Shinataro Ishihara Calls It Quits After Election Drubbing

 

When nationalist, right-wing Shintaro Ishihara announced his retirement from politics yesterday, it marked the end of a remarkable career that dates back to the 1960s and one which will be mourned by conservative-minded Japanese.  More recently as governor of Tokyo and Diet member and head of his own nationalist and anti-Chinese political party.

Left-wingers, however, will be delighted that a man who never pulled his political punches and was unafraid of displaying his dislike for China will be exiting the political stage. Their reasoning is that it will be difficult - if not impossible - for nationalist groups to find a replacement.

At 82, the outspoken Ishihara was acting as supreme adviser to the nationalist Party for Future Generations in the run-up to Sunday's general election but stated during the campaign that he would retire from politics if he was unsuccessful in the poll.

At a press conference in Tokyo he blamed the party's name for its election drubbing, when its previous tally of 19 seats was reduced to just two.

"The naming required some explanation for people to understand. It was problematic as a name for a political party."

He had insisted before the vote that he be placed last of the nine candidates on the party's list for the Tokyo block in the proportional representation section, effectively signalling that his days in politics were numbered.

"It's the end of an era," Yoichi Shimada, a professor of international relations at Fukui Prefectural University, told the South China Morning Post.

"The Party for Future Generations was the natural and reliable political ally of the Liberal Democratic Party and it is a shame that they did not do better in these elections. I feel these two would have worked together on revising the constitution and on promoting a correct understanding of history."

Ishihara's legacy will be his dislike of communism, his confrontational approach and his refusal to be anything other than direct - a sharp contrast to many Japanese politicians.

"Almost every Japanese politician, including those in the LDP, are afraid of antagonising and upsetting China, but Ishihara was always completely calm when he criticised the Chinese Communist Party," said Shimada. "And that made him a rare animal here.

"I also feel that a younger generation of politicians has been quite impressed by seeing him debating and in how he stood up to China and I think that a few of them may try to mimic that style and won't be afraid of criticising the government in Beijing."

But Shimada said it would be a mistake to say that Ishihara dislikes Chinese people. On the contrary, he has close links with many key political figures in Taiwan. His issue was with the Communist Party, its ideology and, most recently, its claims on Japanese territory, Shimada said.

Ishihara won early fame for being awarded the prestigious Akutagawa Prize for his novel Season of the Sun before he graduated from Hitotsubashi University. He was active in the Japanese film and theatre scene, was a close friend of nationalist author Yukio Mishima and was a member of the National Diet for more than 25 years before initially stepping down in 1995.

His nationalistic views attracted attention overseas after he published The Japan That Can Say No at the peak of the nation's economic might in 1989.

Ishihara was back less than four years after leaving the Diet, and was elected governor of Tokyo on four occasions.

It was while governor that he most offended China with his plan to purchase the Senkaku Islands, which China insists are its territory and should be known as the Diaoyu Islands.

Both Taiwan and China protested and diplomatic ties between Japan and its two neighbours began to deteriorate dramatically. In the end, the Japanese government stepped in to buy the islands for the nation, but ties between Beijing and Tokyo plummeted to new lows.

Not that Ishihara would care; he is, after all, the governor who called for Japan to develop and deploy nuclear weapons in order to defend itself against China. He has also repeatedly stated that the rape of Nanking was fiction created by Chinese communists.

One thing that critics and supporters do agree on is that the Diet will be lacking a little character when Ishihara bids farewell.

But that won't stop him continuing to speak his mind.  "Although I am not sure when I will die, I will say what I want to say and do what I want to do until then," he said.

South China Morning Post