[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 re