoto Tōru, mayor of Ōsaka, had launched the Japan Restoration Party (JRP; Nippon Ishin no Kai). In mid-November that party and the Sunrise Party merged, retaining the JRP name and with Ishihara as party leader. In parliamentary elections held one month later, on December 16, Ishihara was one of 54 JRP candidates who won seats in the lower house. He made more controversial statements after assuming office, including advocating that Japan repeal Article 9 of the country’s constitution that renounces war. Ishihara failed to win reelection in 2014, and he subsequently retired from politics.