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APRIL 28, 2000 VOL. 26 NO. 16 | SEARCH ASIAWEEK
How the nation rose from defeat, and now grapples with inertia BY TODD CROWELL Also: The Logic of Japanese Politics Is Japan Really Changing its Ways The American occupation of Japan for seven years after the country's surrender on Aug. 18, 1945 was the century's last exercise in Western colonialism. The occupiers came with an almost missionary zeal to remake the political, social, cultural and economic fabric of Japan. Unlike in occupied Germany, they were unfettered by any need to accommodate the concerns of other Allies or public opinion at home (which would surely have supported hanging the Emperor). The evidence that this experiment in nation-rebuilding was, on the whole, successful can be seen in Japan's position today as a peaceful, democratic, and of course, supremely prosperous nation. Most Japanese who lived through the years immediately after the surrender would probably also concede that the Americans acted responsibly, but that does not mean that the locals look back on this period with any sense of nostalgia. One of the strengths of John W. Dower's Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II (W.W. Norton, New York, 676 pages, $29.95) is that it gives much more space to the Japanese perspective of the immediate postwar years than most other works that have chronicled the period. Japan was a nation prostrate, the population surviving on bamboo shoots and sweet potatoes. The people were humiliated and disillusioned with their wartime leaders. That partly explains why they were remarkably compliant toward the foreign overlords and receptive to what they taught Dower is equally good at evoking the sense of the time, and examining how Japanese popular culture reflected the hurt and the overwhelming sense of having been grossly misled by their rulers in a surprisingly rich outpouring of contemporary memoirs, books, cartoons, films and other media. That's one reason the book won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for non-fiction. It is astonishing how quickly the Japanese sloughed off the effects of all those years of ultra-nationalist indoctrination, how they happily abandoned the wartime fanaticism. That should be some comfort to those in Asia who constantly worry about a return to Japanese militarism. Dower devotes considerable attention to Emperor Hirohito. Public opinion in the U.S., and even more strongly in Allied countries such as Australia, favored putting Hirohito on trial as a Class AAA war criminal. Yet the commander of the U.S. armed forces, Douglas MacArthur, and his generals were always supremely solicitous of the Emperor. They were convinced that preserving the monarchy, specifically the reigning emperor, was essential if the larger goals of the occupation were to succeed. Thus they refused to countenance any serious investigation into the monarch's culpability for the war and were happy to encourage the myth that he was essentially powerless to stop the course of events. The wisdom of the decision not to try Hirohito has been debated almost as much as the pros and cons of dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The book discusses in fascinating detail how the famous first meeting between the Emperor and MacArthur was stage-managed. Dower is also very good at detailing the genesis of the American-written Japanese Constitution, which, he says, was partly a means to head off other drafts, some from the Japanese, that would have abolished the monarchy. Embracing Defeat includes chapters on the Tokyo war crimes trials and the rekindling of the Japanese economy with the birth of Japan Inc. Both subjects, especially the economy, have been treated more extensively in other accounts. Dower is not the first writer to describe the trials as "victors' justice" or to deplore the hypocrisy in branding as war criminals people who would soon not only walk free but serve in senior government posts. But he does provide some interesting insights. One irony: Given U.S. press censorship (which Dower discusses at length), only those in the dock could, in their own defense, openly justify Japan's wartime actions. And indeed most of them did just that in testimony and later in memoirs. Perhaps the roots of Japan's difficulty in confronting its wartime actions lie in the compromises of the occupation years, especially the refusal to hold the Emperor to account. If the man in whose name Japan conducted its foreign and military policy for 20 years was not held responsible, why should ordinary people dwell on such matters?
The title of Gerald L. Curtis's study The Logic of Japanese Politics (Columbia University Press, 303 pages, $27.95) implies that many people outside Japan think there is something illogical about that country's political process. It is certainly hard to fathom the "55 system" of government by the Liberal Democratic Party and opposition by socialists established in 1955, which began to break down, surely if slowly, in the 1990s cycle of coalition governments. But Curtis makes clear that Japan's politics has its own internal logic. This is formed less by cultural systems than by the predictable actions of ambitious individuals operating within institutions created after the war. The focus of the book is on the past decade, a time of perpetual political "realignment." Curtis discusses the dynamics of each twist and turn in detail. A professor of political science, he draws on years of field research and personal association with many leaders: "I have a vivid memory of a conversation with [former kingmaker] Takeshita." A useful volume for those wanting to understand Japan's political system.
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