1. Showa Era Japan: Great Depression, WW II & Recovery14

2. Collapse of Taisho Democracy
Late 1920s: Government by Assassination
Liberals systematically eliminated
Military asserts great authority
Withhold military cabinet ministers to topple cabinets
Work with Zaibatsu to boost military budgets and military hardware acquisition
Build alliance with Bureaucrats to get favorable policies

3. Showa Emperor: Hirohito
New Emperor
New policies: reemphasize national myth of Imperial Deity
Military and Zaibatsu focus on Colonial Expansion

4. Mukden Incident: 1931 Japan dominates in Manchuria (since 1905)
Military wants complete control
Moderates in Diet prefer to leave some Manchurian autonomy
Military Stages Mukden incident
Sabotage Japanese railroad
Launch full-scale war to preserve order
Fiat accompli: Diet forced to ratify military aggression
Japan’s effective beginning of WWII
Japan’s Diet Building

5. Marco Polo Bridge: 1937 Japan Joins Axis powers in WWII
Military favors full-scale attack on China
Moderates in Diet want to hold off and avoid war with US
Military stages skirmish across Marco Polo Bridge
In Hot Pursuit – invade China
Capture Beijing
Present Diet with fiat accompli
Official beginning of WWII for Japan and China

6. WWII Rape of Nanjing (Nanking) Dec. 1937 – Jan 1938
Japanese military atrocities
Bataan Death March
Experimentation
POW Torture, etc.
Undisciplined military??
Shinto and situational ethics???

7. WWII Japan allied with Germany and Italy Japan as “Liberators of Asia”
Nazi sympathy? Japanese as Arian?
Japan threatened by whom? What?
US Oil and Scrap metal embargo: 1940
Japan as “Liberators of Asia”
“Greater East Asian Co Prosperity Sphere”
Domestic War Sentiment?

8. WW II Pearl Harbor Surprise Attack Wipe out US Pacific Fleet in Harbor
Does Japan expect victory?
“We have only wakened a sleeping giant”

9. WW II Severe & fanatical fighters Japanese Cities devastated
Firebombing of Tokyo
Defeat but not Surrender
Kamikaze:
Divine Winds Reprise
Act of Desperation

10. WWII: Unconditional Surrender
US insists on Complete Surrender
Japanese cannot conceive of it
Hiroshima … Nagasaki
“We must endure the unendurable.”
Emperor Hirohito

11. Democratization Demilitarization Decentralization Postwar Occupation
McArthur and SCAP:
(Supreme Commander of Allied Powers)
Democratization
Demilitarization
Decentralization

12. Postwar Occupation 1945-47 3 Ds: REALLY Break up of Zaibatsu
Decentralize education
Introduce Socialists & Communists
Support labor movements
Dissolve military
Impose Land Reform

13. War Crimes Trial of Premier Tojo Hideki
Postwar Occupation
Purges
Most Elected Officials
All Military Leaders
Zaibatsu Leaders
War Crimes Trials for major officials
Emperor NOT tried
War Crimes Trial of Premier Tojo Hideki

14. Prime Minister Yoshida @ UC Berkeley, 1951
Postwar Occupation
Bureaucrats
Survive Purges – US leadership is unaware of their major power
Bureaucracy stays largely intact
Bureaucrats play major postwar role
Example:
Yoshida Shigeru
Ministry of Finance
Good English
Runs for Diet
Eventually becomes PM
Prime Minister UC Berkeley, 1951

15. Constitution (1946, Ratified 1947)
Japanese versions too much like Meiji Constitution
MacArthur commissions US Military staff to write a constitution
Borrows heavily from British
Popular sovereignty
Diet (two-house parliament) expresses people’s sovereignty
Emperor as the symbol of Japanese nation, NOT divine
Judicial independence with power of Judicial Review
Universal adult suffrage
Equal Rights??? Women’s roles?

16. Odd Electoral System
Constitution creates a deliberately complex system for elections
Multi-member districts with single, non-transferable vote
Intent: to be sure no one party can win a majority
Designed to prevent the Diet from being too effective or powerful

17. 1947 Peace Constitution Peace Clause (Article IX)
Proposed by PM Shidehara Kijuro
Initially rejected by MacArthur as unrealistic
Finally accepted and incorporated into Japan’s Postwar Constitution .

18. 1947 Peace Constitution Peace Clause (Article IX)
ARTICLE 9. Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.
In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.

19. Postwar Japan Cold War and “Containment” 1947 Reverse Course 1947
Joseph Dodge
George Kennan: Mr. X in Daedalus
Reverse Course 1947
Reforms halted
No more decentralization
Stop breaking up Zaibatsu
Dodge Line
Detroit Banker leads in an anti-inflation campaign
Leads initially to short term recession

20. Yoshida Doctrine Japan must focus on economic growth
Japan must avoid international conflict
Yoshida Shigeru
Rely on US for security
Follow US lead in international relations
Focus all energy on economic development

21. Japan: Neo-mercantilism
Yoshida Doctrine details:
Focus on Growth
Grow through export, export, export
Protect domestic industry
Focus on market share and growth, not consumer satisfaction

22. Japan’s Economic Model
Export-led Growth
Protect domestic firms at first
Demand that they export
Provide government assistance to direct investment and to support export
Brilliantly successful for Japan (& later Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, & now China)
Standard (not Japanese) 1940s development model
Import Substitution
Protect domestic industries, produce for domestic market
Import only raw materials and capital goods
Fails miserably: leads to debt and weak domestic industries that never “grow up”

23. Bureaucracy’s role in economic planning
Administrative Guidance
Control of import licenses
Control of capital allocation
Encourage collaborative R&D
Amakudari (descent from heaven)
Chalmers Johnson’s Classic Study of bureaucracy in Japanese economic development

24. Japanese Business Model
Post “Ford” industrial model
Dr. W. Edwards Deming:
Focus primarily on QUALITY
Use statistical analysis to measure and improve quality
Dr. W. Edwards Deming
Empower shop floor workers to control and guarantee quality
First presented ideas to US Automakers but was rejected
Took his ideas to Japanese industrial leaders and they adopted them, leading them to become the world’s leaders in QUALITY

25. Japan gets a Kick Start Chinese Revolution 1949 Korean War: 1950
Stimulates US interest in supporting Japanese development and security
Solidifies US security relationship
Korean War: 1950
McArthur requests Japanese troops to help UN effort in Korea
Japan citing Article IX, declines to send troops
Japan serves as Command center, R&R site, and local procurement center – reaps profits from the war

26. The LDP and Japan’s 1955 Political System
1955: Liberal Party and Democratic Party merge to form the Liberal Democratic Party -- LDP
Both were actually conservative, pro-business parties
Single-party dominance
Manage to manipulate the unwieldy electoral system to create one-party dominant system
Develop system of personal politics
Elections based on personal networks and pork-barrel politics
Classic “party machine” system, like Tammany Hall in US History
Supported by a broad consensus that the Yoshida plan and the LDP governance is working
Serve interests of Kiretsu (former Zaibatsu)
Protects interest of conservative farmers to keep their vote

27. Bureaucratic Governance?
Division of roles in Postwar Japan:
Politicians Reign, Bureaucrats Rule
Similar to emperors who reigned with shoguns who ruled …
LDP sets broad guidelines through Diet
Bureaucracies make it work
Bureaucracies propose major adjustments
LDP officials provide democratic legitimacy and get back in return discretionary funds to provide benefits to their constituents

28. Indecisive Diet Weak Prime Minister
Government by consensus
Behind-the-scenes compromise with minor parties
Negotiate until minor parties agree to abstain
To force a bill through over minority parties’ strong objections is “dictatorial” and “undemocratic”
Consensus takes a long time & allows only incremental change

29. Major Post-war Japanese Political Consensus
NO military involvements
The military route nearly destroyed us
No one suffered as much as Japan in WWII
Militarism only leads to trouble
Japan must NOT have a military
Maintain a “self defense force”
No “power projection capability” – no offensive weapons, only defensive technologies
SDF limited to 1% of GDP – that makes it the 5th largest military force in the world

30. Major Post-war Japanese Political Consensus
Nuclear weapons are always evil
Japan is the only victim of atomic bombs
It must never happen again – especially not at Japan’s instigation
No NUKES on our soil or in our harbors
The Yoshida Doctrine WORKED
Focus on economic growth without engaging in security politics pays off
Japan must avoid military involvement

31. Challenges to Japan’s Post-war Political Consensus
China is newly assertive in military matters and may pose a real threat
North Korea claims to have NUKES and has launched test missiles across Japan
US is far less interested in defending Japan than it used to be
Changes in the world economy have undermined Japan’s economic model
Too many countries are playing Japan’s game and have lower-cost labor – hence, very slow growth since 1991
The Yoshida model may have run its course