US-Japan relations after 1945

Résumé du document

On the 7th of December 1941, Japanese submarines and carrier-based planes attacked the U.S. Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor, killing 3000 military personnel, and destroying a great part of the fleet. This led to a 4-year war culminating in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a milestone in human history (en anglais)

Extraits

[...] US-Japan relations after 1945 Introduction On the 7th of December 1941, Japanese submarines and carrier-based planes attacked the U.S. Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor, killing 3000 military personnel, and destroying a great part of the fleet. This led to a 4-years war culminating in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a milestone in human history. Japan was defeated for the first time in its history and occupied by foreigners, imposing their culture and values both regarded as impure by a great part of the population- to a country that had been living voluntarily isolated for centuries years later, the same country has become one of the three major economic power, creating a brand-new growth model, has experienced years of political democratic stability and cultivates its independency and cultural specificity. [...]

[...] (compared to only 18% of the politicians and of the public servants). The country is more than simply pacified; it also comes out deeply transformed at the end of the 6-years period. One should underline the role of anticommunism and the Cold War. Inspired by the 50's McCarthyism, the anticommunist policies promoted by the U.S. administration in Japan were designed to clearly demonstrate that Japan was not going to fall into the communist camp and will play a major role in the application of Truman's “containment”. [...]

[...] The same thing happened during the Korean nuclear crisis in 1994. Moreover, even with only of the GNP allocated to military investments, this country has the fifth army in the world Finally, the only issue in which the US has been able to obtain both the political and economic advantage is the “nuclear umbrella”. Indeed, Japan pays a great sum for its American nuclear protection against any Asian enemy, North Korea being particularly targeted. But, as North Korea remains the only official danger in the region, does it justify such an American military presence and equipment plans such as the 100 missiles that will be based in Alaska in 2004? [...]

[...] For that reason, Yoshida called this war gift of the gods”. During the following years the containment guidelines were applied point after point: Japan became a member of the GATT in 1955 and of the UN in 1956, even taking a chair at the Security Council. One has to make such an historical overview in order to demonstrate that those events have determined to a great extent the following 40 years of US- Japan relationship. So, we can illustrate that the Japanese, particularly Prime Minister Yoshida and his disciples, found a way to reverse the original cost/benefits balance of the security treaties. [...]

[...] So, after having done everything they could to decentralize the industrial sector, imposing their anti-trust code and cutting the head of the “hydra- like” zaibatsu, the American occupants suddenly started to promote the rebuilding of strong national industrial poles designed to ensure Japanese independency from other Asian –virtually communist- countries. Those two elements illustrate a deep change in US-Japan relations, finally symbolized by the 1951 peace followed by the San Francisco security agreement and the 1960 one. The whole logic is inverted: before this date the US more or less tried to protect itself from Japan but past this point they used Japan as a protection, a shield, against Asian communism. [...]