Hiromu Nonaka was a Japanese LDP politician. He served as a local politician from 1951 to 1978 and in the House of Representatives from 1983 to 2003, becoming one of its most prominent members in the 1990s. He served as Minister of Home Affairs and Head of the National Public Safety Commission from 1994 to 1995, as Chief Cabinet Secretary from 1998 to 1999, and as Head of the Okinawa Development Agency in 1999. Nonaka was widely considered as a voice of reason within the LDP.
Early life and local political career
Nonaka was born in the town of Sonobe in central Kyoto Prefecture. After graduating high school in 1943, he worked for the Japanese National Railways 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; he later said this discrimination was a factor in his decision to leave JNR and enter politics. He 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. He then won a seat in the Kyoto prefectural assembly and served from 1967 to 1978. He briefly served as vice-governor of Kyoto in 1978, but resigned to establish and serve as the chairman of Japan's first care facility for individuals with profound physical disabilities.
Diet career
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 Shigesaburo Maeo and Sen'ichi Tanigaki. 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 Noboru Takeshita. He rose to prominence following the Recruit scandal, which led to the collapse of the Takeshita faction, and the 1993 general election, in which the LDP entered the opposition 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 Hosokawa government.Following the collapse of the Hosokawa-led coalition in 1994, Nonaka entered the Cabinet for the first time as part of the Murayama government. He served as Home Minister 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. At the request of Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto, he travelled to China in 1998 to express remorse to victims of the Nanjing massacre. Later that year, in response to a demand for further apologies by Chinese premierJiang Zemin, Nonaka described the issue as a "finished problem." He was named Chief Cabinet Secretary under Prime Minister Obuchi in 1998. He wielded an unusual amount of power in this role, and 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. A TIME article in December 1998 called Nonaka "Japan's most powerful man." As LDP secretary-general, he played a key role in defeating a no-confidence motion against Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori in 2000. In 2001 he was seen as a contender for the presidency of the LDP, and thereby for Prime Minister of Japan. He was reluctant to take the position as it would place his background in the spotlight. During his candidacy, future Prime Minister Tarō Asō allegedly made remarks disparaging towards Nonaka's heritage. Nonaka later remarked that he would "never forgive" Asō for the remarks. Aso denied making the remarks when questioned in 2005. Nonaka ultimately supported Ryutaro Hashimoto in the election, but Hashimoto lost to Junichiro Koizumi. Koizumi's politics led to a decline in the power of LDP factions, including Nonaka's. 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." After Koizumi was re-elected, Nonaka announced his retirement from politics in October 2003. He did not run in the 2003 general election, but campaigned for the LDP candidate in his district.
Post-retirement
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. He rejoined the LDP in 2016. On June 5, 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 Communist Party of China. 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. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga denied the claim as "baseless" and alleged that Nonaka had been influenced by "Chinese hospitality." Nonaka publicly criticized the LDP's plans to revise Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution in 2017, stating that "Japan should not go through the history of war again." Nonaka died on January 26, 2018, at the age of 92.
