JAPAN AFTER WORLD WAR II

OCCUPATION

Japan was a devastated country at the time of its surrender in August 1945 . One
third of the nation’s wealth has been destroyed.

Internationally , Japan was a defeated country waiting for occupation by the

allied powers ( Great Britain , United states and the Soviet union) . General
Douglas MacArthur, supreme commander of the allied powers , landed at atsugi
airbase in late august to begin the occupation . Japan formally surrendered to the
allied powers on the US battleship , on September 2 , 1945 .

The Japanese military was completely disarmed but the Japanese government
was not disbanded .The united states decided to rule the Japan through existing
Japanese government. Democratization of politics was also an early and
important item on the agenda of the occupation. General MacArthur ordered the
Japanese government to draft a new democratic constitution.

General principles for the proposed governance of Japan had been spelled out
in the Potsdam Declaration and elucidated in U.S. government policy statements
drawn up and forwarded to MacArthur in August 1945. The essence of these
policies was simple and straightforward: the demilitarization of Japan, so that it
would not again become a danger to peace; democratization, meaning that,
while no particular form of government would be forced upon the Japanese,
efforts would be made to develop a political system under which individual
rights would be guaranteed and protected; and the establishment of an economy
that could adequately support a peaceful and democratic Japan.

Return to the International Community ;

While Japan was pursuing various reforms imposed by the US occupation

forces, world politics was never static. “Cold War” became the dominant
feature of international relations.

The United States began to realize the danger of the Soviet Union, and made
adjustments to its Japanese occupation policy. U.S. wanted Japan to become “a
self-sufficient democracy, strong enough and stable enough to support
itself .”Now that Japan was to become independent, it had to devise its security
policy to protect itself. Prime Minister Yoshida, believing that devastated Japan
could not afford to maintain a costly military, decided that Japan had no other
option than to rely on the United States, which is democratic in the Cold War
environment. He concluded a security treaty with the United States , which
allowed the United States to maintain a significant military presence in Japan.
0The United States, however, insisted that Japan also develop its defense
forces .

The 1955 System

Many political parties emerged in the early days of post-war Japan, but broadly
speaking, there were anti-communist, capitalist-oriented parties, social
democratic parties, some of which were sympathetic to communism, and the
communist party . After the radicalization of the communist party in 1950, the
Socialists were split between Rightists and Leftists; the Rightists were anti-
communist and the Leftists were still sympathetic to the Soviet Union. Finally,
in 1955, as the Rightist and Leftist Socialist Parties decided to reunite to form
the single Socialist Party, the Liberal Party and the Japan Democratic Party
decided to join together to form the Liberal Democratic Party .

Until the beginning of the 1990s, Japanese politics was characterized by the
confrontation between these two groups, the LDP( LIBERAL DEMOCRATIC
PARTY) and the JSP( JAPAN SOCALIST PARTY). However, this was not
exactly a symmetric two-party system; the JSP was much weaker. The
government was dominated constantly by the LDP. Many political scientists
call this pattern the 1955 System; some others call it the LDP-dominant system.

Japan joined the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development

(OECD) in 1964. Tokyo successfully hosted the 18th Olympics in the same
year. Economic growth during the 1960s was anything but remarkable. Japan’s
GDP grew at a double-digit rate throughout the 1960s, and surpassed that of
West Germany in 1968, making Japan the second largest 7 economy in the free
world . As the LDP government distributed those economic gains throughout
the nation, many Japanese came to consider themselves members of the middle
class. In 1964, 87% of Japanese reported that they belonged to the middle class.
That extremely high growth brought about undesirable changes too. Because the
growth was realized by the expansion of heavy and chemical industries, air and
water pollution became serious in many urban centers.

ECONOMY

Japan is remarkable for its extraordinarily rapid rate of economic growth in the
20th century, especially in the first several decades after World War II. This
growth was based on unprecedented expansion of industrial production and the
development of an enormous domestic market, as well as on an aggressive
export trade policy. In terms of gross national product , Japan is the world’s
second largest economic power, ranking behind only the United States. It has
developed a highly diversified manufacturing and service economy and is one
of the world’s largest producers of motor vehicles, steel, and high-technology
manufactured goods . The service sector has come to dominate the economy in
terms of its overall proportion of the gross domestic product (GDP) and of
employment .

POST-COLD WAR

The complex dynamics that brought about the end of the Cold War caused
profound changes throughout the world, including Japan. However, it is
difficult as of now to properly capture the essence of the new period starting
with the end of the Cold War, both globally and in the context of Japan’s
society and its international relations. However, we can at least point out several
features of the post-Cold War period in Japan. First, the era of high growth
ended. Japan in the late 1980s experienced the hype of the bubble economy.
Tokyo was full of conspicuous consumption. Trade friction with the United
States, though agonizing, gave the Japanese a strange sense of satisfaction and
even arrogance. Many perceived the fear and frustration that the Americans
displayed as evidence of Japan’s excellence. But this arrogance was completely
dispelled by the burst of the bubble. Japanese economy since then has shown
very low growth if any.

LOST DECADE

The burst of bubble economy in Japan lead to Lost Decade in the country .
Japan was the growth miracle and economic model for successful industrial
development during much of the post – war period . The 21st century was
expected by many scholars to be the Japanese century in terms of international
economic and corporate dominance but the seemingly unstoppable Japanese
economy fell abruptly into recession in the early 1990s .

Beginning the period of recession or weak economic activity , commodity and

asset price , deflation banking failures , increased bankruptcies and raising
unemployment . . .

Economic growth was essentially stagnant throughout the 1990s—in what came
to be known in Japan as the “LOST DECADE”—even though a variety of
economic policies were adopted and tried. The country experienced a serious
recession at the end of the decade. Conditions improved after the turn of the
21st century, though growth rates were modest . However, by 2000 Japan was
facing the fact that an increasing number of postwar “baby boom” workers
would be retiring, while, with the country’s population growth also stagnant,
fewer young people would be entering the workforce. In addition, Japan, like
the rest of the world, was hard hit by the global economic recession that began
at the end of 2007 and took hold in earnest in 2008. Nonetheless, Japan
continued to have one of the world’s highest per capita gross national products,
and it experienced continued annual trade surpluses until the recession of 2008.