Editing Nobusuke Kishi (section)

==Premiership (1957–1960)==
{{seealso|First Kishi Cabinet|Second Kishi Cabinet}}
[[File:蔣介石 岸信介 宋美齡.jpg|thumb|250px|Nobusuke Kishi with [[President of the Republic of China]] [[Chiang Kai-shek]] and [[Soong Mei-ling]], in 1957]]

===Policy goals===
In February 1957, Kishi became prime minister following the resignation of the ailing [[Tanzan Ishibashi]]. His main concerns were with foreign policy, especially with revising the [[Security Treaty Between the United States and Japan|1952 U.S-Japan Security Treaty]], which he felt had turned Japan into a virtual American protectorate.{{sfn|Bix|2000|p=660}} Revising the security treaty was understood to be the first step towards his ultimate goal of abolishing Article 9. Besides his desire for a more independent foreign policy, Kishi wanted to establish close economic relations with the various states of [[South-East Asia]].{{sfn|Bix|2000|p=660}} Finally, Kishi wanted the Allies to commute the remaining sentences of the Class B and Class C war criminals still in serving their prison sentences, arguing that for Japan to play its role in the Cold War as a Western ally required forgetting about Japan's war crimes in the past.{{sfn|Bix|2000|p=660}}

===Pursuit of an Asian Development Fund===
[[File:Jawaharlal Nehru presenting welcome address to N. Kishi, Prime Minister of Japan.jpg|thumb|Indian Prime Minister [[Jawaharlal Nehru]] presenting Welcome Address to Kishi, New Delhi, 24 May 1957]]
In the first year of Kishi's term, Japan joined the [[United Nations Security Council]], paid war reparations to [[Indonesia]], signed a new commercial treaty with [[Australia]], and signed peace treaties with [[Czechoslovakia]] and [[Poland]]. In 1957, Kishi presented a plan for a Japanese-dominated Asian Development Fund (ADF), which was to operate under the slogan "Economic Development for Asia by Asia", calling for Japan to invest millions of yen in Southeast Asia.{{sfn|Hoshiro|2009|p=398}} With access to markets in China and North Korea cut off due to Cold War polarization, Japanese and American leaders alike looked to Southeast Asia as a market for Japanese goods and source of raw materials.{{sfn|Hoshiro|2009|p=387}} Moreover, the Americans wanted more aid to Asia to spur economic growth that would stem the appeal of Communism, but were disinclined to spend the money themselves.{{sfn|Hoshiro|2009|pp=395-396}} The prospect of Japan spending some $500 million US in low interest loans and aid projects in Southeast Asia had the benefit from Kishi's viewpoint of improving his standing in Washington, and giving him more leverage in his talks to revise the [[U.S.-Japan Security Treaty]].{{sfn|Hoshiro|2009|p=396}}

In pursuit of the ADF, Kishi visited India, Pakistan, [[Burma]], [[Thailand]], Ceylon, and Taiwan in May 1957, asking the leaders of those states to join the ADF, but with the exception of Taiwan, which agreed to join, the other nations gave equivocal answers.{{sfn|Hoshiro|2009|pp=398-400}} In November, Kishi once again toured Southeast Asia to promote the idea of an ADF, this time visiting South Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Australia, and New Zealand. These countries, all of which Japan had attacked and/or occupied during World War II, also expressed ambivalence or disdain toward joining the proposed framework, with the sole exception of Laos, which was in desperate need of foreign aid at that time.{{sfn|Hoshiro|2009|pp=403-404}} Even in countries that were not occupied by Japan like India, Ceylon, and Pakistan, Kishi encountered obstacles. Indian Prime Minister [[Jawaharlal Nehru]] told Kishi during his visit to New Delhi that he wanted his nation to be neutral in the Cold War, and given that Japan was allied to the United States, joining the ADF would be in effect aligning India with the Americans.{{sfn|Hoshiro|2009|p=399}} During his visit to Karachi, the Pakistani Prime Minister [[Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy]] told Kishi that he thought of himself as a "human being rather than an Asian first", and preferred bilateral over multilateral aid because a multilateral aid framework would put participating countries into competition with each other over aid distribution.{{sfn|Hoshiro|2009|p=399}} In sum, bad memories of Japan's wartime depredations in the region, a suspicion of Japanese motives, an unwillingness to enter into neo-colonial relationship with Japan as suppliers of raw materials, Cold War neutralism, and a fear that America was secretly pulling the strings all contributed to the failure of Kishi's ambitious plans to create an Asian economic block reminiscent of the "[[Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere]]" that Japan had claimed to be pursuing in World War II.{{sfn|Hoshiro|2009}} Ultimately, even the United States was lukewarm about Kishi's project, so it was shelved for the time being, although it was later partially revived in the form of the [[Asian Development Bank]].<ref>{{cite book|last=McCawley|first=Peter|title=Banking on the Future of Asia and the Pacific: 50 Years of the Asian Development Bank|publisher=Asian Development Bank|isbn=978-92-9257-875-6|date=2017|pages=31–32}}</ref>

===Pursuit of treaty revision===
Kishi's next foreign policy initiative was potentially even more difficult: reworking Japan's security relationship with the United States. Kishi always saw the system created by the Americans as temporary and intended that one day Japan would resume its role as a great power; in the interim, he was prepared to work within the American-created system both domestically and internationally to safeguard what he regarded as Japan's interests.<ref name="economist.com"/> In June 1957, Kishi visited the United States, where he was received with honor, being allowed to address a joint session of Congress, throwing the opening pitch for the New York Yankees in a baseball game in New York and being allowed to play golf at an otherwise all-white golf club in Virginia, which the American historian Michael Schaller called "remarkable" honors for a man who as a Cabinet minister had signed the declaration of war against the United States in 1941 and who had presided over the conscription of thousands of Koreans and Chinese as slave labor during World War II.{{sfn|Schaller|1995}} Vice President of the United States [[Richard Nixon]] introduced Kishi to Congress as an "honored guest" who was "not only a great leader of the free world, but also a loyal and great friend of the people of the United States."{{sfn|Samuels|2001}}

In November 1957, Kishi laid down his proposals for a revamped extension of the [[Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the United States and Japan|US–Japan Mutual Security Treaty]], and the Eisenhower administration finally agreed to negotiations on a revised version. The American ambassador [[Douglas MacArthur II]] (the nephew of the [[Douglas MacArthur|famous general]]) had reported to Washington that Kishi was the only Japanese politician who could stem the tide towards anti-Americanism in the country, and if the U.S. refused to revise the security treaty in Japan's favor, Japan could turn toward neutralism or accommodation with the communist bloc.{{sfn|Schaller|1995}} The U.S. Secretary of State, [[John Foster Dulles]], wrote in a memo to President Eisenhower that the United States was "at the point of having to make a Big Bet" in Japan and Kishi was the "only bet we had left in Japan".{{sfn|Schaller|1995}} Meanwhile, Kishi was able to take advantage of a growing anti-US military base movement in Japan, as exemplified by the ongoing [[Sunagawa Struggle]] over proposed expansion of the US air base at [[Tachikawa Airfield|Tachikawa]] and the explosion of anger in Japan over the [[Girard Incident]], to insinuate to U.S. leaders that if the treaty were not revised the continued existence of U.S. bases in Japan might become untenable.<ref>{{cite book |last = Miller |first = Jennifer|year = 2019 |title = Cold War Democracy: The United States and Japan |publisher = [[Harvard University Press]] |location = Cambridge, MA |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=EJ5gtgEACAAJ|pages=189–90|isbn = 9780674976344}}</ref>

Anticipating public opposition to his plans for revising the security treaty, Kishi brought before the Diet a harsh "Police Duties Bill", which would give the police vastly expanded powers to crush demonstrations and to conduct searches of homes without warrants.{{sfn|Kapur|2018|p=18}} In response to the police bill, a nationwide coalition of left-leaning civic organizations led by the [[Japan Socialist Party]] and the [[Sōhyō]] labor federation launched a variety of protest activities in the fall of 1958 with the aim of killing the bill.{{sfn|Kapur|2018|p=18}} These protests succeeded in arousing public anger at the bill and Kishi was forced to withdraw it.{{sfn|Kapur|2018|p=18}}

===Anpo protests===
{{Main|Anpo protests}}
[[File:1960 Protests against the United States-Japan Security Treaty 07.jpg|thumb|200px|Protesters flood the streets around the Japanese [[National Diet]] to protest against revision of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty, June 18, 1960]]
In late 1959, it became clear that Kishi intended to break with longstanding precedent that prime ministers serve no more than two consecutive terms.{{sfn|Kapur|2018|pp=88-89}} Kishi hoped that by successfully revising the Security Treaty, he would have attained the political capital necessary to pull off this feat. In response to Kishi's break with tradition, Kishi's opponents within his own Liberal Democratic Party, who felt they had waited long enough for their chance at power, vowed to do whatever was necessary to bring about the end of his premiership.{{sfn|Kapur|2018|pp=88-89}} Meanwhile, final negotiations on the new treaty wrapped up in 1959, and in January 1960, Kishi traveled to Washington, D.C., where he signed the new treaty with President Eisenhower on January 19.{{sfn|Kapur|2018|p=20}} During his visit to the United States, Kishi appeared on the January 25, 1960 cover of ''Time'' magazine, which declared that the Prime Minister's "134 pound body packed pride, power and passion—a perfect embodiment of his country's amazing resurgence" while ''Newsweek'' called him the "Friendly, Savvy Salesman from Japan" who had created the "economic powerhouse of Asia".{{sfn|Schaller|1995}}

However, even though the revised treaty addressed almost all of Japan's complaints with the original treaty, and put the [[U.S.-Japan alliance]] on a much more equal footing,{{sfn|Kapur|2018|pp=17-18}} the notion of having any sort of security treaty at all with the United States was unpopular with broad sections of the Japanese public, who saw the treaty as allowing for Japan to once again become involved in a war.{{sfn|Bix|2000|p=662}} In 1959, the nationwide coalition that had successfully defeated Kishi's Police Duties Bill in 1958 had rebranded itself as the "People's Council for Preventing Revision of the Security Treaty" (''Anpo Jōyaku Kaitei Soshi Kokumin Kaigi'') and began recruiting additional member organizations and organizing protest activities against the revised Security Treaty.{{sfn|Kapur|2018|pp=18-19}} In a sign of things to come, radical student activists from the [[Zengakuren]] student federation and leftist labor unionists invaded the compound of the National Diet in November 1959 to express their anger at the Treaty, and in January, Zengakuren activists organized a sit-in in Tokyo's [[Haneda Airport]] to attempt to prevent Kishi from flying to Washington to sign the treaty, but were cleared away by police.{{sfn|Kapur|2018|pp=20-21}}

Because the new treaty was better than the old one, Kishi expected it to be ratified in relatively short order. Accordingly, he invited Eisenhower to visit Japan beginning on June 19, 1960, in part to celebrate the newly ratified treaty. If Eisenhower's visit had proceeded as planned, he would have become the first sitting US president to visit Japan.{{sfn|Kapur|2018|p=35}} However, when debate on the treaty began in the Diet, the opposition [[Japan Socialist Party]], abetted by Kishi's rivals in his own party, employed a variety of parliamentary tactics to drag out debate as long as possible, in hopes of preventing ratification before Eisenhower's planned arrival on June 19, and giving the extra-parliamentary protests more time to grow.{{sfn|Kapur|2018|p=21}}

As the date of Eisenhower's planned visit drew near, Kishi grew increasingly desperate to ratify the treaty in time for his arrival.{{sfn|Kapur|2018|p=22}} On May 19, 1960, Kishi suddenly called for a snap vote on the Treaty. When Socialist Diet members attempted a sit-in to block the vote, Kishi introduced 500 policemen into the Diet and had his political opponents physically dragged out by the police.{{sfn|Kapur|2018|pp=22-23}} Kishi then passed the revised Treaty with only members of his own party present.{{sfn|Kapur|2018|p=23}} Kishi's anti-democratic actions during this "[[Anpo Protests#The "May 19th Incident"|May 19 Incident]]" outraged much of the nation, with even conservative newspapers calling for Kishi's resignation.{{sfn|Kapur|2018|pp=24-25}} Thereafter, the anti-Treaty protest movement dramatically increased in size, with the Sōhyō labor federation carrying out a series of nationwide strikes and large crowds gathering around the National Diet on nearly a daily basis.{{sfn|Kapur|2018|pp=24-25}}

On June 10, [[White House Press Secretary]] [[James Hagerty]] arrived at Tokyo's [[Haneda Airport]] to make advance preparations for Eisenhower's impending arrival. Hagerty was picked up in a black car by US Ambassador to Japan [[Douglas MacArthur II]],{{sfn|Kapur|2018|p=27}} who deliberately provoked an international incident by ordering that the car be driven into a large crowd of protesters.{{sfn|Kapur|2018|p=29}} MacArthur felt that if the demonstrators were going to resort to violence it would be better for both the US and Japanese governments to know rather than waiting to test their resolve at the arrival of the President.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1958-60v18/d173|title=Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958–1960 Volume XVIII: Japan; Korea|pages=332 (Document 173)}}</ref> In the so-called "[[Anpo Protests#The "Hagerty Incident"|Hagerty Incident]]", the protesters surrounded the car, rocking it back and forth for more than an hour while standing on its roof, chanting anti-American slogans, and singing protest songs.{{sfn|Kapur|2018|p=27}} Ultimately, MacArthur and Hagerty had to be rescued by a [[US Marines]] military helicopter.{{sfn|Kapur|2018|p=29}}

On 15 June 1960, the radical student activists from Zengakuren attempted to storm the Diet compound once again, precipitating a fierce battle with police in which a female [[Tokyo University]] student named [[Michiko Kanba]] was killed.{{sfn|Kapur|2018|p=30}} Kanba's death led to the largest demonstrations ever in Japanese history, against both police brutality and the treaty. By this point, Kishi had become so unpopular that all the LDP factions united to demand that he resign. In April 1960, across the Korea straits, South Korean president [[Syngman Rhee]] had been overthrown in the [[April Revolution]], led by protesting university students, and at the time, there were serious fears in Japan that protests led by university students against the Kishi government might likewise lead to a revolution, making it imperative to ditch the very unpopular Kishi.

Desperate to stay in office long enough to host Eisenhower's visit, Kishi hoped to secure the streets in time for Eisenhower's arrival by calling out the [[Japan Self Defense Forces]]{{sfn|Kapur|2018|p=33}} and tens of thousands of right-wing thugs that would be provided by his friend, the yakuza-affiliated right-wing "fixer" [[Yoshio Kodama]].{{sfn|Kapur|2018|p=250}} However, he was talked out of these extreme measures by his cabinet, and thereafter had no choice but to cancel Eisenhower's visit and take responsibility for the chaos by announcing on June 16 that he would resign within one month's time.{{sfn|Kapur|2018|p=33}}

Despite Kishi's announcement, the anti-Treaty protests grew larger than ever, with the largest protest of the entire movement taking place on June 18.{{sfn|Kapur|2018|p=34}} However, on June 19, the revised Security Treaty automatically took effect in accordance with Japanese law, 30 days after having passed the lower house of the Diet.{{sfn|Kapur|2018|p=23}} On July 15, 1960, Kishi officially resigned and [[Hayato Ikeda]] became prime minister.{{sfn|Kapur|2018|p=34}} Ikeda soon made clear that there would be no further attempts by the LDP to revise Article 9 of the Constitution for the foreseeable future, which from Kishi's perspective, meant that all of his efforts had been for naught.{{sfn|Kapur|2018|p=81}}