Background

Morihiro Hosokawa was born on January 14, 1938, in Tokyo, Japan to the family of Morisada Hosokawa and Yoshiko Konoe. He is the eldest grandson of Moritatsu, 3rd Marquess Hosokawa, and the 16th Head of the Hosokawa clan. His maternal grandfather is the pre-war prime minister Prince Fumimaro Konoe. As a great-great-grandson of Prince Kuni Asahiko, he is a second cousin twice removed of the present Emperor, Naruhito. He is also a descendant of Christian heroine Gracia Hosokawa.

His family's wealth was so substantial that his grandfather’s private art collection could create a museum “similar to the Louvre,” Hosokawa once said. He never carried money because everything he bought was paid for by the butler.

Growing up, Hosokawa was surrounded by scholars, Buddhist masters, geisha, politicians, artists and other elites who came to visit his paternal grandfather, Moritatsu Hosokawa, a former politician with the upper house of Parliament. From him, Hosokawa learned to look for lessons in every encounter.

Education

One of Hosokawa’s boyhood mentors was a Zen priest and college teacher who lived on one of the family estates in Kamakura, where the prime minister attended school. The master would fill the boy’s head with vivid tales of Japanese history. Morihiro Hosokawa received his Bachelor of Laws degree from Sophia University in 1961. In his retirement, he took up pottery, studying intensively for 18 months under pottery master Shiro Tsujimura.

Career

After graduating from Sophia University, Tokyo, Morihiro Hosokawa joined the staff of the liberal newspaper Asahi Shimbun in 1963. In 1969 he ran for a seat in the lower house of the Japanese parliament. He lost that race, but two years later, with strong support from the ruling Liberal-Democratic Party (LDP), he was elected to the less powerful upper house, where he served for 12 years.

Elected governor of Kumamoto prefecture on Kyushu island in 1983, Hosokawa pursued an aggressive economic policy and strengthened environmental laws but was often frustrated by the powerful bureaucracy of the central government. In 1992, calling for electoral reform and an end to political corruption and one-party rule, he formed the Japan New Party (JNP) as a conservative alternative to the LDP. The JNP quickly gained strength, helped by the graft scandals and internal dissension that plagued the LDP. In 1993 a coalition of seven dissident LDP factions and opposition parties in the House of Representatives elected Hosokawa prime minister; he thus became the first non-LDP premier of Japan since 1955.

Hosokawa gained passage of a bill to restructure the electoral system in an effort to limit political corruption and increase the relative voting strength of urban areas. Harassed by charges of financial impropriety leveled at him by the LDP, Hosokawa resigned in April 1994 after eight months in office. Four years later he retired from politics and subsequently embarked on a career as a ceramist. In 2014, however, Hosokawa ran for mayor of Tokyo. The election came several years after the Fukushima accident (2011), one of the worst nuclear accidents in history, and Hosokawa ran on an anti-nuclear platform. However, his campaign failed to gain support, and he was defeated at the polls.

Achievements

• Morihiro Hosokawa helped fashion an eight-party coalition and was elected prime minister in 1993. He won the passage of corruption-reducing electoral reforms in 1994. Even despite the controversy connected with his resignation Hosokawa still had high public approval at the time.

Works

More photos

• Calligraphy

  • Untitled

  • Sho Ji Hu to sin Ji kan (from a poem by Li Bai)

  • A pair of six-fold screens with large Character of Zen Words calligraphy (the first half)

    2013

  • A pair of six-fold screens with large Character of Zen Words calligraphy (the first half)

    2013

  • Motsu Ryo

    2013

  • Nisshin

    2013

  • Saikaku

    2013

  • Form is Emptiness

• pottery

  • Revived Pottery Bowl

    2014

  • Red Tea Bowl

    2011

  • A Dragon Ears Vase

  • Tea Bowl, Black Raku Ware

    2005

  • Tea Bowl, Black Raku Ware

    2012

  • Shigaraki-type large jar

    2013

  • Tea Bowl, Haiyu type

    2010

Religion

Hosokawa was strongly affected by his Zen mentor. Zen sutras often become the themes of his artistic works.

Politics

The Hosokawa cabinet was a product of his multi-party coalition but was dominated by individuals viewed as conservatives. Its key ministers were members of the Shinseito party led by Ichiro Ozawa. Hosokawa's own Japan New Party had no other representatives in the cabinet.

Views

Hosokawa aims to be bold where his grandfather was weak, to shape history rather than be overwhelmed by it. Most of all, Hosokawa is determined to lead the march for reform in Japan, to stand up to established power cliques and appeal to the nation’s conscience.

When Mariko Mitsui, a feminist political activist, told Hosokawa about Norway’s system of affirmative action for women politicians, he immediately incorporated the idea into the Japan New Party’s policies. He also sponsored a “politics school” to nurture women candidates and began aggressively recruiting women - even calling his old newspaper, the Asahi, and asking editors to recommend bright women reporters who might be suitable candidates.

Quotations: "The deepest thing I learned from my grandfather’s tragic experience is that in times when you should speak out, you have to clearly speak out"

"The best way to study is to meet with top-class people in each field."

"It’s never too late to learn."

"To govern the country, you need a strong will not affected by emotion."

"The only important thing in life is how you live."

Personality

Hosokawa has an eclectic, almost eccentric aristocratic personality which both charms and alienates those who know him. He is elegant, polite but eminently self-controlled. Hosokawa is often compared to President Clinton by those who see a governor turned top national leader who listens well, has enormous intellectual curiosity and soaks up everything from Chinese classical literature to robotics and biotechnology. He has a wide range of interests. He took up Chinese classical literature in his 30s; skiing and tennis in his 40s, and piano in his 50s. An intense student, he made a paper piano keyboard and practiced every morning in the car as he was driven to the governor’s office. That intellectual hunger helps him eagerly absorb new ideas. His eagerness for new experiences even led him to the big screen, where he appeared in two samurai movies.

Quotes from others about the person

• "He knows what’s important, but until he is ready to say yes or no, he’ll stay fuzzy. That is the way to survive in this country." - Yoshimi Ishikawa, a writer, and adviser to the New Party Harbinger, which is closely allied with Hosokawa’s Japan New Party
  
  "He doesn’t desire authority, money or fame. He can throw out everything for whatever is necessary at the moment. For him, the here and now is very important." - Kayoko Ueda Hosokawa, the wife of Morihiro Hosokawa, an activist i and former vice chairwoman of the United Nations Children’s Fund

Interests

• bird watching, playing piano

• Sport & Clubs

  tennis, snow skiing

Connections

On September 9, 1971, Morihiro Hosokawa married Kayoko Ueda, a fellow Sophia graduate who specialized in surfing and English literature. She turned down his first proposal, instead of moving to London to work for a trading company. But when they met by chance on a street in Rome, she felt the hand of fate and consented. They have two daughters and a son. She is an activist in her own right, having served with the LDP’s Kumamoto office and as vice chairwoman of the United Nations Children’s Fund. They have three children: Morimitsu, Satoko, and Yūko.

Father:

Morisada Hosokawa

Mother:

Yoshiko Konoe

Daughter:

Satoko Hosokawa

Son:

Morimitsu Hosokawa

Wife:

Kayoko Ueda

Grandfather:

Moritatsu Hosokawa

Daughter:

Yūko Hosokawa

assocoate:

Junichiro Koizumi

References

• Renritsu seiken: Watakushi no Hosokawa Naikaku ron
  1993
• Ceramic Art Collection of Morihiro Hosokawa Works
  2017
• Seikai saihen to Nihon no shinro
  1993