[TMJC] Japan and the Cold War (1952-1991)

1 Japan and the Cold War (1952-1991) LEARNING OBJECTIVES ➔ Evaluate the development of Japan’s relations with the superpowers during the Cold War ➔ Evaluate the factors that shaped Japan’s relations with the superpowers during the Cold War ➔ Evaluate the responses of Japan to the development of the Cold War HOW TO APPROACH STUDYING THIS TOPIC In studying relations between nations, we identify the nature of their relationship by making observations of their interactions in the following areas: 1. Diplomacy 2. Security/Military 3. Economy The notes have been organised according to decades. One way of approaching this topic is by considering how positive or negative interactions are in the above areas in each decade. In the case of Japan, this can also be based on the focus of each prime minister’s administration and the prime minister’s relationship with the US president of that time. The following table will thus be useful: 1950s Yoshida Hatoyama Kishi Truman Eisenhower 1960s Ikeda Sato Kennedy Johnson Nixon 1970s Tanaka Miki Fukuda Ohira Nixon Ford Carter 1980s Ohira Nakasone Carter Reagan Another way to approach the topic would be to consider key events that are indicative of the state of relations in each decade: 1950s San Francisco Peace Treaty US-Japan Security Treaty Yoshida Doctrine 1960s Revision of US-Japan Security Treaty Ikeda’s Income Doubling Plan 1970s Nixon Shocks

2 Bilateral Frictions Fukuda Doctrine Comprehensive Security 1980s Ron-Yasu Era Bilateral Economic Rivalry Context of Japan-US Relations On August 14, 1945, still reeling from the aftershock of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese government accepted the Allied powers’ Potsdam Declaration, and World War II came to an end in the Asia -Pacific. Stripped of all of its colo nial possessions acquired since 1895, Japan faced, for the first time in its history, occupation by foreign troops and reconstitution of its government at the behest of external authorities. As the nominally Allied occupation of the vanquished empire began , US general Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP), stood atop the Allied military command and administrative structure in Japan. At this moment, the post-World War II histories of the United States and Japan became inexorably entwined. The atomic blasts, which killed 40,000 of Hiroshima’s 350,000 inhabitants and 70,000 of the 270,000 people in Nagasaki, ushered in the nuclear age and Japan’s quest for redemption in the postwar world where visions of the “American century” now reigned supreme. This symbiotic genesis foreshadowed the knotting of Japan’s antinuclear pacifism and the United States’ investment, both material and metaphorical, in a nuclear arsenal as the bedrock of international peace and security during the Cold War. In this braided history, it was the United States’ self -assigned mission to remold Japan into a stable democracy conforming to the Western and capitalist rules of the game. But within months of the war’s end, the confrontation with the Soviet Union began to color American strategic thinking and foreign policymaking, and the task of refashioning Japan came under the added and accumulating weight of the developing Cold War between the two superpowers . Officials in Washington and the American proconsul in Japan became determined to minimize Soviet influence in occupied Japan. By early 1946, the effective exclusion from the Allied Council and the Far East Commission – the inter-Allied institutions overseeing the occupation – of Soviet, and to a lesser extent British, voices infused another source of rancor into the former Grand Alliance. The implementation of occupation policies became in all vital respects an American enterprise, with a small contingent of British Commonwealth forces, mostly Australian, sharing peripheral military tasks. Sayuri Guthrie-Shimizu, Japan, the United States, and the Cold War, 2010. 1. The US Occupation of Japan (1945-1952) • When the war ended, it was the common intent of all the Allied Powers to render Japan incapable of ever returning to the field of battle. "Demilitarization" was thus the first policy of the Occupation authorities and was accompanied by abolishing Japan's armed forces, dismantling its military industry, and eliminating the expression of patriotism from its schools and public life. • The American government, which had led the Allied war effort and whose representative, General Douglas MacArthur, was named the Supreme Commander of the Occupation forces and took charge of the Supreme Command of Allied Powers (SCAP) which began

3 the work of rebuilding Japan, felt that only a democratic Japan would be truly peace - loving. It was assumed that democratic countries like the United States and Great Britain were more peaceful than nondemocratic countries such as Hitler's Germany and prewar Japan under the emperor. • The American government believed that establishing democracy in Japan involved change in all areas of Japanese life. Under MacArthur and with the cooperation of the Japanese, Japan undertook tremendous changes in just seven short years — the Occupation lasted from 1945 to 1952. The success of the Occupation can be judged by the fact that forty years later, Japan has not fought a war, is a close ally of the United States, and has not changed most of the important reforms made by the Occupation. • The phase from the end of the war in 1945 through 1947, involved the most fundamental changes for the Japanese Government and society. The Allies punished Japan for its past militarism and expansion by convening war crimes trials in Tokyo. At the same time, SCAP dismantled the Japanese Army and banned former military officers from taking roles of political leadership in the new government. • In the economic field, SCAP introduced land reform, designed to benefit the majority tenant farmers and reduce the power of rich landowners, many of whom had advocated for war and supported Japanese expansionism in the 1930s. MacArthur also tried to break up the large Japanese business conglomerates, or zaibatsu, as part of the effort to transform the economy into a free market capitalist system. In 1947, Allied advisors essentially dictated a new constitution to Japan’s leaders. Some of the most profound changes in the document included downgrading the emperor’s status to that of a figurehead without political control and placing more power in the parliamentary system, promoting greater rights and privileges for women, and renouncing the right to wage war, which involved eliminating all non-defensive armed forces. 1. First Impact: Political Changes - The most obvious changes were political. During the Occupation, Japan adopted a new constitution (sometimes called the MacArthur Constitution because of the major role Americans played in its drafting). This constitution was completely different from the Meiji Constitution of 1889. - The biggest change was that it declared that sovereignty rested with the people, not the emperor. This is the political basis of democracy. - The emperor was to continue as a symbol of Japanese unity and culture, somewhat like the Queen of England in Britain's democracy, but without any political authority whatsoever. - The supreme political institution was now to be Japan's parliament, the Diet, which was to be made up of freely elected representatives of the people. - Women were given equal rights under the new constitution, including the right to vote. - Local governments were strengthened to encourage "grass -roots level" political participation. - The constitution established many new civil liberties, such as the right of free speech, and the powers of the police were weakened and carefully regulated.

4 - Finally, the military forces were completely ab