Yoshio Kodama's mugshot from his time in Sugamo Prison.

Buying Democracy with Dirty Money

The CIA and Post-War Japan

T.J. Coles April 7, 2024

Japan’s right-wing Liberal Democratic Party (LDP, 自由民主党, Jiyū-Minshutō) is in trouble. Following the assassination of PM Shinzo Abe in 2022, voter abstention and a corruption scandal have eroded the Party’s credibility. The LDP was founded with help from the CIA in 1955 as a weapon against the left. It ruled uninterrupted until 1993 and continues to dominate Japanese politics.

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T. J. Coles is director of the Plymouth Institute for Peace Research and the author of several books, including Voices for Peace (with Noam Chomsky and others) and Fire and Fury: How the US Isolates North Korea, Encircles China and Risks Nuclear War in Asia (both Clairview Books).

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