For much of their history, the yakuza have played an open and even flamboyant role in mainstream Japanese politics. Eiko Maruko explains why in recent years Japan's gangsters are finally being driven into the shadows, but nevertheless remain a behind-the-scenes presence in Japan's political arena.

Eiko Maruko is a Ph.D. candidate in History at Harvard University. She is currently writing a dissertation on the history of yakuza involvement in Japanese politics from the 1960s to the 1940s.

In December of 2000, embattled Prime Minister Mori Yoshiro confronted a public relations nightmare when it was reported that he had ties to a Japanese gangster. The scandalous accusations were made in a weekly magazine, Shukan Gendai, which published two pictures of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) politician socializing with an alleged former high-ranking member of a yakuza organization. The magazine reported that the photographs were taken two years earlier in an Osaka bar and restaurant, at a time when Mori was serving as secretary-general of the LDP.1  This was not the first time that the Prime Minister’s alleged associations with yakuza had captured public attention; earlier in the same year, the weekly magazine Shukan Bunshun reported that Mori had made a speech at a wedding reception attended by the family of the head of the Inagawa-kai, one of the three largest organized crime syndicates in Japan.

It would be an exaggeration to attribute Mori’s resignation in the spring of 2001 to the allegations of his yakuza connections alone, as the unpopular Mori’s one-year tenure as prime minister was plagued by verbal gaffes and public approval rates as low as six percent. What is notable about Mori’s yakuza-related scandals is the very fact that they were scandals. The suggestion of a politician’s mere association with a yakuza was sufficient to cause substantial public criticism is a fairly recent development. This is not to say that politicians are now shying away from yakuza, but rather that the media are not afraid to strategically reveal certain politician-yakuza connections and that such revelations will be met with public disapproval and political consequences for those politicians involved.2  The heightened public sensitivity to links between organized crime and politics reflects shifts in the nature of yakuza participation in Japanese political life as well as changes in organized crime activities.

From Meiji to Early Showa

Yakuza have not always been active in Japanese politics. In the late Tokugawa period (1600-1868), yakuza were either street merchants (yashi, tekiya) or gamblers (bakuto); the distinction between tekiya-type yakuza and bakuto-type yakuza is still made today.  The term “yakuza” reflects their gambling origins as ya, ku, za stand for eight, nine, three, a losing hand in a gambling card game.3 

It was with the beginning of the Meiji period (1868-1912) that yakuza had new opportunities to participate in politics, and the nature of their involvement was violent. During the Freedom and People’s Rights Movement (Jiyu minken undo) of the 1870s and 1880s, gamblers are known to have been part of the rioting crowd in at least the Gunma Incident, the Chichibu Incident, and the Nagoya Incident.4  In the case of the Chichibu Incident (1884), members of the regional Poor People’s Party (Komminto) and others armed themselves with rifles, bamboo spears, and swords, and attacked the offices of officials and the homes of usurers, stole money and weapons, and burned documents. The crowd not only included a number of gamblers, but was also led by a gambling boss (bakuto no oyabun) named Tashiro Eisuke.5 

By the late 1880s, yakuza were hired as strongmen for political parties to disrupt speeches, intimidate opposition candidates, and scare electors. The elections in 1890 and 1892 were notoriously violent, in large part because of the activities of political ruffians. On the morning of June 29, 1890, for example, the citizens of the city of Yokohama awoke to find that gangsters affiliated with the Liberal faction had posted fliers at every intersection threatening to kill anyone who voted for the rival Progressive Party (Shinpoto) candidate. Two days later, on the day of the election, three yakuza visited the Progressive Party candidate himself, provoking an altercation that resulted in minor injuries.6 

Even as some yakuza made the transition from hired thug to elected politician after the turn of the century, their participation in politics entailed a certain amount of violence. Take the case of Yoshida Isokichi, a yakuza boss who was elected to the lower house of the Japanese Diet in March  1915 as a representative of the Kenseikai (Constitutional Association). Shortly after his election, Yoshida was involved in a violent scuffle within the walls of the Diet. The incident was sparked by then Prime Minister Okuma Shigenobu, who stood before a special meeting of the Diet to express harsh criticism of the Seiyukai (Friends of Constitutional Government Party). His words angered a Seiyukai member named Muto Kaneyoshi, who stormed toward Okuma, seized one of the Prime Minister’s arms, and tried to pull him off of the platform. In an attempt to free Okuma, Yoshida grabbed on to Muto. Several of Yoshida’s colleagues then tried to hold him back, resulting in a pile-up of politicians on the Diet floor. Four years later, Yoshida’s name was connected with the murder of a political and personal rival. On the evening of September 27, 1919, Shinagawa Nobuyasu, president of the Wakamatsu jitsugyo shinbun and a sympathizer of the Seiyukai, was walking home in the evening when he was fatally stabbed in the heart. Shinagawa was known to have supported a Seiyukai candidate and to have criticized Yoshida. Shinagawa’s murderer, Nakanishi Naganosuke, was a henchman of Yoshida Isokichi.

From the Meiji period to the early Showa years, yakuza used violence as a means of exerting political influence. The acceptability of their violent tactics, as well as their very participation in political life at the highest of levels, was due in part to the pervasiveness of violence in Japanese politics during these years.

The Postwar Period

In the post-World War II period, there was a subtle shift in the form of yakuza participation in politics as money began to replace violence as the chosen method for wielding political power. This is not to say that the yakuza were not part of the exchange of money in the prewar political world, or that they did not use violent tactics in postwar politics. In 1960, for example, yakuza sympathetic with right-wing organizations squared off against leftists protesting the ratification of the revised US-Japan Security Treaty, and were called upon by high-ranking members of the LDP to protect President Eisenhower from demonstrators during his scheduled visit to Japan to formally sign the treaty. As was reported in the Far Eastern Economic Review at the time, “. . . yakuza leaders of organized gamblers, gangsters, extortionists, street vendors, and members of underground syndicates [were persuaded] to organize an ‘effective counter-force’ to ensure Eisenhower’s safety. The final plan called for the deployment of 18,000 yakuza, 10,000 street vendors, 10,000 veterans and members of rightist religious organizations.”7 

Although violent incidents such as this one occasionally surfaced in the postwar period, the most powerful political tool for the yakuza was money, as expanding organized crime syndicates became increasingly wealthy. Two figures who embodied this trend were Kodama Yoshio and Sasakawa Ryoichi; though they were not yakuza themselves, they were mediators or “political fixers” who linked organized crime to national politics. Kodama was  an accused Class A war criminal who used the fortune he had amassed in prewar China to help fund the founding of the LDP in 1955. It was Kodama who engineered the counter-force of yakuza in 1960 for the scheduled Eisenhower visit and who, along with various yakuza bosses, founded the All-Japan Council of Patriotic Organizations (Zen Nippon Aikokusha Dantai Kaigi). Sasakawa became wealthy from his Japan Motorboat Racing Association, an extremely lucrative gambling enterprise through which he associated with gambler-type  yakuza. He was on the board of the All-Japan Council of Patriotic Organizations and supported a number of right-wing, anti-Communist organizations. To increase their political influence and achieve their desired political ends, both Kodama and Sasakawa nurtured connections with yakuza and helped enhance the political power of organized crime syndicates in large part through the shuffling of money.

The Shift

The connection between organized crime and politics began to attract negative public attention in the 1970s, sparked by the revelation in 1976 that the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation had funneled more than US $12.6 million into Japan to bribe political figures and acquire contracts, and that more than half of that amount had passed through the hands of Kodama Yoshio. Occurring two years after the resignation of Prime Minister Tanaka Kakuei, whose appointment to the prime ministership was allegedly secured by payoffs in the LDP, the public became aware of the extent to which tainted money was channeled through the political system. The sums of money and number of high-ranking politicians involved seemed staggering to the general populace.

Since the 1970s, a number of other factors have buttressed public criticism of yakuza involvement in politics. Many of these have to do with decreasing tolerance of organized crime itself. First, intergang conflict has resulted in the deaths of innocent civilians. In August 1997, for example, four gunmen opened fire in a hotel coffee lounge in Kobe and managed to kill their target, Takumi Masaharu, who was the number two man in the Yamaguchi-gumi, the largest organized crime syndicate in Japan. The gunmen also killed an innocent bystander named Hirai Hiroshi, a 69-year-old dentist who died six days after the assault from a head wound caused by a stray bullet. Hirai was apparently the thirteenth unintended victim of yakuza gunfire since 1975.8  In some cases, courts have ordered yakuza to pay compensation to such victims. The family of a high school student who was unintentionally shot to death in 1990 was awarded ¥57 million in a December 1997 High Court decision. And in September of 1997, the boss of the Yamaguchi-gumi agreed in an out-of-court settlement to pay ¥20 million in consolation money to the family of a company employee who was mistakenly murdered in a June 1990 gang war.

Second, organized crime syndicates have been expanding their financial activities beyond traditional means such as gambling and prostitution to include what is known as minji kainyu boryoku, literally “violent intrusion into civil matters.” Minji kainyu boryoku, or minbo for short, has been defined by the police to include the following: debt-collection; corporate extortion (sokaiya); finance-related incidents; bankruptcy management; real-estate and rent-related problems; settlements of traffic accident disputes out of court; disputes over prices of goods and other everyday matters; and other civil disputes. Another financial activity of the yakuza that impinges on the lives of non-­yakuza is land-sharking (jiage), through which owners of small plots of land are coerced into selling their property so as to create a larger development site. Coercion can take the form of threats, the driving of cars into the plot of land, arson, and loud disruptions at night. Land-sharking was the largest source of income for yakuza syndicates in the Kansai (Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto) and Kanto (Tokyo-Yokohama) areas during the bubble economy.9 

Third, the law has become less tolerant of organized crime as reflected in an organized crime countermeasures law, the Boryokudanin ni yoru futo na koi no boshi nado ni kansuru horitsu (also known as the Boryokudan taisaku ho or Botaiho for short), that was passed by the Diet in May of 1991 and enacted in March of 1992. The law allows a Public Safety Commission to use specific criteria to identify specific organized crime syndicates as objects of the law, thereby prohibiting some of their activities, most of which fall into the category of minbo described above. The law also prohibits the use of coercion in recruiting juveniles and in preventing yakuza members from leaving the organization, and stipulates that yakuza offices can be shut down for three months, with an option of extension to six months, in the case of an outbreak of intergang warfare. Regional centers (Boryoku tsuiho undo suishin senta) were also established to help victims of yakuza crimes and to facilitate the eradication of yakuza organizations at the grassroots level. A 1993 revision of the law extended the list of prohibited financial activities, and strengthened the stipulations against the recruitment of juveniles; a 1997 revision included stricter measures against debt collection and expanded the scope of those who fell under the law to include “associate members” of yakuza organizations and non-yakuza who worked in connection with yakuza.10 

The relationship between decreasing public tolerance of organized crime and the enactment of the Botaiho is unclear. The drafting of the law was in part a reaction to that which drew public criticism – the non-yakuza casualties of intergang violence and intrusion of yakuza activities into new financial spheres – but was also a measure drawn up under international pressure, namely Prime Minister Kaifu’s joining President Bush’s war against drugs in 1989. It cannot be said that the law came about due to public pressure or that the law further encouraged public impatience with organized crime, but the shift in public opinion and the enactment of the law were mutually reinforcing developments that have helped to create a social and legal environment increasingly hostile to organized crime activities.

All three of the above factors have contributed to low public tolerance for politicians’ associations with yakuza, as was evident in the case of former Prime Minister Mori’s yakuza-related scandals as well as in a number of other recent incidents.  Public outrage over politician-yakuza connections was perhaps most vociferous and influential in the 1992 Sagawa Kyubin Scandal.  In August of 1992, LDP vice-president and Diet member Kanemaru Shin admitted that he had accepted ¥500 million (approximately US $4.1 million) in illegal campaign contributions from the president of Sagawa Kyubin, a parcel delivery company. The president of the company, Watanabe Hiroyasu, was accused of making large cash contributions to a number of high-ranking politicians and of using his relationship with Kanemaru to prevent bankers from collecting on the company’s outstanding debts. Kanemaru was also known to have helped former Prime Minister Takeshita Noboru (1987-1989) hire yakuza to fend off some right-wing political rivals and therefore secure his election to the prime ministership. Takeshita’s problem started in May of 1987, when a right-wing organization with yakuza links called the Nihon Kominto attempted to undermine Takeshita’s campaign for prime minister by blasting messages about him over loudspeakers mounted on trucks; although the messages themselves were complimentary, the intent of the group was to kill Takeshita with praise (a tactic known as homegoroshi). Several Diet members from Takeshita’s political faction attempted to convince the head of the Nihon Kominto to stop the homegoroshi, but he refused. Takeshita then allegedly turned for assistance to Kanemaru and Sagawa Kyubin president Watanabe; Watanabe suggested that  they ask Ishii Susumu, head of the Inagawa-kai (one of Japan’s three largest organized crime syndicates), to help ensure Takeshita’s nomination. The disclosure of Takeshita’s association with the Inagawa-kai yakuza, along with other bribery cases, led to the downfall of Takeshita’s LDP faction in 1993.11 

Public protests attacking Kanemaru erupted in the fall of 1992, when Kanemaru evaded a full-scale indictment, paid only a small ¥200,000 (or approximately US $1,700) fine for his involvement in the Sagawa Kyubin scandal, and retained his seat in the Diet. Many criticized the casual treatment of Kanemaru’s illegal activities and called for his resignation from the Diet. Public outrage was expressed in various forms, including rallies, petition drives, letters and postcards, local assembly proclamations, and hunger strikes.  In front of the Shibuya train station in Tokyo, a citizens’ group went on a hunger strike and collected thousands of signatures on a petition of grievance concerning the scandal. More than 100 local assemblies passed resolutions calling for Kanemaru’s resignation. Aoshima Yukio, an opposition party Diet member who fell ill from a 30-hour hunger strike, received 280,000 postcards of support in the span of 16 days. And one man threw paint at the Tokyo prosecutor’s office to protest its handling of the case.  According to public opinion surveys, over 85 percent of those polled thought that Kanemaru should retire from political life. The media also put pressure on Kanemaru, and many journalists publicly demanded that he quit.  In the end, public outrage and media criticism forced Kanemaru to resign his seat in the Diet. 

The public outcry against Kanemaru’s yakuza-affiliated corruption suggests that much of the Japanese public has come to view politician-yakuza ties as scandalous. That intolerance for yakuza involvement in politics, as well as the legal suits brought against yakuza by families of unintended victims of gang wars, suggests a social tightening on yakuza activities.  The unacceptability of politician-yakuza connections does not seem to be abating.  In February of 2002, the mayor of Kisarazu, a port city in western Chiba prefecture, stepped down after acknowledging that he had borrowed over ¥310 million from an organized crime syndicate. Records stamped by Suda Katsutoshi’s personal seal indicated that the mayor had borrowed money from the yakuza on six different occasions between July 21, 2000 and February 8, 2002.

Yakuza Adaptation

Although yakuza have often been said to belong to a criminal “underworld,” their activities have been very much a part of mainstream Japanese politics and society for much of their history.12 In an environment less tolerant of organized crime activities, however, yakuza have been forced underground. Many organized crime syndicates have taken down the crest in front of their office, and yakuza have become more sparing with information: the business cards and New Year’s cards once printed with the yakuza’s name, organization, position, address and other detailed information now only reveal the organization’s name, and the name slats that used to hang in yakuza offices have been removed.13 

Yakuza have thus felt the impact of social and legal tightening on their activities, as well as the bursting of the bubble economy, but they have adapted their money-making strategies accordingly. Yakuza are turning increasingly to drug trafficking as well as to activities in which they have not been very engaged, such as robbery.14  Organized crime syndicates are also creating new fronts, presenting themselves as legal political or social organizations.15  In a 2002 survey of 3,000 companies, 863 reported that they had been the objects of extortionate demands. Of these companies, 57.7% were approached by the “fake right-wing” (ese uyoku) and 57.0% by the “fake dowa (ese dowa),”16  compared to only 18.5% by organized crime groups and 13.4% by corporate extortionists (sokaiya).17  Although yakuza have historically had a connection with the right-wing, they have rarely organized themselves into and presented themselves as right-wing groups.18   Both the fake right wing and fake dowa rely on minbo techniques to make money, but have also added their own twists. In the case of the fake right wing, groups use vehicles outfitted with loudspeakers to assault companies with music or speeches until the company agrees to make a “political contribution.” And one tactic used by the fake dowa is to force companies to pay exorbitant prices for pamphlets printed by their organization.

How organized crime’s loss of legitimacy will influence the role of yakuza in Japanese political life is unclear. It seems reasonable to suggest that figures like Tashiro Eisuke, Yoshida Isokichi, or Kodama Yoshio will not emerge in the current climate of public criticism of organized crime, and that the driving underground of yakuza activities will render yakuza ties to politics more covert. At the same time, as the form of yakuza political expression has shifted from violence to money, organized crime can continue to be part of the Japanese political system so long as the syndicates are able to adapt their financing methods to changing legal and economic conditions. The continued financial success of organized crime syndicates will be crucial in determining whether the yakuza presence in Japanese political life will remain strong and simply becomes less visible, or whether the yakuza will suffer a substantial decline in their ability to exert influence in the Japanese political world.

Endnotes

 1 Mori filed a libel suit with the Tokyo District Court in December of 2000, demanding apologies from the story’s author, the magazine’s editor, and the publisher, as well as ¥30 million in damages. Mori dropped the suit in February of 2002, after an out-of-court settlement was reached in late 2001.

 2 An unnamed political source is quoted in the Far Eastern Economic Review as saying, “. . . there isn’t a single Japanese politician who doesn’t know his local yakuza boss.” Far Eastern Economic Review. 17 January 2002.

 3 For more on yakuza in the Tokugawa period, see Abe Akira. Edo no autorô: mushuku to bakuto. 1999; Yasumaru Yoshio. “’Kangoku’ no tanjo,” in Nishikawa Nagao and Matsumiya Hideharu, eds. Bakumatsu Meijiki no kokumin kokka keisei to bunka henyo. 1995.

 4 On the Nagoya Incident, see Hasegawa Noboru. Bakuto to jiyu minken. 1995.

 5 See Bowen, Roger W. Rebellion and Democracy in Meiji Japan. 1980.

 6 For more on the 1890 election, see Mason, R.H.P. Japan’s First General Election, 1890. 1969.

 7 Kaplan, David E. and Alec Dubro. Yakuza: The Explosive Account of Japan’s Criminal Underworld. 1986.

 8 Incidents between rival organized crime syndicates continue to occur. On 25 February 2002, a young man sneaked into the Nippon Medical School Hospital and fired four shots into the intensive care unit at Takashi Ishizuka, a leader of the Sumiyoshi-kai, who died 40 minutes later. See the Mainichi shimbun. 25 February 2002.

 9 For a comprehensive discussion of these activities, see Hill, Peter B. E. Botaiho: Japanese Organised Crime under the Boryokudan Countermeasures Law. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Stirling. May 2000.

 10 Herbert, Wolfgang. “The Yakuza and the Law,” in Globalization and Social Change in Contemporary Japan. 2000.

 11  Kanemaru called on Ishii for help in the following year as well. For more details on the Sagawa Kyubin and related scandals, see Hill.

 12  Consider that the police know where yakuza headquarters are located (the addresses are printed in National Police Agency reports), and neighborhood residents can point out yakuza homes.

 13  Miyazaki Manabu. Personal communication. 19 March 2002.

 14  Hoshino Kanehiro. Personal communication. 22 March 2002.

 15  This is not a new tactic. In the late 1950s, yakuza organizations became right-wing organizations, such as the Kokusui-kai, to avoid police crackdowns.

 16  “Dowa” is the politically correct term used to describe burakumin, a minority group in Japan that has been treated as hereditary outcasts even though they are of the same racial and national origins as the majority population in Japan.

 17  Keishicho keijikyoku boryokudan taisaku bu. Botaiho shiko 10 nen. 2002 March.

 18  The Dai Nippon Kokusuikai (1919) and the Nippon Kokusuikai of the immediate prewar period might be considered exceptions, although it would be an exaggeration to call their right-wing sympathies “fake.”