What were the social and economic effects of the Allied Occupation of Japan immediately following the Pacific War, and what effect did the Occupation of Japan have on the attitudes of the Japanese people towards the western world.

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Modern Japan: Political Culture, Popular Culture.

Assignment One: Research Essay.

Question: What were the social and economic effects of the Allied Occupation of Japan immediately following the Pacific War, and what effect did the Occupation of Japan have on the attitudes of the Japanese people towards the western world.

The Meiji period of 1868 to 1912 is understood by most to be the most influential period in the long and dated history of Japan. During this period, Japan rose out of a feudal empire system and revolutionary transformed to a major regional and world power. Japan’s rise to imperial power would eventually lead to their entry into the Second World War, and as a result of their eventual loss, the occupation of their land by the Allied forces. The occupation period, spanning a period of seven years [and influencing many more], had a profound effect on the social and economic structures of Japan, contributing to the nation’s rapid modernisation and westernisation of post-war Japan. In this essay, I will argue that the Allied Occupation of Japan was essentially a positive influence on the modernisation of Japanese society with an intense restructuring of the social and economic foundations of Japan, reforming the political, cultural and social landscape. Furthermore, it is evident that the attitudes of the Japanese towards the Occupation, whilst critical towards short-term conditions, can be seen as mostly favourable towards the eventual outcomes of the Occupation, especially when discussed in retrospect. In arguing these points, I will break this essay into three parts, each with a focus on the attitudes of the Japanese at the time; a brief overview of Japanese society in the decades preceding the Pacific War and the events leading to Occupation; the social and political restructuring of Japanese society that emerged as a result of Occupation; and the rise of economic nationalism as an after effect of Occupation.

There were a number of events that lead to the Occupation period in Japan, which are useful in reviewing the attitudes of the Japanese towards the western world before, during and following Occupation. The direct event that led to the Allied Occupation was of course Japan’s involvement in World War II, however it is important to note the path in which the Japanese took in becoming the imperialist nation she had become by the outbreak of the Pacific War. By 1910, Japan had become a powerful nation, through victory in China at the end of the eighteenth Century, and over Russia in 1904. As a result, Japan gained immense strength as an imperial power, due to their acquisition of Taiwan, Manchuria, and Korea, taken from China and Russia [respectively], as well as controlling the Mariana, Caroline and Marshall Islands thanks to a League of Nations mandate established within the Treaty of Versailles (Smith 1995, pp. 25). As a result, Japan now emerged out of the shadow of World War I as major power, and the supreme power in Asia. This emergence as a world power would quickly capture the attention of the United States who no doubt saw Japan as a threat to stability in the Pacific.

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Hostile attitudes had been simmering between the Japanese and the Americans throughout much of the early-Showa period, thanks largely to a number of different events. The growing hostilities between Japan and China, in regions such as Manchuria, did little to allay the fear of Americans of a growing imperialist threat from the island nation, and the attitude of the Americans towards the Japanese became tense as a result. Americans understood the Japanese to be “underhanded and deceitful”, assumptions that fuelled racial tensions in cities such as California (Seidensticker 1990, pp.280). However, attitudes such as these were most probably only ...

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