Obituaries : Yoshihiro Inayama; Japan Steel Magnate

Yoshihiro Inayama, who rebuilt Japan’s steel industry from the rubble of World War II and his own Nippon Steel Co. into the world’s largest, died of lung cancer Friday. He was 83.

Inayama, a frequent critic of what he saw as a lack of order in Japanese politics, also served as chairman of the powerful Japan Federation of Economic Organizations.

A native of Tokyo, he joined the Yawata Iron and Steel Co. on Kyushu Island in 1928 after graduating from Tokyo Imperial University.

Inayama, who viewed steel as a key industry for Japan’s postwar rebirth, arranged the merger of Yawata Iron and Steel and Fuji Iron and Steel Co. into Nippon Steel in 1970, stabilizing the industry and improving its ability to compete abroad. He was Nippon Steel’s first president from 1970 to 1973, and its chairman until 1981. In recent years he served as adviser and honorary chairman.

In a rare interview--in 1973 with the Los Angeles Times--Inayama lamented what he saw as a growing arrogance among the Japanese because of their new-found affluence.

The Japanese, he said, are rightly perceived around the world as “merely economic animals” without concern for others.

“This has happened to us since the war. We weren’t that kind of people before. . . .”

He also chastised the warring political factions in Japan, saying, “There is no authority left at all.”

In 1980, Inayama was appointed chairman of the Federation of Economic Organizations, Japan’s most influential business organization. He retired in 1986.