Yoshisuke Aikawa

nihongo|Yoshisuke Aikawa (or Gisuke Ayukawa)|鮎川 義介|Aikawa Yoshisuke|extra=6 November 1880 - 13 February 1967 was a Japanese entrepreneur, businessman, and politician, noteworthy as the founder and first president of the Nissan "zaibatsu" between 1931 and 1945.

Biography

Aikawa was born in what is now part of Yamaguchi city, Yamaguchi prefecture. His mother was the niece of Meiji period "genrō" Inoue Kaoru. He graduated from the engineering department of Tokyo Imperial University in 1903 and went to work for Shibaura Seisakusho, the forerunner of Toshiba. [Van Wolferen, The Enigma of Japanese Power, pp.268]

Although his pay was very low, he managed to save enough to make a trip to the United States, where he studied malleable cast iron technology. After his return to Japan, with the backing of Inoue Kaoru and other ex-Chōshū politicians in the Diet of Japan, he established the Tobata Foundry in Kyūshū in 1909. The company is now known as Hitachi Kinzoku (Hitachi Metals Company Ltd).

In 1928, he became president of the Kuhara Mining Company (present day Nippon Mining & Metals Company) taking over from his brother in law Fusanosuke Kuhara and created a holding company called Nihon Sangyo, or Nissan for short. Kuhara went on to a career in politics, forging ties with future Prime Minister Giichi Tanaka and other political and military leaders, which Aikawa would later use to his advantage. [Samuels, Rich Nation, Strong Army. pp.102]

In the stock market boom following the 1931 Manchurian Incident, Aikawa used the opportunity to buy majority shareholdings in 132 subsidiary companies of Nissan to create a new "zaibatsu," the Nissan Konzerne. The companies included Nissan Motors, Isuzu, NEC Corporation, Nippon Mining Holdings Company, Nissan Chemicals, Hitachi, Nichiyu Corporation, Nichirei Corporation, Nissan Marine Insurance, Nissan Mutual Life Insurance and others. The group included some of the most technologically advanced companies in Japan at the time. [Samuels, Rich Nation, Strong Army. pp.102]

In 1937, at the invitation of his relative Nobusuke Kishi, he moved to Manchukuo and agreed with the Japanese Kwantung Army's vision of a syndicalist economy and centralized industrial development plan for Manchukuo. He also moved the headquarters of Nissan to Manchukuo, whereit became the core of the Manchurian Industrial Development Company, a new Manchukuo "zaibatsu", partly owned by Nissan and the Manchukuo government.

In his position as president and chairman Aikawa guided all industrial efforts in Manchukuo, implementing two five-year plans during the 1930s, following some the previous economical and industrial lines envisioned Army ideologist Naoki Hoshino. However, Aikawa differed from Noshino's original conception in that he favored a more monopolistic approach, arguing that the economic state of Manchukuo was still too primitive to permit free marketcapitalism. [Samuels, Rich Nation, Strong Army. pp.103] Aikawa also received bank loans from American steel industrialists to support the Manchukuo economy, which created considerable controversy in the United States with its policy of Non-recognition.

However, while his economic views were in line with Imperial Japanese Army policy, his political views were not. Aikawa was a strong opponent of the Tripartite Alliance, and predicted that the forces of the United Kingdom and France would eventually prevail over Nazi Germany should a general war break out. He supported the Fugu Plan, a project to settle Jewish refugees in Manchukuo. In 1942, at the instigation of the Kwantung Army, Aikawa resigned chairman of the Manchurian Industrial Development Company, and moved back to Japan. [Young, Japan's Total Empire, pp.218]

After the surrender of Japan, Aikawa was arrested by the American occupation authorities and incarcerated in Sugamo Prison for 20 months as a Class A war crimes suspect. He was freed before his case came to trial, however, during this time, the Nissan "zaibatsu" was dissolved.

After his release, Aikawa played a key role in post-war economic reconstruction of Japan, and purchased a commercial bank to organize loans to small companies. He served as president of Teikoku Oil Company and of the Japan Petroleum Exploration Company, and in 1953, was elected to a seat in the House of Councilors of the Diet of Japan. With the help of Nobusuke Kishi, then prime minister, he achieved his goal in implementing economic-control law and policies as leader of the "Chuseiren", a pressure group that became the main federation of small and medium sized companies in the 1960s.

Aikawa died of acute gall bladder inflamation in 1967. His grave is at the Tama Cemetery outside Tokyo.

References

*cite book
last = Matsusaka
first = Tak
year = 2003
title = The Making of Japanese Manchuria, 1904-1932
publisher = Harvard University Asia Center
location =
id = ISBN 0674012062
*cite book
last = Samuels
first = Richard J
year = 1996
title ="Rich Nation, Strong Army": National Security and the Technological Transformation of Japan
publisher = Cornell University Press
location =
id = ISBN 0801499941
*cite book
last = Young
first = Louise
year = 1999
title = Japan's Total Empire: Manchuria and the Culture of Wartime Imperialism
publisher = University of California Press
location =
id = ISBN 0520219341
*cite book
last = Van Wolferen
first = Karel
year = 1989
title = The Enigma of Japanese Power
publisher = MacMillan
location =
id = ISBN 0679728023

External links

* [http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=7763179 Find a Grave]

Notes