After the war, Arita was active as a leftist politician. The circumstances surrounding his second marriage and his unsuccessful 1959 run for Governor of Tokyo served as the model for the novel After the Banquet by Yukio Mishima. This led to a famous court case in which Arita successfully sued for invasion of privacy.
Biography
Arita was born on the island of Sado in Niigata Prefecture. He joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs after graduation in 1909 from the Law School of Tokyo Imperial University, and established himself as an expert on Asian affairs. Arita was on the Japanese delegation to the Versailles Peace Treaty Conference of 1919, and in his early career also was stationed at the Japanese consulates in Mukden and in Honolulu. He served as Japanese ambassador to Austria in 1930. He returned to Japan to briefly serve as Vice Foreign Minister in 1932, but returned to Europe in 1933 as Japanese ambassador to Belgium.
Arita was an opponent of the Tripartite Pact, and continually pushed for better relations with the United States. However, with the increasing power and influence of the military in Japanese politics, he was repeatedly forced to make compromises. From 1938 to 1940, he and Konoe worked together to create the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, which deliberately outlined vague objectives for propaganda purposes. Arita emphasized on the economic aspects, at the behest of Yōsuke Matsuoka, whilst Konoe emphasized on pan-Asian unity.[1]
Post-war politics
After the surrender of Japan, Arita was purged from public office by the occupation. When the purge was lifted he became active as a leftist politician and successfully ran for a seat in the House of Representatives in the 1953 election. In the same year, the widowed Arita married Terui Azegami, the proprietress of an upscale ryotei in Shirokanedai.[2]
Arita ran for the office of Governor of Tokyo as a candidate of the Japan Socialist Party in 1955 and again in 1959, but lost both elections. During the 1959 election his wife closed and mortgaged her restaurant to raise campaign funds. After the defeat the couple was saddled with debt. Terui decided to raise money for reopening her restaurant with the help of conservative figures such as Shigeru Yoshida and Eisaku Sato. This caused a dispute between husband and wife and they divorced the same year.[2]
After the Banquet case
The relationship between Arita and Terui, and the circumstances of the 1959 election served as the model for the novel Utage no ato (宴のあと, After the Banquet) by Yukio Mishima. After its publication in 1960, Arita sued Mishima for invasion of privacy. The Tokyo District Court ruled in favor of Arita in September 1964, marking the first time the right to privacy of a public figure had been recognized by a Japanese court.[2][3]
Arita served as an advisor to the Socialist Party until he died of pneumonia on 4 March 1965, at the age of 80. His grave is at the Tama Cemetery in Fuchū, Tokyo.[2]
