Japan, occupation of during WWII

The Event U.S. military occupation of Japan as part of the country’s restructuring after World War II

Dates September 2, 1945-April 28, 1952

After Japan surrendered to end World War II, U.S. occupation officials began working successfully to demilitarize and democratize Japan to prevent a postwar revival of imperialism. However, the “reverse course” in U.S. policy soon began to transform Japan into an anticommunist bastion, halting further reforms and building a security alliance.

The United States declared victory over Japan in World War II on V-J Day, August 15, 1945, following Japan’s unconditional surrender. On September 2, 1945, the date of Japan’s formal surrender, General Douglas MacArthur, as Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers (SCAP), took control over Japan, but the U.S. government had decided upon basic policies beforehand. SCAP also worked through existing parliamentary institutions and the bureaucracy. General Order Number One assigned the task of demobilizing the Japanese armed forces to the Japanese themselves, a task they completed in two months. MacArthur and his staff, however, would not let the Japanese decide the nature and scope of subsequent reform. When Japanese leaders prepared a draft providing for modest revisions in the Meiji Constitution, U.S. officials instantly rejected it and formulated a new document. Effective in May, 1947, the American-written constitution swept away all vestiges of elitism, militarism, and authoritarianism. Trials punished war criminals, and 200,000 military, government, and business leaders who had supported the war were purged.

Areas of Reform

Five areas of reform brought fundamental and permanent changes in Japan’s economic, political, and social systems. First, in October, 1946, SCAP forced the Diet to approve a sweeping land redistribution plan that sought to replace large landowners with yeoman farmers who were expected to be the bulwark of democracy. Under provisions of the reform, 2.3 million landowners had to sell their land to the government at greatly undervalued prices. By 1950, about 4.75 million tenants had bought roughly five million acres of land at low prices and on generous credit terms. A huge demand for food and raw materials in postwar Japan resulted in rising prices that spurred production and rural prosperity. The emergence of an independent, prosperous, and conservative farmer class in postwar Japan achieved a key U.S. occupation goal.

A second thrust of democratic reform promoted labor unions. The Trade Union Law of December, 1945, made strikes legal and mandated joint collective bargaining. Two years later, another law set minimum standards for working hours, safety provisions, and accident compensation. By 1948, 6.5 million workers, constituting about half the workforce, belonged to labor unions. Labor leaders acted with increasing assertiveness to control occupation policies, leading to a growing pattern of violence and acts of sabotage when U.S. officials would not cooperate. In 1948, SCAP, in partnership with Japanese leaders, took strong steps to limit labor’s power, achieving passage of a new law aimed at restraining the unions and implementing a new purge of communist leaders.

Third, the United States wanted to eliminate the zaibatsu, believing that these large conglomerates in banking, shipping, international trade, and heavy industry had been partners with the military in waging war. SCAP implemented reforms requiring the sale of zaibatsu stock and dissolution of holding companies, expecting that a more equitable division of wealth and economic power would foster democratization. SCAP froze the assets of zaibatsu families and purged family members and top executives from management with prohibitions against resuming work with the same firms. Fears of economic stagnation and growing complaints about “socialist schemes” caused SCAP to abandon plans to break up remaining monopolistic firms.

Education was the fourth area of reform, focusing on encouraging individualism and creating a truly egalitarian society. SCAP abolished educational practices aimed at molding students into willing servants of the state, especially the teaching of morals that indoctrinated youths to embrace extreme nationalism. Many teachers were purged after SCAP investigated prewar activities. Militarist propaganda and references to the Shinto system of spiritualism were absent from new textbooks, which were designed to foster an acceptance of democracy and civil rights. Students also were freed from prewar channels of vocational, normal, technical, or university training.

Finally, a new constitution assigned sovereignty to the people, while the emperor became the “symbol” of the state. Citizens at least twenty years of age had the right to vote for members of a bicameral legislature, or Diet, without regard to sex, income, or social status. Primary power was in the lower house, which controlled the budget, ratified treaties, and could veto bills the upper house passed. It elected a prime minister, who named cabinet members. The cabinet chose and voters confirmed judges on a supreme court that had the power to determine the constitutionality of laws and name justices on lower courts. Thirty-one articles guaranteed “fundamental human rights,” among them respect as individuals, freedom of thought, education, and sexual equality.

Returning Power to the Japanese

The Japanese elections of 1947 and political reshuffling among the major parties led to the Japan Socialist Party obtaining a plurality, allowing it to form a cabinet. It lasted less than a year, however, and former prime minister Yoshida Shigeru of the more conservative Liberal Party returned to that post, which he held until 1955.

Some of MacArthur’s reforms were rescinded under guidance from the U.S. Department of State as early as 1948, and MacArthur himself turned power over to the newly formed Japanese government in 1949. MacArthur remained in Japan until April 11, 1951, when President Harry S. Truman replaced him as SCAP leader with Army general Matthew Ridgway. The San Francisco Peace Treaty, signed by forty-one nations on September 8, 1951, called for the end of the Allied occupation, and it came into force on April 28, 1952.

Some reforms did not survive after the U.S. occupation ended in May, 1952, but the new Japanese constitution escaped major alterations. Those on the Left and the Right acknowledged the benefits of Article 9, outlawing war, despite their disagreement on how to interpret it. Some of SCAP’s reforms slowed economic recovery. Widespread destitution forced the United States to send more than $2 billion in food, fuel, and medicine to prevent mass starvation and disease. Economic stabilization came in 1949 with termination of war reparations payments and the Dodge Plan. Japan’s recovery soon turned into prosperity, also partly as a result of the Korean War.

Impact

Early assessments viewed the U.S. occupation of Japan as positive, benevolent, and enlightened, promoting the emergence of a democratic society. Later historians would criticize the American integration of Japan into a Cold War strategy that aimed to defeat the goals of Asian revolutionary nationalist movements. U.S. policy toward Japan turned toward a focus on containing communism and maintaining a security alliance. Cold War partnership between the United States and Japan became concrete in 1951 with the San Francisco Peace Treaty and the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty.

Bibliography

Borden, William S. The Pacific Alliance: United States Foreign Economic Policy and Japanese Trade Recovery, 1947-1955. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1984. Shows how economics dictated U.S. security policy toward Japan after 1945, stressing the importance of Southeast Asia becoming a market for Japan’s exports and a source for its raw materials.

Dower, John W. Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II. New York: W. W. Norton, 1999. Portrays American policy as ambiguous, arrogant, and bungling, and provides graphic and moving descriptions of life in Japan between the end of the war and the improvement of economic conditions beginning in 1949.

Finn, Richard B. Winners in Peace: MacArthur, Yoshida, and Postwar Japan. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992. De-emphasizing security concerns behind U.S. policy, Finn stresses Japanese cooperation with the Americans in a benevolent venture to create a self-sufficient and stable Japan.

Schonberger, Howard B. Aftermath of War: Americans and the Remaking of Japan, 1945-1952. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1989. Demonstrates that rather than General Douglas MacArthur determining occupation policies in Japan, an array of Americans with conflicting views and representing different segments of U.S. society and government jointly formed those policies.