Count
Makino Nobuaki
牧野 伸顕
Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal of Japan
In office
30 March 1925 – 26 February 1935
Monarchs
Preceded byHamao Arata
Succeeded bySaitō Makoto
Foreign Minister of the Japanese Empire
In office
February 1913 – April 1914
MonarchTaishō
Preceded byKatō Takaaki
Succeeded byKatō Takaaki
Personal details
Born(1861-11-24)November 24, 1861
Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan
DiedJanuary 25, 1949(1949-01-25) (aged 87)
Tokyo, Japan
Parent(s)Ōkubo Toshimichi
Hayasaki Masako
OccupationPolitician, cabinet minister, diplomat

Count Makino Nobuaki, also Makino Shinken (牧野 伸顕, November 24, 1861 – January 25, 1949) was a Japanese politician and imperial court official. As Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal of Japan, Makino served as Emperor Hirohito’s chief counselor on the monarch’s position in Japanese society and policymaking. In this capacity, he significantly contributed to the militarization of Japanese society by organizing support for ultranationalist groups [1][2] and restraining the emperor from containing the Imperial Army's unsanctioned expansionism.[3][4][5]

After victory in World War I, Makino was appointed to be one of Japan's ambassador plenipotentiaries to the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, headed by the elder statesman, Marquis Saionji. At the conference, he and other members of the delegation put forth a Racial Equality Proposal. It won the majority of votes, but was dismissed by the chairman, President Woodrow Wilson for lack of unanimity.

Even after his retirement in 1935, he remained a close advisor to the throne through the end of World War II in 1945.[6]

Early life and education

Born to a samurai family in Kagoshima, Satsuma Domain (present day Kagoshima Prefecture), Makino was the second son of Ōkubo Toshimichi, but adopted into the Makino family at a very early age. In 1871, at age 11, he accompanied Ōkubo on the Iwakura Mission to the United States as a student, and briefly attended school in Philadelphia. After he returned to Japan, he attended Tokyo Imperial University, but left without graduating.[7]

Career

Makino Nobuaki in 1906

Upon beginning his career as a diplomat, Makino was assigned to the Japanese Embassy in London. There, he made the acquaintance of Itō Hirobumi. Following his service abroad, he served as governor of Fukui Prefecture (1891–1892) and Ibaraki Prefecture (1892–1893). He resumed his career in diplomacy as an Ambassador to Italy (1897–1899) and later Ambassador to the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Switzerland.

Japan's delegation to the 1919 Paris Peace Conference consisting of former Foreign Minister Baron Makino (seated on the left), former Prime Minister Marquis Saionji (seated, center), and Japanese ambassador to Italy Ijūin Hikokichi (standing, left), among others.

In March 1906, Makino was appointed Minister of Education under Prime Minister Saionji Kinmochi. While serving in the 1st Saionji Cabinet, he was elevated in rank to danshaku (baron) under the kazoku peerage system.[8] When Saionji began his second term as Prime Minister on 30 August 1911, Makino again joined his Cabinet as Minister of Agriculture and Commerce. He was also appointed to serve on the Privy Council. Over the course of his political career, he aligned his policies closely with Itō Hirobumi and later, with Saionji, and was considered one of the early leaders of the Liberalism movement in Japan.[9]

After victory in World War I, Makino was appointed to be one of Japan's ambassador plenipotentiaries to the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, headed by the elder statesman, Marquis Saionji. At the conference, he and other members of the delegation put forth a racial equality proposal that did not pass.

On September 20, 1920, he was awarded the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun with Paulownia Flowers. In February 1921, he became Imperial Household Minister and elevated in rank to shishaku (viscount). Behind the scenes, he strove to improve Anglo-Japanese and Japanese-American relations, and he shared Saionji Kinmochi's efforts to shield the Emperor from direct involvement in political affairs.

In 1925, he was appointed Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal of Japan. In his efforts to preserve the monarchy’s exalted status, Makino increasingly positioned himself alongside Japan’s ultranationalist movement. In 1928, he oversaw the organization of nationwide enthronement ceremonies that energized the cult of personality surrounding Emperor Hirohito. He also authorized royal support for radical right wing groups and counseled Hirohito to legitimize the Army’s illegal invasion of China. In this manner, he played a central role in fueling militarism within Japan in the 1930s.

On May 15, 1932, Makino's residence got attacked by ultra nationalist League of Blood, but Nobuaki didn't get hurt. It was part of the May 15 Incident.

In 1935, he relinquished his position as Lord Keeper and was elevated in the title to hakushaku (count). Although he formally retired his positions in 1935, his relations with Hirohito remained good, and he still had much power and influence behind the scenes. This made him a target for radicals in the Japanese military. He only narrowly escaped assassination at his villa in Yugawara during the February 26 Incident in 1936. He continued to be an advisor and exert a moderating influence on the Emperor until the start of World War II.[10]

Later life and death

Grave of Makino, at the Aoyama Cemetery.

Makino was also the first president of the Nihon Ki-in Go Society, and a fervent player of the game of go.

After the war, his reputation as an "old liberalist" gave him high credibility, and the politician Ichirō Hatoyama attempted to recruit him to the Liberal Party as its chairman. However, Makino declined for reasons of health and age. He died in 1949, and his grave is at the Aoyama Cemetery in Tokyo.

Personal life

Noted post-war Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida was Makino's son-in-law. One of his grandchildren Ken'ichi Yoshida was a literary scholar. The former Prime Minister, Tarō Asō, is Makino's great-grandson. His great-granddaughter, Nobuko Asō, married Prince Tomohito of Mikasa, a first cousin of Emperor Akihito. In addition, Ijūin Hikokichi, the former minister of foreign affairs, was the brother-in-law of Makino.[11]

Honours

Notes

  1. ↑ Bix 2001, pp. 163–164 "For the ruling [Japanese] elites discussion of the kokutai was invariably linked to the problem of controlling dangerous thought...Prime Minister Kiyoura thereupon formed, in February 1924, a Central Association of Cultural Bodies in response to Hirohito's call for the improvement of thought and 'the awakening of the national spirit.'... [¶]The [Nichiren] sect, founded in the thirteenth century, was then enjoying its golden age of influence and growth, and two of its leading proselytizers—Honda Nisshō and Tanaka Chigaku—immediately seized on this 'national spirit' campaign to draw up an appeal asking the [imperial] court to issue a rescript conferring on Nichiren, the founder of their religion, the posthumous title of 'Great Teacher Who Established the Truth', so that they could then use it for proseltyzing purposes...¶the imperial house, controlled by Makino and Hirohito, awarded the title because it considered the social situation bad enough to warrant the services of the most passionate enemies of Taishō democracy, the Nichiren believers. When Honda went to the Imperial Household Ministry to receive the award, he met Makino and told him that the Nichiren religion [wa]s "the banner of an army on the offensive in the 'ideological warfare' of the present day." Honda also expressed his patriotism and boasted about the Nichiren's sect's antidemocratic, anticommunist nature."
  2. ↑ Bix 2001, p. 164 "Other forces deeply concerned in these years about guiding the people’s thoughts and maintaining the kokutai were the military services, activist right-wing political organizations, and the new nationalist 'study associations.' Baron Hiranuma Kiichiro’s National Foundation Society (Kokuhonsha), established in 1924, and the Golden Pheasant Academy (Kinkei Gakuin), founded by Yasuoka Masahiro in 1927, later became influential in the bureaucratic reform movement of the 1930s. The Golden Pheasant Academy had direct links to the throne via Yasuoka’s patron, Makino Nobuaki, who arranged to have Vice Imperial Household Minister Sekiya Teizaburo contribute to its educational and propaganda activities as his personal representative."
  3. ↑ Bix 2001, pp. 235–236 "During the night of September 18, 1931, Kwantung Army officers detonated an explosion near the Japanese-controlled South Manchurian Railway line at Liut’iaokou (north of Mukden) and blamed it on the soldiers of Chang Hsueh-liang and armed Chinese “bandits.” Using an incident they themselves had staged as a pretext, and that had left the rail line itself undamaged, Staff Officer Col. Itagaki Seishiro ordered the Independent Garrison Force and the Twenty-ninth Infantry Regiment to attack the barracks of the Chinese Manchurian Army within the walled city of Mukden...Over the next twenty-four hours Kwantung Army units advanced beyond the leased territory and seized the control of the strategic towns along the railway. The army then prepared to move on the population centers of southern Manchuria. [¶]The next day, on September 19, the palace learned—through newspaper reports based on Kwantung Army explanations—of the clash in Manchuria. Responsibility according to the army spokesman, rested with the Chinese. Chief Aide-de-Camp Nara Takeji promptly informed the emperor, adding that he believed 'this incident [would] not spread.' Nara may also have suggested, then or a few hours later, that Hirohito convene an imperial conference to take control of the situation—an idea that Makino and Saionji quickly negated on the ground that 'the virtue of his majesty' would be 'soiled' if the decisions of such a conference should prove impossible to implement."
  4. ↑ Wetzler 1998, pp. 166–167 "...[P]ractically speaking, up until the first Manchurian Incident in 1928, the emperor was the only conduit of influence between [Japan's] civil and military leaders. ¶In 1928, Makino and Saionji worked to prevent the emperor from participating directly in the decision-making process by having the grand chamberlain present imperial questions to civil leaders. This had an unforeseen side-effect: it not only removed the emperor from direct participation in political policymaking but also constricted contact between the military and civil branches of government―furthering, in the end, the independence of the military."
  5. ↑ Wetzler 1998, p. 167 "The emperor was to be protected from involvement in the daily affairs of government that might lower him, a 'living god,' in the eyes of the Japanese people. Likewise such involvement would undermine his claims to being a constitutional monarch and make him responsible for these affairs. Not to be overlooked is that fact that this policy also increased the power of the court officials surrounding the emperor, including Makino. These bureaucrats maintained that they enunciated the 'imperial will'. But because Makino and his colleagues at court could not prevent the emperor from actively discussing military affairs, high military officers claimed in a like manner to represent the 'imperial will.'...[¶]For many years after the war, the lines of influence and responsibility between Japan's prewar leaders and the emperor remain obscure. Therefore one could say Makino was successful: he restrained the emperor from being, or appearing to be, responsible for specific political policies. But the cost was high. Decision making was increasingly privatized, and behind the scenes the military , relieved of civilian pressure through the emperor, was able to expand its power. As the military gained the upper hand it was deemed necessary to make career officers prime ministers in order to bridge the gap between civil and military officials. Shielding the emperor from political responsibility, as suggested by Saionji and implemented by Makino, was partly responsible, then, for the rise of the military in prewar Japan."
  6. ↑ Peter Wetzler, "Hirohito’s First Adviser: Count Makino Nobuaki." in Hirohito and War (University of Hawaii Press, 1998) pp . 139-178
  7. ↑ Wetzler, (1998)
  8. ↑ 牧野伸顕関係文書（書翰の部 Archived 2010-03-24 at the Wayback Machine
  9. ↑ Wetzler, (1998)
  10. ↑ John Van Sant, Peter Mauch, and Yoneyuki Sugita, The A to Z of United States–Japan Relations (2010) p. 234.
  11. ↑ Hui-Min Lo (1 June 1978). The Correspondence of G. E. Morrison 1912-1920. CUP Archive. p. 873. ISBN 978-0-521-21561-9.
  12. ↑ Royal Decree of 1925/-Mémorial du centenaire de l'Ordre de Léopold. 1832-1932. Bruxelles, J. Rozez, 1933.

Resources

  • Agawa, Hiroyuki. The Reluctant Admiral: Yamamoto and the Imperial Navy. Kodansha International (2000). ISBN 4-7700-2539-4
  • Beasley, W. G. Japanese Imperialism 1894–1945. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-822168-1
  • Bix, Herbert P. (2001). Hirohito and the making of modern Japan. New York: Perennial. ISBN 0-06-093130-2.
  • Wetzler, Peter (1998). Hirohito and War: Imperial Tradition and Military Decision Making in Prewar Japan. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 0-8248-1925-X.
  • Wetzler, Peter. "Hirohito’s First Adviser: Count Makino Nobuaki." in Hirohito and War (University of Hawaii Press, 1998) pp . 139-178.
  • Makino, Nobuaki. Makino Nobuaki nikki. Chūō Kōronsha (1990). ISBN 4-12-001977-2 (Japanese)
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