Hiromu Nonaka

Hiromu Nonaka was born on 20 October 1925 in Sonobe, Kyoto Prefecture (now part of the city of Nantan) into a family of burakumin background. After graduating from Kyoto Prefectural Sonobe Junior High School in 1943, Nonaka worked for the Japanese National Railways (JNR) in Osaka, an office managed at the time by future prime minister Eisaku Sato.

Nonaka encountered discrimination in his youth as a member of the burakumin group, and later said this discrimination was a factor in his decision to leave JNR and enter politics.[1] Nonaka entered local politics in Sonobe, where he served as a member of the local assembly from 1951 to 1958, and as mayor from 1958 to 1966. Nonaka then won a seat in the prefectural assembly of Kyoto Prefecture and served from 1967 to 1978. Nonaka briefly served as vice-governor of Kyoto Prefecture in 1978, but resigned to establish and serve as the chairman of Japan's first care facility for individuals with profound physical disabilities.

Nonaka entered the House of Representatives through the Kyoto 2nd district by-election of 1983, in which two seats were open following the death of incumbent representatives Senichi Tanigaki and Shigesaburo Maeo. Tanigaki's son Sadakazu Tanigaki won the most votes in the election, followed by Nonaka.

In the 1980s, Nonaka was part of the House faction headed by Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). In 1988, Nonaka rose to prominence following the Recruit scandal, which led to the collapse of the Takeshita's faction. The 1993 general election saw the LDP enter the opposition in Japan for the first time in decades. As few LDP Diet members had experience being part of the opposition, Nonaka drew on his experience as part of the local and prefectural assembly opposition in Kyoto to become one of the most prominent Diet critics of the government of Morihiro Hosokawa.

Hiromu Nonaka was inaugurated as Minister of State on June 30, 1994.

Following the collapse of the Hosokawa-led coalition in 1994, Nonaka entered the Cabinet for the first time as part of the government of Tomiichi Murayama.

Nonaka served as Minister of Home Affairs through the Tokyo subway sarin attack of 1995, and drew attention for his personal apology to a suspect falsely accused of poisoning his wife and neighbors with sarin.[1]

In 1998, at the request of Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto, Nonaka travelled to China to express remorse to victims of the Nanjing massacre.[2] Later that year, in response to a demand for further apologies by General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party Jiang Zemin, Nonaka described the issue as a "finished problem."[3]

In 1998, Nonaka was named Chief Cabinet Secretary under Prime Minister Keizō Obuchi, where he wielded an unusual amount of power in this role. Nonaka was viewed by many insiders as a shadow leader of the government, arranging a major bank bailout plan and bringing the faction led by Ichiro Ozawa into the governing coalition.[1] A TIME article in December 1998 called Nonaka "Japan's most powerful man."[4]

In 2000, as LDP secretary-general, Nonaka played a key role in defeating a no-confidence motion against Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori.[5][6]

In 2001, Nonaka was seen as a contender for the presidency of the LDP, and thereby for Prime Minister of Japan. Nonaka was reluctant to take the position as it would place his background as a burakumin in the spotlight.[7] During his candidacy, future Prime Minister Tarō Asō allegedly made remarks disparaging towards Nonaka's burakumin heritage, for which Nonaka later remarked that he would "never forgive" Asō.[8] Asō denied making the remarks when questioned in 2005.[7] Nonaka ultimately supported Ryutaro Hashimoto in the election, but Hashimoto lost to Junichiro Koizumi.[9]

Koizumi's politics led to a decline in the power of LDP factions, and Nonaka vigorously opposed the re-election of Koizumi as LDP president in September 2003, stating that "this election will decide whether Japan will be able to survive or go into decline as a nation."[10] After Koizumi was re-elected, Nonaka announced his retirement from politics in October 2003. Nonaka did not run in the 2003 general election, but campaigned for the LDP candidate in his district in Kyoto Prefecture.[11]

Following his 2003 departure from the Diet, Nonaka served as chairman of the National Federation of Land Improvement Industry Groups, a powerful supporter of the LDP. After the formation of the Democratic Party of Japan government in 2009, Nonaka resigned from the LDP in 2011 for the stated reason of preserving his neutrality. However, Nonaka rejoined the LDP in 2016.[12]

On 5 June 2013, Nonaka led a delegation including former Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama to visit Beijing and confer with Liu Yunshan, a member of the Politburo Standing Committee of the Chinese Communist Party. Nonaka told reporters that as a young politician in the 1970s, he had heard Kakuei Tanaka state that an agreement had been reached to shelve the dispute between Japan and China over the Senkaku Islands in order to normalize relations between the countries.[13] Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga denied the claim as "baseless" and alleged that Nonaka had been influenced by "Chinese hospitality."

In 2017, Nonaka publicly criticized the LDP's plans to revise Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution, stating that "Japan should not go through the history of war again."[14]

Nonaka died on 26 January 2018, at the age of 92, at a hospital in the Shimogyō Ward of Kyoto.[15]

• Profile of Hiromu Nonaka