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Junior Second RankHitoshi Ashida
芦田 均
Official portrait, 1948
Prime Minister of Japan
In office 10 March 1948 – 15 October 1948
Monarch	Shōwa
Governor	Douglas MacArthur
Deputy	Suehiro Nishio
Preceded by	Tetsu Katayama
Succeeded by	Shigeru Yoshida
Personal details
Born	(1887-11-15)15 November 1887 Fukuchiyama, Japan
Died	20 June 1959(1959-06-20) (aged 71) Tokyo, Japan
Political party	Liberal Democratic Party (1955–1959)
Other political affiliations	Rikken Seiyūkai (Before 1945) Liberal Party (1945–1947) Democratic Party (1947–1950) National Democratic Party (1950–1952) Kaishintō (1952–1954) Japan Democratic Party (1954–1955)
Alma mater	Tokyo Imperial University
Signature

Hitoshi Ashida (芦田 均, Ashida Hitoshi, 15 November 1887 – 20 June 1959) was a Japanese politician who served as Prime Minister of Japan in 1948. He was a prominent figure in the immediate postwar political landscape, but was forced to resign his leadership responsibilities after a corruption scandal (Shōwa Denkō Jiken) targeting two of his cabinet ministers.

Early life

Ashida was born in Fukuchiyama, Kyoto, the second son of politician and banker Shikanosuke Ashida. His father had been in the House of Representatives and served as director of Nōkō Bank. His grandfather was landed magnate and village headman (nanushi) Jizaemon Ashida.

He studied French civil law at Tokyo Imperial University. After graduation, he worked in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for twenty years.

Early career

In 1932, Ashida ran his first successful campaign for a seat in the House of Representatives as a member of the Seiyūkai Party. He sided with Ichirō Hatoyama's "orthodox" wing following the Seiyukai's split in 1939.

After the war, Ashida won a seat in the new Diet as a member of the Liberal Party, from which he split to merge with Kijūrō Shidehara's Progressive Party to form the Democratic Party. Ashida was elected president of the new party, and became minister of foreign affairs in 1947 under Socialist prime minister Tetsu Katayama.

He also chaired the Committee on the Bill for Revision of the Imperial Constitution, and served as the chairman of the Kenpō Fukyū Kai, a society created to promote the revised Constitution of Japan, from 1946 to 1948. During his term, he made a key amendment to Article Nine of the planned Japanese Constitution, which enabled the creation of the Japanese Self-Defense Force.

Prime minister and later life

Ashida became prime minister in 1948, leading a coalition government of Democratic and Socialist members. His tenure ended just seven months after it began. Two of his cabinet ministers were accused of corruption in the Showa Electric scandal, which forced the cabinet to resign. One of them was Takeo Kurusu, a state minister without a portfolio.

Ashida's government was hampered by taking over at the end of the fiscal year. The country operated on a temporary budget until a budget was passed in July.

After his tenure as prime minister, Ashida focused on Japan's position in Asia and re-armament. He became outspoken in support of creating a national defense force after the outbreak of the Korean War, fearing that a similar conflict may occur in Japan. Ashida also promoted the idea of forming a Japanese group of volunteers to fight alongside United Nations Command in support of the Republic of Korea. In 1951, he gave speaking tours across Japan advocating for his interpretation of Article 9, stating that it does not impose restrictions on Japan preparing a force for defensive purposes.

In 1958, Ashida was cleared of all charges in relation to corruption allegations. He died a year later at the age of seventy-one.

References

1. "国会会議録検索システム". National Diet of Japan. Retrieved 2022-03-05.
2. Record of members of the Kyoto Prefectural Assembly 京都府議会歴代議員録. 京都府議会事務局. 京都府議会. 1961. pp. 889–890.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
3. "Alfred Hussey, Memorandum on Program for Publicizing the new Japanese Constitution, February 5, 1947". Birth of the Japanese Constitution. National Diet Library of Japan. Retrieved 24 May 2013.
4. "The Constitution of Japan (The Official Gazettes, a Special Edition)". World Digital Library. Retrieved 24 May 2013.
5. Fumiko Sasaki (26 July 2012). Nationalism, Political Realism and Democracy in Japan: The thought of Masao Maruyama. Routledge. p. 136. ISBN 978-1-136-31378-3. Retrieved 24 May 2013.
6. Masaru Kōno (1997). Japan's postwar party politics. Princeton University Press. p. 64. ISBN 978-0-691-01596-5. Retrieved 24 May 2013.
7. Richard H. Mitchell (1996). Political Bribery in Japan. University of Hawaii University. pp. 102–103. doi:10.1515/9780824863968. ISBN 9780824863968.
8. Cole, Totten & Uyehara 1966, pp. 154.
9. Hajimu, Masuda (July 2012). "Fear of World War III: Social Politics of Japan's Rearmament and Peace Movements, 1950–3". Journal of Contemporary History. 47 (3): 551–571. doi:10.1177/0022009412441650. ISSN 0022-0094. S2CID 154135817.

Works cited

• Cole, Allan; Totten, George; Uyehara, Cecil (1966). Socialist Parties In Postwar Japan. Yale University Press.

External links

• Media related to Hitoshi Ashida at Wikimedia Commons

v t e Prime ministers of Japan (list)
Empire of Japan (1868–1947)	Meiji era (1868–1912) H. Itō Kuroda Sanjō (caretaker) Yamagata Matsukata H. Itō Kuroda (acting) Matsukata H. Itō Ōkuma Yamagata H. Itō Saionji (acting) Katsura Saionji Taishō era (1912–1926) Katsura Saionji Katsura Yamamoto Ōkuma Terauchi Hara Uchida (acting) Takahashi To. Katō Uchida (acting) Yamamoto Kiyoura Ta. Katō Wakatsuki Shōwa era (1926–1947) G. Tanaka Hamaguchi Shidehara (acting) Hamaguchi Wakatsuki Inukai Takahashi (acting) Saitō Okada Gotō (acting) Okada Hirota Hayashi Konoe Hiranuma N. Abe Yonai Konoe Tōjō Koiso K. Suzuki Higashikuni Shidehara Yoshida
State of Japan (1947–present)	Shōwa era (1947–1989) Katayama Ashida Yoshida I. Hatoyama Ishibashi Kishi Ikeda Satō K. Tanaka Miki T. Fukuda Ōhira M. Itō (acting) Z. Suzuki Nakasone Takeshita Heisei era (1989–2019) Uno Kaifu Miyazawa Hosokawa Hata Murayama Hashimoto Obuchi Aoki Mori Koizumi S. Abe Y. Fukuda Asō Y. Hatoyama Kan Noda S. Abe Reiwa era (2019–present) Suga Kishida Ishiba
Category

• 1887 births
• 1959 deaths
• 20th-century prime ministers of Japan
• Deputy prime ministers of Japan
• Ministers for foreign affairs of Japan
• Liberal Party (Japan, 1945) politicians
• Democratic Party (Japan, 1947) politicians
• National Democratic Party (Japan) politicians
• Kaishintō politicians
• Democratic Party (Japan, 1954) politicians
• Liberal Democratic Party (Japan) politicians
• People from Fukuchiyama, Kyoto
• Politicians from Kyoto Prefecture
• Rikken Seiyūkai politicians