From 1916-1918, General Masatake Terauchi spent a mostly unhappy two years as prime minister of Japan. He successfully carried forward Japan’s involvement in the First World War, but shadows darkened both at home and abroad.
From 1914-1916, Shigenobu Okuma made an unlikely return as prime minister, this time establishing a more stable administration in cooperation with the conservative oligarchs. Okuma and his dynamic Foreign Minister Takaaki Kato led the nation into the First World War, which for Japan was a relatively profitable opportunity.
In 1912-1913, Taro Katsura returned for a third and final term as prime minister, but rather than cool the embers of the Taisho Political Crisis, he unexpectedly pours fuel on the fire.
From 1908-1911, Taro Katsura led a second relatively long and stable administration of Japan. The most consequential event was his government’s decision to fully annex the Korean Peninsula, wiping out that neighboring nation’s independent legal existence.
From 1906-1908, aristocrat Kinmochi Saionji established the first stable government based on political party rule. Its leading achievement was to nationalize the country’s railroads and create the Japan National Railways system.
From 1901-1906, Taro Katsura served a highly consequential term as prime minister which featured the emergence of a new generation to the top leadership post and a war which established Japan as a Great Power in international affairs.
The appointment of moderate Yoshimasa Hayashi as Japanese foreign minister has elicited a good deal of discussion in the Chinese news media, with voices on both sides of the Taiwan Strait trying to interpret what it means for the region in an era of heightened tensions.
The 500 Dot Com casino bribery scandal was yet another instance of major corruption that first emerged in the Shinzo Abe era.
The Moritomo Gakuen school affair was the first of the major scandals that shook the government of Shinzo Abe beginning in February 2017. This a working timeline which the Shingetsu News Agency intends to fill out and update in the weeks and months ahead.
Throughout its nearly eight years in power, the Abe administration pressed forward with all its might to build a new US airbase at Henoko, Okinawa.
