| Shintaro Ishihara (石原慎太郎?) | |
| |
| Incumbent | |
| Assumed office 1999 | |
Member of the House of Councillors | |
| In office 1968 – 1972 | |
Member of the House of Representatives | |
| In office 1972 – 1995 | |
| Constituency | Tokyo 2nd district |
|---|---|
| Born | September 30 1932 |
| Political party | Liberal Democratic Party |
Shintaro Ishihara (石原 慎太郎 Ishihara Shintarō?, born September 30, 1932) is a Japanese author, politician and the governor of Tokyo since 1999. He is known outside Japan primarily for his controversial statements regarding ethnicity and race.
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Shintaro was born in Kobe. His father Kiyoshi was an employee, later a general manager, of a shipping company. Shintaro grew up in Zushi, a beach city, where he started sailing.Young Shintaro asked his father for a sailboat. His father bought him a wooden dinghy(sailboat). Ishihara later wrote that the small sailboat "changed and formed the life of Shintaro and Yujiro." He also said, "The sea is my life\'s <<halo>>". 海は(私にとって)人生の光背だ [1] He had a younger brother named Yujiro.Yujiro who was two years younger than Shintaro. Yujiro died in 1987, at age of 52, a famous actor in Japan.
In 1951, his father died suddenly at his office. when Shintaro was 19 years old. In 1952, he entered Hitotsubashi University, and graduated in 1956. Just two months before graduation, Shintaro won the Akutagawa Prize (Japan\'s most prestigious literary prize) for the novel Season of the Sun"Season of the Sun"? "Seasons in the Sun"? See [2] (太陽の季節 Taiyō no kisetsu?).Profile of the Governor, Tokyo Metropolitan Goverment His brother Yujiro played a supporting role in the screen adaptation of the novel, and the two soon became the center of a youth-oriented cult."Mayors: Shintaro Ishihara: Governor of Tokyo," CityMayors.com.
Shintaro Ishihara appearing in a bit part in the 1956 Japanese film "Season of the Sun" (太陽の季節), based on his novel of the same name.In the early 1960s, he concentrated on writing, including plays, novels, and a musical version of Treasure Island. He was involved in directing, ran a theater company, traveled to the North Pole, raced his own yacht, and crossed South America on a motorcycle. From 1967 to 1968, he covered the Vietnam War as a reporter for the Yomiuri Shimbun.
One of his later novels, Lost Country (1982), speculated about Japan under the control of the Soviet Union.Tim Larimer, "Rabble Rouser," TIME Asia, April 24, 2000.
In 1968, Ishihara ran as a candidate on the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) national slate for the House of Councillors. He placed first on the LDP list with an unprecedented three million votes.[citation needed] After four years in the upper house, Ishihara ran for the House of Representatives representing the second district of Tokyo, and again won election.
As a Diet member, Ishihara was often critical of the LDP.[citation needed] In 1973, he joined with thirty other LDP lawmakers in the anti-communist Seirankai or "Blue Storm Group"; the group gained notoriety in the media for sealing a pledge of unity in their own blood.
Ishihara ran for Governor of Tokyo in 1975 but lost to the popular Socialist incumbent Ryokichi Minobe. He returned to the House of Representatives afterward, and worked his way up the party\'s internal ladder, serving as Director-General of the Environment Agency under Takeo Fukuda (1976) and Minister of Transport under Noboru Takeshita (1989). During the 1980s, Ishihara was a highly visible and popular LDP figure, but unable to win enough internal support to form a true faction and move up the national political ladder."\'There\'s No Need For an Apology\': Tokyo\'s boisterous governor is back in the headlines," TIME Asia, April 24, 2000.
In 1989, shortly after losing a highly contested race for the party presidency, Ishihara came to the attention of the West through his book, The Japan That Can Say No (「NO」と言える日本 "No" to ieru Nippon?), co-authored with then-Sony chairman Akio Morita. The book called on his fellow countrymen to stand up to the United States.
Ishihara dropped out of national politics in 1995, ending a 25-year career in the Diet. However, in 1999, he ran on an independent platform and was elected governor of Tokyo.
Ishihara is married to Noriko Ishihara and has four sons. Members of the House of Representatives Nobuteru Ishihara and Hirotaka Ishihara are his eldest and third sons; actor and weatherman Yoshizumi Ishihara is his second son. His youngest son, Nobuhiro Ishihara, is a jetsetting painter involved in accusations of nepotism [3]. Nationally famous deceased actor Yujiro Ishihara was his younger brother.
Shintaro Ishihara (upper) and Yukio Mishima (lower) in 1956.
Translation in English
Ishihara is generally described as one of Japan\'s most prominent "right-wing" politicians. He has also generated controversy due to his support for Japanese nationalism, frequent visits to Yasukuni Shrine and several displays of alleged racism, historical revisionism and sexism. He sometimes implied that he had little affection for Chinese and Koreans. He apparently declares that he is attached to Taiwan (Republic of China) in a possible move to irritate mainland China regarding the Chinese claim of sovereignty over the Taiwanese territory. He has also generated heat from PETA for the reduction of the 37,000 crow population throughout Tokyo."Policy Speech by Governor of Tokyo, Shintaro Ishihara," First Regular Session of the Metropolitan Assembly, 2002.
Among Ishihara\'s moves as governor, he:
Ishihara has often been critical of Japan\'s foreign policy as being non-assertive. Regarding Japan\'s relationship with the US, he stated that "The country I dislike most in terms of U.S.-Japan ties is Japan, because it\'s a country that can\'t assert itself."
Ishihara has also long been critical of the PRC government. He invited the Dalai Lama and the President of the Republic of China Lee Teng-hui to Tokyo that agitated the government of the People\'s Republic of China.
Ishihara is deeply interested in the North Korean abduction issue, and is calling for economic sanctions against North Korea.[citation needed]
Following Ishihara\'s campaign to bid Tokyo for the 2016 Summer Olympics, he has since eased his criticism of the Chinese government. He accepted an invitation to attend the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, and was selected as a torch-bearer for the Japan leg of the 2008 Olympic Torch Relay. [4]
On April 9, 2000, in a speech before a Self-Defense Forces group, Ishihara publicly stated that atrocious crimes have been committed repeatedly by illegally entered sangokujin (Japanese: 三国人 (third country national); a term commonly viewed as derogatory) and foreigners, and speculated that in the event a natural disaster struck the Tokyo area, they would be likely to cause civil disorder.original in Japanese: "今日の東京をみますと、不法入国した多くの三国人、外国人が非常に凶悪な犯罪を繰り返している。もはや東京の犯罪の形は過去と違ってきた。こういう状況で、すごく大きな災害が起きた時には大きな大きな騒じょう事件すらですね想定される、そういう現状であります。こういうことに対処するためには我々警察の力をもっても限りがある。だからこそ、そういう時に皆さんに出動願って、災害の救急だけではなしに、やはり治安の維持も1つ皆さんの大きな目的として遂行して頂きたいということを期待しております。" His comment invoked calls for his resignation, demands for an apology and fears among residents of Korean descent in Japan. Regarding this statement, Ishihara later said:
Much of the criticism of this statement involved the historical significance of the term: sangokujin historically referred to ethnic Chinese and Koreans, working in Japan, many of whom were actually attacked by mobs of Japanese people following the Great Kantō earthquake of 1923.
On February 20, 2006, Ishihara also said: "Roppongi is now virtually a foreign neighborhood. Africans — I don\'t mean African-Americans — who don\'t speak English are there doing who knows what. This is leading to new forms of crime such as car theft. We should be letting in people who are intelligent.""Japan Threatened by China, Its Own Timidity: Ishihara", Bloomberg, February 20, 2007.
Ishihara stated in a 2001 interview with women\'s magazine Shukan Josei that he subscribed to a theory that "old women who live after they have lost their reproductive function are useless and are committing a sin," adding that he "couldn\'t say this as a politician." He was criticized in the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly for these comments, but responded that the criticism was driven by "tyrant" "old women."Japan Civil Liberties Union, "Committee on Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, The Third Consideration of Japanese Governmental Report: Proposal of List of Issues for Pre-sessional Working Group."
During an inauguration of a university building in 2004, Ishihara stated that French is unqualified as an international language because it is "a language in which nobody can count," referring to the counting system in French, which he believed to be based on units of twenty rather than ten (as is the case in Japanese and English). The statement led to a lawsuit from several language schools in 2005. Ishihara subsequently responded to comments that he did not disrespect French culture by professing his love of French literature on Japanese TV news.Robert Reed, "The governor\'s artistic side," Daily Yomiuri, July 28, 2005.
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