Contemporary Japan

History, Politics, and Social Change since the 1980s

Jeff Kingston

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781118315064
• Edition: 2
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Australian & Oceanian History
• Index: History

The second edition of this comprehensive study of recent Japanese history now includes the author's expert assessment of the effects of the earthquake and tsunami, including the political and environmental consequences of the Fukushima reactor meltdown.

• Fully updated to include a detailed assessment of the aftermath of the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami
• Shows how the nuclear crisis at Fukushima was an accident waiting to happen
• Includes detailed discussion of Japan's energy policy, now in flux after the mishandling of the Fukushima crisis
• Analyzes Japan's 'Lost Decades', why jobs and families are less stable, environmental policies, immigration, the aging society, the US alliance, the imperial family, and the 'yakuza' criminal gangs
• Authoritative coverage of Japanese history over the last two decades, one of the country's most tumultuous periods

Part I
Introduction

Chapter 1

Transformations After World War II

Japan’s recovery from the war devastation that left its cities and factories in ruins was surprisingly rapid, but nobody in the late 1940s could have foreseen that its economy would one day become the second largest in the world. In the aftermath of defeat, Japanese experienced unprecedented socio-economic upheaval during what has to be regarded as one of the world’s great success stories in the second half of the twentieth century. Japan was reconstituted during the US Occupation (1945–52), generated an economic miracle in the late 1950s and 1960s, weathered the oil shocks in the 1970s, and saw an extraordinary asset bubble burst at the end of the 1980s, setting the stage for the Lost Decade of the 1990s. This was a time of what is often termed one-party democracy under the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) that ruled Japan as a partner of the bureaucracy and big business in what is known as Japan, Inc. or the Iron Triangle. It was also a time when the long shadows of wartime deprivation and dislocation shaped a national consensus prioritizing stability, security, and policies aimed at minimizing risk.

In post-WWII Japan, there was massive migration from rural areas to the cities, pulled by the lure of jobs and pushed by the limited opportunities of small-scale farming. The ensuing growth of cities, with housing developments, train lines, and highways, created a mass commuting culture with a rhythm very distinct from traditional rural life. The salaryman lifestyle became iconic, a way of life rooted in the breadwinner model, with a work-driven husband, a full-time housewife, and at least two children, usually living with some of their grandparents. Signs of growing affluence became more conspicuous in an expanding middle class. Women were nominally freed from patriarchy with the abolition of the ie (patrilineal family) system, and gained the right to vote and other constitutional guarantees, but in the workforce they remained largely marginalized. The rapid growth of the 1960s did not generate large income disparities as was common in Western industrialized societies, and the relatively egalitarian distribution combined with job security strengthened social cohesion and a sense of shared destinies. This social capital remains one of the foundations and strengths of post-WWII Japan, but is under threat due to widening income disparities and declining opportunities for young Japanese.

The spread of mass media, especially television, helped nurture a strong sense of nation even as overt displays of nationalism remained taboo, tainted by war. Emperor Hirohito was transformed from a wartime leader into an avuncular and soft-spoken symbol of the nation. Japan was visibly welcomed back into the community of nations at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, a sign that it had been rehabilitated under the auspices of the US.

While neighbors may have found the continuing presence of the US military reassuring, Japanese remained divided and ambivalent about this encroachment on their sovereignty. Mass demonstrations against renewal of the US–Japan Security Treaty in 1960 revealed a surprising depth of anger, not only directed against Washington. Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi, who negotiated the renewal, was a suspected Class-A war criminal, one of those senior leaders deemed responsible for orchestrating Japan’s military rampage through Asia 1931–45. He was never indicted, and was released from prison for reasons that remain unclear given his culpable record in Manchuria and later as the wartime Minister of Commerce and Industry. Many Japanese, with the horrors of the war fresh in their memories, deeply resented Kishi’s rise to premier through backroom political maneuvering; he represented an unacceptable link to a thoroughly discredited past. In those days, nobody was trying to glorify or justify Japan’s wartime exploits, as some do now, and anyone associated with Japanese militarism was persona non grata, making it especially galling that such a key figure in the wartime cabinet was suddenly the leader of a country that was trying to reinvent itself by repudiating this past.

Occupation 1945–52

Allied in name, but an American show in practice, the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers (SCAP, a term often used to refer more generally to the Occupation authorities) was personified in the larger-than-life, dominating presence of General Douglas MacArthur. General Headquarters (GHQ), the administration under SCAP, governed indirectly through the existing Japanese bureaucracy; this was a significant contrast to the situation in a divided Germany where the Allied powers ruled directly.

The US presided over Japan in the aftermath of war in order to demilitarize and democratize its former enemy.¹ SCAP acted on the perception that the military had derailed democracy and hijacked the nation into war, and that the high concentration of political and economic power made Japan vulnerable to such a scenario. With Germany and the two world wars it precipitated in mind, the US sought to inoculate Japan from a militarist revival. Thus, SCAP focused on eliminating the military and dispersing political and economic power more widely.

Demilitarizing Japan started with demobilizing the troops, confiscating their weapons, and eliminating military institutions. This was followed up by a ban on war, and the means to wage it, in Article 9 of the Constitution authored by SCAP and adopted by Japan in 1947. Martial arts were also banned and SCAP authorities censored the media and films in clumsy efforts to stifle non-existent militaristic sentiments. People were war weary and the military was widely blamed for the destruction and suffering the Japanese people endured.

The war in the Pacific (1941–5), inflamed by racial prejudice and fears, was a “war without mercy.”² Given the extent of excesses and atrocities committed by Japan, the US, and its allies, the mutual accommodations and relative beneficence of the Occupation are striking. The arrival of the Americans sparked fears of retribution, and soon after the surrender the Japanese authorities were already recruiting women to provide sexual services to the troops. Throughout the Occupation, American troops did commit serious crimes against the civilian population, including murder, rape, and assault, but not on the scale that many Japanese had feared, knowing as they did how the Imperial Armed Forces operated in the territories it had occupied.

In late 1945 and early 1946, the Americans helped avert a famine by bringing in food supplies. They were also importing all sorts of commodities that were illicitly diverted to the thriving black markets where almost anything was available for a price. Soldiers used their PX (Post Exchange, a store operated by the military) privileges to advantage, discovering just how valuable nylon stockings, among other sundries, could be in a barter economy. Rationing was in force, but few people survived without supplementing their diet by other means. Those without enough money for black-market purchases traveled to the countryside where they would barter kimonos or other valuables for rice and vegetables. Making their way back home on crowded trains, they took pains to evade police who often confiscated the food they were bringing back to their families.

Japan in the early postwar years was not the relatively crime-free haven it has become, and violence was common. There were bloody gang wars and turf battles between Japanese mobsters and rivals from Korea and Taiwan, a legacy of empire. Demobilized soldiers had useful skills and few options, providing the yakuza (organized crime) with a large pool of potential recruits. Prostitution flourished because many women had few other ways to support themselves and their families. Nonetheless, there were recriminations against these so-called pan-pan girls brazenly soliciting GIs, men who were attractive because they were flush with cash and had access to the prized goods available at the PX. Drug use was also at epidemic proportions as many people had addictions to amphetamines that they had developed during the war as soldiers or factory workers. In the hard scrabble for survival, theft and robbery were common crimes of desperation.

Unions flourished under SCAP because it released union organizers held in prison during the war years and because of labor reforms that made it easier to organize workers. SCAP believed that strong unions would help spread political power more widely and strengthen democracy. Harsh working and living conditions, along with wages that failed to keep up with galloping inflation, also helped unions grow increasingly powerful. When SCAP banned a general strike in early 1947, unions felt betrayed – while companies understood that the authorities would tolerate union-busting tactics. Management targeted union members with the help of mobsters, undermining the yakuza’s self-styled image as protectors of the weak and vulnerable. Workers came to understand that joining the moderate company-sponsored unions and renouncing membership of the more radical unions was their best, or at least safest, option, providing valuable context for understanding how labor relations became harmonious as Japan made the transition to high-speed economic growth in the late 1950s.

In 1946, SCAP convened the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE), prosecuting 28 high-level leaders deemed most responsible for orchestrating the war, the so-called Class-A war criminals that were charged with crimes against peace. Emperor Hirohito was notable for his absence, disappointing US allies such as the UK and Australia who demanded he be held accountable. This also disappointed many Japanese who felt that the war was fought in his name and mourned the loss of some 2.1 million soldiers who died at his behest in addition to some 800,000 civilian wartime deaths. At the very least, some thought, Hirohito should have abdicated to show contrition and take responsibility for the devastation Japanese suffered as a result of the government’s reckless aggression.

The Imperial Household Agency, with the connivance of SCAP, reinvented Emperor Hirohito as a powerless figurehead in wartime Japan who was out of the loop, misled and manipulated by the military leaders, and fearful of a coup should he intervene.³ This was the script for the IMTFE, and the orthodox narrative that prevailed until Hirohito’s death in 1989. During the trial, the Class-A war criminals were coached to avoid implicating Hirohito. At one critical juncture when General Hideki Tojo slipped up, the court was recessed and he was reminded of his lines. When the session resumed, the court record was erased and Tojo, a loyal and willing scapegoat, insulated Hirohito from guilt by assuming all responsibility.

The US decided that Emperor Hirohito was more valuable alive promoting constitutional democracy than as a martyr for the right wing to rally around. Instead of feeling the hangman’s noose, he renounced his divinity and became a model constitutional monarch. Throughout the Occupation he lent his support to SCAP democratization efforts while also serving as a reassuring symbol of nation and continuity amidst hardship and upheaval. By not prosecuting Hirohito, however, the US complicated the issue of war responsibility. Japan has often been criticized for not assuming that burden; but if the man in whose name the war was fought was not held accountable and was depicted as a victim of militarist hotheads, why should anyone assume war responsibility?

The legal proceedings of the IMTFE were deeply flawed and the defendants did not receive a fair trial; guilty verdicts were preordained. In addition, Allied war crimes went unexamined and unpunished, leading many observers to dismiss the whole spectacle as “victor’s justice.” Since then, right-wingers in Japan have harped on the very real flaws of the trial in a bid to exonerate Japanese soldiers and their leaders of the serious war crimes that were committed.

There were profound inconsistencies in the Occupation, most prominently the decreeing of democracy without consulting the people. SCAP wrote Japan’s Constitution, one with a distinctly foreign flavor, and established the ground rules for democracy, rendering it a top-down, rather than grassroots, initiative. Potential political candidates who were blacklisted by SCAP had no recourse. The media, considered a vital element of democratization by SCAP, was routinely censored, ensuring no criticism of SCAP and no delving into the atomic bombings. SCAP also nurtured a vibrant union movement to strengthen democracy by spreading political power more widely, and then stood by and watched Japanese companies crush it through violent means.

There was a limited reckoning for war crimes, but overall there were considerable continuities bridging wartime and postwar Japan. Aside from letting Hirohito off the hook, the US made common cause with the conservative political elite who ran Japan during the war years. Most of Japan’s bureaucracy was left intact aside from some purges of top-level officials. The zaibatsu, family-owned industrial conglomerates that dominated the Japanese economy during the war years, were initially targeted for dissolution; they were blamed for aiding and abetting the government’s imperial expansion. However, they were restructured rather than dissolved. Under “new management,” these corporations remain prominent in the contemporary Japanese economy, including such familiar names as Mitsui, Mitsubishi, and Sumitomo among others.

The “reverse course” began in 1947, when the Cold War with the Soviet Union was heating up. Prior to this shift in Occupation policies, the US and SCAP sought to punish and reform Japan while cultivating democracy. After 1947, the US backtracked on many of these reform initiatives, abandoned punitive policies, and emphasized economic recovery. In the context of the Cold War, Japan was a designated showcase for the superiority of the US system and that meant, above all, reviving the Japanese economy. At the time, there was growing left-wing political influence in Japan and it was hoped that improved living standards and working conditions would stem what seemed an alarming development. Economic recovery held the added attraction of promoting Japanese self-reliance and weaning it from US subsidies. There was to be no Marshall Plan as in Europe because there was little support in the US for such largesse towards Japan.

Due to the nature of SCAP’s indirect rule through Japanese institutions, it is important to acknowledge the significant influence of Japanese officials over the pace and scope of Occupation-era reforms. They were not merely passive junior partners carrying out orders from on high; they played a key role in shaping the agenda and realizing it. There was considerable scope for stonewalling, foot-dragging, and diluting or reinterpreting initiatives, and much leeway for Japanese officials to exploit new opportunities to implement their own long-standing agendas such as land reform.

Land reform was indeed perhaps the most profound transformation unleashed under the auspices of SCAP. As with all SCAP reforms, it was implemented through the Japanese government by Japanese officials with considerable discretionary authority in translating directives into realities on the ground. This massive agrarian reform helped tenant farmers, tilling the soil under unfavorable conditions, to become owners of the land they cultivated. Land reform was aimed at breaking the monopoly over economic and political power enjoyed by the rural gentry, thereby weakening a class seen to have supported Japanese militarism. It also undercut the influence of left-wing political groups in the countryside since land reform had been one of their more appealing pledges. Farm output increased as a result of this reform, as farmers who own their land and retain the fruits of their labor work the land more intensively. Aside from boosting Japan’s food availability and self-sufficiency, this meant that many rural households that previously lived a barely subsistence lifestyle, burdened with heavy debts, were suddenly and dramatically lifted out of poverty. This created a virtuous economic cycle. The owner-farmers became a new large middle class of consumers buying the output from Japan’s reviving factories that were rapidly increasing their workforces, thereby absorbing rural surplus labor. Those remaining in the countryside were better off as small parcels of land had to support fewer people. Moreover, this growing middle class of owner-cultivators became loyal supporters of the LDP, helping to keep it in power.

Politics

In the post-WWII era, the most striking political development was extended one-party rule by the LDP since it was formed in 1955.⁴ The party was a merger of conservative parties responding to growing support for the Japan Socialist Party (JSP). These were the two main contenders in this era, but it was an unequal contest.

Japan’s one-party dominated democracy was called the 1955 system, one that was sustained by powerful conservative support. Big business and the bureaucracy favored the LDP and its conservative agenda. This provided the LDP with generous campaign funding and opportunities to wield its influence to cultivate a...