Kimmochi Saionji was a Japanese politician, statesman and twice Prime Minister of Japan.
Background
Kimmochi Saionji was born on 6 December in 1848 in Kyoto, Japan. He was the son of Udaijin Tokudaiji Kin'ito (1821-1883), head of a kuge family of court nobility. He was adopted by another kuge family, the Saionji, in 1851. However, he grew up near his biological parents, since both the Tokudaiji and Saionji lived very near the Kyoto Imperial Palace.
Education
The young Saionji Kinmochi was frequently ordered to visit the palace as a playmate of the young prince who later became Emperor Meiji. Over time they became close friends. Kinmochi's biological brother Tokudaiji Sanetsune later became the Grand Chamberlain of Japan. Another younger brother was adopted into the very wealthy Sumitomo family and as Sumitomo Kichizaemon became the head of the Sumitomo zaibatsu. Sumitomo money largely financed Saionji's political career. His close relationship to the Imperial Court opened all doors to him.
Career
After studying in France, he returned to Japan in 1881 and founded the Tōyō jiyū shimbun ("Oriental Free Press"), a newspaper dedicated to popularizing democratic ideas. But journalism was considered a scandalous profession for a court noble. Hence, his colleagues prevailed on the emperor to force Saionji to leave the newspaper and join government service, in which he soon rose to high position.
He became one of the principal organizers and later president (1903) of the Rikken Seiyūkai ("Friends of Constitutional Government"), the major political party in Japan at that time, and he served as prime minister in 1906-1908 and 1911-1912. During his years in office he attempted to curtail military expenditures and pushed for party control of the cabinet. He retired from party politics and government office in 1912, although in 1919 he headed Japan’s delegation at the Paris Peace Conference, which formally ended World War I.
Saionji spent the last 25 years of his life as a genro, an honour reserved for the exclusive group of leaders who had participated in the Meiji Restoration and who had also served as prime ministers. As such he was a close and trusted adviser of the emperor. Because of his moderating influence on ultranationalistic and militaristic trends in pre-World War II Japan, right-wing fanatics in the 1930s made several unsuccessful attempts to assassinate him.
Politics
In 1900, Itō founded the Rikken Seiyūkai political party, and Saionji joined as one of the first members. Due to his experiences in Europe, Saionji had a liberal political point of view and supported parliamentary government. He was one of the few early politicians who claimed that the majority party in parliament had to be the basis for forming a cabinet.
Saionji became president of the Privy Council in August 1900, and president of the Rikken Seiyūkai in 1903.