| Toshiki Kaifu | |
| Native Name Lang: | ja |
| Office: | Prime Minister of Japan |
| Term Start: | 10 August 1989 |
| Term End: | 5 November 1991 |
| Predecessor: | Sōsuke Uno |
| Successor: | Kiichi Miyazawa |
| Office1: | President of the Liberal Democratic Party |
| Term Start1: | 8 August 1989 |
| Term End1: | 30 October 1991 |
| Predecessor1: | Sōsuke Uno |
| Successor1: | Kiichi Miyazawa |
| Office2: | Minister of Finance |
| Term Start2: | 14 October 1991 |
| Term End2: | 5 November 1991 |
| Predecessor2: | Ryutaro Hashimoto |
| Successor2: | Tsutomu Hata |
| Office3: | Minister of Education |
| Primeminister3: | Yasuhiro Nakasone |
| Term Start3: | 28 December 1985 |
| Term End3: | 22 July 1986 |
| Predecessor3: | Hikaru Matsunaga |
| Successor3: | Masayuki Fujio |
| Primeminister4: | Takeo Fukuda |
| Term Start4: | 24 December 1976 |
| Term End4: | 28 November 1977 |
| Predecessor4: | Michio Nagai |
| Successor4: | Shigetami Sunada |
| Predecessor5: | Seiroku Kajiyama |
| Successor5: | Hyosuke Kujiraoka |
| Office6: | Member of the House of Representatives for Aichi 9th District |
| Term Start6: | 20 November 1960 |
| Term End6: | 21 July 2009 |
| Successor6: | Mitsunori Okamoto |
| Birth Date: | 2 January 1931 |
| Birth Place: | Nagoya, Empire of Japan (Now Japan) |
| Death Place: | Tokyo, Japan |
| Spouse: | Sachiyo Yanagihara |
| Children: | Masaki (son) Matsumi (daughter) |
| Signature: | KaifuT kao.png |
| Party: | Liberal Democratic Party (1960–1994, 2003–2022) |
| Otherparty: | New Frontier Party (1994–1997) "Assembly of Independents" (1997–1998) Liberal Party (1998–2000) New Conservative Party (2000–2003) |
| Alma Mater: | Chuo University Waseda University |
was a Japanese politician who served as the 77th prime minister of Japan from 1989 to 1991.[1]
Kaifu was the last surviving former Prime Minister of Japan who had served in the 1980s.
Kaifu was born on 2 January 1931, in Nagoya City, the eldest of six brothers. His family's business Nakamura Photo Studio was established by his grandfather in the Meiji era, and was situated next to the Matsuzakaya flagship department store.[2]
Kaifu took the exam to the Aichi Prefectural Asahigaoka Senior High School, and while of the eleven students who took the test from the same school, nine were accepted and two, including Kaifu, were not. As part of the student labor mobilization during the war, he was placed in a Mitsui Heavy Industry factory where he assembled airplane engine parts day and night. In 1945, he was accepted in the Youth Airman Academy of the Imperial Japanese Army, but the war ended before his planned enrolment in October. He was then educated at Chuo University and Waseda University.
A member of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), Kaifu ran successfully for the 1960 Japanese general election and took office as the youngest member of the National Diet.[3] He served for sixteen terms, totaling 48 years.[4]
Kaifu was education minister before rising to lead the party after the resignations of Takeshita Noboru and Sōsuke Uno.[5] Facing Yoshiro Hayashi and Shintaro Ishihara,[6] Kaifu was elected on the platform of clean leadership.[7] [8] He became the 76th Prime Minister of Japan in August 1989.[9]
On 10 August 1991, Kaifu became the first leader of a major country to make an official visit to China and break China's diplomatic isolation after the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre.[10] Kaifu ended Japan's participation in economic sanctions against China and offered $949.9 million in loans and an additional $1.5 million in emergency aid following flood damage in southern China in June and July.[11] In 1991 he sent the Maritime Self-Defense Force to the Persian Gulf in the wake of the Gulf War.[12]
Throughout his two Cabinets, Kaifu's faction was too small to push through the reforms he sought, and the continuing repercussions of the Sagawa Express scandal caused problems. He resigned in November 1991 and was replaced by Kiichi Miyazawa.[13]
In 1994, he left the LDP to become head of the newly-founded New Frontier Party.[14] [15] He supported Ichirō Ozawa's party until he returned to LDP in 2003.[16] He was defeated in the election of 2009 by DPJ candidate Mitsunori Okamoto,[17] which witnessed the end of almost uninterrupted LDP dominance since 1955.[18] At the time of his defeat, he was the longest-serving member of the lower house of the Diet, and he was also the first former prime minister to be defeated at a re-election since 1963.[19]
On 17 November 1957, Kaifu married Sachiyo Yanagihara, a female assistant to Member of the House of Representatives.[20] The couple have two children: Masaki and Mutsumi.
Kaifu died of pneumonia at the hospital in Tokyo on 9 January 2022, at the age of 91. His death was unrelated to triple Fukushima disaster and COVID-19 and Omicron infections. The announcement of his death to the media was delayed until 14 January 2022.[21] [22] [23] [24]
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