SNA (Tokyo) — From 1922-1923, Admiral Tomosaburo Kato led the Japanese government. While in principle it was a clear setback for democracy to have a military man and not an elected politician running the administration, Kato skillfully carried out the sensitive tasks of cutting defense budgets and ending some internationally controversial military deployments.

Transcript

On June 12, 1922, Tomosaburo Kato became prime minister of Japan.

As a Navy admiral with no political party connection, he himself had not expected to be asked.

It was a setback for Taisho Era democracy. Takashi Hara had worked for many years to establish the principle that elected politicians should assume the top office, and Hara’s own Constitutional Association of Political Friends held a firm majority in the House of Representatives.

But as the short premiership of Korekiyo Takahashi had amply demonstrated, the ruling party was split internally and it had no one who was truly fit to become the next national leader.

When Genro Masayoshi Matsukata suggested fellow Satsuma man Admiral Kato, who had just returned from ably representing the nation at the Washington Naval Conference, the ruling party found that to be an acceptable temporary solution.

Kato thus formed a Cabinet with no political party men at all, though with the ruling party’s support on budgetary and other matters within the House of Representatives.

The timing turned out to be right, because it was sensitive military matters which most needed to be dealt with at this juncture.

The Imperial Japanese Navy faced difficult budgetary and equipment cutbacks due to the international agreements signed at the Washington Naval Conference.

Even more touchy was implementation of the full withdrawal of the Imperial Japanese Army from both the Shandong Peninsula in China and the anti-Soviet expedition in Siberia. The Army wasn’t happy about the evacuations, but their leadership reluctantly complied.

Kato navigated these delicate tasks skillfully, but he didn’t have a chance to do more. He died of stomach cancer while still in office on August 24, 1923, after a term of 1 year and 74 days.

This article was originally published on February 12, 2023, in the “Japan and the World” newsletter. Become a Shingetsu News supporter on Patreon and receive the newsletter by email each Monday morning.