Background

Itō Hirobumi was born Hayashi Risuke on October 16, 1841, in Tsukari, Suō, Japan to the family of a peasant named Hayashi Jūzō. His family rose in status when his father was adopted into a low-ranking samurai family. His father Hayashi Jūzō was the adopted son of Mizui Buhei who was an adopted son of Itō Yaemon's family, a lower-ranked samurai from Hagi in Chōshū Domain (present-day Yamaguchi Prefecture). Mizui Buhei was renamed Itō Naoemon. Mizui Jūzō took the name Itō Jūzō, and Hayashi Risuke was renamed to Itō Shunsuke at first, then Itō Hirobumi.

Itō grew up amid convulsive political conditions surrounding the decline of the Tokugawa shogunate - which had governed Japan since 1603 - and the rise of Western influence in the country. As a youth, Itō joined the Sonno joi ("to revere the Emperor and expel the barbarians") movement. He played a minor role in the events leading to the Meiji Restoration (1868), the movement that overthrew the shogunate and reestablished the formal ruling authority of the emperor. This brought him into contact with men like Kido Takayoshi, who was to become one of the great leaders of early Meiji Japan and who was Itō's most important mentor in those years.

Education

Itō Hirobumi was a student of Yoshida Shōin at the Shoka Sonjuku private school. Itō's talents were apparent even before the restoration, and the leaders of Chōshū sent him to England (along with his friend Inoue Kaoru) to study Western naval science. He received samurai status in 1863 and entered the University College, London. The experience in Great Britain convinced him of the necessity of Japan adopting Western ways.

Career

Itō's connections with Kido and Ōkubo Toshimichi, the other giant of early Meiji Japan, enabled him to undertake government assignments to the United States and the Iwakura Mission to Europe (1870, 1871-1873) to study and work on matters as diverse as taxation and budgetary systems and treaty revision.

Itō's political career changed decisively when Ōkubo, the most powerful man in the government, was assassinated in 1878, and Itō succeeded him as minister of home affairs. His advancement brought him into conflict with the equally talented and ambitious statesman Ōkuma Shigenobu. In a series of masterful political strokes, Itō forced Ōkuma and his supporters out of the government in 1881 and persuaded the government to adopt a constitution; by 1889 the emperor had proclaimed it, and in 1890 the national Diet was established.

Preparations for the constitutional government were made with utmost seriousness. Itō, by then the most important person in the Meiji government, and other officials spent nearly one and a half years (1882-1883) in Europe, notably in Germany, studying under leading constitutional scholars. The Meiji constitution, Itō's greatest handiwork, has been criticized for perpetuating authoritarian rule because the guarantees of civil rights and the Diet's powers were hedged by restrictions. Actually, given the Meiji leaders' samurai background and the tense domestic and foreign problems they faced, the unprecedented acknowledgment in writing of basic rights and the establishment of the Diet were progressive and enlightened acts. It should also be noted that neither Itō nor any of the Meiji leaders ever pointed to these tensions and difficulties as an excuse for reverting to tight authoritarian control.

Itō's preeminence continued in the 1890s. In the mid-decade, as prime minister, he helped Japan attain two important successes. The first was an agreement with Great Britain (signed in 1894) for doing away with extraterritoriality by 1899 (is est, from that date British nationals in Japan would be subject to Japanese law). That pact was followed by others with other major Western countries. The second achievement was Japan's victory over China in 1895; both accomplishments were among the first clear signs that Japan, alone among non-Western countries, had achieved success in modernization and a weightier role in East Asian affairs.

In 1905, following the Russo-Japanese War, Itō was sent to Korea to negotiate the treaty that turned Korea into a Japanese protectorate. He returned there as resident general (1906-1909), where he pursued a gradualist policy of economic and bureaucratic reform. However, he increasingly sought to suppress Korean nationalism (including engineering King Kojong's abdication), and he could not prevent the thrust toward annexing Korea favored by other leaders in Japan. In October 1909 he was shot in Harbin in North China by An Chung-gŭn, a member of the Korean independence movement.

Achievements

• Itō Hirobumi's enduring monument was the creation of a viable constitutional system. It enabled the Japanese to effect orderly, evolutionary, peaceful political change accompanied by an ever-widening scope for meaningful popular participation. Itō's legacy cannot be denied, for he made cooperation between high-ranking bureaucrats and party politicians respectable, which provided an alternative to the unremitting and unproductive polarization of these two groups. Moreover, the continued commitment of the other genro to the Meiji constitution made party growth inevitable. Itō Hirobumi was on the 1,000 yen note of Japan from 1963 until a new series was issued in 1984.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Sino-Japanese Treaty of Shimonoseki

    (The 1895 Treaty of Shimonoseki, between Japan and China, ...)

    1895
  • A Maker of New Japan: Marquis Ito's Experience 1904
  • Commentaries on the Constitution of the Empire of Japan 1889

Religion

Itō Hirobumi was a Buddhist. In Meiji 43 (1910), the Hayashi and Ito families constructed a building to conduct Buddhist ceremonies commemorating the 300th anniversary of the death of Ito's ancestor Hayashi Awajinokami Michioki. Hirobumi Ito designed the fundamental plans himself and longed to see the building completed, but just before completion in October of Meiji 42 (1909), he fell to an assassin's bullet and died abroad, unable to return home.

Politics

Itō had felt, along with other genro, that party politicians were incapable of dealing dispassionately with Japan's welfare and destiny; and, indeed, the powers guaranteed by the Meiji constitution enabled the political parties to impede government programs in the Diet. Itō unhappily, but with characteristic flexibility, continually worked out compromises with the parties until by 1900 no cabinet could be formed without their tacit consent. From the start, the parties had been cooperating with the government in return for cabinet positions and laws favoring party growth. Itō made one last move to salvage the situation by leaving the government and forming the Rikken Seiyūkai ("Friends of Constitutional Government"), which he based on an older antigovernment party, the Kenseitō ("Constitutional Association"). The Seiyūkai became the first party to control an absolute majority in the House of Representatives during a Diet session, which led Itō to believe that he had finally created the right conditions for the smooth passage of government programs. He did not count on the obstructive tactics of the House of Peers, however, whose conservative members were unhappy with Itō's alliance with the parties. Ironically, Itō had originally created the House of Peers to balance what he considered the less-than-responsible House of Representatives. Finally, embittered with the knowledge that dealing with party members, each with his own constituency to answer to, was infinitely more difficult and distasteful than working with a handful of genro, all of the same background and inspiration, Itō resigned as president of the Rikken Seiyūkai in 1903. But Itō paid for having broken genro ranks; soon afterward Yamagata Aritomo, founder of the modern Japanese army, became the leading power among the powerful genro.

Views

Itō Hirobumi sought the compromiser’s role, the harmonious solution. His last words on being told that he was the victim of a political assassination were, "Baka na yatsu ja!" ("He is a fool!"). Itō probably meant that An had killed the one Japanese leader who had a moderating and sympathetic approach for Japan's Korea policy. Indeed, Itō's assassination was a factor contributing to Japan's annexation of Korea in 1910.

Quotations: "Drunk, I (relax) with my head on a beauty's lap; awaken (refreshed), I grip the reins of power."

Personality

Despite his unquestioned contributions to the modernization of Japan, Itō Hirobumi has never been first in the hearts of his countrymen. The Japanese more often have favored their romantic heroes, usually, losers of great military causes. His private life also prevented his enshrinement in ethics textbooks as a paradigm for young Japanese. His violent death was also ironic: he was never the strong-willed statesman that Ōkubo, Ōkuma, and Yamagata were. He sought the compromiser's role, the harmonious solution. Itō's reputation as a womanizer was a popular theme in editorial cartoons and in parodies by contemporary comedians. Itō was also a calligraphy lover and amateur.

Interests

• calligraphy

Connections

In 1866, Itō Hirobumi married Kida Ume. After their marriage, Kida Ume changed her name to Itō Umeko, becoming the principal wife of Itō Hirobumi, and his only wife in his entire life. They had 2 sons, 3 daughters, and an adoptive son: Itō Bunkichi, Itō Shinichi, Itō Sadako, Itō Ikuko, Itō Asako, and Itō Hirokuni.

Father:

Itō Jūzō

Wife:

Itō Umeko

Son:

Itō Bunkichi

Son:

Itō Shinichi

Daughter:

Itō Sadako

Daughter:

Itō Ikuko

Daughter:

Itō Asako

adoptive son:

Itō Hirokuni

mentor:

Kido Takayoshi

teacher:

Yoshida Shoin

Friend:

Kaoru Inouye

Friend:

Ernest Satow

Monarch:

Emperor Meiji

References

• The Emergence of Modern Japan: An Introductory History Since 1853
  1989
• The Japanese Colonial Empire, 1895-1945
  2020
• Shiden Itō Hirobumi
  1995
• First Prime Minister Hirobumi Ito
  1987
• Prince Ito
  1979
• Itō Hirobumi - Japan's First Prime Minister and Father of the Meiji Constitution
  2014
• Five Political Leaders of Modern Japan: Ito Hirobumi, Okuma Shigenobu, Hara Takashi, Inukai Tsuyoshi, and Saionji Kimmochi
  2014