(Page 19 of 34) - Japan's Challenege to Global Inequalities: Ideas of Economic Development and Institutions authored by Kuramoto, Yukiko.

“Special” and “semi-special” companies were joint-stock companies with public and
private capital, and they were created to manage important industries. It was called the
“one enterprise managing one industry” (Ichigyo Ichisha Shugi) system. This “designated
a single enterprise or joint-stock company as the agent to coordinate an entire industry on
a vertical and horizontal production and distribution basis. Each special company had a
director and vice-director appointed by the General Affairs Office, with the necessary
business experience and administrative skills.”

Two Five-Year Economic Development Plans were the vehicles for Japan’s

colonial economic development approach. The first one was successfully enforced
between 1937 and 1941, and the second was incomplete but practiced from 1942 to the
end of the World War II. According to the Outlines for Manchukuo’s Five-Year
Industrial Development Plan (Manshu Sangyo Kaihatsu Gokanen Keikaku Koyo), Five-
Year Plans specifically aimed at 1)the development of natural resources for preparation
for wars; 2)the establishment of a self-help economy while supplying resources to a
needy in Japan; 3)the foundation of the infrastructure for industrial development in
Manchukuo.

The Five-Year Plans attempted to maximize industrialization to enable

Manchukuo to manufacture its own weapons, munitions, aircraft, and vehicles unlike
other colonies. Steel, chemicals, and machine tools were also produced more than ever.
The Five-Year Plans also had ambitious and specific targets for each industrial
production. For example, the plan indicated the present capability of production for iron
(.85 million tons), the target production (2.53 million tons), and necessary capital (1.17
billion yen).

4) Efficient public and private cooperation: The exchange of information and

frequent communication between government and business helped draft and implement
better economic policies. Although this system was formally established in Japan after
World War II as the Sinjikai system, Professor Kobayashi, political economist, argues
that this productive government-business cooperation system was first introduced in
Manchukuo.

The close relationship among economic bureaucrats, business people and

military officials was observed through important policy-making processes. For example,
Nousuke Kishi, a subsequent deputy chief of the General affairs Office, had dinner
meetings with business people and military officers every night for his three-year stay in
Manchuria. The new and important projects that would reform the South Manchurian
Railway Company (Mantetsu) and build Manchurian Heavy Industries (Mangyo) was
discussed and decided in details by three people, Nobusuke Kishi, Yoshisuke Aikawa, the
president of Nissan Corporation, and Yosuke Matsuoka, the president of Mantetsu.

The

Ramon Myers, “Creating a Modern Enclave Economy: The Economic Integration of Japan, Manchuria,

and North China, 1932-1945,” Duus, Myers, and Peattie eds., The Japanese Wartime Empire, 1931-1945
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996), 144. Also Myers provides more detailed examples for
the one enterprise managing one industry.

Hideo Kobayashi, Mantetsu: Chi no Shudan no Tanjo to Shi (Mantesu: Birth and Death of the Intelligent

Group) (Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kobunkan, 1996), 134.

Ibid., 134.

Hideo Kobayashi, Tetsuji Okazaki, Seiichiro Yonekawa, and NHK research group, Nihon Kabushiki

Kaisha no Showashi, (Showa History of Japan INC) (Tokyo: Sogensha, 1995), 223-6.

Ibid., 50.