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is a Japanese term referring to the "financial cliques," or business conglomerates, whose influence and size allowed for control over significant parts of the Japanese economy throughout the Edo and Meiji periods. The term was commonly used up until the end of the Pacific War (World War II).

Contents

History and significance

"Zaibatsu"

Historical influence

Postwar dissolution

Modern-day influence

List of zaibatsu

The Big Four

Second-tier zaibatsu

Bankrupt zaibatsu

Zaibatsu in popular culture

See also

References and further reading

External links

History and significance

"Zaibatsu"

The term zaibatsu was used in the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century to refer to large family-controlled banking and industrial combines in Japan. While the term was used arbitrarily in the United States throughout the 1980s to refer to any large Japanese corporation, it is not used natively by Japanese speakers for anything other than historical discussions in reference to Edo- and Meiji-era zaibatsu.

Historical influence

The of Mitsubishi, Mitsui, Sumitomo and Yasuda are the most historically significant zaibatsu groups, having roots stemming from the Edo period of Japanese history. During this period and later into the Meiji period, the Tokugawa shogunate employed their services and financial powers for various endeavors, which the zaibatsu often provided free of charge in exchange for the privilege of using government funds.^[1] After the Russo-Japanese War, a number of so-called "second-tier" zaibatsu also emerged, mostly as the result of business conglomerations. Some more famous second-tier zaibatsu included the Okura, Furukawa, Nakajima, and Nissan groups, among several others.

Postwar dissolution

The zaibatsu were dissolved by reformers during the Allied occupation of Japan. Their controlling families' assets were seized, holding companies (the previous "heads" of the zaibatsu conglomerates) eliminated, and interlocking directorships, essential to the old system of intercompany coordination, were outlawed. Among the zaibatsu that were targeted by the SCAP for dissolution in 1946 were Asano, Furukawa, Nakajima, Nissan, Nomura, and Okura. Matsushita, while not a zaibatsu, was originally targeted for breakup, but was saved by a petition signed by 15,000 of its union workers and their families.^[2]
Complete dissolution of the zaibatsu was never achieved by Allied reformers or SCAP, mostly because U.S. government rescinded the SCAP orders to deconcentrate Japan's large companies in an effort to reindustrialize Japan as a bulwark against Communism in Asia.^[3] Zaibatsu as a whole were widely considered to be beneficial to the Japanese economy and government, and the opinions of the Japanese public, of the zaibatsu workers and management, and of the entrenched bureaucracy regarding plans for zaibatsu dissolution ranged from unenthusiastic to disapproving. Additionally, the changing politics of the Occupation during the reverse course served as a crippling, if not terminal, roadblock to zaibatsu elimination.

Modern-day influence

Today, the influence of the zaibatsu can still be seen in the form of financial groups, institutions, and larger companies whose origins reach back to the original zaibatsu, often sharing the same original family names (for example, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation). However, some argue that the "old mechanisms of financial and administrative control" that zaibatsu once enjoyed have been destroyed. Despite the absence of an actualized sweeping change to the existence of large industrial conglomerates in Japan, the zaibatsu's previous vertically integrated chain of command, ending with a single family, has now widely been displaced by the horizontal relationships of association and coordination characteristic of . Keiretsu, meaning "series" or "subsidiary", could be interpreted as being suggestive of this difference.

List of zaibatsu

The Big Four

★ Mitsubishi (三菱財閥)

★ Mitsui (三井財閥)

★ Sumitomo (住友財閥)

★ Yasuda (安田財閥)

Second-tier zaibatsu

★ Asano (浅野財閥)

★ Fujita (藤田財閥)

★ Furukawa (古河財閥)

★ Mori (森コンツェルン)

★ Kawasaki (川崎財閥)

★ Nakajima (中島飛行機)

★ Nitchitsu (日窒コンツェルン)

★ Nissan (日産コンツェルン)

★ Nisso (日曹コンツェルン)

★ Nomura (野村財閥)

★ Okura (大倉財閥)

★ Riken (理研コンツェルン)

★ Shibusawa (渋沢財閥)

Bankrupt zaibatsu

★ Sojitz (鈴木商店)

Zaibatsu in popular culture

The term has been used often in books, comics, videogames and movies, referring to large, Japanese corporations, who are often involved in shady dealings and/or have connections to the Yakuza. Examples include the Mishima Zaibatsu which is mentioned throughout the Tekken series and the 'Zaibatsu' criminal group in GTA2. The character Karin in the Street Fighter series belongs to the Kanzuki Zaibatsu. In the Tom Clancy book 'Debt of Honor', a group of zaibatsu seize control of Japan and invade the US-held Mariana Islands. In other cases zaibatsu are used simply to provide the background for a character from an influential family, such as in the case of the F4 in Hana Yori Dango who are the sons/heirs of the 4 (fictional) biggest corporations in Japan; this is an obvious reference to the Big Four. Sonoko Suzuki of Meitantei Conan is a daughter of the chairman of Suzuki Zaibatsu, and, more prominently, Kaoru Hanabishi of Hanabishi Zaibatsu and Aoi Sakuraba of Sakuraba Group in Ai Yori Aoshi; In William Gibson's Sprawl trilogy, 'Zaibatsu' is the generic term used for the mega-corporations prevalent in the futuristic world in which the plot is set.

See also

★ Keiretsu

★ Japanese post-war economic miracle

★ Chaebol^[4]

★ The Hongs

★ Thirteen Factories

References and further reading

1. Watkins, Thayer. ''The Zaibatsu of Japan''
2. Morck & Nakamura, p. 33
3. In his 1967 memoirs, Kennan wrote that aside from the Marshall Plan, setting the "reverse course" in Japan was "the most significant contribution I was ever able to make in government." George F. Kennan, ''Memoirs'', 1925-50 (Boston, 1967), 393.
4. While ''chaebol'' is often viewed as the Korean cognate to ''zaibatsu'', both the Korean and the Japanese words are composed of loans from Chinese, and thus are not cognates in the true sense of the word.



★ Alletzhauser, Albert J. ''The House of Nomura''. New York: Harper Perennial, 1991. ISBN 0-06-097397-8.

★ Allinson, Gary D. ''Japan's Postwar History''. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1997. ISBN 0-8014-3312-6.

★ Aoki, Masahiko & Hyung-Ki Kim. ''Corporate Governance in Transitional Economies: Insider Control and the Role of Banks''. Retrieved online 28 June 2004. Print edition: Washington, D.C.: World Bank Office of the Publisher, 1995. ISBN 0-8213-2990-1.

★ Morck, Randall and Masao Nakamura. ''A Frog in a Well Knows Nothing of the Ocean: A History of Corporate Ownership in Japan.''

★ Morikawa, Hidemasa. ''Zaibatsu: The Rise and Fall of Family Enterprise Groups in Japan.'' Tokyo, Japan: University of Tokyo Press, 1992.

External links

★ The Zaibatsu of Japan

★ Japanese article about zaibatsu