Organizing the Spontaneous: Citizen Protest in Postwar Japan

Recently I have read the following book. Its main points in chapters six and seven are:

Book title: Sasaki-Uemura, Wesley. 2001. Organizing the Spontaneous: Citizen Protest in Postwar Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.

Main points:

Ch. 6. Unlike the Mountain Range or the Grass Seeds, the Voiceless Voice was formed in the midst of the Anpo protest in direct response to the Treaty ratification. They represented the large number of people who were concerned with the government’s program of retrenchment in the years leading up to the Anpo controversy. (148)

- the experience of the Voiceless Voice had shown that the number of people actually marching around the Diet represented only a portion of the sentiment against PM Kishi and the Treaty. (148)

- one of the Voiceless Voice member, Takabatake Michitoshi, referred the way in which they formed the group as a process of ‘organizing the spontaneous’. It meant that the members generated their group spontaneously. (149)

- the focus now was how to defend democracy. According to Takeuchi, Kishi raised the specter of prewar fascism through his action in polarizing politics to such an extent that there could no long be any middle ground. (153)

- by using the term ‘Voiceless Voice’, Kishi had himself actually appropriated a phrase that some demonstrators were already using to describe their participation in the Treaty protest. At the next united action, the June 4 general strike, a placard appeared that identified its two placard bearers as ‘Voiceless Voices’ and encouraged onlookers to join them in disproving Kishi’s claim they he represented the voiceless voices. (156)

- the Voiceless Voice also garnered a good deal of exposure in the newspapers and on TV. (159) They told reporters that they did not belong to any particular organization. (159) To encourage more people to come out, the Voiceless Voice promoted voluntary participation, even on limited, part-time basis. (159) The philosophy of ‘just do what you can’ was a key factor in attracting bystanders to join the protest.  Voiceless Voice made known their marching song on June 15. (160-1)

-the opposition to Anpo and the government exhibited by the Voiceless Voice and the citizen who flooded the streets after May 19 was conditioned by historical memories of what had happened in WWII, they saw the sudden transformation of their leaders into ‘democrats’ with the coming of the occupation by SCAP. (167)

- SCAP’s course reversal in late 1940s rekindled people’s fear about the re-militarization of their country. Despite Article 9, MacArthur authorized the formation of a 75,000 man national Police reserve force in 1950 to fill the gap left by the departure of American troops for Korea. (169)

- although some groups failed to develop a systemic critique of the political process, those like the Voiceless Voice went beyond partisan politics to assert a new base of political subjectivity. Citizen’s opposition to Anpo was both profoundly conservative and racially progressive because of historical memory. (177)

-Maruyama Masao helped develop the theoretical perspective of the citizen’s movement during the Anpo protests. (179). One consequence of Maruyama’s line of reasoning was that the citizenship could only be conceived of in its relation to the state. For him citizens were defined by their engagement in the public sphere, which he saw as a contest space. He saw democracy in term of direct individual engagement with the government. (191)

- one of the most important aspect of the Voiceless Voice’s movement was their attempt to break down the boundary between politics and everyday life, and to engage the national government rather than the local. (193)

Ch. 7 Epilogue- it would be a mistake to describe the Anpo protest as the Big Ban from which thousands of separate worlds were generated. The protesters had never been a unified body despite government and media characterization of them as a mindless mob, or the dupe of international communism. (195)

- those who took part in the protests surrounding Anpo later became active in the anti-Vietnam war efforts and in local environmental movements etc. During the 1960s and 70s, the labor movement began to lose its dynamism compared to the students, the feminists, and the local residents in fighting pollution. (202) Women played an increasingly important role in the new social movement since Anpo. (203)

- the groups examined here were affirming the values implied in the Peace Constitution – free expression, and full and equal participation in decisions affecting their own lives. (206). Citizen’s movement also adopted the model of decentralized, anti-hierarchic networks as a way of ensuring free expression and open debates. (207). This organizational principle was seen as necessary to avoid being subordinated to political parties.

- the environmentalist movement of local residents against polluting industries and disruptive state projects in the 1970s also typically adopted a nonpartisan stance. (209) The Anpo era legacy that most frequently related to later movement was philosophical; this is the idea of the citizen as the key social actor operating in public spheres. (211)

- the government justified the environmental impact by asserting that the project’s public benefit out weighted any sacrifices that local communities might have to make. The logic was a post war variation of the prewar ideology of ‘suppressing private interest to support the nation. (212)

- the groups discussed here viewed history in personal terms, and thought that personal responsibly had to be attached to the past, if they were to turn memories in prophesy. Their most important legacy was a tradition of resisting authority and reclaiming the past. They were unwilling to let the reactionary state/party/ mass media to be the ‘custodian of the past’. (215)

Organizing the Spontaneous: Citizen Protest in Postwar Japan

Recently I have read the following book. The main points in chapters four to five are:

Book title: Sasaki-Uemura, Wesley. 2001. Organizing the Spontaneous: Citizen Protest in Postwar Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.

Main points:

Ch. 4. - in the process of re-constructing Japan, labor was a major focus for the Occupation in the establishment of the opposition party. SCAP hoped that a vibrant labor movement would be a counterweight to the power of the industrial conglomerates which was said to be a contributor to Japanese fascism. (81)

-the leadership of both the JCP and the JSP wanted to strengthen the labor movement to bring about a bourgeois democratic revolution that they hoped would set the stage for the eventual social revolution. (82)

-the Poet of Oi Factory was a small poetry circle that Inaba Yopshikazu and Nakamura Kiyoshi helped start in 1954. The two were workers at the Japan national railway. (84)

-SCAP also encouraged and actively supported the formation of the General council for trade union, in short called the Sohyo. (86). Its founding was also driven by a younger generation of activists who wanted to replace the old guard union leaders. (86)

- it was in the context of management’s attempt to displace worker culture with managerial control that the workplace culture circles blossomed in the mid to late 1950s. (88)

-while he was at Hamamatsu, Nakamura organized a poetry circle called the ‘Flock’ and when he was transferred to Oi, he and Inaba and other formed the Poets of Oi. At Oi as in other workplaces across the country a wide variety of circles had begun to pop up. (89)

-the Poets of Oi was typical of many other circles as people formed groups on their own rather than under the guidance of the Japan communist party organizers. (90) The culture movement for the Poet of Oi was part and parcel of members’ working lives. They did not consider the circle as a separate leisure-time activity. (91)

- while the workplace culture circles were the male domain and industrial labor basically died out in the 1960s and 1970s, other circles in different sectors continued to be viable. Women’s circles and citizen movement grew stronger and more significant in comparison to the labor movement. (111)

-Ch. 5.the popular catch phrase of the early postwar period that ‘woman and nylons had gotten stronger’ was in part a rueful male observation that women and become core vocal and assertive. (112) There were two major areas of concern which women organized beyond their own status: education and nuclear disarmament. (113)

-the implementation of a universal adult suffrage under Article 15 of Japan’s new constitution in 1946 widened the imagined postwar community and legitimated women’s participatory demand. Article 24 further declared that marriage was to be based on the consent of both individuals. (113)

- the starting point of women’s postwar social movement was their experience during the War years. For countless women, wartime had produced an acute mismatch between their affective posture and their ideological role. They were torn by the conflict between their duty as “good wives, wise mothers”, and their sorrow at having to sacrifice their husbands and sons. (115) The trend of forming writing circles to record women’s’ experience of the War was thus a significant aspect to the general life history in which ordinary people made record of their love ones. (115)

- the Housewives alliance was founded in 1948 by Oku Mumeo, who believed that housewives needed their own organization to exert direct pressure on the government to alleviate the problems they faced: a lack of goods in an inflationary, black market economy. (117)

- the postwar economic recovery that fostered the massive migration to urban areas created the burgeoning consumer ethic that developed in the late 1950s. This ethic was related in the catch phrase ‘three sacred treasures’. They could see, but not yet reach the ‘bright life’ that would have been unimaginable just a decade earlier. (125)

- consumerism was not limited to electrical product. Mass education played a role in the selling of urban intellectual culture, items included such as inexpensive pocketbook series of intellectual text and translation. (126). The general interest of the monthly magazines gave intellectual a major forum for presenting theirs ideas, thus there was the formation of the Children of the Cedars as a reading group. A group called Grass Seeds was formed again this backdrop of urbanization, development of a consumer society, wariness about the government’s political retrenchment, and women’s involvement in the movement. (126)

- the Grass Seeds was developed from a column that appeared in the “Home life” section of the Asahi Shinbun. It was used to show the trend toward the liberation of housewives. (127). Starting as a column aimed at women, it had the title ‘Hitotoki’. It became the first newspaper column in Japan to devote to readers’ contributions. It was a shift: newspapers often casted themselves as the voice the people. They hesitated to let the people speak for themselves. (127) “Hitotoki” by 1952 became so popular that its readership was said to far outstrip that of the newspaper’s editorials. (128)

- the voice heard in the Hototoki was selective because of the limit space. In 1955, readers in wards throughout Tokyo began to organize themselves into six different groups and hold meetings. These groups held their first general assembly and started their own magazine called the Grass Seeds. They then issued a general call in Hitotoki for others to join them. (130) Grass Seeds were not the only group to develop out of the column. (130)

- although the structure of Grass Seeds was attributable partly to the press, they started their own small-scale magazine to facilitate greater freedom in expression and autonomy than the mass media could provide. (131).

-the Grass Seeds saw their group as part of the same current of women’s group including the Women’s Democratic Club, the Association to Protect Children etc. (132) At the time of their first general assembly, the Grass Seeds had roughly one thousand members, but in keeping with the communal gossip session model, the group did not create a central executive committee. (132) The group did not form around a particular ideology nor gave a response to a specific political issue. (133) The Grass Seeds had been ambivalent about engaging in political activities, but its position began to change in 1958 with the crisis centered on the new teacher evaluation system and the Police Duties Bill. (135)

- they also undertook a major project to record their wartime experience and pass them on to the younger generation in reacting to the Police bill.(136)  They pushed toward political activism within the group that reached a peak during the 1960 protest against Anpo. The Anpo issue had increasing come into the public eye during 1959 through the united actions of the People’s Council to Stop the Revised Security Treaty and through discussion in the media. (136)

- the forcible ratification of the Treaty on May 19 dramatically altered the circumstance for the Grass Seeds; they saw PM Kishi’s action as a fundamental attack on democracy. (137) They were shocked and upset to read the joined declaration of the seven newspapers that condemned the protests. (137)

-feminist movement had been perhaps the most important channel for the second generation of postwar women’s activism. Feminism began to take off in the late 1960s. (144)

(to be continued)

Organizing the Spontaneous: Citizen Protest in Postwar Japan

Recently I have read the following book. Its main points are:

Book title: Sasaki-Uemura, Wesley. 2001. Organizing the Spontaneous: Citizen Protest in Postwar Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.

Main points:

Ch. 1- Introduction: May 19 and June 15 evoked a similar stream of memories since 1960 which was related to the protest of the revised US-Japan Security treaty, or called the Anpo. (1) The June 15 incident was about the right-wing group attacking citizen marchers that resulted in the death of a university coed. The incident led to the resignation of the PM. It was described as a major historical watershed that set the course of post war democracy which could be traced to later protests e.g. the Vietnam War, the campus revolts, and the environmental movements.(2) [background note: in Japan the security treaty was finally approved by the House of Representatives on May 20 1960. Japan Socialist Party deputies boycotted the Lower house session and tried to prevent the LDP deputies from entering the chamber, but were forcibly removed by the police. Massive demonstrations and rioting by students and trade unions followed].

- citizen movement articulated new idea of political subjectivity. This book seeks to present a fundamentally different perspective on the process of the movement by examining four different citizen’s groups that took part in the Anpo protest: The Mountain Range, the Poets of Oi, the Grass Seeds, and the Voice-less Voices. (3)

- the Mountain Range showed the importance of the historical context, specifically the specter of WWII to the protesters. The ruling party seemed intended to bring the warring days back to Japan. The Poets of Oi illustrated a crucial organizational context for the movement. The foundation of the group was the culture circles. The glass Seeds showed the importance of new sectors and constituency of the participants, in particular the women. (4) The Voiceless Voice showed the importance of ideas and values in mobilizing protesters. Their protests manifested a political philosophy based on the citizen as the subject of political engagement. Citizen’s movement shifted the emphases from ideology to action that became the organization’s principle. (5)

- the analysis presented in the book began with the premises that the Anpo protest was not monolithic or homogeneous. It was ideologically and organizationally diverse. (6) The book did no rely on official communiqués but instead tried to present the participant’s own voice. (7)

- there were two main reasons that made it difficult to define the characteristics of new social movements. One was the wide range of the groups; the other was a major paradigm shift seen in the new social movement theory in the past three decades.

- the appearance of new social movement had been taken as an indication that, as Stuart Hall wrote, “Socialist man with one mind, one set of interests, one project, is dead.”(9) The new social movement identified different subject – whether citizens, local resident, or people who suffer discrimination. In Japan it developed around a plethora of issues, arising in responses to the rapid economic growth and the state’s attempt to establish a ‘managed society’. (9)

- the question of multiple historicities was important to the formation and activities of the groups examined in this book. Protests implied a struggle over histories and who would be the custodian of the past [in Carol Gluck’s words]. The protesters had to historicize their situation. (14) The contest over historicity was crucial to understand the Anpo era movements.

Ch.2: The security treaty was signed in 1951. From 1959 to the fall of 1960, about 16 million Japanese engaged in protest against this Security treaty. (16) The protests had been called the most important post war confrontation between democratic forces and traditional paternalism in Japanese politics. (17)

-citizen groups often referred to their own participation in the protests as ‘spontaneous’, to denote that they were self-motivated rather than impulsive or instinctual. (21)

- four factors that had not received enough attention in the past should be highlighted to account for the level of citizen participation. First, the specter of WWII; second, new channels for involvement had arisen; many came out from the circle movement. Third, it was the increasing presence of women. Fourth was the development of citizen ethos that placed the citizen rather than the proletariat as the subject or agent of historical changes. (24)

- the Anpo generation acutely felt the traumas of Japan’s defeat in WWII and was incensed by the instantaneous ‘conversion’ to democracy of teachers and community elders. This Anpo generation had their disillusionment with the Japan Communist Party over the latter’s ideological flip-flops and the suppression of dissidents. (35)

- Kanba’s death during a protest was deeply shocking to all who were involved in the protest. First, the nature of the protest was legalistic. The protesters were exercising their right to petition the government. The fact that Kanba was a student at Tokyo University reinforced the shock. The most shocking thing was that it was a woman who had been killed. Women accounted for only 15 percent of the student population at Tokyo University. She was an officer in Zengakuren. (49)

- Ch. 3. - one of the key instruments that prompted a reassessment of people’s WWII responsibility was a book published in 1949 called “Listen to the voices of Wadatsumi: Writing of Japanese students killed in the war”. Numerous reading groups formed throughout the country that used the book to reassess their experience of the War through the thoughts of these soldiers. (63). One person who was influenced by the reading groups was the founder of the Mountain Range, Shiratori Kunio. (64) In 1947 Shiratori and his friends started a magazine called Nameless Flower. They changed the name to Mountain Range in 1950. (64) The magazine kept records of ordinary people’s lives that were more heterogeneous and came from different occupations and locales. (68)

- Mountain Range reformed in 1956. Their members communicated primarily in writing and since the groups were so spread out, they began to make plan to get everyone together. (69). They saw themselves mainly as a researcher and writing circle. (71)

- the Mountain Range did not make any resolution about Anpo, even when the treaty was forcibly ratified on May 19 or when Kanba was killed on June 15. (76) Members’ description of the Anpo protests tended to emphasize their heterogeneity in the forms of action, the different locations in which they took place. (77) Members had continued to meet as a whole group once every two years, always in a different location. (77)

- the group’s mission of chronicling people from various walks of life and spreading their work through small scale communications networks had spawned several publishing ventures. Their Tokyo group in particular had many members connected with the publishing world. (78)

- for the Anpo generation, the day of Japan’s surrender was the beginning of their lives, 1945 was the year zero. It afforded the chance to construct a new system on top of the old one razed in the bombing. For them, rebirth took placed in radically personal terms. To survive, they had to take personal responsibility for the way they were in order to effect changes under their new circumstance. (80)

(to be continued)

股市海外投資者上半年顯著“超賣”

Yesterday the NHK News on-line reported the following:

上半期の株式市場 海外投資家が大幅な「売り越し」

7月8日 4時46分

ことし１月から先月の最終週までの上半期に、国内の主な株式市場で海外の投資家が株式を売った額は、株式を買った額を４兆円余り上回る大幅な「売り越し」となりました。

東京証券取引所のまとめによりますと、ことし１月から６月の最終週までの半年間に、国内の主な株式市場で、海外の投資家が株式を売った額は、株式を買った額を４兆７４１０億円上回りました。
株式を売った額が買った額を上回る「売り越し」は上半期としては２年ぶりで、売り越しの額は、２年前の９２６５億円の５倍を超える規模となりました。
これは年明け以降、外国為替市場で円高ドル安が進んだことや、中国経済の先行きへの懸念が強まったこと、イギリスのＥＵ＝ヨーロッパ連合からの離脱を巡る不透明感などで、海外の投資家がリスクを避けようという動きが強まったためです。
こうしたことから、去年末には、１万９０００円台だった日経平均株価は、半年間で３０００円以上値下がりしました。
市場関係者は「イギリスのＥＵ離脱の影響がどこまで広がるかは不透明で、新しい不安要素が出るたびに、投資家が反応しやすい流れが、当面、続くのではないか」と話しています。

(試譯文)

In the first half of this year from January to the last week of last month, the amount of stocks which overseas investors sold at the domestic main stock exchange had exceeded the amount of stock certificate bought by about 4,000,000 million yen, it became substantially a "overselling market".

According to a summary of Tokyo Stock Exchange, in the half year from January of this year to the last week in June, the amount of stock which overseas investors sold had exceeded the amount stock certificates bought at the domestic main stock exchange by 4,741,000 million yen.

The amount of stock sold exceeded the amount bought - "the overselling market" in the first half of a year happened 2 years ago. The scale of the overselling was five times greater than 926,500 million yen of two years ago.

This was because since the start of this year, the movement in which overseas investors trying to avoid the risk due to uncertainty concerning a strong yen against the weak dollar in progress in foreign exchange markets, the increasing anxiety in the future of Chinese economy, and the uncertainty due to the British leaving from EU = European Union.

Due to all these, the Nikkei Stock Average which was standing at 19,000 yen at the end of last year fell more than 3,000 yen in price in six months.

A market related person was saying that "how wide the influence of British leaving EU is not known. Every time when a new worrying element comes out, investors’ reactions easily flow out, for the time being it may continue".

In the past six months, besides Japan, I think in Asia in general the stock markets had witnessed a drop in price across the board.

The Japanese Question: Power and Purpose in a New Era

Recently I have read the following book. Its main points in the final chapters of 6 to 9 are as follows:

Book title: Pyle, Kenneth. 1996. The Japanese Question: Power and Purpose in a New Era. Washington: AEI Press.

Main points:

Ch. 6. The task of re-orienting Japanese purpose was undertaken by PM Nakasone Yasuhiro in 1982-87. His office represented a marriage of the political nationalism since 1950s and the new internationalism. (85)

- three characters distinguished Nakasone’s style: 1. He adopted a top-down leadership, 2. he used foreign policy responsibilities of his office to maximum Japan’s advantage; 3. he appointed unusual great number of government commissions. He got admirers after his party’s landslide victory in 1986. There were four major tenants of Nakasone’s grand design: 1. Japan would no longer be a follower nation; 2. be prepared for global leadership; 3. to hold on to a new liberal nationalism, and 4. to assume an active role in the globe. (89)

- Nakasone was convinced that self-confidence had to begin with appreciation of traditional institutions and history. At a LDP seminar he said that Yasukuni issue was important because it showed the gratitude of the people for the sacrifice made by their forebearers. (98-99)

- while the tangible achievements of Nakasone in establishing a more active foreign policy were limited and often symbolic, he did succeed in influencing the public debate and in creating greater receptivity  to an alignment of Japan with the western allies.(103)

Ch. 7. By the end of the 1980s, the new internationalism envisioned by the Ohira Research group had only limited success. Whether because of foreign pressure or self-interest for the demonstrable strength of its economy, Japan dismantled some mercantilist policies. (106)

-consensus on a new foreign policy was constrained by what we might call in general the burden of history. The forced march to catch-up with the West became a barrier to internationalism consensus. The burden of history was institutional, structural and systemic. (107)

- since the Meiji restoration, Japanese had a keen sensitivity to the forces controlling the international environment. They operated in accord with these forces and used them to their own advantages. After WWII, the Yoshida Doctrine focused on economy growth while the US guaranteed Japanese security. (110)

Ch. 8.in 1991 Miyazawa, acceding to international criticism and pressure, gave his support to the legislation that authorized the dispatch of self-defense forces abroad to participate in the UN peace keeping operation. The Gulf Crisis demonstrated once again that Japan had the capacity to change, and to develop policies that transcended its own narrow self-interest (130-1).

- in 1985, Japan had an impressive array of economic tools to establish economic leadership in the region; development in the mid-1980s provided the opportunity to increase interdependence with the region in Asia. The Plaza Hotel Accord in 1985 and the rise in value of the yen were the examples. Japan was prepared to offer other Asian countries economic inducement for following it leadership: foreign aid, commercial loans, technology transfer, directs investment and access to Japanese markets etc. (131).

- Thailand was the most dramatic example of how leadership role had changed. From 1970 to 1985, US investment in Thailand was higher than Japan. After 1985 Japan’s shared had increased sharply. (137)

Ch. 9. In 1993, for the first time since 1955 when the LDP was founded, it lacked a majority necessary to form a government. A succession of coalition government committed to sweeping changes in Japan’s politics and a stable political system disappeared. (147)

- Japan was entering a wholly new historical phase. The dynamic that shaped Japan’s development over the past 125 years had changed. Japan had become a first-rank country. Japan was driven by intense late-development nationalism, today it had great stake in the persevation of the existing international order. (151)

- the postwar political system that collapsed in 1993 had been a product of the radical legacy of WWII and the circumstance of the Cold War. The LDP warded off the progressive challenges and established controls over the post-war political system for nearly four decades. (156)

- another sign of transformation of the old political landscape was the disappearance of the taboo of discussion about constitution revision. (158)

-one of the most naked, self-interested power play in the recent history was that the Socialist party joined with its ideological foes in the LDP to bring down the Hata administration and establish a JSP-LDP coalition headed by Murayama, a leader of the Socialist left wing.(160)

- in the new economic interest, a coherent Japanese strategy in Asia began to take shape; this strategy was driven wholly by economic consideration. (162) It involved close business-government cooperation and the coordinated use of private investment, official aid, and trade to help Japanese multi-national corporation to integrate production networks throughout Asia.(163)

- Murakami believed that the claims to universal validity of Western liberal and progressive values, which were most fully embodied in American civilization, could no longer be maintained in light of Japanese’s success in achieving an alternative path to modern society (167). Implicit in these views was a determination to break free of Japan’s long dependence on the West.

- a US report in 1995 stressed its determination to maintain exiting forward-based US troop’s presence for the foreseeable future. (172)

The Japanese Question: Power and Purpose in a New Era

Recently I have read the following book. Its main points in chapters four and five are:

Book title: Pyle, Kenneth. 1996. The Japanese Question: Power and Purpose in a New Era. Washington: AEI Press.

Ch 4. - The progressives drew their support from the media, intellectuals, teachers, students, and labor unions. The finest hour of the progressives was the postwar reform era. Their idea emerged out of the wartime disillusion, revulsion form Japanese nationalism. They supported the new postwar democratic order and the role the constitution envisioned for Japan in the world. (45). The progressive later lost its strength in the course of Japans’ rapid economic growth and the revival of confidence in Japan’s abilities. (46).

-the 1980s, in one of those ironies, Japanese’s traditional values was acclaimed not only by the commentators in Japan but by foreign observers who saw these values as Japan’s unique advantages in building an advanced industrial society. (48) One Japanese journalist observed in December 1980 that there had formed an image in the Japanese mind that the US was becoming hopeless. Ezra Vogel’s “Japan as number one” had been sold in Japan and had appealed to the Japanese sense of superiority. (51).

- the broad appeal of cultural explanation for Japanese success continued to draw strength during the 1980s from their mounting confidence of overtaking the West in technological capacity. (55).

-political nationalism was quiet in the 2 decades after the massive 1960 riots over security treaties with the US. Japan’s pride in its economic achievement led to its resurgence in the 1980s. Appealing to this new pride, many leaders argued that Japan should acquire military power commiserated with its new economic strength. (58) Political nationalists argued that the renunciation of military had distorted national life, Japan ceased to be a state, merely a mercantile state. (59).

- according to Pyle, although the extremism, emotionalism, and anti-American political nationalism was revived in the 1980s, and looked like the ultra-nationalism of the 1930s. Circumstance in Japan and the world were not the same as then. Fears were unwarranted for a few reasons. First prewar nationalism was fueled by the drive to catch up with the West. Second, the elite leadership of the 1930s and the 1980s had contrasting roles. In the 1930 Japanese was in quest for industrial and imperial greatness. Now the government was not holding similarly narrow political nationalism. Third, prewar nationalism drew on symbols of the traditional culture. Now, the postwar generation would not resonant with these symbols. The new middle class had little motivation for their identity centered on any traditional symbol. Fourth, prewar nationalism was rooted in the lower middle class and in the villages that resent the urban values. Post war Japan was overwhelmingly middle class, well educated and well-read. Fifth, Japan was increasing it interaction with other countries, unlike it seclusion from other countries in the 1930s. (63-4)

Ch. 5. - In 1990s we saw the book entitled “The Japan that can say no” was published. (65) But we should not to mistake this as an organized move. It was rather a breast-beating pride in the postwar accomplishment mixed with a little frustration to be subordinated to the US (65).

- yet, some leaders were beginning to grope in the 1980s for broader conception of Japanese national interest that Pyle calls Japan’s new internationalism. For trade, Japan was dependent on other nations; it needed ever-increasing supplies of material, foodstuff and fuels. (66) Some business elite suggested that Japan’s own interest would no longer be served by mercantilist polices and passive adjustment to prevailing international conditions. (67) Yoshida Doctrine needed to be replaced. The tenet of the new internationalism was: first to give support to a liberal international economic order, 2. to bring Japan into harmony with international norms and expectation, 3. Japan to develop a global consciousness, Japan’s growth was interdependent with the rest of the world. (67)

- Ohira Masayoshi the PM took the lead in defining a new purpose of Japan’s newly acquired economic power. (68) The leader came up with a neo-conservative agenda for the 1980s, called neo-conservatism, in part to replace the conservatism that guided Japan so far.(71) It shared many features of the Reganonmics and Thatcherism, emphasized small government, deregulation, greater reliance on market forces, and confrontation with the USSR. (71) These meant a departure from the catch-up economic growth practiced by Japan so far. (72)

- Neo-conservatism opened a new direction in that Japan would be more reliance on its own cultural resources to determine nation progress. The success in overtaking the West and in producing superior manufacturing had led to a world with wide interest in Japanese culture. Japan would share its cultural values with the world. (73-4)

- it was useful to distinguish between internationalization and internationalism. The former referred to the process of liberalization, to be in harmony with international practice. Internationalism was a set of political beliefs arguing that internationalization was in Japan’s interest. (74). Once Japan joined the OECD in 1964, Japan was committed not only to trade liberation but also the removal of control on capital transactions. (74)

- another change was the rapid rise of the foreign direct investment (FDI) after 1985. Japan became the world’s leading net creditor. This gave Japan new markets. (78) According to Pyle this economic success in struggle for national power that began in 1868. Instead of a national struggle to gain equality with the West, which was done through hard work, unity and sacrifice, self –reliance was essential because Japan was surrounded by imperial powers. (84)

(to be continued)

The Japanese Question: Power and Purpose in a New Era

Recently I have read the following book. Its main points are:

Book title: Pyle, Kenneth. 1996. The Japanese Question: Power and Purpose in a New Era. Washington: AEI Press.

Main points:

Ch.1 - Introduction:- only rarely in modern history had a nation captured so substantial a fraction of international trade in such a short period as Japan had in the past three decades.(3)

-the goal of this book to study how Japan formulated its national purpose in the post-world war II period. (3)

- much more than had been commonly recognized, Japan’s purpose in the postwar period was the result of its conservative leaders’ opportunistic adaptation to the circumstance of the international order. (3)

- Japan formulated an economic-first policy that depended on the US security guarantee; they also chose to interpret the constitution so narrowly as to frustrate all attempts by the Americans to engage Japan in collective security commitments. (4)

- its economic achievement stimulated Japan to make a re-assessment of its national purpose starting from the 1980s. A new conservative agenda proposed a new and broader sense of national interest was worked out. No longer acting as a follower in the international system, this agenda included a program of institutional reform in Japan, and to convert Japan to international leadership. (4)

- at the beginning of the 1990s, the question of Japan’s future national purposes surfaced again. What form of this leadership would take was an open question. Much would depend on the US initiatives, including a revised US-Japan alliance. (5)

Ch. 2. - mindful of Japanese nationalism and militarism, world leaders were intensely ambivalent as to whether Japan should enlarge it security role. Nakasone Yasuhiro noted the international distrust over Japan. (7).

- in sum the new post-war constitution did not intend to deprive Japan of the capacity for self-defense or normal participation in the newly contemplated UN peace-keeping forces. (11).

-Japanese themselves often seemed distrustful of their national character. Nakane Chie, known for her work on Japanese character said that the Japanese way of thinking depended on the situation rather than on principle, the Japanese had no principles. (15)

-another factor keeping the Japanese question alive was the widespread impression internationally that Japan’s conservative leadership had never dealt forthrightly with the issue of WWII (17). Apologies for past aggression seemed insincere. Japan had not disowned their past sins. (17).

- in the immediate postwar period, Japan’s relations with the rest of Asia were distant and limited to trade. Conservative leadership resisted all efforts to engage Japan in collective security agreement with other Asian nations (19).

Ch.3- throughout the postwar decades, Japan’s role in the world was a product of the political order imposed on it by the victors. Its role as a trading nation was supported by a remarkably durable popular consensus inside Japan. (20). Its passivity was usually interpreted as a product of wartime trauma, pacifism, and peace institution. Nevertheless, we missed the essence of postwar Japanese political history if we overlooked its orientation toward economic growth and political passivity as the product of a construed foreign policy. (20)

-Japan’s purpose in the postwar world was the result of an opportunist adaptation to the condition. The key figure in shaping the postwar conception of Japanese national purpose was Yoshida Shigeru.(21) A study had convinced him what his instinct had already told him: Japan’s long term interest lay in a bilateral military agreement with the US, the new world power.(22)

- the critical moment for the determination of Japan’s postwar orientation arrived in 1950 with the dangers and opportunities offered to Japan by the Cold War. Soviet-US rivalry offered certain opportunities and gave Yoshida a bargaining leverage. (23)

-Yoshida refused to rearm Japan. He skillfully argued that rearmament would impoverish Japan and create the kind of social unrest that the Communists wanted. (24)The Yoshida Doctrine had three tenets: 1. Japan’s economic rehabilitation must be the prime national goal; 2. Japan should remain lightly armed and avoid involvement in international political issues; 3. Japan would provide military bases to the US army, navy and air forces. (25)

-Yoshida was succeeded by Ikeda Hayato and Sato Eisaku, both supported the Yoshida Doctrine. Ikeda formulated a plan for doubling the national income within a decade. (32)

- by 1980 the confidence that a mercantilist role in international affairs would best suit Japanese national interest was widely accepted in the mainstream of the politic, bureaucratic and business elites.(36) Kosaka believed that Japan could adapt to the new circumstance and survive as a trading nation. (37)

(to be continued)