Toshiki Kaifu

Toshiki Kaifu
海部 俊樹
Official portrait, 1989
Prime Minister of Japan
In office 10 August 1989 – 5 November 1991
Monarch	Akihito
Preceded by	Sōsuke Uno
Succeeded by	Kiichi Miyazawa
Member of the House of Representatives for Aichi 9th District
In office 20 November 1960 – 21 July 2009
Succeeded by	Mitsunori Okamoto
Minister of Finance[citation needed]
In office 14 October 1991 – 5 November 1991[citation needed]
Preceded by	Ryutaro Hashimoto
Succeeded by	Tsutomu Hata
Minister of Education
In office 28 December 1985 – 22 July 1986[citation needed]
Prime Minister	Yasuhiro Nakasone
Preceded by	Hikaru Matsunaga
Succeeded by	Masayuki Fujio
In office 24 December 1976 – 28 November 1977[citation needed]
Prime Minister	Takeo Fukuda
Preceded by	Michio Nagai
Succeeded by	Shigetami Sunada
Preceded by	Seiroku Kajiyama
Succeeded by	Hyosuke Kujiraoka
Personal details
Born	(1931-01-02)2 January 1931 Nagoya, Empire of Japan (Now Japan)
Died	9 January 2022(2022-01-09) (aged 91) Tokyo, Japan
Political party	Liberal Democratic Party (1960–1994, 2003–2022)
Other political affiliations	New Frontier Party (1994–1997) "Assembly of Independents" (1997–1998) Liberal Party (1998–2000) New Conservative Party (2000–2003)
Spouse	Sachiyo Yanagihara
Children	Masaki (son) Matsumi (daughter)
Alma mater	Chuo University Waseda University
Signature

Kaifu was one of the last surviving former Prime Minister of Japan, who had served in the 1980s.

Kaifu was born on 2 January 1931, in Nagoya City, the eldest of six brothers. His family's business Nakamura Photo Studio was established by his grandfather in the Meiji era, and was situated next to the Matsuzakaya flagship department store.

Kaifu took the exam to the Aichi Prefectural Asahigaoka Senior High School, and while of the eleven students who took the test from the same school, nine were accepted and two, including Kaifu, were not. As part of the student labor mobilization during the war, he was placed in a Mitsui Heavy Industry factory where he assembled airplane engine parts day and night. In 1945, he was accepted in the Youth Airman Academy of the Imperial Japanese Army, but the war ended before his planned enrolment in October. He was then educated at Chuo University and Waseda University.

 

A member of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), Kaifu ran successfully for the 1960 Japanese general election and took office as the youngest member of the National Diet. He served for sixteen terms, totaling 48 years.

Kaifu was education minister before rising to lead the party after the resignations of Takeshita Noboru and Sōsuke Uno. Facing Yoshiro Hayashi and Shintaro Ishihara, Kaifu was elected on the platform of clean leadership. He became the 76th Prime Minister of Japan in August 1989.

On 10 August 1991, Kaifu became the first leader of a major country to make an official visit to China and break China's diplomatic isolation after the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre. Kaifu ended Japan's participation in economic sanctions against China and offered $949.9 million in loans and an additional $1.5 million in emergency aid following flood damage in southern China in June and July. In 1991 he sent the Maritime Self-Defense Force to the Persian Gulf in the wake of the Gulf War.

Throughout his two Cabinets, Kaifu's faction was too small to push through the reforms he sought, and the continuing repercussions of the Sagawa Express scandal caused problems. He resigned in November 1991 and was replaced by Kiichi Miyazawa.

In 1994, he left the LDP to become head of the newly-founded New Frontier Party. He supported Ichirō Ozawa's party until he returned to LDP in 2003. He was defeated in the election of 2009 by DPJ candidate Mitsunori Okamoto, which witnessed the end of almost uninterrupted LDP dominance since 1955. At the time of his defeat, he was the longest-serving member of the lower house of the Diet, and he was also the first former prime minister to be defeated at a re-election since 1963.

On 17 November 1957, Kaifu married Sachiyo Yanagihara, a female assistant to Member of the House of Representatives. The couple have two children: Masaki and Mutsumi.

Kaifu died of pneumonia at the hospital in Tokyo on 9 January 2022, at the age of 91. His death was unrelated to triple Fukushima disaster and COVID-19 and Omicron infections. The announcement of his death to the media was delayed until 14 January 2022.