Ms. Tanaka is a 57-year-old politician from Niigata prefecture. In 1993, the year her father passed away, Makiko Tanaka ran for the first time for the House of Representatives from the third constituency of Niigata. She was elected with the highest number of votes. In June 1994, at the age of 50, she joined the Murayama cabinet as Minister of Science and Technology.

Ms. Tanaka has won popularity by openly criticizing not only politicians with the Opposition party, but also political leaders within LDP, even though she is a member of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). She inherited Kakuei's brightness and eloquence and her raspy voice and her way of speaking are exactly like her father's.
Since she came into office, everyone knew that Makiko Tanaka would not be an average foreign minister. Now she is trying to reform the traditional bureaucratic system used by Foreign Ministry. By the appearance of Tanaka, state politics greatly draws the attention of the people. Some say she doesn't have a necessary experience for her job. Indeed she has little top-level experience, having only headed the Science and Technology Agency in 1994-1995. However, the people strongly expect the new leader to change the nation's politics, and the ministry receives a mass of telephone calls and e-mails from her supporters telling her to hang in there.

Ever since she took office, Japan's "Iron Lady" has been the target of leaks from within her own Foreign Ministry, and vicious attacks in the Japanese media. The apparent reason is that she has alienated the lifetime civil servants who staff Japan's central government, and who will brook no interference with their financial and political prerogatives. Tanaka strode into office and was no sooner through the door when she began investigating rampant embezzlement-a top ministry official spent hundreds of thousands of yen on the racetrack and girlfriends-and moving to establish control over an out-of-control institution.

Different from other figures in Prime Minister Junichero Koizumi's Cabinet, Tanaka represents the spirit of reform, of the urge to challenge and change the paralysis of Japanese politics: and, perhaps because of this, she is arguably the most popular figure in the government, even more popular than Koizumi. In the narcotized Japan of postwar prosperity, no normal person ever took the slightest interest in politics: the Koizumi revolution changed all that. Japanese housewives and "office ladies" are now glued to the tube during the afternoons, when Japan's parliamentary debate is televised: they can't wait to watch Makiko Tanaka take on the men and win.

田中真纪子现年57岁，出生在新泻县。1993年，也就是她父亲去世的那年，她在新泻县第三选区首次竞选众议员，并获得了最多选票。1994年6月她50岁的时候，出任了村山内阁的科学技术厅长官。

田中真纪子之所以受爱戴是因为她不但公开批评反对党的政治家，对自民党内部的领袖们也毫不容情，尽管她自己就是该党成员。她继承了田中角荣的睿智和能言善辩，刺耳的嗓音与说话的方式像极了她的父亲。

任职以来，所有人都认为田中真纪子不会是一位寻常的外务大臣。目前她正着手改革外务省传统的官僚体制。自田中出现以后，国家政治引起了民众越来越多的注意。一些人说，她欠缺担当其职务的必要经验。事实上她除了于1994年至1995年间掌管科学技术厅以外也确实没有什么高位经历。尽管如此，民众仍强烈期待着这位新的领导者使国家政治有所改变。因此，外务省常接到大量电话与电子邮件，表示他们支持田中真纪子坚持下去。

自她就职后，这位日本的“铁娘子”一直是外务省向外界透露的消息中的中心人物，也是日本媒体恶意攻击的对象。很明显的原因是她疏远了那些中央政府里的的终身公务员，而后者在财政与政治方面享有特权，通常是不允许别人干涉的。但田中真纪子却一上台后就开始调查其中一个高级官员猖獗挪用公款，把成千上万的日元花在赛马与女朋友身上的行为，并准备在失控的机构中重建控制。

不同于小泉内阁里的其他成员，田中代表着一种革新的精神，代表着对日本政治瘫痪状态的挑战与改变。或许正因为此，她成为日本政府中最受欢迎的人物，其受欢迎程度甚至超过了小泉本人。在战后繁荣中麻痹的日本，鲜少有人关心政治：小泉革命改变了这一切。无论是家庭主妇还是“办公室女性”在下午都会牢牢地盯着电视机，观看正在播放的议会辩论实况--她们急切地想要看田中真纪子与男人们较量并最终击败他们。

摘自《英语学习》2002年第1期（J-04）