is a Japanese
politician who served as Prime Minister of Japan from 2001 to 2006. He retired from politics when his term in parliament ended.
Widely seen as a
maverick leader of
the
Liberal Democratic
Party , he became known as an economic reformer, focusing on
Japan's government debt and the privatization of its
postal service. In 2005, Koizumi led the LDP to
win one of the largest parliamentary majorities in modern
Japanese history.
Koizumi
also attracted international attention through his deployment of
the Japan Self-Defense
Forces to Iraq
, the first
foreign deployment of the Japanese military since World War
II. His visits to Yasukuni Shrine
led to diplomatic tensions with China
and Korea.
Koizumi is the first and last Prime Minster to have served more
than five years in office since 1972.
Early life
Koizumi is a third-generation politician. His father, Junya
Koizumi, was director general of the Japan Defense Agency and a
member of the
Diet. His grandfather,
Koizumi Matajirō, was Minister
of Posts and Telecommunications under Prime Ministers Hamaguchi and
Wakatsuki and an early advocate of postal privatization. See
Koizumi family.
Born in
Yokosuka, Kanagawa prefecture
on January 8, 1942, Koizumi was educated at
Yokosuka High School and
Keio
University
, where he
studied economics. He attended University
College London
before returning to Japan in August 1969 upon the
death of his father.
He stood for election to the lower house in December; however, he
did not earn enough votes to win election as a Liberal Democratic
Party (LDP) representative. In 1970, he was hired as a secretary to
Takeo Fukuda, who was Minister of
Finance at the time and was elected as Prime Minister in
1976.
In the general elections of December 1972, Koizumi was elected as a
member of the Lower House for the 11th District of Kanagawa
Prefecture. He joined Fukuda's faction within the LDP. Since then,
he has been re-elected ten times.
Member of House of Representatives
Koizumi gained his first senior post in 1979 as Parliamentary Vice
Minister of Finance, and his first ministerial post in 1988 as
Minister of Health and Welfare under Prime Minister
Noboru Takeshita. He held cabinet posts
again in 1992 (Minister of Posts and Telecommunications in the
Miyazawa cabinet) and 1996–1998
(Minister of Health and Welfare in the
Uno and
Hashimoto cabinets).
In 1994, with the LDP in opposition, Koizumi became part of a new
LDP faction,
Shinseiki, made up of younger
and more motivated parliamentarians led by
Taku Yamasaki,
Koichi Kato and Koizumi, a group popularly
dubbed "YKK." He competed for the presidency of the LDP in
September 1995 and July 1998, but he gained little support losing
decisively to
Ryutaro Hashimoto
and then
Keizō Obuchi, both of
whom had broader bases of support within the party. However, after
Yamasaki and Kato were humiliated in a disastrous attempt to force
a
vote of no confidence
against Prime Minister
Yoshirō
Mori in 2000, Koizumi became the last remaining credible member
of the YKK trio, which gave him leverage over the reform-minded
wing of the party.
On April 24, 2001, Koizumi was elected president of the LDP. He was
initially considered an outside candidate against Hashimoto, who
was running for his second term as Prime Minister. However, in the
first poll of prefectural party organizations, Koizumi won 87 to 11
percent; in the second vote of Diet members, Koizumi won 51 to 40
percent. He defeated Hashimoto by a final tally of 298 to 155
votes. He was made Prime Minister of Japan on
April 26, and his coalition secured 78 of 121 seats
in the Upper House elections in July.
Prime Minister
Domestic policy
Within Japan, Koizumi pushed for new ways to revitalise the
moribund economy, aiming to act against bad debts with commercial
banks, privatize the postal savings system, and reorganise the
factional structure of the LDP. He spoke of the need for a period
of painful restructuring in order to improve the future.
In the fall of 2002, Koizumi appointed Keio University economist
and frequent television commentator
Heizō Takenaka as Minister of State for
Financial Services and head of the
Financial Services Agency to fix
the country's banking crisis. Bad debts of banks were dramatically
cut with the NPL ratio of major banks approaching half the level of
2001. The Japanese economy has been through a slow but steady
recovery, and the stock market has dramatically rebounded.
The
GDP growth for 2004 was one
of the highest among G7 nations, according to the
IMF
and OECD. Takenaka was appointed as a Postal Reform
Minister in 2004 for the privatization of
Japan Post, operator of the country's Postal
Savings system.
Koizumi moved the LDP away from its traditional rural agrarian base
toward a more urban,
neoliberal core, as
Japan's population grew in major cities and declined in less
populated areas, although under current purely geographical
districting, rural votes in Japan are still many times more
powerful than urban ones. In addition to the privatization of Japan
Post (which many rural residents fear will reduce their access to
basic services such as banking), Koizumi also slowed down the LDP's
heavy subsidies for infrastructure and industrial development in
rural areas. These tensions made Koizumi a controversial but
popular figure within his own party and among the Japanese
electorate.
Foreign policy
Although Koizumi's foreign policy was focused on closer relations
with the United States and UN-centered diplomacy, which were
adopted by all of his predecessors, he went further to pursue
supporting the US policies in the
War
on Terrorism.
He decided to deploy the Japan Self-Defense Forces to
Iraq, which was the first military mission in active
foreign war zones since the end of the World War II. Many Japanese commentators
indicated that the favorable US-Japan relation was based on the
Koizumi's personal friendship with the US President
George W. Bush.
In the
North Korean
abductions and nuclear development issues, he took more
assertive attitudes than his predecessors.
Self-Defense Forces policy
Although Koizumi did not initially campaign on the issue of defense
reform, he approved the expansion of the
Japan Self-Defense Forces (JSDF)
and in October 2001 they were given greater scope to operate
outside of the country. Some of these troops were
dispatched to Iraq.
Koizumi's
government also introduced a bill to upgrade the Japan Defense
Agency
to ministry status; finally, the Defense Agency
became the Japanese Ministry of Defense
in January 9, 2007.
Visits to Yasukuni Shrine
Koizumi
has often been noted for his controversial visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, starting on August 13, 2001. He visited the
shrine six times as prime minister.
Because the shrine honors many convicted
Japanese war criminals,
including 14 executed Class A war
criminals, these visits drew strong condemnation and protests
from both Japan's neighbours, mainly China and South
Korea
, and many Japanese citizens. China and South
Korea's people hold bitter memories of Japanese invasion and
occupation during the first half of the 20th century. China and
South Korea refused to have their representatives meet Koizumi in
Japan and their countries. There were no mutual visits between
Chinese and Japanese leaders from October 2001, and between South
Korean and Japanese leaders from June 2005. The standstill ended
when the next prime minister Abe visited China and South Korea in
October 2006.
In China, the visits led to massive anti-Japanese riots. The
president, ruling and opposition parties, and much of the media of
South Korea openly condemned Koizumi's pilgrimages. Many Koreans
applauded the president's speeches criticizing Japan, despite the
South Korean President's low
popularity. When asked about the reaction, Koizumi said the
speeches were "for the domestic (audience)".
Although Koizumi signed the shrine's visitor book as "Junichiro
Koizumi, the Prime Minister of Japan", he claimed that his visits
were as a private citizen and not an endorsement of any political
stance. China and Korea found the claims weak as excuses. Several
journals and news reports in Japan, such as one published by Kyodo
News Agency on August 15, 2006, questioned Koizumi's statement of
private purpose, as he recorded his position on the shrine's
guestbook as prime minister. He visited the shrine annually in
fulfillment of a campaign pledge, which was of course political in
nature. Koizumi's last visit as prime minister was on August 15,
2006, fulfilling a campaign pledge to visit on the anniversary of
Japan's surrender in World War II.
Eleven months after his resignation as prime minister, Koizumi
revisited the shrine on August 15, 2007, to mark the 62nd
anniversary of Japan's surrender in
World
War II. His 2007 visit attracted less attention from the media
than his prior visits while he was in office.
Statements on World War II
On August 15, 2005, the sixtieth anniversary of the end of
World War II, Koizumi publicly stated that
Japan was deeply saddened by the suffering it caused during World
War II and vowed Japan would never again take "the path to war".
However,
Koizumi was criticized for actions which allegedly ran contrary to
this expression of remorse (e.g. the Yasukuni visits), which
resulted in worsening relations with China
and South Korea.
Popularity
Koizumi was at certain points in his tenure an extremely popular
leader. His outspoken nature and colourful past contributed to
that; his nicknames included "Lionheart", due to his hair style and
fierce spirit, and "Maverick". During his tenure in office, the
Japanese public referred to him as
Jun-chan (the suffix
"chan" in the Japanese language is used as a term of familiarity,
typically between children, "Jun" is likely a contraction of
Junichiro). In June 2001, he enjoyed an approval rating of 85
percent.
In January 2002, Koizumi sacked his popular Foreign Minister
Makiko Tanaka, replacing her with
Yoriko Kawaguchi. Following an
economic slump and a series of LDP scandals that claimed the career
of YKK member
Koichi Kato, by
April Koizumi's popularity rating had fallen 40 percentage points
since his nomination as prime minister.
Koizumi was re-elected in 2003 and his popularity surged as the
economy recovered. His proposal to cut pension benefits as a move
to fiscal reform turned out to be highly unpopular.
Two visits to
North
Korea
to solve the issue of abducted Japanese nationals
only somewhat raised his popularity, as he could not secure the
return to Japan of many abductees. In the
House of Councilors elections
in 2004, the LDP performed only marginally better than the
opposition
Democratic Party of
Japan (DPJ).
In 2005, the House of Councilors rejected the contentious
postal privatization bills. Koizumi previously
made it clear that he would dissolve the lower house if the bill
failed to pass. The Democratic Party, while expressing support for
the privatization, made a tactical vote against the bill. Fifty-one
LDP members also either voted against the bills or abstained.
On August 8, 2005, Koizumi, as promised, dissolved the House of
Representatives and called for
snap
elections. He expelled rebel LDP members for not supporting the
bill. The LDP's chances for success were initially uncertain; the
secretary general of
New Komeito
(a junior coalition partner with Koizumi's Liberal Democratic
Party) said that his party would entertain forming a coalition
government with the Democratic Party of Japan if the DPJ took a
majority in the House of Representatives.
Koizumi's popularity rose almost twenty points after he dissolved
the House and expelled rebel LDP members. Opinion polls ranked the
government's approval ratings between 51 and 59 percent. The
electorate saw the election in terms of a vote for or against the
reform (privatisation), which the Democratic Party and rebel LDP
members were seen as being against.
The
September 2005
elections were the LDP's largest victory since 1986, giving the
party a large majority in the House of Representatives and
nullifying opposing voices in the House of Councilors. In the
following Diet session, the last to be held under Koizumi's
government, the LDP passed 82 of its 91 proposed bills, including
postal privatization.
Resignation
Koizumi announced that he would step down from office in 2006, per
LDP rules, and would not personally choose a successor as many LDP
prime ministers have in the past. On September 20, 2006,
Shinzo Abe was elected to succeed Koizumi as
president of the LDP. Abe succeeded Koizumi as prime minister on
September 26, 2006.
Koizumi remained in the Diet through the administrations of Abe and
Yasuo Fukuda. He announced his
retirement from politics on September 25, 2008, shortly following
the election of
Taro Aso as Prime Minister.
Koizumi plans to retain his Diet seat until the
next general election. His
son
Shinjiro plans to run as a
candidate for his father's seat representing the
Kanagawa 11th district. Koizumi
supported
Yuriko Koike in the
LDP
leadership election held earlier in September 2008, but Koike
placed a distant third.
Personal life
Koizumi married 21-year-old university student Kayoko Miyamoto in
1978. The couple had been formally introduced to each other as
potential spouses, a common practice known as
omiai.
The wedding ceremony at the Tokyo Prince
Hotel was attended by about 2,500 people, including Takeo Fukuda (then Prime Minister), and
featured a wedding cake shaped like the
National
Diet Building
.
The marriage ended in
divorce in 1982, as
Kayoko was reportedly unhappy with her married life for several
reasons. After this divorce, Koizumi never married again, saying
that divorce consumed ten times more energy than marriage.
Koizumi had custody of two of his three sons:
Kotaro Koizumi and Shinjiro Koizumi, who were
reared by one of his sisters. The youngest son, Yoshinaga Miyamoto,
now a graduate of Keio University, was born following the divorce
and has never met Koizumi. The third son is known to have attended
one of Koizumi's rallies, but was turned away from trying to meet
his father. He was also turned away from attending his paternal
grandmother's funeral.
Koizumi is a fan of
Richard Wagner,
the Japanese band
X Japan and has released a
CD of his favorite pieces by contemporary Italian composer
Ennio Morricone..
Koizumi is also a noted fan of
Elvis
Presley, with whom he shares a birthday (
January 8). In 2001 he released a collection of
his favorite Elvis songs on CD, with his comments about each song.
His brother is Senior Advisor of the Tokyo Elvis Fan Club. Koizumi
and his brother helped finance a statue of Elvis in Tokyo's
Harajuku district.
On June 30, 2006,
Koizumi visited Presley's estate, Graceland
, accompanied by U.S. President George W.
Bush, and First Lady Laura Bush.
After arriving in Memphis
aboard Air Force One,
they headed to Graceland. While there, Koizumi briefly sang
a few bars of his favourite Elvis tunes, whilst warmly
impersonating Presley, and wearing Presley's trademark oversized
golden sunglasses.
Koizumi
also appreciates Finnish
composer Jean
Sibelius. He and Finnish Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen visited the Sibelius' home
on September 8, 2006. There Koizumi showed
respect to the late composer with a moment of silence. He owns
reproductions of the manuscripts of all seven symphonies by
Sibelius.
In 2009, Koizumi made a
voice acting
appearance in an
Ultraman feature film,
Mega Monster
Battle: Ultra Galaxy Legend The Movie, playing the voice
of
Ultraman King. Koizumi said he took
on the role at the urging of his son Shinjiro.
Koizumi cabinets
Notes:
- Makiko Tanaka was fired on January
29, 2002. Koizumi served as interim foreign minister until February 1, when he appointed then-environment
minister Yoriko Kawaguchi to the
post. Koizumi appointed Hiroshi Oki to replace Kawaguchi.
- Oshima resigned on March 31, 2003 due to a farm-subsidy
scandal. He was replaced by Kamei, who was kept in the next
reshuffle.
- Takenaka has also held the portfolio of Minister of State for
Postal Privatization since the first Koizumi cabinet. He is the
only person to serve on Koizumi's cabinet through all five
reshuffles.
- Fukuda resigned on May 7, 2004 and was replaced by Hosoda.
See also
- List of Prime
Ministers of Japan
- Richard Lloyd Parry, "Enigma behind Koizumi's winning smile",
Times supplement to the Daily Yomiuri, Sunday, September
18, 2005, p. 15
References
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