History of Contemporary Japan since World War II by Edward R. Beauchamp

Author:Edward R. Beauchamp [Beauchamp, Edward R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781136523991
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2013-04-11T00:00:00+00:00

A Forum

American Democratization Policy for Occupied Japan: Correcting the Revisionist Version

JUSTIN WILLIAMS, SR.

The author is an emeritus member of the faculty of the University of Maryland, who now resides in Venice, Florida.

When the military occupation of Japan ended in 1952, not even a Cassandra could have foretold what lay ahead for United States-Japanese relations. Now, a full generation later, the problems that divided the two countries before the Pacific War are absent. With generally similar diplomatic interests, Japan subscribes not only to the American military strategy of preventing Soviet expansion but also the American goal of ensuring participation on an equal basis of most countries in the vast global exchange of goods and services. Americans and Japanese alike, mindful of the exceptional role Japan currently plays in world affairs, are sensitive to the fact that, if Japan became alienated from the United States, its foreign policy might take any conceivable course — from accommodation with the Soviet Union to a massive rearming, including nuclear weapons. Remilitarization, preceded by repeal of the no-war clause in the constitution, would unquestionably pose a threat to Japanese democracy, the establishment of which was a major objective of American policy during the military occupation, which lasted until 1952.

Curiously, despite the increasingly close and friendly relationship between the two countries, there persists in American and Japanese academic circles a sharp difference of opinion regarding the authority and constancy of the democratic reform program imposed during the occupation. American orthodox historians hold that the original democratization aim of the United States was fully achieved. Revisionists, on the other hand, contend that the policy came to grief. Both schools cannot be right. Either the democrati-zation policy was successfully carried out, or else it miscarried in some important respects. This article analvzes and clarifiés the issue. The starting point is an elucidation of the conflicting orthodox and revisionist positions.

Most Western scholars accept Harvard professor Edwin O. Reischauer's interpretation of U.S. democratization policy. The most important aspect of that policy, he has written, was the adoption of a new constitution, which made the Diet (parliament) the chief organ of state power and also guaranteed civil rights. The occupation disbanded the great Zaiba-tsu firms, and in 1947 started to break up the separate units of these combines. By this time, however, it had become clear that further surgery to improve the Japanese economy for social and political reasons might destroy it instead. The antitrust program, therefore, was halted, and the emphasis shifted to attempts to revive Japanese industry. The occupation also encouraged union organization. But the labor unions, in a bid for political power, planned a nationwide strike for Februar 1. 1947, and MacArthur, fearing the resulting damage to the economy and his own reform program, banned the strike. The United States, early in 1949, insisted on a stringent financial retrenchment, which afforded the conservative government an excuse for a wholesale firing of troublesome leftists — the so-called Red Purge. Leftists became entirely disenchanted when the emphasis in occupation policies shifted between 1947 and 1949 from further reform to economic recovery.

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