HIST 347

Dr. Chin

Quincy Standage

The Pacific Century: Reinventing Japan

1. What were some of the key concerns and focuses the SCAP and Japan had in terms of building Japan?
Use the film and the lecture/reading to help develop your arguments. 

 Several key concerns of the SCAP or the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers was the
further industrialization of Japan, decreasing poverty and famine, stabilizing Japan and ensuring
an ally in East Asia, and implementing a new “westernized” constitution. The SCAP, at the time
General Douglas MacArthur, aimed to implement a new constitution of western ideals to further
develop an ally with close proximity to Russia and China. At the time of the occupation of Japan,
it was in a severe famine and monopolies stalled the economic growth of the nation. These
issues plus the public’s demand for reform forced the Japanese government to make
concessions. One scene from the film that struck me was when the narrator described the
authority the emperor held over the Japanese population. The SCAP’s focus on rebuilding Japan
had unintended consequences when western film, art, and theater permeated Japanese society.
With the loosening of censorship laws, Japanese film maker Akira Kurosawa, argued that in the
post-war era there was a “new sense of creative freedom” (Reinventing Japan). The occupation
and ultimate draft of a new constitution drastically increased the social and economic health of
the Japanese people and played a role in the liberation of women through the granting of rights.

2. Choose three scenes in the film, elaborate on them and discuss why and how these scenes further
your understanding of the period of Japan. 

a) Scene 1: The development of the new constitution and the push for women’s rights
a. The film introduces Beate Sirota Gordon, a woman placed on the civil liberties
committee for drafting the new constitution. She travelled between university libraries
and studied a variety of constitutions to better understand how to develop a Japanese
constitution. Gordon was essential in the fight to include women’s rights in Japan’s new
constitution and she even attempted to include provisions for prenatal care and
maternity leave, which were not in the U.S. Constitution. Despite her requests for
specific rights for women, her proposals were rejected because they argued that her
provisions were “too specific” (Reinventing Japan).
b) Scene 2: The expansive labor union protests for an increase in pay and better working conditions
a. The mobilization of the Japanese people to demand better working conditions and an
increase in pay is extraordinary in the scope and scale of the labor unions involved. The
demand for reform also influenced the new constitution and the importance of
increasing human rights. This demonstrates how this period of Japanese history was full
of social, political, and economic turmoil.
c) Scene 3: MacArthur’s efforts to breakup Zaibatsu and farming monopolies by requiring the
Japanese government to purchase 30 million parcels of land to be sold cheaply to Japanese
farmers
a. MacArthur’s demand to increase the number of farmers that owned land was an
interesting proposal thrust upon the Japanese government. MacArthur famously stated
that a farmer without land is no farmer at all. Despite push back from the Communist
Party in Japan, this land reform was instrumental in allowing the Japanese to feed their
families and general economic mobility. This was especially crucial because some 50% of
Japanese people in this period fed themselves off of the land (Reinventing Japan).