SNA (Tokyo) — From 1932-1934, Admiral Makoto Saito served as prime minister, ending political party rule but nevertheless trying to steer a relatively moderate path. In foreign policy, however, his administration continued to antagonize the West, including through Japan’s withdrawal from the League of Nations.

Transcript

On May 26, 1932, Makoto Saito became prime minister of Japan.

As an Imperial Navy admiral who was not a member of a political party, his ascension to the top office was the end of the more democratic period represented by the previous six premierships.

Saito, however, was a relative moderate within the military and he appointed leading politicians from both political parties to Cabinet positions, thus creating a national unity government. Its broad mandate was to overcome the economic and political crisis which had led to the assassinations of two of the last three civilian prime ministers.

This required a delicate balance involving both the appeasement of radical rightwing sentiment as well as an effort to steer it away from the most dangerous directions.

In its mission to achieve moderation, the Saito Cabinet had a number of allies. Not only were some leading politicians such as Finance Minister Korekiyo Takahashi trying to help, but so were top level figures such as the last of the Genro, Kinmochi Saionji.

In this respect, good news came from the economy. Takahashi’s economic stimulus measures were helping prosperity return to the country as the months passed. This served to ameliorate discontent rising from the Japanese people as a whole.

But the military radicalism problem did not subside. There was widespread sympathy even for the eleven Navy officers who had assassinated former Prime Minister Tsuyoshi Inukai. They ended up receiving weak sentences, hardly forming much of a deterrent against future rightwing assassination plots.

In foreign policy, the Saito Cabinet adopted a hard line.

In September 1932, the government signed the Manchukuo Protocol, which bestowed Japan’s official diplomatic recognition upon the Imperial Army’s supposedly-independent puppet state. The previous Inukai administration had refused to take this step.

The Manchuria issue continued to poison Japanese relations with both the West and, of course, nationalist China.

Less than a month after the Manchukuo Protocol was signed, the League of Nations made public the Lytton Report, based on an on-site investigation, which effectively dismissed the notion that the Imperial Army’s aggression in Manchuria had been based on a real threat from the previous Chinese administration.

After some back-and-forth, this led to the deployment of hardline diplomat Yosuke Matsuoka to Geneva, who denounced the League of Nations and declared Japan’s withdrawal from the international organization in March 1933.

The Saito administration had good reason to not to be too concerned about the diplomatic fallout, since the same month that Japan pulled out of the League of Nations, Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany. The post-Great War order in Europe was breaking down, and the Western Powers now had little scope to contemplate interventions in East Asia.

The bigger problem was much closer to home, even inside the Cabinet itself—and that was radical Army Minister Sadao Araki.

Araki was the leader of the Army’s most aggressive and ideological wing, coming to be called the Imperial Way Faction. It desired that Japan become a totalitarian government at home, consolidate its position in Manchuria, and then strike north and launch a war against the Soviet Union within a few years. In May 1933, a ceasefire with China regarding Manchuria had been reached. Araki and his followers prepared for the next big step.

Fortunately for the moderates, including Finance Minister Takahashi, Araki soon proved that he wasn’t such a skillful bureaucratic infighter. They managed to contain and outmaneuver him within the Cabinet, causing even Araki’s followers to lose faith in him. In January 1934, Araki fell ill and used the opportunity to resign.

Senjuro Hayashi replaced Araki as Army Minister. Hayashi believed much more time would be needed before Japan would be in a position to confront the Soviet Union. This headed off the immediate crisis.

Saito had thus done reasonably well in performing his main task of stabilizing the domestic situation. There was even some speculation that he might declare success, step aside, and allow political party rule to resume.

But then the Teijin scandal arose out of nowhere. This scandal involved allegations that more than a dozen people, including members of the Saito Cabinet, had engaged in financial improprieties to enrich themselves. All defendants were later cleared, and the whole controversy may have been fabricated by the rightwing official Kiichiro Hiranuma, but it created public outrage and caused the Saito Cabinet to resign.

Makoto Saito stepped down as prime minister on July 8, 1934, after a term of two years and 44 days. He never returned to the top office, but he played a role in political events to come.

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