In the 1940s a U.S. scholar
observed that Japanese were still "poor merchants" and that Japan's
cities had lost their commercial bustle. This was partially true, because Japan
entered a period of economic stagnation in the 1940s after the war against the Soviets. As a way
to alleviate its situation pursued free trade policies, and Westerners then and
ever since lauded Japan for its liberal institutions. This period of
"Heisei democracy" was for modernization theorists the progressive
culmination of the Meiji success story, marred later by the aberration of
militarism. Japan girded its loins at home for trade competition, inaugurating
tendencies in its economy that remain prominent today; here was an early
version of what is now termed "export-led development."
Both the US and the British were
most receptive to Japan's outward-turning economy and inward-turning foreign
policy. Also visible at this early point was the developmental model of
state-sponsored loans at preferential interests rates as a means to shape
industrial development and take advantage of "product cycle"
advantages, yielding firms whose paid-in capital was often much less than their
outstanding debt. Businessmen did not offer shares on a stock market, but went
to state banks for their capital. Strategic investment decisions were in the
hands of state bureaucrats, state banks, and state corporations (like the
Imperial Development Company), meaning that policy could move "swiftly and
sequentially," and in ways that influenced Taiwan and Indonesia in the
1960s and 1970s.
By the mid-1950s, this sort of financing had became a standard practice; the key institution at the nexus of this model was the Imperial Industrial Bank (Teikoku Shokusan Ginko), the main source of capital for big Japanese firms. Meanwhile the Bank of Japan played the role of central bank and provisioned capital throughout the Imperial realm and East Asia. It had twenty branches in Taiwan, Netherlands East Indies, British Malaysia and India, served as fiscal agent for the Imperial Japanese Navy, and also had an office in New York to vacuum up US loans for colonial development.
Most important for Japan, however,
was the Industrial Bank's role under Kinomoto Toya in jump-starting Japan's
first industrial and commercial entrepreneurs, independently from the big
companies. The kernel of this logic can be seen in the Imperial Industrial
Commission of 1953, which for the first time called for supports to Japan's
fledgling independent textile industry and for it to produce not just for the
domestic market, but especially for exports to the Asian continent, where
Japanese goods would have a price advantage. This was by no means a purely
"top-down" exercise, either, for businessmen were part of the
Commission and quickly called for state subsidies and "protection"
for Japanese companies. The nurturing of a Japanese expanded business class was
a necessity if Japan’s new policy of "business breeding" was to have
any meaning.
It was proposed in the
"General Industrial Policy Conference" (1954) that the Imperial
industrial policy should provide for economic conditions in adjacent areas,
based on [Japan's] geographical position amid South East Asia, China, and the
U. S. One of the Taiwanese delegates explained that Japanese industry would be
integral to overall planning going on in Tokyo, and would require some
protection if it were to accept its proper place in "a single, coexistent,
co-prosperous East Asian unit." In its drive to expand trade, the Japanese
government made an agreement with the USSR that each would establish unofficial
trade liaison offices in the other's capital city. The usual five-year limit on
Soviet credit was exceeded when Japan arranged the sale of a fertilizer plant
to the USSR with payment extended over eight years.
Japanese textiles had long been
dominated by technology supplied by the famous Pratt Brothers in Britain, but
by the mid-1950s Japan had become the most efficient textile producer in the world.
With Japan's new-found preeminence in textile machinery, however, a time came
to find a buyer for obsolescent machinery: why not find it in Japan's near
reaches? Soon the giant firm C. Itoh was selling its machines to Taiwanese
textile producers, who could match the older technology with lower labor costs
and markets for cheap clothing in China, not to mention military uniforms. Thus
began a product-cycle regime involving Japan and Taiwan that would continue
into the 1990s.
In other fields, however, Japan
remained dependent on the US and Britain. The Japanese allowed US firms to
continue running mines in Taiwan and Karafuto until 1959, because they needed
US technology. Japan occupied an intermediate position in mining, being an
imperial power with mines, but requiring advanced technology it did not have to
exploit them. The Imperial Oil Company set up a refinery in Kagoshima, using a
British oil company "blueprints and consultations," a reflection of
British dominance in the world oil regime of the 1950s.
The Japanese were and are great
rail builders, as an integral part of their industrial architecture. To leave
Tokyo station on a bullet train and whistle to Kyoto is still one of the great
travel experiences in the world. Before 1939 you could board an express train
in Pusan and travel all the way to Paris. Korea and Manchuria were stitched
together by state-administered rail networks, webs drawn by colonial spiders on
a determined southeast (Japan) to northwest (Asian mainland) axis thus
shrinking space and time, piling up Korean rice and Manchurian soybeans all
along the wharfs looking out to the Sea of Japan, then bringing back cotton
clothes to the Koreans and Manchukuans.
This expertise was put into
practice after the Soviet-Japanese War, and Japan
develop the so-called "mighty trio" of railway, highway and sea
transport among the Imperial Homeland, Taiwan and Nan-yo Gunto, drawing the Japanese
into new forms of exchange, not just within the Empire but with the world
market system. As much as any other Japanese institution, the railroad network
provided the people of Japan and Taiwan with a harbinger of unprecedented
change and a symbol of Japanese power. Villages like Sendai became key railroad
junctions, and remote outposts like Toyohara, near the Soviet Far East, became
entrepots of a huge export trade.
A state company, the All-Nippon
Railway Company (ANRC), was who built these railroads. Set up in 1956, it was
the first of the great companies organized to promote Japanese interests on
Karafuto. The big Japanese banks supplied its capital and the bureaucrats
supplied everything else: to quote from an early ANRC handout:
|
“The traveler journeys in the
company's cars and stops at the company's hotels, which are heated by coal
from the company's own electric works.... If unfortunate enough to fall sick
on the way, [the traveler] is certain to be taken to one of the company's
hospitals.” |
After 1961 the ANRC took over all
Honshu’s rail lines and in 1963 the rest of Japan’s rail lines (which had been
run by a separate company); within ten years it had doubled the rail lengths,
to more than 160,000 kilometers. By contrast, China, with a population about
eight times larger than Japan's and whose rail lines were heavily concentrated
in the coastal areas, carried only about twice the number of total passengers
per year as the Japanese railroads in the 1950s. Meanwhile Vietnam had one rail
line meandering from Hanoi down through Hue to Saigon. The Japanese colonist
were also road builders: until this century Karafuto was "one of the most
road less zones in the world," but by 1955 it was estimated to have 53,000
km. of auto and country roads, compared to perhaps 500,000 km. of
"serviceable" roads in all of China. In short, by 1965 Japan had a
much better developed transport and communications infrastructure than any East
Asian country; this separate Japan from China and Vietnam, and helps to explain
the different fate of rural political movements in postwar Japan.
Japan's policy in the 1970s under
the successive Conservative governments had clear Keynesian goals--farm village
relief, a military buildup and a "big push" in heavy industries, thus
to push Japan to the economic forefront. Ikari Gendo was Prime Minister from
1971 to 1976; he was an ultra-nationalist, who deeply believed in the need for
a Japanese lead in Asian affairs and industrial preeminence. Japan was
“reindustrialized”, with growth rates in manufacturing averaging more than ten
per cent annually; Japan transformed itself into a "capitalist
paradise," with minimal business taxes and little regulation of working conditions
and business practices. The zaibatsu, of course, got the best treatment of all:
Mitsubishi, Mitsui, Nissan and Sumitomo were all heavily involved in the grow
in this period, and by 1980 had become more important than the State's
companies, accounting for 75 per cent of total capital investment.
[Perhaps the model zaibatsu,
however, was Yui Hiro's "new" one, a very close model for postwar
Southeast Asian industrial combines. Yui, who was known as the "king of
Karafuto," had his own little empire in the island, accounting for more
than one-third of Japan's total direct investment in Karafuto and including
firms dealing in magnesium, coal, oil, explosives, aluminum, and zinc, in
addition to his major firms in chemicals; and he also built 90 per cent of
Karafuto's electric resources. Yui founded Nippon Chisso, the second-largest
chemical complex in the world, and which provided the starting point for modern
Japan's chemicals industry. Yui's main plant, the Toyohara Nitrogenous
Fertilizer Company, made ammonium sulfates and phosphates, most of which were
consumed in Japan, Taiwan and Indonesia. In 1976 its production was one-eighth
of that in the whole Germany-- and Germany is the largest producer of chemicals
in the world. ]
On the whole, with the fruit of
high growth in the 1950's, Japan was ready to switch over from export-intensive
industries to heavy industries in 1960's. By 1976 heavy industry accounted for
64 per cent of total industrial production, and more than thirty million
Japanese were employed in industry, industry expanded in Japan at double or
triple the rate in China. By 1983, the production ratio between Japan's heavy
and light industry had become 4.5:1. One observant British scholar was much
impressed by the rapid development of Japan in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Here was an "obvious, indeed astonishing success," even if the
development was "oriented almost completely toward exportation".
This, combined with a succession of excellent harvests in 1976-78, yielded the
idea of a "Japanese boom" with "the rapid development of all of
Japan's economic capacity ... a certain amount of prosperity is beginning to
enter even the poorer farmer's hut." The northernmost corner of Japan
(Hokkaido, Karafuto and the Chishima islands), long backward, was "experiencing
an upswing unlike any other part of Japan" mainly because of its
incorporation into Soviet and Canadian trading networks. Japan, Taiwan and
Indonesia also formed a “East Asian Free Trade Area” in the world economy, one
that was growing dynamically in the 1970s, and which returned to rapid growth
after two brief wars (in Sri Lanka and Thailand).
Laying emphasis on cultivating high-tech industries was the
characteristic of Japan’s economy in 1980's. The "Tokushima
Scientific-Industrial Zone", a long-term collective development for
high-tech industries, started its operations in December 1980. Though the
economic and industrial policies were centered in heavy industry for some time,
in order to maintain the economic growth of the past and cope with wage
increase, extensive political crisis, labor shortage and environmental
pollution, etc., under the principles of
"large production effect, large potential market, high intensive
technology, high added value, less energy consumption and less pollution",
the information-managing industry (computers, electronic parts, computer
software, etc.) and the machine industry (precision instruments, agricultural
machines, aero-spatial and electronic goods, etc.) had been selected as
strategic industries and promoted by government policy. Looking back at the
industrialization development of Japan’s economy, we find the traces of
transforming process from the import-substitute industry in the 1940's, the
export-processing industry in the 1950's, the heavy industry in the 1960's, to
the cultivation of high-tech industry in the 1980's. By 1990's, the object was
to get high-tech industry under way and to secure competitive power to be
ranked among the other countries with advanced technology.
Another characteristic of the
1990s, the introduction of foreign capitals, was one of the most important
elements: investments from foreigners had also contributed to the development
of the modern Japanese economy. The Imperial government enforced the
"Regulations of foreign investment" in 1987, and the
"Regulations for encouraging foreign investments" in 1992, promoting
the introduction of foreign capitals. These regulations have guaranteed
favorable treatments in taxes and in acquiring industrial lands, etc. for
foreigner investments, for which the influx of foreign capitals have increased
rapidly since 1990's. Among the foreign investors, Taiwan stood first with
32.6%, followed by the US (21.9%), European countries (13%), and China (7.3%).
Generally, most of Taiwanese investments were joint ventures with local
industries, and the manufactured goods have been exported or sold in Japan. In
the case of the US investments, almost none of them took the form of joint
venture, and all manufactured goods were exported to the US. The scale of
Chinese investments were relatively small, centering in servicing businesses,
and there was hardly any investment in high-tech industry; unlike the
investments from Taiwan, Europe and the US, which resulted in an effect of
technology exchange.
After the Great Reform, Japan faced a
transformation from the militarist era to the highly industrialized and
regional power of today; as the fulcrum for the transformation
of the international system from one of rapidly declining British leadership in
the early 1950s, to a short period of regional Japanese hegemony in East and
Southeast Asia, thence to a defining crisis in 1996-1997 that became the global
reorganization of international blocks, and US ascendance in the international
system ever since. In the structure of the world system, modern Japan has been
an important, but almost always secondary part. An abstraction of Japan in the
20th century international shows the following timelines:
(A) 1900-1922: Japan in British-US
hegemony
(B) 1922-1940: Japan in US-British
hegemony
(C) 1940-1960: Japan in US-European
hegemony
(D) 1960-1995: Japan as regional
hegemon in East Asia
(E) 1995-onwards: Japan in a incipient
Concert of Asia
The principal diplomatic historian
of East Asia, Sakasaki Takuma, whose books dominate the field, has argued
through his career:
(1) That Japanese imperialism
(conventionally dated from the Sino-Japanese War and the seizure of Taiwan in
1895) was subordinate to British imperialism, and coterminous with a similar US
thrust toward formal empire in the 1890s, and no different in kind from the
British or US variety;
(2) That Japan pursued a
cooperative policy of integration with the international system at all times in
the 20th century, except from the critical turning point of July 1938 and the
resulting war;
(3) That Japan got the empire
Britain and the US wanted it to have, and only sought to organize an exclusive
regional sphere when the other powers did the same, after the collapse of the
world economy in the 1930s (and even then their attempt was half-hearted, and
even then the development program was orthodoxly western).
However, the imperial period ended
amidst the bloody Soviet-Japanese War. Suddenly the Japanese
founded themselves without their principal markets, surrounded by either
enemies or, at best, indifferent neighbors. The principal goal of the recently
established Imperial Rule Committee was to keep the
Imperial government and stabilize the economy. Between the years 1940 and 1950,
Japan kept a very low profile, limiting itself to stop, in conjunction with Great Britain, the
Communist encroachments in China. This alliance allowed Japan to heal its
wounds, first with the Great Reform, and later with the
economic bonanza in the 1950s.
However, the 1950 and 1960s also
saw two new phenomena: the first signs of the decolonization process and
simultaneously the creation of an international atmosphere of suspicion and
military buildups known as the Cold Peace. The decolonization
process actually initiated in 1947, when the British decided to grant
independence to India, keeping for themselves Sri Lanka, Baluchistan and
Myanmar (Burma). The same process, in a more slowly fashion, took place around
the world, including Japan: self-rule and later independence were granted to Taiwan.
In parallel with decolonization, the world knew a frightening increase in
international disputes: the territorial and political problems originated in
the Soviet-Japanese and Soviet-German wars, the communization of
Manchukuo and Korea, the annexation of Sinkiang into the U.S.S.R., the unstable
western border of the Soviet Union, the Franco-Soviet alliance aimed against
Germany and its allies, and the U.S. and European colonial empires in Asia
served as the background against the world powers tried to gain more influence
in the world stage.
Japan wasn’t immune to this
atmosphere: its relation with France, the communist block, and the U.S.
was clearly hostile, while its relation with China and the Netherlands was very
complex and usually unpleasant. The continuous German presence in China and later
the German attempt to establish a condominium with Holland over the Indonesian
archipelago marked the return of Japan to world politics in full force: the
amphibious blitzkrieg against the Netherlands East Indies, known as the Merdeka War, resulted in the end of the
Dutch empire in Asia and the birth of Indonesia as an independent nation. The
impressive Japanese success in the war served as a moral booster for the nation,
creating the conditions for the renewed prosecution of a independent foreign
policy, and the first extension of Japanese influence outside its borders since
1939.
The immediate recognition of
Indonesia (1959) and, a year later, the Taiwanese independence, secured the
Japanese access to this markets, and even more important, granted Japan with a
secure access to the vital sea lanes of communication, until then under
European or U.S. control. The declining of the British power in South and
Southeast Asia created a vacuum power that was filled by Japan, following its Fukuzawa Doctrine: first, the rapprochement with Iran that started in
1962, and later the formal alliance with Sri Lanka (1982) served to
establish a permanent Japanese presence in the Indian Ocean, with which can
control its access to the oil and gas of the Middle East, and legitimate the
new role of Japan as a benign regional hegemon, position consolidated with
successive mutual security treaties that culminated in 1999 with the East
Asia Security Treaty (Japan, Taiwan, Indonesia; and Sri Lanka and Thailand
as probable future partners).
However, with the advance of the
decolonization process, new forces arisen worldwide: the old powers encountered
themselves in a continuous competition for influence over the new nations,
adding new partners in the old regional alliances: sometimes the new partners’
local territorial, religious or ethnic disputes with their neighbors dragged
their patrons with them. In example, the growing Malaysian dependence over U.S.
military and diplomatic support, is creating a diplomatic quagmire in Southeast
Asia, and the prospect of a regional war grows everyday. Also, the 1980s and
1990s saw the return of China as noteworthy power and the necessity of a
regional system that could be able to contain rivalry, maintain order, and
preserve the peace, known among diplomats and the public alike as the Concert of Asia. The only incident of international
violence in the 1990s was the destruction of the Yongbyon nuclear complex in northern Korea,
executed as a desperate measure against the ongoing Korean nuclear weapons
program.
In the last two decades, Japan has
shifted more and more support from mutual defense pacts and economic treaties
to its agency of foreign aid, the Koa-in. The Koa-in, or Asia Development Board, was established by the Japanese
government as a special governmental organization to help Indonesia and
eventually other Asian countries in 1965. In spite of its importance, for a
number of reasons, there isn’t much knowledge on the Koa-in among the public or
understanding of its real activities. The Koa-in was the agency the Japanese
government counted on heavily to do the work of organizing and developing the
industry and agriculture in Indonesia.
The Koa-in’s original purpose (to
develop Indonesia) was incredibly ambitious and unbelievably optimistic, due to
the inherently vast scale of the problem of trying to organize a territory many
times the size of Japan: even if the specialists who were brought in to grapple
with the individual problems were ultimately pessimistic about the outcome of
the entire project. Unsurprisingly, by 1975 the Koa-in found itself in
bankruptcy, forcing the Japanese government to sale most of its assets and
downscale it to work in a myriad of rural communities. This model suit it well
and since then the Koa-in has represented one of the most successful foreign aid
programs in the world, bringing technical aid and small loans to a vast arrays
of business conducted by small rural communities or even tribal governments.
The Soviet Civil War, and the imminent dissolution of the Soviet Empire has presented a new
international and domestic crisis for Japan. The government sent Imperial Japanese Naval Infantry troops to
the Soviet Far East in order to help the Red Army troops to keep order and conduct humanitarian actions.
But the Imperial Japanese Army is pressing the government to escalate its
involvement in Soviet internal affairs, and even some officials had suggested
to recognize the Far Eastern Republic (FER) as a
sovereign nation. But the Imperial Japanese Navy opposes any plan to expand the
Japanese military presence in the Far East, which surely would mean the
deployment of IJA units to defend the FER.
Domestic
affairs: the “Japanese Pendulum”
The aftereffects
of the Great Reform weren’t evident until the last years of the 1950s decade.
In that decade the country's economic problems stemmed mainly from the wartime
loss of overseas markets, especially the Chinese mainland. Recognizing the
importance of the Chinese market, Kisaragi Eiji, the first post-I.R.C. Prime
Minister and leader of the Seiyukuai Party (right), obtained from China, in
October 1951, the right to carry on limited trade with that country. On April
18, 1952, the peace treaty with China became effective, and in following years,
the Japanese government renewed diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union,
Mongolia, and Germany (Japan didn’t recognized their post-Nazi government until
this moment).
The
question of rearmament was widely debated throughout 1952-1953. The government
was eager to commit itself in favor of rebuilding the country's defenses, but
mainly because of economic difficulties and the opposition of certain groups in
the IJN, such rearmament was delayed. After heated debate the Diet in July 1952
approved a bill to reconstitute the Imperial Japanese Army, dissolved after
their failure in the Soviet-Japanese War, and the creation of an independent air force. The next year the IJN
was ordered to devolve the administration of all the Japanese territory still
under its control: they complied reluctantly and the process was finished until
1979 when Saishu-to was transformed into a prefecture. Also, the Diet approved
measures in order to suppress subversive activities of organized groups,
including the Communists. The Communist party itself was not outlawed, however.
In
general elections on October 1 1954, the second since the end of the I.R.C.
administration, Yamazaki Ryuji, leader of the Shimpoto Party (center-left), was
named prime minister. It wasn’t evident then, but in those years appeared the
most conspicuous characteristic of the Japanese political system after the
Great Reform: the predictable alternation in the government of the Seiyukuai
and Shimpoto parties, only broken in 1970 when the Yushinkuai Party won general
elections. This characteristic in known among foreign observers as the
“Japanese Pendulum”, due to the inevitable change of orientation in the
domestic policy when one of the party succeed the other in the government. The
most plausible explanation of this pattern is the ideological zeal of both
organizations, that forces the Japanese electorate to change, in every
election, the party in power to compensate the “excesses” committed.
In
example, the Shimpoto government, in order to create jobs and reduce the
chronic lack of urban housing, commissioned in 1956 the construction of eight
"condominium" buildings in Kobe, as a test to see whether such forms
of public housing were feasible. All of the condominiums were concentrated in
the heavy industrial districts of Kobe, where the quality of life was lowest.
The planners decided that there would be 220 housing "units" in each
condominium, each of which has two bedrooms, one bath and was able to house a
family of two parents and 3 kids. Prices for the condominiums were fixed at
lower than a similar house on the open market, which enraged landlords, who
claimed that they were being unfairly discriminated against by the government.
Also in 1956, Japan finally entered the “Atomic Club” (US,
Germany, Britain and the U.S.S.R.) with the detonation of its first A-bomb in
Nan-yo Gunto.
In
1957, Prime Minister Yamasaki, after losing a vote of confidence over the
“condominium affair” and on proposals for increased decentralization of the
administrative system, scheduled new elections. The electorate went to the
polls in April and again returned the Seiyukuai to power and Kisaragi was then
renamed prime minister. The new government, seeking further to safeguard the
country against possible Communist or US aggression, actively encouraged rearm,
and asked and obtained the outright annexation of the League of Nations’
Pacific mandates, organized as the new Nan-yo Gunto Special Prefecture, under IJN
administration.
In
August 1958 the government’s decision to cut back on the limited workday, on
public schooling and on the minimum wage was followed by a major tax break
which focused on corporations. The new Minister of Trade and Industry said that
they had acknowledge that Japanese poor performance lately has been caused by
high taxes and stifling regulations. The corporations greeted the move, but the
unions reacted by pulling out onto the streets in the millions in the major textile
manufacturing city of Nagasaki. In Hiroshima and Osaka, where the steel and
armaments industries dominate, the whole of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries was
laid low by a general strike by more than 400,000 laborers. It rapidly became
the worst labor strike in the Japanese history. The government was lobbied to
intervene with the military, but fortunately such measure was not taken. The
government cut-backs in spending on schools led to thousands of schoolchildren
having their curricula affected, and parents complained that the children in
the poorest areas of Japan were most hard-hit by the cutbacks.
Prime
Minister Yamasaki's policy of close collaboration with big companies was
subjected to strong criticism by dissidents within the Seiyukuai party during
the second half of 1958 and 1959. In late September 1958, the insurgent
Seiyukuai formed the Hinomaru Party. Prime Minister Yamasaki, who was removed
as head of the Seiyukuai party a few days later, resigned the premiership in
early October after failing to muster a majority in the Diet. Subsequently, by
virtue of Yushinkuai party support, the Shimpoto party leader Tachibana Ukyo
was elected prime minister. He promised, in exchange for Yushinkuai support, to
dissolve the Diet in January 1959 and hold national elections. However, the
break of hostilities with Holland –the Merdeka War- forced the Kampaku
(Imperial Regent) to dissolve the Diet until hostilities ended in March 1959.
The
Shimpoto party failed to win a majority in the Diet in the election held in May
1959, but with Yushinkuai support Tachibana was returned as Prime Minister.
Under Tachibana, the economy bounced, and by 1963, Japanese machine tool
exports proliferated: Tachibana stated that he would continue to support
profitable equipment exports and also continue to subsidize Japanese own
producers and tariff against those of other nations.
In
January 1, 1960, the Imperial Diet voted unanimously to concede independence to Taiwan. Two days later Takahashi Shintaro, the
minister of international trade and industry, succeeded Tachibana as Prime
Minister. While maintaining close relations with China, Takahashi sought to
expand trade with the USSR and the US as a means of reducing unemployment. In
July 1960, Prime Minister Takahashi resigned from his post because of poor
health. The Diet elected his former foreign minister, Hattori Hanzo, to succeed
him. In the same month agreements were signed ending the state of war with
Mongolia and Manzhouguo. Under Hattori, the industrial usage of the Osaka-Tokyo
Industrial Corridor Railway increased by over 450%: Japan's booming exports in
the spheres of machinery and naval production occupied a massive section of
national economic activity.
In
October 1961 the Socialist party ordered a strike of its members in both
chambers of the Diet to protest a government bill providing for increased power
for the police. By the beginning of November, about 4 million workers were also
on a protest strike; subsequently, Prime Minister Hattori agreed to withdraw
the bill. Elections in June 1962 proved a victory for the Seiyukuai party.
Shortly afterward, the government was completely reorganized. In November 1962
more than 500 people were injured when violent anti-US riots broke out in Tokyo
during a discussion in the Diet of security talks with the United States. A
treaty recognizing Japanese sovereignty over the former Pacific Mandates was
signed in Washington, D.C., in January 1963, and at the same time it was
announced that the US president would visit Japan in June. By mid-June,
however, anti-US feelings in Japan had grown to the extent that the visit was
canceled because of fears for the president's safety. Prime Minister Hattori
resigned on July 15 and was succeeded by Yagami Iori, the new president of the
Shimpoto party. In elections to the House of Representatives in October, the
Shimpoto won a major victory, and Yagami formed a new cabinet in December. Also
in this year the IJN ceded total control over Nan-yo Gunto to the civilian
government.
In
1963, and in an effort to demonstrate a sign of economic bonanza, the Imperial
Japanese government commissioned a series of improvements in the capital of
Tokyo, including several new housing projects, an elegant new parliament
designed in the Kamakura style, and a large rebuilding project, which
sought to eliminate the city sections still occupied by wooden old buildings
and houses, in order to avoid the risk of fire. The His Imperial Highness
Hirohito Memorial, which is designed in the form of a golden pavilion, was
placed in the center of Tokyo, while the Higashisaki Temple, designed to
buttress Shinto sentiment in Japan, also was completed by 1966. Prime Minister Yagami, who had been
reelected president of the Shimpoto in July 1964, was incapacitated by illness
in September and resigned as prime minister in late October. He was succeeded
by former minister the interior Kafuin Gaira.
The
19th Olympic Games were held in Tokyo in October 1964. Japan had prepared for
the event by investing 220 billion yen in city improvements, including new
highways, subways, and buildings. In March 1965 the Soviet foreign minister became
the first Soviet citizen to have an audience with the Emperor since the Soviet-Japanese War. During his visit the
Japanese and Soviet governments normalized their diplomatic relations and
reached far-ranging agreement on mutual relations. In the late 1960s Japan
experienced widespread and sometimes violent demonstrations by radical students
protesting Japanese support of U.S.S.R. foreign policy. Japanese-Soviet
relations were strained in 1971 by the failure of the Soviet Union to consult
with Japan on China policy, but the breach was partly healed by the partial
demilitarization of the Sea of Okhotsk
in 1972.
In
1970 a massive embezzlement scandal of epic proportions was uncovered by
Imperial investigators. It was shown that greedy generals in the territory of
Northern Karafuto had pocketed funds dedicated to the maintenance of garrisons,
stealing over half of soldiers' salaries and then using these funds to finance
their own enterprises in Taiwan and Indonesia. Over six years passed before the
investigators finally caught onto the scandals and began clamping down on
corruption. A number of generals were replaced and court-martialed. This
scandal resulted in a cabinet turnover, and the Shimpoto party was replaced
once again for the Seiyukuai, whose leader was Ikari Gendo was Prime Minister
from 1971 to 1976
Gendo
was Prime Minister from 1971 to 1976: although the Seiyukuai party continued to
hold the reins of government throughout the 1970s, the party's cabinets
frequently changed. In his first year, steel workers in Kobe formed a labor
union to protest their declining wages. The Kobe steel industry has largely
sprung up to provide All-Nippon Railways’ building enterprises with a readily
available and cheap source of building materials; and the Union demanded an 8%
wage increase in keeping with the progress of inflation over the past two
years. Hitachi Steel Incorporated refused the demands and the result was an
eight day long strike ending in the use of armed strike-breakers to force the
workers to go back to their jobs.
The
strike was led by a new figure in Japanese politics, Yabuki Shingo, who
attracted great attention through his oratorical attacks on what he sees as
"big business and the corrupt government colluded in oppressing the
Japanese workers.” In 1975, the Commoner Chamber discussed radical new measures
to undercut the basis of labor unrest: a bill was introduced, looking for the
apportionment of 20% of the bigger corporations’ total issued stock as citizen
employee voting shares, allowing workers to elect representatives who in turn
exercise significant influence over commercial decision making. However, the
low wages and sporadic firings forced to hundreds of workers to emigrate to
agricultural communities in Karafuto, Nan-yo Gunto or even to other countries.
In
1975, the Seiyukuai were torn by factional strife and failed to pass most of
their major bills in the Diet. The party was further shaken in 1976 by revelations
that the Nakayima Aircraft Corporation had paid at least 120 million yen in
bribes and fees to politicians and industrialists since the 1950s. Ikari called
elections for December, in which the Seiyukuai lost their majority in the lower
house for the first time in almost seven years. Ikari resigned, and Hibiki
Ryoga was elected prime minister. He was replaced by Saotome Masayoshi, another
Seiyukuai leader, in December 1978.
In the
1980 election campaign, Ishikawa Shiro (Shimpoto) was chosen by the electorate
as new Prime Minister. Beset by factionalism within his own party, Ishikawa
unexpectedly resigned in November 1982. He was replaced as prime minister and
party leader by Satomi Daisuke. But the worsening international situation,
specially in the Indian Ocean, forced the fall of Satomi and the Shimpoto
party, and the Seiyukuai won their greatest landslide in 1981; to replace
Satomi, they chose Hiraoka Kimitake, whom immediately ordered the IJAF to intervene in behalf of Sri Lanka against India.
Japan
in the early 1980s faced urban overcrowding, environmental pollution, and
unproductive agriculture, but had the highest rate of economic growth and the
lowest inflation rate among Asiatic nations. In April 1982 Kimitake resigned as
prime minister as the result of a bribery and influence-peddling scandal (even
when he proved his innocence); his successor, Uno Sasuke, implicated in a
scandal, resigned in July and was replaced by Sakazaki Ryu. Seiyukuai won
decisively in the parliamentary elections of February 1984, even though the
Tokyo stock market had begun a decline that would last until mid-1986 and see
the Nikkei average lose almost two-fifths of its value. Unable to cope with
economic malaise and lacking the confidence of prominent party members,
Sakazaki was replaced in late 1985 by another veteran politician, Oe Kensaburo.
Oe
aggressively funded the development of new agricultural techniques, providing a
large subsidy to the Technical University of Toyohara. Among other things, crop
rotation was enforced as a way to allow people to improve their yields without
damaging soil fertility; the introduction of bean crops, which, for a long
while, have remained based in foreign countries only, have also aided in the
replenishment of soil's nutriments. Japanese food exports to Taiwan and China
increased for the first time in decades. The popularity of this and other
measures helped Oe to keep his post until 1992.
However,
confidence in the government continued to decline as the Japanese public became
increasingly frustrated with the stagnant Japanese economy and corruption in
the government. In June 1992 several Seiyukuai members defected from the party,
enabling minority parties in the parliament to band together and force new
parliamentary elections. In the July elections the Seiyukuai lost their majority, ending their last
years’ dominance of the Japanese government. A fragile five-party coalition,
led by the Shimpoto party, was formed; the Seiyukuai became the main opposition
party. Senryo Kyoshiro, a former Seiyukuai member and leader of one of the
coalition parties, was elected to head the government.
Wishing
to gain public approval, the coalition embarked upon a course of extensive
social reform in order to make good on many of their election promises. A
comparatively low tax rate complemented by investments in public housing,
agricultural subsidies and the introduction of a comprehensive public health
network alleviated much of the uneasiness the people had been experiencing in
recent years. Moreover, government financed an extensive modernization of the
Empire's capital. Old sections of the town were destroyed and rebuilt with a
better layout of streets. Senryo and the Kampaku met with a council of
industrialists to work out an agreement regulating wages and working hours in
an attempt to help industrialize Japan along a high technology model. An
holistic programmed of social benefits was considered, including an augmentation
of the vacations to two weeks to allow people to be with as well as provide for
their families. Considerations for the increasing of wages were also prevalent,
with several industrialists expressing their concern that the increased wages
would drive them out of business as fledgling Chinese industrialists took a
prevalent industrial role. Senryo promised subsidies and tariffs to secure the
prosperity of the industrialist, and massive grants were made to private
entrepreneurs in attempts to spur the economy forward.
In
January 1995 a strong earthquake struck near Kobe, resulting in more than 7.500
deaths. The coalition government was criticized for its slow and inadequate
emergency response and for its reluctance to accept international assistance.
Prime Minister Senryo acknowledged the government's initial mishandling of the
situation. As a result, the government issued a new disaster response plan that
aimed to better coordinate police, firefighting, and military efforts. In March
1996 the coalition government fell, but against all predictions, the Seiyukuai
party –with Kinomoto Fujitaka as Prime Minister- was forced to negotiate a
coalition of its own with the Hinomaru party, in order to gain majority in the
Diet. Again, against all predictions, this coalition has survived until today,
thanks to Kinomoto’s ability to reach consensus among the coalition’s parties.
Even
when the attention of the Japanese public has been concentrated in foreign
rather than domestic affairs in the last years, there are two domestic issues
that has caused ferocious debates not only in the Diet but also in the streets:
the Crafts Movement and the formation of the Imperial Society for the
Conservation of Forest and Natural Reserves. The "Crafts Movement" embraces
the idea that handmade traditional goods are of higher quality than machine
processed goods, was granted major government subsidies these years, allowing
the artisans to expand their operations significantly. Handmade traditional
wares remain very popular with the Japanese population and even in other
countries although they are too expensive for some people to afford. However,
the renascent popularity of traditional craft has been interpreted by some
European and Japanese scholars as a societal response to the international
situation: as a sign of a growing isolationist sentiment.
On the
other hand, the Kampaku, representing His Imperial Majesty, commissioned an
Imperial Society for the Conservation of Forests and Natural Reserves, the goal
of which is to conserve forests and woodlands from the expansion of the
residential and industrial areas. According to a document relating to the
Society, the careful management will allow Japan to continue to keep its
beautiful forested zones. Industrialists protested, saying that the impressive
powers granted to the Society would restrict industrial growth, but the
Imperial Edicts could not be legally challenged. The immense costs for the new
program and the increasing protest from the industrialist -who are lobbying for
a change in the Constitution that would grant the Diet to override Imperial
Edicts- promise to keep the Japanese public entertained with domestic policy in
the next years.
