THE NEW JAPAN VOL . 30 NO. 2

107201

THE REFERENCE SHEI

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PREFACE

Japan today is in a unique historic situation. In less
than a decade she was reduced from a would-be world
conqueror to her original "core," a group of small, scat-
tered, and economically dependent islands. Her natural
hinterland, the land mass of the Asian continent, has
been separated from Japan proper, its traditional indus-
trial arsenal.

The crux of many of Japan's political, economic, and
psychological problems lies in the enormously rapid pace
of her industrialization. Within a generation, after the
restoration of power to the Emperor Meiji in 1868, she
was transformed from an agricultural, feudal society
into the world's third most important industrial and
military power. The development of a modern indus-
trial society in a still medieval, peasant land created an
internal crisis. Japanese industry, producing at full
capacity and speed without any real home market,
was forced to expand abroad. This led to the concept
of the "Greater Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" and to forty
years of conquest.

Japan's defeat dealt a severe blow at home to the
myth of Japanese superiority. It also left a dangerous
power vacuum. This the American occupation attempted
to fill. Under General MacArthur the occupying au-
thorities sought to remodel Japanese society through a
series of far-reaching reforms. They also drew up a
constitution, later adopted by the Japanese, designed to
establish the country on a new base that of a Western-
type parliamentary government.

4 THE REFERENCE SHELF

Now, five years after the end of the occupation, the
question remains as to whether this new democratic
society is firmly rooted. In recent years both internal
and external factors have intervened to hamper or to
reverse the trend toward democratization in Japan; they
also tend to pull her away from the West, To a certain
extent political and economic power has returned almost
automatically to those groups and interests which were
wielding it in prewar Japan. The cold war has led to a
reversal of American policy toward rearming Japan;
a paradoxical situation has thereby arisen in that power-
ful forces in Japan now oppose rearmament and a mili-
tary alliance with the West in the very name of the
policies and aims of the American occupation. The Com-
munist victory in China (1950) and the appearance of
newly independent states among the formerly colonial
territories in Asia have placed Japan in a new strategic
relationship to Asia. Finally, Japan has been offered the
bait of renewed leadership in Asia by the emergence of
the "Bandung powers" the anticolonial nations of the
Asian-African Conference held at Bandung, Indonesia,
in 1955.

These pressures combined may account for the in-
creasingly neutral role Japan has adopted in world
affairs, notably in the United Nations.

The purpose of this book is to give the background
for an understanding of Japan today of the complex
and conflicting forces at work in the country. Some of
the articles included are straight reporting of events;
others represent the opinions of qualified observers. All
were selected with an eye to giving the most relevant
facts as well as a balanced picture.

THE NEW JAPAN 5

The editors wish to thank the various authors and
publishers who have given their permission for the use
of materials included in this book. They would like to
express appreciation to Mr. Alan D. Smith of the Japa-
nese Consulate General in New York for supplying
material not readily available otherwise.

ELIZABETH AND VICTOR A. VELEN
January 1958

CONTENTS
PREFACE 3

I. LAND AND PEOPLE

Editors' Introduction 11

Japan as It Is Today 11

A Chronology of Japanese History

Atlantic Monthly 15

Religion 17

Hasegawa, Nyozekan. Japan's Cultural History

Atlantic Monthly 18

Ozaki, Koji. The Popular Arts in Japan

Atlantic Monthly 29

Kalischer, Peter. Nippon with a New Face

Collier's 39

II. GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS

Editors' Introduction 49

Borton, Hugh. Democracy in Japan

Political Science Quarterly 50

Structure of Government 62

Prime Ministers of Japan Since the Promulgation

of the 1947 Constitution 64

Webb, Herschel. The Japanese Political Parties . . 65
Jansen, Marius B. Ultranationalism in Postwar

Japan Political Quarterly 69

Swearingen, Rodger. The Japanese Communist

Party: Strategy and Strength

Annals of the Ameri-
can Academy of Political and Social Science 78

8 THE REFERENCE SHELF

Parrott, Lindesay. Yoshida "Deep Bows and a

Temper" New York Times Magazine 82

Ichiro Hatoyama Time 85

III. JAPAN'S ECONOMIC PROBLEMS

Editors' Introduction 88

The Nature of Japan's Economy

Atlantic Monthly 89

Trumbull, Robert. Japan Regains Place as In-
dustrial Great New York Times 94

Abegg, Lily. The Japanese Labor Movement . . .

Reporter 99

The Comeback of the Giant Trade Combines ....

Newsweek 101

Made in Japan Business Week 106

Abel, Elie. Southern Boycott of Japanese Textiles

New York Times 110

Sulzberger, C. L. The Lure of Peiping

New York Times 1 12

Hailey, Foster. Embargo on Trade with China

Lifted New York Times 114

Dean, Vera Micheles, The Hard Economic Facts

Foreign Policy Bulletin 116

IV. JAPAN BETWEEN EAST AND WEST

Editors' Introduction 121

Quigley, Harold S. Japan Between Two Worlds

Far Eastern Survey 122

Fujiyama, Aiichiro. Principles of Japan's Foreign

Policy 131

Dulles, John Foster. United States Security and

Japanese Trade

. . . United States Department of State Bulletin 134

THE NEW JAPAN 9

Braibanti, Ralph. Japan : Future Ally ?

Virginia Quarterly Review 136

Bess, Demaree. Anti- Americanism

Saturday Evening Post 147

Passin, Herbert. Japan and the H-Bomb

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 154

Trumbull, Robert. The Bonin Islands: Pawns in

a Power Game New York Times 166

Trumbull, Robert. Okinawa : United States Ward

in the Pacific .... New York Times Magazine 171
Kemvorthy, E. W. The Facts of the Girard Case

New York Times 179

Baker, Russell. United States Agrees to Withdraw

Troops from Japan New York Times 182

Japanese Socialists Map Anti- West Policy

New York Times 184

Sulzberger, C L. Attempt to Build Security Upon

Paradox New York Times 185

Wilbur, C. Martin. Japan and Communist China 188
Reischauer, Edwin O. Outlook for the Future . . .

New York Times Magazine 193

BIBLIOGRAPHY 197

I. LAND AND PEOPLE

EDITORS' INTRODUCTION

Our knowledge of the Japanese has increased im-
measurably as a result of the American occupation. To
the American soldier stationed in Japan the Japanese
were surprisingly unlike the picture of them painted by
the wartime press. Far from resembling a nation of
tough military extremists dominated by a fanatical
emperor, the country appeared to be populated by gentle,
cultivated tea drinkers and colorful geisha girls. A look
beneath the surface, however, would have revealed the
Japanese as they really are a proud and insular people
steeped in the traditions of an ancient, Asian culture.

Japanese life today is a curious mixture of age-old
ritual and modern innovations adopted from the West,
particularly from the United States. An understanding
of this dual character of postwar Japanese society is
essential to a grasp of the country's present problems.

In this section an attempt is made to show modern
Japan in brief perspective its land and people, its his-
tory, its religion, its cultural history, and its popular
arts. These are dealt with in five background articles.
The concluding article gives a rounded impression of
modern Japanese life.

JAPAN AS IT IS TODAY 1
Territory

An insular country situated off the eastern edge of
the Asian continent, Japan is composed of the four main

1 From pamphlet published by the Public Information and Cultural Affairs
Bureau, Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Tokyo. 1956. (Obtainable from
Information Office, Consulate General of Japan, 3 East 54th Street,
York 22) p5-10. Reprinted by permission.

12 THE REFERENCE SHELF

islands of Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku and Kyushu and
some thousand smaller islands and islets which lie adja-
cent to them.

Japan lost 45.5 per cent of its prewar territory as a
result of the war and is now a country of only 141,529
square miles. A comparison with other countries shows
that it is one eighth the size of India, less than one
twentieth the size of the United States, one fifty-eighth
the size of U.S.S.R. or 1.5 times as large as the size
of the United Kingdom.

Small though it is, Japan has a wealth of scenic
beauty. Situated in the temperate zone, the entire land
is robed in verdure. With high volcanic mountains, lakes
brimming with limpid waters, rivers dashing through
craggy gorges and stripes of neatly cultivated paddies
and fields, the whole of Japan gives the appearance of
a beautiful natural park.

Topography

Japan is a mountainous country. Mountains with
peaks higher than 2,000 meters (6,561.68 feet) above
sea level number 250. The highest and most famed is
majestic Mt. Fuji which towers 3,773 meters (12,378.6
feet) above sea level.

Being of volcanic origin, the Japanese islands abound
with volcanoes both dormant and active. Of the 192
volcanoes located in Japan, 58 are active.

Extensive plains are few in Japan, but the ones that
do exist are of great economic importance to the popu-
lation and provide much of its food supply.

Japan is surrounded by water. Its coast line is 17,150
miles long (about twice that of the United States). The
shores of the Sea of Japan are comparatively regular,

THE NEW JAPAN 13

but those facing the Pacific Ocean are indented with a
large number of gulfs, bays and inlets, many of which
offer excellent anchorages. Harbors are thus numerous;
some of them, including the two principal ones Yoko-
hama and Kobe are kept busy with ocean-going vessels.

Climate

Japan is noted for its mild and temperate climate,
and . . . since it is surrounded by sea, Japan's climate
is considerably influenced by two ocean currents which
flow around Japan. They are "Kuroshio" and
"Oyashio." "Kuroshio," meaning black current, origi-
nates north of the Philippines and flows along the eastern
coast of the main island and "Oyashio" originates in the
Arctic and washes the shore of the northern part of the
main island, meeting the Kuroshio. The first is warm
and the second cold.

Generally speaking, four seasons of the year follow
one another with a clear-cut regularity in Japan. On no
occasion does winter telescope into spring with late
snow, or summer blaze loiter into autumn. . . .

Rainfall is heavy, ranging from 40 to 100 inches
annually and snowfall is frequent and heavy in northern
Japan.

Population

With more than 89 million people living within its
limited territory, Japan has the fifth largest population
in the world. Only China, India, the Soviet Union and
the United States outrank Japan in this respect.

In contrast to these nations, however, all of which
are huge in area, Japan is very small. The total Japa-
nese land area is ... about the size of the state of Mon-
tana in the United States. Japan thus has a population
density of about 630 persons per square mile.

14 THE REFERENCE SHELF

Belgium and the Netherlands have a higher rate of
population density than Japan. When, however, com-
puted on the basis of per square mile of arable land,
Japan is without comparison. Only about 15 per cent of
Japan's total land area is arable, which means that more
than 4,200 persons live in one square mile of cultivated
land, a much higher rate than that of any other nation
in the world.

Figures compiled in 1780 and 1846 indicate that the
Japanese population remained comparatively stable at
about 26 million for more than a century preceding the
Meiji Restoration in 1868. The natural increase in
population which multiplied the Japanese population by
more than three times and brought it to the 89 million
mark is, therefore, a phenomenon of the past ninety
years. In Japan, as in the case of European nations, an
increase in population followed the advent of modern
industry.

The increase in population was not so spectacular
during the war, as shown by the fact that the population
of Japan was approximately 71.4 million (excluding the
population in Korea, Formosa anc} Sakhalin) in 1940
and 72.2 million in 1945.

In the postwar years, however, Japan's population
rose sharply to 83.2 million in 1950 and reached 89.3
million in 1955. In other words, the increase during the
first half period (1945-1950) was 11.2 million and dur-
ing the latter (1950-1955) was 6.1 million. . . .

It is estimated, on the basis of the current rates of
births and deaths, that Japan will have a population of
100 million within fifteen years.

THE NEW JAPAN 15

A CHRONOLOGY OF JAPANESE HISTORY 2

Legends and archaeological remains suggest that dis-
parate races were fused in prehistoric times. The first
emperor, Jimmu, came to the throne about 660 B.C.

c.400 ; Introduction of Chinese learning to Japan.

552 : Buddhism imported from Korea. Clan warfare.

645 : Overthrow of the Soga clan by the first of the
Fujiwara, a family which virtually ruled Japan for cen-
turies by controlling the hereditary line of emperors.

710-784: The Nara period. First permanent capital
at Nara. Compilation of legendary histories such as the
Kojiki and Nihonshoki. Flowering of literature, includ-
ing the Manyoshu poetry collection. Buddhist sculpture
and rise of painting.

794-1185: The Heian Period. Capital moved to
Kyoto. Art and literature flourished. The Tale of Genji
written by Lady Murasaki about 1000. Struggles among
feudal clans, later immortalized in Noh and Kabuki
plays.

1185-1333: The Kamakura Period. Continuing
struggles for power among rival feudal lords and their
knights. Emperors dominated by these Shoguns (gen-
eralissimos). Invading Mongol Armada, sent by Kubla
Khan, destroyed by typhoon in 1281.

1333-1568: The Muromachi Period. Ashikaga fam-
ily Shoguns in power at Kyoto and great art patrons.
Monochrome ink-wash in painting. Noh dramas. Con-
stant civil wars. Trade with the West opened by Por-
tuguese in 1542. St. Francis Xavier brought Christianity
in 1549.

8 Reprinted from Atlantic Monthly. 195:174. January 1955. Courtesy of
"Perspective of Japan," published by Intercultural Publications Inc. Reprinted
by permission of Intercultural Publications Inc.

16 THE REFERENCE SHELF

1582-1600: The Momoyama Period. Hideyoshi uni-
fied Japan, then tried to annex Korea. Kyoto destroyed
in civil wars and rebuilt A new, florid style in art

1600-1867: The Edo Period. Tokugawa family Sho-
guns with capital at Edo (now Tokyo). Outlying re-
gions ruled by feudal Daimyo lords. Samurai warriors
became a fixed aristocracy. Commerce with Western
traders until all but Dutch expelled in 1640. Rising
merchant class held down politically. Christianity sup-
pressed; Confucianism encouraged. Another great age
of literature and art. Kabuki drama flourishing. Ukiyo-e
wood-block print books. Hiroshige and Hokusai, great
artists.

1853 : Commodore Perry's visit; reopening of trade.

1868-1912: The Meiji Period. Emperors take back
control from Shoguns and power from Daimyos and
undertake modernization of Japan along Western lines.
Emphasis on education. Extensive social reforms culmi-
nating in Meiji Constitution and first Diet in 1890.
Sino-Japanese War in 1894-1895. Russo-Japanese War
in 1904-1905. Korea annexed in 1910. Building up of
navy.

1912-1926: The Taisho Period. A liberal era with
party governments in power. "Proletarian movement"
in literature. Despite strong German influence in Meiji
Period, Japan sided with the Allies in First World War.
Earthquake destroyed Tokyo in 1923.

1926-1940: Liberal elements outmaneuvered by those
favoring imperialist expansion into Asia. Japan moved
into Manchuria in 1931 and war with China began' in
1937. Orderly party government gave way to virtual
military dictatorships. Japanese troops entered Indo-
China and alliance with Germany and Italy in 1940.

1941-1945: World War II. Japanese overran most
of Southeast Asia, but were finally defeated.

THE NEW JAPAN 17

1945-1952: Allied occupation of Japan. Attempt to
"democratize" Japan largely successful. Restoration of
party government and suppression of militarism. Eco-
nomic recovery. Korean War began in 1950.

RELIGION 3

The following three major religions exist in Japan :
Shintoism, Buddhism and Christianity.

Shintoism is Japan's indigenous cult. The Imperial
as well as the family ancestors are worshipped and it is
not a religion in a strict sense. It was, however, regarded
as a state religion during World War II when it was
encouraged by the government. After the cessation of
the war, it became an ordinary religion. Two univer-
sities are operated by the Shinto organization.

Buddhism was introduced to Japan from India
through China and Korea, around the middle of the
sixth century. While it greatly contributed to the promo-
tion of learning and the arts, Buddhism also flourished
as a religion. Twelve universities are operated by
Buddhist organizations. The number of people who
belonged to its numerous sects or subsects were approxi-
mately 45.4 million in 1943 and 47.7 million in 1953.

Christianity was introduced to Japan by St. Francis
Xavier, a Jesuit Father, in 1549. Although it prospered
rapidly at first with the encouragement of Shoguns dur-
ing the latter half of the sixteenth century, Christianity
came under prohibition during the course of 250 years
that followed until the middle of the nineteenth century,
when Japan opened its doors to foreign nations. . . .
Christian organizations now operate twenty-two univer-

3 From "Japan as It Is Today," pamphlet published by the Public Information
and Cultural Affairs Bureau, Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Tokyo. 1956.
p85, Reprinted by permission.

18 THE REFERENCE SHELF

sities. There were approximately 277,000 Christians in
1943 and 485,000 in 1953. Protestants outnumber the
Catholics slightly.

Besides these three major religions, there are many
other religious organizations. Some of them have ex-
panded considerably in postwar years.

Confucianism is regarded by some as a religion. It
is, however, a code of moral precepts rather than a
religion. It was introduced to Japan at the beginning
of the sixth century and exerted a tremendous influence
on the minds of Japanese people . . . until the end of
the recent war. It has declined, however, relatively in
the postwar period.

JAPAN'S CULTURAL HISTORY*

The progress of history has so accelerated that a
century now witnesses the profound changes that once
took several centuries. This is especially true of the
Orient, which until recently stood apart from the cen-
tral movements of world culture. Japan is the most
remote of the Oriental nations and was the last to be
washed by the tide of Western culture. But the changes
that occurred throughout the Orient after its meeting
with the West took place more swiftly in Japan than in
any of her neighbors. Japan had to rush along the road
which the West had followed at a more leisurely pace
since the Renaissance, and in that cultural race Japan
proved herself swift-footed. I refer, of course, to Japan
since the Meiji Restoration of 1868. ...

The modern Japanese is sometimes criticized for for-
getting history. The Japanese of the early Meiji Period,

* From "Japan's 'Cultural Democrat " by Nyozekan
ySfyflft ?* B0vd & t T ^nslated by William* CaSlewood.
195:170-3. January 1955. Courtesy of "Perspective of Japan," published
cultural Pufticataons Inc. Reprinted by permission of Jntercultural P

THE NEW JAPAN 19

when I was born, was moving forward with the vigor
necessary to jump from the old feudal state to the mod-
ern state, but at the same time past history was with
him, not simply as a memory, but as a concrete part of
his life. The "child of Meiji," as he is called in Japan,
therefore had in himself, as his period had in itself, a
progressive side and a conservative side. In that I think
he was a little like the modern Englishman, Actually,
this conflict has been true of every period in Japanese
history.

The Japanese nature contains many varied elements.
Native Shinto is the racial religion, and yet long ago
Buddhism was accepted from the continent and peace-
fully amalgamated with Shinto. The two faiths, native
and imported, have lived side by side. St. Francis
Xavier, who came to Japan in the sixteenth century,
reported in his letters that in the same family parents
and children or brothers and sisters might belong to
different sects.

This is true not only of religion but of culture in
general. The Japanese, individually and socially, has a
malleability which makes it possible for him to incor-
porate these varied elements. The persecution of Chris-
tians toward the end of the Middle Ages is a blot quite
without parallel in earlier Japanese history, but it is
rather different from the intolerance of medieval Eu-
rope. -The Dutch, who were in a position of particular
intimacy with the Japanese, passed on information on
the record of aggression by European powers in the
Far East, and it was the' fear that Christian mission-
aries were the spearhead of colonialism that led to the
persecution.

After that, Japan sealed herself from the world
except for some commercial relations with the Dutch

20 THE REFERENCE SHELF

from whom the Japanese learned something of contem-
porary Europe. Inside Japan a flowering called by
historians the "Japanese Renaissance" took place in the
seventeenth century. This awakening, fostered by the
stable government of our Edo Period, may be compared
to the European stage of development from warring
feudal states to free guild cities. I would like to suggest
that our Renaissance was possible because certain "mod-
ern" characteristics were already to be found in Japan
at the dawn of history.

In a sense, Japan has always been a "national" state.
With no interruption it has been a nation of one people
through more than two thousand years. Not one among
the empires of Europe and Asia escaped internal terri-
torial and racial conflicts, but Japan did. As anthro-
pologists point out, the Japanese nation is compounded
of various strains, but even as early as the "period of
the gods," a single Yamato people had developed a belief
in a common ancestry. Earlier there had been two domi-
nant peoples, the Yamato and the Izumo, who set up
rival states, but the Yamato absorbed the Izumo, and
the legendary ancestors of both were united in the great
shrines of Ise and Izumo, where they are still worshiped
today. . . .

The Japanese, held together by belief in a common
ancestry, were never conquered by another people. And
Japan lost her sphere of influence in Korea in ancient
times, so that "imperialism" had no chance to show
itself until our day, either as imposed from abroad or as
launched by the Japanese themselves. Japan resembled,
politically and socially, an advanced development of the
primitive clan-state.

Immigrants from abroad comprised no small part of
the population in prehistoric and early historic times,
but without exception they were swiftly assimilated, and

THE NEW JAPAN 21

though legally they were registered as "foreign clans/*
they were, except for distinguishing physical character-
istics, no different from the Yamato people. This great
power of assimilation is to be explained by the fact that,
as the population is made up of many elements, so also
are cultural forms multiple, and it may be said that a
"human" or active element prevails over a "racial" or
passive element in the Japanese. And this, too, is one
of the characteristics of the modern national state.

As a result of unification, Japan already had in the
eighth century a national language such as reached
maturity in Europe only with the modern age. A people's
literature had arisen by the tenth century, and in the
eleventh large numbers of novels and essays were writ-
ten, including our greatest masterpiece the Tale of Genji.

The court early encouraged the spread of the Yamato
language, and, to stimulate their composition, systemati-
cally collected poems and folk songs throughout the
country, had them set to music, and included them in
anthologies. The Manyoshu, a collection of some five
thousand poems compiled over a long period by a num-
ber of editors, reflects the poetic concepts of the age,
expressed in the Yamato language, from emperors,
nobility, and warriors, down to the common people.
Contemporary critics still give the Manyoshu the highest
critical rating as poetry, not only because the language
is so beautiful but also because the poetic emotions
expressed have affinities with modern realism and ro-
manticism further evidence that the Japanese in ancient
times had modern characteristics.

Modernism in Early Literature

This modernism of the ancient Japanese was inherent
in our culture in the period covered by the legends of

22 THE REFERENCE SHELF

the gods. One of the prime scriptures of our Shinto
religion, the Kojiki ("Records of Ancient Matters"),
compiled in 712, represents Japanese literature in its
most primitive form. The first half of the Kojiki deals
with the gods, but these gods do not have the heroic
qualities of those in the legends of other countries.
They are described as thoroughly human. They partici-
pate only in the production of the things of nature, and
even here they have not the power to make rivers and
mountains, but only to create the staples of an agrarian
society and these almost as if by accident, one product
rising quite by chance from another.

The legends of our gods are in the naturalist-realist
vein that has characterized so much of Japanese litera-
ture. The one heroic god in the pantheon, Susanoo-no-
mikoto, was purged for his violence. Japan, we are told,
was founded by the Sun Goddess a survival of sun
worship but she was feminine in nature, and she fled
from Susanoo's violence into a cave, leaving the world
in darkness, subsequently to be lured out again by an
amusing dance performed by another goddess. It is
notable that our legends frequently recount similar vic-
tories of the weak over the strong.

The latter half of the Kojiki treats of the earliest
historical period, and, as the scholar Norinaga has
pointed out, it is a matter-of-fact history in no way
distorted by ideology. Its rationale is not far from that
of modern historiography and this already in the eighth
century.

And even in those days, thanks to the unified Yamato
language, there was a form of education such that lit-
erature and history spread through the land like folklore.
Villagers in the remotest countryside sang Yamato
songs. History was transmitted through kataribe, "reci-

THE NEW JAPAN 23

ters," and as Japan had no native system of writing,
Chinese characters were used phonetically by the upper
classes to take down the history thus recited. This verbal
tradition was preserved particularly well in aristocratic
houses and provided material for the Kojiki and the
Nihonshoki, another collection of legends. . . .

The Japanese character reveals itself most clearly in
literature. In my opinion the history of Japanese lit-
erature shows less evolution in tendency than that of
Europe, which moved from classicism through romanti-
cism to realism and naturalism, while in our literature,
from the tenth century onward, the realistic and natural-
istic strains have been dominant over the classical and
the romantic. I attribute this largely to the fact that
Chinese characters were not long retained as our chief
written language, giving way to a simple phonetic sys-
tem which adequately represents the fifty syllables of our
spoken language. The first condition for the rise of
realistic literature is a system of writing which repro-
duces colloquial speech.

From the tenth century on Japanese could be noted
down with rigid formality in the fifty phonetic signs.
These were later reduced to forty-eight, and, like the
alphabet, the series was named for its first letters (in
this case, the three sounds i, ro, ha) . Anyone who knew
these forty-eight symbols could read all the literature of
the day. Until the end of the Edo Period (1600-1867),
works completely in the phonetic syllabary were com-
mon, and the highest literary achievement thus reached
down to the lowest strata of society.

In the Middle Ages it became the custom for even
pure Japanese to be translated into Chinese, and this
affected speech, so that the Japanese sentence became
a mixture of pure Japanese (in the phonetic script) and

24 THE REFERENCE SHELF

Chinese. Few, however, except the nobility, the warrior
class, and scholars, had an opportunity to study Chinese
and in due course the Chinese characters used in writing
also came to be transcribed after their sounds into the
phonetic script so that they could be read by the populace
at large. As a result the demand for historical and lit-
erary works increased, and to satisfy it there was no
printing in those days and hand-copied texts were costly
the art of reciting grew rapidly from around the
fourteenth century. Blind priests made their living by
singing historical narratives in the streets to the simple
accompaniment of a sort of mandolin. The classic Noh
drama which survives today is a product of the same
epoch. Its content was influenced by a sort of Buddhist
romanticism, for by the fourteenth century Buddhism
had spread from the upper classes to the masses. Yet
this romanticism in Noh was balanced by the realism of
Kyogen, the comic interludes . . . interspersed with the
serious plays. The vein of Kyogen resembles the realism
of Moliere, though Kyogen predated Molere by three
centuries.

"Cultural Democracy"

In the Edo Period, literature and the arts flourished
in Edo (the present Tokyo) and Osaka as never before
in Japanese history. Unlike the West, however, where
the old was usually discarded for the new, in Japan
the historical and the contemporary existed side by side.
All periods in Japanese history were piled one on an-
other to give form to the Edo Period.

On top, so to speak, of the old Noh drama the Bun-
raku puppet theatre and the Kabuki theatre developed.
Noh continued to be performed, in theory only for the
Samurai it was forbidden to the commoner but actu-

THE NEW JAPAN 25

ally it was widely appreciated, the prohibition being little
more than a form. [In Noh, the oldest form of Japa-
nese drama, the action is a form of stately dance with
strict, conventional gestures; narrative choruses and or-
chestral music provide accompaniment. In-Kabuki, the
most popular form of drama, the action combines sing-
ing, dancing, and pantomime; the acting is stylized, but
less restrained than in Noh. Both Noh and Kabuki have
repertoires of poetic plays using historical and legendary
material, and in both feminine roles are taken by men.
Eds.] In prose, the fantasies of the Muromachi Period
gave way to more modern romances and novels. Critics
have noted that Edo literature was rather similar to
English literature during and after the Renaissance. The
playwright Chikamatsu is often compared to Shake-
speare, the romancer Bakin to Scott, and Edo humor to
that of Dickens and Thackeray.

The art of wood-block printing saw marked advances
in the Edo Period, and a wide variety of literature
was transcribed into the phonetic syllabary and pub-
lished with Ukiyo-e-style illustrations as ezoshi, "picture
books," a popular form that reached to every level of
society. Romances were imported from China and trans-
lated in large numbers. Even in an age that did not
know movable type, books printed from wood blocks
were published in very large editions. By the Edo Period
the illiteracy rate was extremely low, and even the illiter-
ate could become familiar with the contents of literary
and historical works by hearing them read or recited.
Thus the finest works of literature became accessible to
the lowest levels of society. Japan was politically a most
undemocratic country, but culturally it was from its be-
ginnings one of the most democratic societies. I like to
call this Japan's "cultural democracy."

26 THE REFERENCE SHELF

When I was asked once by an American professor
what I meant by my term "cultural democracy," I cited
the Katsura Imperial Villa near Kyoto, which is ...
[an excellent illustration] . I pointed out that it is an ex-
tremely small and simple wooden building, somewhat
different in its form from the house of a commoner but
no different in its basic principles. It does not suggest
wealth and power as do European palaces. It has none
of their decorations and elaborations; it is simplicity
itself. Smaller in scale than even the houses of the
wealthy and noble, it is a symbol of the way in which
the Imperial Family held itself aloof from politics,
rather as in a modern democracy. Like the English
monarch today, our Emperor reigned but did not rule.

To be sure, the Emperor was deified, but, he was a
most human god, a model of humanism, quite divorced
from military power, which was in the hands of the
Shoguns and, in our time, of the generals and their
clique. The shrines where the Imperial ancestors are
worshiped are termed "great" shrines, but they are actu-
ally even smaller than the Villa, and Ise, the greatest
shrine of all, is a simple little building not as large as
the house of a small landowner. Anyone familiar with
the grandeur of St. Peter's in Rome is no doubt sur-
prised when he sees the modesty of the building in which
is enshrined the ancestor of the Japanese race. This I
consider a typical manifestation of Japanese "cultural
democracy."

The finest art and literature of the Edo Period was
popular. The Ukiyo-e print, now recognized throughout
the world as the highest product of wood-block art, was
provided in every household for the education of chil-
dren, and in middle-class families prints were collected
year by year for generations, so that the family collec-

THE NEW JAPAN 27

tion was larger than that of the specialized collector
today. A wood-block portrait by Sharaku that would
now sell for tens of thousands of yen, was one of my
childhood companions, along with my picture book. As
a child I enjoyed too the series of Ukiyo-e prints called
the "Genji-e," a widely read modernized version of the
Tale of Genji. A further example of the democratic
vein in our literature is Saikaku Ibara's tale in this col-
lection, the story of the niece of a proud feudal Daimyo
who dared to accept the love of a commoner.

As with literature, so with the theatre, where art of
the highest order was appreciated by the lower levels of
society. Square, straw-matted stalls were provided at
the Kabuki-Za so that the whole family could see the
play together, and I can remember how as children we
went with our parents to the theatre. The most demand-
ing critics of the Kabuki were from the Tokyo artisan
and working class. It was the custom to shout words of
criticism or approval at the stage, and the most enthu-
siastic always came from the highest and cheapest bal-
conies. The man in the street was skilled at mimicking
the speeches and motions of the great actors such as
Danjuro and Kikugoro. When I was in London some
fifty years ago, I asked if workers could imitate Tree
and Irving, the great English actors of the day. I was
told that such a thing would be impossible in Europe or
America. But it was possible in Japan as late as my
childhood. . . .

Western Influence

The characteristics of Japanese culture which I have
stressed persisted into the late nineteenth century, but
from the beginning of the Taisho Period (191*2 to 1926)
far-reaching social and cultural changes began to set in.

28 THE REFERENCE SHELF

European influence took hold and the highest culture
soon became the property of the intelligentsia and the
economically privileged classes. The masses were left at
a distance from it, with a lower-level literature and art
of their own. Not only were the best things the most
expensive and thus beyond the reach of the masses, but
their Westernized content was beyond popular compre-
hension. This sudden intrusion of alien forces led to a
distorted sort of culture in which a form reached high
quality only when it was divorced from the masses.
"Cultural democracy" declined.

What was the nature of the Western tide that swept
over Japan? In the early Meiji Period Japan had pur-
sued Anglo-Saxon culture, attracted by its liberal spirit.
But from the mid-Meiji Period, leaders in the bureauc-
racy, the armed forces, and the academic world began to
feel that Japan's position in the Far East was not unlike
that of Germany in Europe. They therefore proceeded
to replace their Anglo-American model with a German
one. Misguided by the currents of the time, they tried
to make their debut on the stage of twentieth century
history in German costume and make-up, adopting a
transcendentalism and idealism diametrically opposed to
our traditional realism and naturalism. Japanese civili-
zation became highly Germanized, and the country was
finally led to the same fate as the German Empire.

Since her defeat Japan has been forced to devote
her whole effort toward reorganizing the nation in the
direction of modern history. The most fortunate factor
in this situation is the tradition of "cultural democracy"
which Japan possessed from its origins do\yn to the
Meiji Period. I find our oldest traditions are in accord
with the most advanced steps forward.

THE NEW JAPAN 29

Nevertheless I am disturbed by doubts as to whether
most Japanese, not yet free from the influence of the
un- Japanese elements of education in the Taisho Period
and after, are yet properly conscious of their own true
national character. The ruling class in particular seems
to lack this consciousness. Yet it is hard to believe that
the traditional traits in a national history of over two
thousand years can be destroyed by the distortions of
less than half a century. Provided the Japanese do not
give up the desire to return to their own fundamental
nature, the day when they will do so cannot be far away.

THE POPULAR ARTS IN JAPAN 5
Motion Pictures

Of the five hundred films shown yearly in Japan,
half are Japanese and the remainder mainly American,
followed by French. Immediately after the war, Japa-
nese audiences showed little interest in native products,
but in 1953 the trend was reversed and box-office re-
ceipts from Japanese films now far exceed those from
foreign ones. This change can be attributed to the grow-
ing skill of Japanese directors, the foreign awards which
their films have received, and the reawakening of patri-
otic sentiment among the people.

This new trend began with the spectacular success
abroad of Rashomon, directed by Akira Kurosawa, and
virtually ignored in Japan until it won the film awards
of Venice and of the American Academy. Based on a
story by Ryunosuke Akutagawa, in which an outlaw

5 From "Popular Entertainments of Japan," by Koji Ozaki, drama critic.
Translated by Donald Keene. Atlantic Monthly. 195:148-51. January 1955. Cour-
tesy of "Perspective of Japan," published by Intercultural Publications Inc. Re-
printed by permission of Intercultural Publications Inc.

30 THE REFERENCE SHELF

violates a woman before her husband's eyes, the film
posed the question: was the woman attracted by the
savagery of the man, or did she yield to save her
husband?

Another Venice prize winer, Ugetsu, directed by
Kenji Mizoguchi, tells of an ambitious potter, so eager
for wealth that he leaves his wife in the ravaged coun-
tryside to sell his wares in the city. There, a beautiful
woman orders him to her home. He succumbs to her
beauty only to discover that she is a ghost, the last
daughter of a ruined clan, and that association with her
will be fatal. Awakening from the spell, he hastens
home only to find that his wife has been killed. Both
direction and photography reflect the story's blending
of realism and fantasy, most notably in the subtle in-
terweaving of time present and time past

The Tale of Genji, based on the eleventh centurj
classic novel of Japanese court life, was directed b)
Kozaburo Yoshimura and won a Cannes award. A
Venice award was given to A Woman's Life, alsc
directed by Mizoguchi, and based on a novel by th<
seventeenth century author Saikaku Ibara.

Gate of Hell, superbly photographed in color an<
directed by Teinosuke Kinugasa, is placed in the f euda
Heian Era. It is a tragic drama of unrequited passioi
and of a wife who sacrifices her life for her husband'
honor. This film, too, won a prize at Cannes. Of al
the Japanese films receiving foreign acclaim, only one
The Place Where the Chimneys Are Seen, had a moder
theme. Directed by Heinosuke Gosho, it won an awar
in Berlin.

Despite the many real advances made by Japanes
films, there are recurrent themes and situations whic
reflect the old-fashioned and feudal elements still survh

THE NEW JAPAN 31

ing in social custom. For example: once a woman is
married she must never, for any reason, leave her hus-
band's house and must comply with his will. If a family
is extremely poor, they may sell their daughter, and the
girl does not hesitate to sacrifice herself to provide for
her parents. Such things do still take place, occasionally,
in present-day Japan and there are films which exploit
these ideas and include all the other trappings and sym-
bols of old Japan the master-retainer relationships
(which always accompany sword fighting), clan feuds,
-and anachronistic dramatic situations. Certainly such
themes do appeal to the Japanese, Tragedies, acted in
a style half-classical and half-realistic, usually center on
fatalistic sacrifices. The Japanese, who weep at these
films, respond more to the emotions depicted than to the
plot itself.

Along with these ancient themes is a fairly heavy
emphasis on tragic love. We still do not have the habit
of kissing in public, but the films are breaking down
this restriction. Before the war, kissing scenes in foreign
films were generally deleted by order of the government
At first depicted with typical Japanese modesty in the
shade of a tree or behind a fan the intense emotion
of parting lovers has recently been shown a little more
frankly, often by a kiss in the rain.

There is an effort among some of the younger direc-
tors to come to grips realistically with the misery of war
and to portray the complicated ways in which modern
people live their struggles, their compromises, and their
defeats. Such directors are incorporating new artistic
elements into their work, and many now cooperate with
authors in an attempt to criticize contemporary society.

Another interesting addition to film art has been
provided by some of the older directors, and this is a

32 THE REFERENCE SHELF

re-creation of the emotion that one finds in such tradi-
tional arts as the Noh drama and Kabtiki. They attempt,
as far as possible, to stylize actuality, even in the drama-
tization of present-day events.

The making of Japanese films is primarily the re-
sponsibility of five major film companies, of which the
largest, Shochiku, has a capital of the equivalent of
$5 million and employs eighteen directors. Compared
with foreign production, Japanese companies work at
enormous speed. Each produces, for example, at least
four films a month, and a director needs only ten days
for a feature film.

Until very recently these five companies held a com-
plete monopoly of the Japanese film world, and pro-
tected themselves by permanently barring an actor from
employment by any of the major companies if he made
a film outside their auspices. In 1930, in an attempt to
break this monopoly, several small independent produc-
ers made films designed to combine entertainment with
a social message of some sort. This effort, however,
was short-lived. The major companies as a rule steered
clear both of politics and of social problems.

Recently, the Nikkatsu Company also tried to chal-
lenge the supremacy of the Big Five. As yet, it cannot
boast of any stars or first-rate directors, but its influence
in the film world has been considerable and has revived
the interest in independent producing companies. In
fact, many stars now attempt to maintain a free status,
and insist that their contracts include a clause allowing
them to perform occasionally for other companies.

This trend has been further spurred as a result of
the Red purge carried out in the big companies. Many
excellent technicians of Leftist politics have now begun
to make films independently or with the help and co-

THE NEW JAPAN 33

operation of labor unions. One of Japan's more success-
ful directors, Tadashi Imai, who used to work for one
of the big companies, now devotes his time exclusively
to independent productions. He created a sensation with
his School of Echoes, which inquires into the problems
of education in elementary schools, and his Tower of
Lilies, which was based on the true story of the annihi-
lation of girl students who served as nurses during the
fighting on Okinawa a film meant to highlight the
tragedies of the war and the recklessness of the Japa-
nese military. Independent producers concentrate on the
production of antiwar films, for the major companies
have so far shown no interest in such subjects. The Left-
ists, of course, openly use such themes for propaganda.

Television

Television in Japan is still on a fairly primitive level
because neither of the two television networks, the gov-
ernment subsidized NHK, or the commercial NTV, has
adequate facilities. A shortage of studios exists, and
technical processes are still to be perfected. Yet a for-
eigner visiting a Japanese studio would, I think, be
surprised at the ingenuity of the sets. The various
properties are handmade and, for economy's sake, the
producers have resorted to the ancient techniques of
Japanese-style painting in the making of scenery. For
instance, the feeling of dark or light colors is conveyed
by the use only of black, white and grays.

The spread of television has been slow. There are at
present about 30,000 receivers in operation, and both
networks broadcast only five hours a day. When televi-
sion broadcasts began, certain critics cynically remarked
that it was a typically bad habit of the Japanese to start

34 THE REFERENCE SHELF

something before they were fully prepared for it. How-
ever, the potential popularity of television is now clearly
evident. In Tokyo crowds of people gather before the
shop windows which display television sets.

By far the most popular television programs are
news, baseball, Japanese wrestling, boxing, and of course
"pro-wrestling" or Western-style wrestling. Television
drama is still in an embryonic state, and only three or
four authors are writing what may properly be called
television dramas, the most popular of which are com-
edies. About the only other type of play on television is
the "home drama" which is directed at the entire family,
and stresses common domestic problems. . . .

Even .though original works written for television are
still scarce and poor, the medium does serve to bring
stage performances to a wider public. Telecasts of
Kabuki performances, for instance, have been about the
most popular dramatic shows to be put on. Stage per-
formances of other kinds of theatre have also enjoyed
considerable success. Now that an agreement has been
reached with the film companies allowing the use of
films that are at least three years old, television's pros-
pects seem brighter.

Dancing

Before the war, there were in Japan only two schools
of dancing the traditional Japanese dance, and the mod-
ern dance imported from Europe. Since the war, ballet
has been introduced, and has had such an immediate
and widespread success that advertisements for "ballet
academies" are now seen not only in Tokyo, but in the
suburbs. This is one of the most inexplicable entertain-
ment phenomena, for nothing could be farther in mood
or technique from the classical dance of Japan.

THE NEW JAPAN 35

The Japanese style of dancing has been for some
time now controlled by four major schools. In order to
become a dancer, a pupil must enter one of these schools
and study with an approved teacher. When that teacher
decides that the young dancer is sufficiently accom-
plished, the head of the school gives his consent for the
dancer to appear in public and to use the school's name.
Without this cachet, a dancer cannot perform as an
independent artist.

This may appear excessively old-fashioned, but it is
precisely because of this system that the Japanese classic
dances have been preserved intact. However, it must be
added that while this conservative system protects the
classics and refines techniques, it seriously hinders the
production of new works on modern themes.

Apart from the young girls of good families who
study dancing as a pretty, drawing-room accomplish-
ment, the chief exponents of traditional dancing are the
geishas. To the Japanese, the word "geisha" has many
beautiful associations, even though they know that pov-
erty may have obliged a girl to take up the profession.
For a Japanese audience, the brilliant spectacle of geisha
dancing on the stage is one of the most moving and
glamorous entertainments. In Tokyo, for instance, the
Azuma Dance, an annual all-geisha performance, is one
of the season's brightest events, as are the Miyako Dance
and the Kamo River Dance in Kyoto.

In 1917, the geisha, Shizue Fujikage, who was at the
time considered one of the foremost dancers, began to
perform independently as an advocate of the "new"
dance. She put together a repertory of dances based on
modern themes, but performed with the traditional tech-
niques. Most of the works of the traditional Japanese
dance describe unhappy love affairs and Fujikage

36 THE REFERENCE SHELF

brought a welcome new note of gaiety, which has been
carried on by her followers.

But recently, ballet has far surpassed in popularity
the "new" dance, although there are, so far, only two
full-size, professional ballet companies, and as yet no
Japanese choreographer and no original Japanese ballets.
The companies rely entirely on such perennial favorites
as Swan Lake, The Nutcracker Suite, Scheherazade, and
Coppelia.

Only one recent event has encouraged traditional
Japanese dancers to feel that there is an active future
for their art. This was the triumph of Tokuho Azuma
in America. And although there were sharp protests
because she styled herself "a Kabuki dancer," her success
has given added confidence to classical dancers here in
the face of trends that seem to draw more and more on
the West.

Music

Just as ballet has come into its own in Japan's world
of dance, so in music, opera is now claiming the greatest
attention. Before the war, virtually the only Western
vocal music heard in Japan were the German lieder,
because the teachers in Japanese music schools were
almost all Germans. Since the Occupation, however, the
American fondness for Madame Butterfly, The Mikado,
and the like, has stimulated Japanese musicians to ex-
plore the opera form, using native material.

There are said to be over thirty thousand opera
devotees in Tokyo alone. So far they have seen little
besides the conventional productions of such operas as
Boris Godunov or COM Fan Tutte, but lately, original
Japanese works have appeared. Ikuma Dan's Twilight
Crane is the operatic version of Junji Kinoshita's hit

THE NEW JAPAN 37

play based on the folk tale of a crane whose life is saved
by a farmer; she turns into a woman and out of grati-
tude becomes his bride. The love story of Townsend
Harris, America's first consul in Japan, and the geisha
0-Kichi is the theme of Kosaku Yamada's The Black
Ships. Osamu Shimizu has adapted to the opera form a
Kabuki play about a maker of masks, called Tale of
Shuzen Temple. And Yamada is in the process of com-
pleting yet another Japanese opera to be called Princess
Fragrance.

In contrast to this tendency, the number of vocal and
instrumental recitals has sharply dropped. As a result of
visits by such artists as Traubel, Huesch, Cortot, Giese-
king, Heif etz, and Backhaus, listeners have, for the time
being, lost interest in recitals of Western music by Japa-
nese artists. Tickets for the concerts of the famous for-
eigners sell for a minimum of 500 yen and a maximum
of 3,000 far too much for an average Japanese, who
earns about 20,000 yen (roughly $55) a month. Yet
students, often the most ardent followers of Western
music, will carefully save up money in order to attend
performances of these visiting artists, and such expres-
sions as "my Cortot savings," or "my Heifetz savings/*
are often heard.

Traditional Japanese music, which has a history that
goes back hundreds of years, and still retains, in the
Imperial Court, such magnificent survivals as Gagaku,
orchestral music dating from the eighth and ninth cen-
turies and originally imported from the mainland of
Asia, is a more or less private art. Apart from the great
music that accompanies the puppet plays and Kabuki,
there are few public performances of music alone.
Geisha songs are of course accompanied on the samisen
[a three-stringed banjolike instrument], and in upper

38 THE REFERENCE SHELF

class houses, the koto (an instrument that resembles the
zither) is studied by the daughters as part of their edu-
cation and refinement. It is believed that to learn the
koto and flower arrangement before marriage gives
depth to a girl's sentiments. However, the most famous
koto players have been men, and one of the very few
Japanese artists who can command a large audience for
native music is Michio Miyagi, the greatest koto player
and composer of new pieces on old themes and in old
styles.

Among workers of the lower classes, Naniwabushi,
a musical storytelling which is a survival of an ancient
form, is the most popular musical expression. These are
usually sung in a strained and hoarse voice and tell of
the heroic and desperate actions of warriors and their
followers. The general effect of Naniwabushi is that of
an American Western sung as a ballad. Several times a
year, some ten famous singers of this type give a huge
performance in Tokyo; the majority of their spellbound
audience consists of older people.

The most rapidly growing and the most hectic of
the recent additions to Japan's popular entertainment is
American and South American jazz. It is sweeping the
country and finding its chief devotees among the young
people between seventeen and twenty-five years of age.
In special jazz cafes they whistle, stomp, and become
intoxicated by the intense rhythms. The older people
tend to frown on this new jazz craze, and wonder what
has become of the old Japanese songs. But the jazz
mania shows no sign of being halted, and may in the
future acquire as great a hold on the Japanese as it now
appears to have on Westerners.

Unlike the films, where native style is gaining ground,
the predominant influence of the West on Japanese
music seems likelv to continue.

THE NEW JAPAN 39

NIPPON WITH A NEW FACE 6

The bespectacled diplomat in the hotel-room chair
seemed amused at my question: Why, in a country
noted for government by assassination, had there been
no serious attempt in ten years to kill a Japanese or
United States official ? "Lack of enthusiasm," he said in
precise English. "Young people feel social changes can
be achieved without resorting to this primitive and in-
effective method, while the general public, it would seem,
has greatly lost interest in politics."

He glanced down to where his empty right trouser
leg was tucked into his belt. The leg had been blown off
by a Korean assassin's bomb in 1932.

This was Japanese Foreign Minister Mamoru Shige-
mitsu, sixty-eight, who served in two wartime cabinets,
signed the surrender aboard the battleship Missouri,
spent five years in prison for helping wage offensive
war. . . . Shigemitsu is a remarkably durable barometer
of his country's world standing : he and Japan alike have
come through ten years of ruin, retribution and recovery.

Today the once-sprawling empire of Japan is reduced
to four main islands. ... It is engaged in a frantic,
endless race to balance its exports against imports of
food and raw materials. . . .

Yet for all that, this vulnerable, picture-post-card
country, little more than a decade after its crushing
defeat in war, again boasts the biggest industry in the
Far East and with it holds the balance of power in Asia.
A Japan harnessed to Russia and Red China could lure
what is left of independent Asia into the Red camp and
tip the scales fatally against the West. A prosperous
Japan on the side of the free world remains a valuable
ally.

From "Japan," article by Peter Kalischer, author and CBS correspondent in
Japan. Cottier's. 137:58-67. March 2, 1956. Reprinted by permission.

40 THE REFERENCE SHELF

Seizing or subverting Japan is therefore the Com-
munists' jack pot in East Asia; keeping Japan our ally
is America's first concern there; and getting the most
for the best from both sides if possible is Japan's.

For seven occupation years the Japanese had no
choice of sides. We ran the country and fed them slabs
of democracy sandwiched between $2.5 million worth of
relief and rehabilitation. Japan enjoyed our help and
even digested a good deal of the democracy. But when
the occupation lid came off in 1952 it revealed a country
weary of being told what to do, curious to taste the
forbidden fruit beyond the bamboo curtain, and relish-
ing its authority over the foreigners who had been giving
it orders for so long.

The new Japan is fermenting a mash of new ideas
and old customs. It is mixing political democracy with
feudal loyalties, free enterprise with giant monopolies,
and several shades of Marxism with a hankering for
the good old days. The nation that once meekly did
what a handful of leaders told it to is now outspokenly
divided on every major issue American troops and
bases, rearmament, relations with Red countries, neu-
trality, foreign trade.

Japan is on her feet but headed where ?

Postwar Changes

In searching for the answer I took a long, fresh look
at the country I first saw as a GI more than ten years
ago and have worked in most of the time since. Once-
devastated cities Tokyo, Yokohama, Nagoya, Osaka,
Hiroshima show hardly a scar. Phalanxes of new office
buildings, new apartment houses and plaster-front shops
cover ground only recently bare of everything but fire-

THE NEW JAPAN 41

proof safes and brick chimneys. From the southern tip
of Kyushu to the fishing villages of northern Hokkaido
farmers have harvested a record rice crop. Handker-
chief-size plots are still cultivated like truck gardens,
but the machine age is creeping in; a few farmers* wives
now own washing machines something newsworthy
enough to get their pictures in the paper.

The Dai-Ichi Building in Tokyo, General Mac-
Arthur's famed command post, has reverted to the in-
surance company which owns it. Crowds bunch around
store-window TV screens instead of queuing up for
rations. Gay print dresses and Italian hairdos are the
vogue among girls whose elder sisters wore baggy war-
time slacks. And the girls are walking "avec" that is,
with their escorts, arm in arm, instead of behind them.
(They borrowed the word from the French but the habit
from the GFs.)

Millions of Japanese spend more money in pinball
parlors than the government does on national defense.
For businessmen, the golf course vies with the geisha
house as the place to seal a deal. In any city you can
take your pick of Japanese, American, French or British
movies. The All Girl Revue is at the Tokyo Takarazuka
Theatre, formerly the Ernie Pyle, formerly the Takara-
zuka. The burlesques feature battalions of classic strip-
teasers and one new variety a young lady shedding a
kimono.

Fewer than one hundred rickshas are left on Tokyo's
streets, which now are choked with 8 million people,
25,000 private cars, 12,000 taxis, enormous diesel buses,
motorcycle-powered three-wheelers, and bike-riding de-
livery boys balancing anything from eight tiers of noodle
soup to a plate-glass window. There is a major traffic
accident every thirty minutes.

42 THE REFERENCE SHELF

The Asahi, Japan's largest newspaper (circulation
5 million), now runs news bulletins in English, along
with Japanese, on its moving electric signboard, New
York Times style. Throughout the country English is
the second language, American products the technologi-
cal yardstick, Marxism the religion of the intellectuals,
mambo the latest dance craze and baseball, introduced
seventy-two years ago, still the most popular sport One
hundred thousand Tokyoites turned out in the rain last
fall to greet the New York Yankees and the young
man who carried a Yankee Go Home placard on May
Day was more than likely among them.

The Emperor

Probably the most extraordinary sight in postwar
Japan is Emperor Hirohito for the very reason that
he can now be seen. Up to a decade ago the Japanese
people bowed low and averted their eyes even when the
Imperial Presence passed in a speeding train or car.
They would not have dared look at the awesome descend-
ant of the world's oldest unbroken imperial dynasty.
When they raised their heads after the war and looked
straight at him, the Japanese saw an unassuming little
man with a toothbrush mustache, thick glasses, a shy
smile and a hesitant walk. Japanese eyes are still a little
blurred by the image of the prewar emperor, but they
genuinely love the one they see now. Not even the Com-
munists dare suggest openly, as they did right after the
war, that he be abolished.

Nowadays nobody apologizes to the emperor by
kneeling in the Imperial Palace Plaza, or, as happened
on the day of surrender, by committing group hara-kiri.
But sixteen persons were crushed to death on the double

THE NEW JAPAN 43

span bridge leading into the palace grounds when a
crowd of 380,000 came to pay their New Year's respects
in 1954; and thousands of countrywomen still troop into
Tokyo to sweep the palace grounds in a labor of love.

The man who inspires this devotion is a curious
mixture of ancient tradition and modern tastes. Hiro-
hito wears only Western clothes, prefers European cook-
ing, and sleeps on a bed instead of a Japanese-style straw
mat or tatarni. He makes regular public appearances,
and has informal pictures taken by the court photogra-
pher. He has fought a slow battle against the imperial
household's 930 retainers, headed by a grand chamber-
lain, who have controlled his life since babyhood. . . .

Still, there is strong conservative sentiment to en-
shrine Hirohito again and he might be unable to resist
it.

American Influence

America, more than any other nation, has had a hand
in shaping modern Japan. History brought Commodore
Matthew Perry into Tokyo Bay a century ago and Gen-
eral Douglas MacArthur there ninety-two years later to
fulfill a prophecy by Perry that ranks as one of the
shrewdest pieces of long-range forecasting ever made.

To me [Perry wrote] it seems that the people of Amer-
ica will extend their dominion and power until they shall
have brought within their mighty embrace multitudes of the
islands of the great Pacific, and placed the Saxon race upon
the eastern shores of Asia. And I think, too, that eastward
and southward will her great rival in future aggrandizement
(Russia) stretch forth her power to the coasts of China and
Siam ; and thus the Saxon and the Cossack will meet once
more, in strife or in friendship, on another field. Will it be
friendship? I fear not!

Almost from the beginning, MacArthur's occupation
wrestled with this problem in a modern context: dis-

t4 THE REFERENCE SHELF

irming and reforming an aggressor Japan and at the
>ame time building up a solvent ally which could resist
:he growing Communist menace next door.

Under a broad State- War-Navy Department memo-
randum dated August 29, 1945, General MacArthur at-
:empted more social changes in two and a half years
than Japan had seen in the previous fifty. He disarmed
the Japanese down to the last KP, arrested high-ranking
military and civilian jingoists, encouraged labor to or-
ganize, purged 200,000 persons (including Japan's . . .
premier, Ichiro Hatoyama, and twelve of his sixteen-
man cabinet), abolished Shinto as the state religion,
dissolved the zaibatsu the family cartels , revamped
the education system, remodeled the judiciary, decentral-
ized the police force, gave women equal civil rights, and
carried out a land-reform program so successful the
Communists tried to claim the credit. The Japanese also
were induced to adopt a new American-model constitu-
tion which renounced war and declared that "land, sea
and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never
be maintained."

As the cold war grew hotter, reconstruction took
precedence over reform. By mid-1948, MacArthur was
banning large-scale political strikes that were wrecking
recovery.

The following year trust-busting ended, and the big
zaibatsu firms he split began rolling back into one like
balls of quicksilver. Inflation was halted by rigorous
austerity and mass government firings.

When left-wing labor indulged in sporadic sabotage
and violence, MacArthur purged from unions and then
from public life Communist leaders whom he had lib-
erated as political prisoners in 1945. With the Korean
war, Communist publications were suppressed and key

THE NEW JAPAN 45

industries told to fire known Communist employees. The
same year the first of the early purgees were depurged.
Then, with all his occupation forces ticketed for Korea,
MacArthur set Japan on the road to rearmament by
ordering the government to form a 75,000-man National
Police Reserve. Every nation, he declared, has the in-
herent right of self-defense.

By the time the occupation ended in April 1952,
nearly every stratum of Japanese society had got a pat
and a kick. Now, four years later, many are outspoken
about its policies and their effects.

"I had to report to the police once a month for a
year because I didn't surrender my family's samurai
sword," said Tetsu Nakamura, of Kyoto. "Now you
want us to build jet fighters."

Labor unions organized under the occupation accuse
us of having revived the military and siding with the
old order. Businessmen criticize early trust-busting and
labor reforms that raised the price of Japanese products
on the world market. Conservatives chide us for initially
"encouraging" Communism. "The Communists you let
out of jail were not political prisoners," Foreign Minister
Shigemitsu told me. "They were common criminals in
prison for breaking laws."

The average Japanese if there is one will admit
we behaved far better than the Russians would have, or
(some say frankly) than the Japanese under similar
circumstances. But we, not the Russians, are in Japan
today 135,000 United States servicemen in 600 instal-
lations and the Japanese have a haunting sensation that
the occupation never ended. They called the old occu-
pation troops Shin-chu-gun advance army; they call
our present security forces Chu-ryu-gun the army that
stays. . . .

46 THE REFERENCE SHELF

Current Japanese Attitudes

Defeat in war and the physical and psychological
destruction of the military caste have helped turn most
Japanese into pacifists. The country's two big postwar
best sellers are violently antimilitary. One called Long
the Imperial Way relates the brutalized life of the Japa-
nese enlisted man in China. The hero of the other,
Homecoming, is a cashiered navy officer who copes with
his problems better than his conventional fellow officers.

But the main reason most Japanese want no part of
war is the obvious one they were atom-bombed twice.
In 1946, I called on a top Japanese nuclear scientist,
Professor R. Sagane of Tokyo Imperial University, now
dead, and asked what he thought about Japan rearming
in the future. "Useless," he told me. "Today there is
no such thing as a good second- or third-class military
force. Without atomic weapons a nation might as well
not have any."

That argument has gained ground since two former
enemies are now armed with the H-bomb. The Japanese
are understandably touchy on the subject 106,000 of
them died in just two old-fashioned nuclear explosions.
Fate also chose twenty-three Japanese fishermen to be
the first victims of an H-bomb fall-out near Bikini in
March 1954. The "ashes of death" incident, for which
we paid $2 million compensation, brought Japanese-
American relations to a postwar low. . . , [See "Japan
and the H-Bomb," in Section IV, below. Eds.]

If there is one personal history that shows the new
face of Japan it is that of thirty-year-old Tadashi Ita-
gaki. Itagaki graduated from the Japanese Air Force
Academy in March 1945, was sent to Korea as a second
lieutenant pilot in June and was taken prisoner by the

THE NEW JAPAN 47

Russians in August. In July 1948, he was moved to a
camp in Khabarovsk, Siberia, which held four hundred
Japanese enlisted men and three hundred low-ranking
officers. By the time Itagaki got there a social revolution
had taken place. A small group, supplied with books,
pamphlets and a Japanese-language newspaper which
gave the news according to Moscow, had converted most
of the men to communism. Enlisted men would sur-
round an officer and badger him until he tore off his
insignia. "After three years, do you still want to fight
wars?" they would jeer. "J a P an doesn't even have an
army." Itagaki held out for six months. He was a fer-
vent believer in the emperor system, and he had another
special reason: his father was Lieutenant General Sei-
shiro Itagaki, one of Japan's most aggressive militarists.

One day a fellow prisoner came up to him waving a
copy of the Japanese newspaper.

"Great news today," he said. "To jo and your father
and five other war criminals were executed in Tokyo."

"To me," Itagaki recently explained, "my father was
almost synonymous with the emperor. When I heard
the news my world collapsed. I thought if this could
happen, then Japan was really turning inside out, as the
Communists among us said/'

The next day Itagaki joined the Communists.

In 1950 he was repatriated. The Communists lion-
ized him; they tried to use him as a speaker in an elec-
tion campaign.

But something was wrong. The picture of Japan that
Itagaki had inside his head did not jibe with the Japan
he had come back to.

"I talked with my mother and my friends/' Itagaki
said, "and I read the new constitution. Then I made up
my mind."

48 THE REFERENCE SHELF

Six months after his return he quit the party. Today
he is a very ordinary young man with a very ordinary
job he wants to keep. He is not much interested in
politics, but he votes Right Socialist.

"I think Japan should be friends with everybody," he
said. "I don't want any more war."

II. GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS

EDITORS' INTRODUCTION

The foundations of the present parliamentary system
of government in Japan were laid by the 1947 consti-
tution. Largely written by General MacArthur's staff
advisers, the constitution was designed to erase old politi-
cal forms in Japan, notably the institution of the em-
peror, and to replace them by a government based on
popular representation. Thus, it provides for the sepa-
ration of powers (executive, legislative, and judicial) as
in the American system, with real power resting in the
Diet as the legislative arm of government.

In studying postwar Japanese political development
it is important to keep in mind the fact that the consti-
tution inaugurated a form of government basically dis-
similar to that of prewar Japan which was in effect
ruled by an oligarchy of powerful groups among the
aristocracy and the army. While democracy and the
party system appear to be functioning well in Japan,
dissatisfaction is shown by a move to revise the consti-
tution. And there are forces at work that would under-
mine it entirely.

This section opens with a discussion by Hugh Borton
of the nature of democracy in modern Japan and the
chances for its future. A short article outlines the struc-
ture of the present government. A list of the postwar
prime ministers with their terms of office is given to
orient the reader. An article taken from an introduction
to Japan sketches the history and character of the major
political parties. The origins and nature of the extreme
right in Japan are taken up in an article on ultranation-

50 THE REFERENCE SHELF

alist groups. The composition and character of the Japa-
nese Communist party are discussed in an article by
Rodger Swearingen. This is followed by biographical
sketches of the two most prominent postwar prime min-
isters, Yoshida and Hatoyama.

DEMOCRACY IN JAPAN 1

In any analysis of the growth of democracy in mod-
ern times in Japan, it is important to remember that in
the years immediately following the restoration of power
to the Emperor Meiji in January 1868 the new leaders
devoted their main strength and effort to the solution of
their country's economic dilemma. The problems which
absorbed their time and energy were practical ones ; polit-
ical problems began to demand their dominant attention
only after many of the basic economic issues had been
settled. The new imperial government had been estab-
lished in 1868 by some of the most powerful feudal
barons and their warrior-advisers, who had rallied
around the youthful emperor.

These men formed a small group of oligarchs who
were the de facto rulers as councillors and state minis-
ters. They improvised a national governmental structure
and operated within a framework of broad policies pro-
claimed by the emperor. They promised to establish a
public assembly and to lay great stress on public discus-
sion. In reality, however, these oligarchs were more in-
terested in stifling public discussion than in encouraging
it. By 1881, they laid down the broad principles for the
constitution which were incorporated in that document.

The constitution, which had been drafted in secret by
the oligarchs, was promulgated on February 11, 1889,

1 From "Past Limitations and the Future of Democracy in Japan," article by
Hugh Borton, president of Haverford College. Political Science Quarterly. 70 :410-
20. September 1955. Reprinted by permission.

THE NEW JAPAN 51

by Emperor Meiji who proclaimed it as the immutable,
fundamental law for his subjects and their descendants.
For fifty-eight years, from that day until May 3, 1947,
when the post- World War II constitution went into
force, not a single change was made in the document or
in the central concept that the emperor be the center, the
axis, of constitutional monarchy. It established the em-
peror as sacred and inviolable. It gave legal sanction. to
the wide powers previously exercised for him by his min-
isters. It granted extensive authority to the executive
branch of the government and limited the legislative and
judicial branches. The extra-legal institutions such as the
Elder Statesmen (Genro) who acted as imperial advis-
ers only increased the powers of the emperor as the chief
executive. . . . The concept of the state as an overriding
entity prevailed. The government rested on the
suzerainty of the crown, not on the discretion of a parlia-
mentary body. . . .

Thus, from the restoration to power of Emperor
Meiji in 1868 to the surrender by the representatives
of his grandson to General MacArthur on September 2,
1945, conservatism, absolutism and a strong, centralized
autocracy were the guiding political principles of Japan.
The Potsdam Declaration of July 26, 1945, on which
the surrender was based, had stated that the occupation
of Japan would continue until "there has been estab-
lished, in accordance with the freely expressed will of
the Japanese people, a peacefully inclined and responsible
government/* In other words, two of the basic objec-
tives of the United States and its allies for postwar
Japan were the creation of conditions which would pre-
vent Japan from becoming a military menace and which
would assure, to the extent that it was possible to do so,
the creation of democratic institutions in Japan.

52 THE REFERENCE SHELF

Reforms During the Occupation

Many -of the directives issued by the Supreme Com-
mander for the Allied Powers (SCAP), especially those
during the first two years of the occupation, were di-
rected at achieving this democratization. In other words,
certain essential reforms were undertaken to create an
atmosphere in which democracy would prosper. While
demobilization of the Japanese Army and Navy was
being effected, human rights were protected by order of
the supreme commander. Restrictions on freedom of the
press and radio, except on material critical of the occu-
pation, were removed. Bans were lifted on political, civil
and religious liberties. Discrimination was forbidden on
grounds of race, nationality, creed or political opinion.
Political prisoners were released and the national police
were stripped of their authoritarian powers.

But if democracy was to have a chance for perma-
nent survival, it was necessary for Japan to have a new
constitution based on democratic principles. For the first
five months of the occupation, desultory attempts at con-
stitutional revision were undertaken by the conservative
political leaders. Early in February 1946, however, offi-
cials of General MacArthur's headquarters prepared a
draft for a new constitution which stripped the emperor
of governmental powers and strengthened the legislative
and judicial branches of the government. Civil rights
were guaranteed; the cabinet was made collectively re-
sponsible to the Diet. The latter was made the sole law-
making body and had complete control over the budget
On the insistence of General MacArthur, the document
also contained a provision which abolished war as a
sovereign right of the nation. The final draft for the
new constitution, which contained all of these provisions

THE NEW JAPAN S3

of the MacArthur draft, was accepted by the Japanese
cabinet in March 1946. After the addition of a few
changes which strengthened the democratic aspects of
the document, it was approved by the Diet on November
3, 1946. When it was implemented by new legislation
strengthening the new freedom and liberty of the Japa-
nese people, the formal framework, at least, was at hand
for Japan's democratization.

Other reforms encouraged or initiated by the occupa-
tion also contributed toward the possibility that Japan
would not revert to its old conservative autocratic ways.
For example, encouragement was given to the rise of a
strong labor movement. After the passage of legislation
which legalized collective bargaining and trade unions,
union membership jumped in twelve months from about
125,000 to 4.5 million. . . .

Many other occupation-inspired reforms, such as the
abolition of absentee landownership, the purge of ultra-
nationalist leaders in the political and economic field,
and the deconcentration of economic and financial power,
were directed against past autocratic practices. Two
changes, of special significance, occurred in the police
system and in national education. Since the Japanese
police, who had been controlled by the home minister
and had wide powers, had been one of the important
elements in forming a pre-surrender dictatorial govern-
ment, their overhaul was imperative. After temporary
objections by the Japanese cabinet to a proposal from
General MacArthur's headquarters for complete decen-
tralization of police powers, a new police law was finally
enacted on December 17, 1947. This law adopted the
principle of decentralization by dividing the police into
local municipal police and national rural police. The
former were to be controlled by local police boards, the

54 THE REFERENCE SHELF

latter by a National Public Safety Commission. Other
functions formerly exercised by the police were trans-
ferred to either the local or national governments.
Police, customs and patrol duties in Japanese territorial
waters were assumed by a Maritime Safety Authority.
Thus, one of the strongest agencies of Japanese totali-
tarianism was transformed to make it as difficult as
possible to use it for the establishment of a police state.
As for educational reform, in prewar days, the Min-
istry of Education in Tokyo exercised autocratic control
over the entire educational system, from primary school
to university, and the schools became important outlets
for the transmission of nationalist dogma and militarism.
The whole system was designed to discourage individ-
ual initiative and independent thinking and to foster
conformity and absolute obedience. If the obstacles to
the revival and strengthening of democratic tendencies
among the Japanese were to be removed, as provided
in the Potsdam Declaration of 1945, an educational
system and philosophy diametrically opposed to that
which existed before surrender would have to be evolved.

The first important step in educational reforms came
in October 1945 when the schools were opened, but
militaristic and nationalistic subjects were not permitted
to be taught and a program of screening teachers and
revising the textbooks was undertaken. The 1946 New
Year's Day statement of the emperor was another impor-
tant event in educational reform. It denied his divinity
and the superiority of the Japanese over other people and
urged that wisdom and knowledge be sought abroad.
By the time the new constitution went into effect in May
1947, the entire educational system had been completely
reformed to the extent that this could be achieved by
legislation. New laws stressed the importance of indi-

THE NEW JAPAN 55

vidual initiative and inquiry and guaranteed academic
freedom. Education was made compulsory for nine
years. The most significant administrative change was
in the decentralization of control through the formation
of local, elective school boards responsible to the local
community. Theoretically, at least, the minister of edu-
cation in Tokyo could no longer act as a dictator over
the whole system or be subject to the dictates of the
party or group in power.

Weaknesses of Occupation Reforms

But helpful as these and many other reforms might
be to facilitate Japan's democratization, they had two
basic weaknesses. In the first place, the innovations were
carried out during a military occupation. Though they
were formally implemented by the Japanese Diet and
cabinet, the initiative had come from the various staff
officers of General MacArthur's headquarters. Though
many leading Japanese had been consulted in formu-
lating these new policies, General MacArthur as the
supreme commander could always exercise a direct or
indirect veto on actions which he did not approve, or
order the Japanese government to carry out policies
which he considered urgent In other words, even though
the reforms were accepted formally, there was no assur-
ance that they had been wholeheartedly accepted by the
Japanese people. The test would come only after the
occupation ceased.

The second weakness of these reforms was the fact
that in Japanese history the men who control the gov-
ernment and their ideas have been far more important
than the formal structure through which they operated.
The Meiji Constitution of 1889 was made to fit the
beliefs, ambitions and desires of the Meiji leaders. They

56 THE REFERENCE SHELF

made the various government officers work for them;
they were in no sense bound by "the will of the people."
Consequently, if we are to evaluate correctly the future
possibilities of the democratization of Japan, we must
conclude our analysis with a brief account of the gov-
ernments which operated in postwar Japan and of the
trend which has developed particularly after April 28,
1952, when the peace treaty came into effect.

As for Japan's postwar political development, while
there have been various changes in party names and in
political alignments, there are three general groups. On
the right are the two largest parties, the Liberal and
Democratic parties, which, despite their official names,
are basically conservative. In the center and left of
center is the Socialist party or Social Democrats who
have split into a right and left wing. On the left are the
Communists, theoretical Marxists and fellow travelers.

From the surrender of Japan on September 2, 1945
to the elections of February 1955, there have been ten
cabinets and five general elections for the House of
Representatives. Five of these cabinets have been headed
by Shigeru Yoshida for a total of seven out of ten years.
For about half of the time that he was premier, his
Liberal party had an absolute majority in the House of
Representatives. After the elections in April 1953, he
retained control of the government through a shaky
coalition but was finally forced to resign in December

1954. He was succeeded by Ichiro Hatoyama, president
of the Democratic party. In the elections in February

1955, the Democrats won the largest number of seats
in the House of Representatives and Hatoyama was
subsequently confirmed as prime minister.

A significant aspect of Japan's modern political trend
is the fact that the electorate has always preferred con-

THE NEW JAPAN 57

servative candidates. Although the Liberal and Progres-
sive parties may not have agreed on the question of who
should control the parties, they are both conservative
and together have possessed more than half of the votes
in the House of Representatives. Even in the election
of April 1947, after which Tetsu Katayama, a Social
Democrat, formed a cabinet, the Socialists controlled less
than one third of the seats. Furthermore, after the un-
expectedly heavy Communist vote in the elections in
January 1949, when they polled nearly 10 per cent of
the total and returned thirty-five members to Parliament,
their support has rapidly declined. For example, in Feb-
ruary 1955, the Communists elected only two represen-
tatives to Parliament. Apparently many former support-
ers of the Communists shifted to the Left-wing Socialists
who increased their strength by one fifth. Together with
the Right-wing Socialists they control one third of the
seats in the House of Representatives. But the combined
seats of the two conservative parties equal nearly two
thirds of the total.

Postwar Reaction

In view of this basic conservative political atmos-
phere in postwar Japan, therefore, it is not surprising
to find signs of a shift in the direction the nation is
headed. In fact, there is general support, stimulated by
a new nationalism which has arisen since the peace treaty
went into effect in April 1952, for shelving many of
the reforms established under the occupation. To verify
this generalization, we need only glance at what has
been happening to the reforms mentioned above. In the
first place, the basic civil rights inaugurated by General
MacArthur and guaranteed by the constitution have

58 THE REFERENCE SHELF

been severely threatened by two parallel developments,
namely, the passage of an anti-subversive activity law
and the return to centralized police control. As for the
former, Premier Yoshida pressed for the passage of a
law which would control the terroristic activities of ex-
tremists, especially the Communists and Communist-
inspired organizations. The proposed law was so worded,
however, as to be applicable to labor unions and political
parties which "incited or agitated" political action. Con-
sequently, it was strenuously opposed by organized labor
and by many of Yoshida' s political opponents who feared
that a rigid enforcement of the law would threaten
individual freedoms. On the basis of a new fear of
communism aroused by the May Day riots in 1952 and
a promise from the attorney general that care would be
taken in applying the law, however, Yoshida obtained
approval of the law in July 1952.

An even greater threat to Japan's democratization
has been the basic alteration in the reforms of the police
system. The chief purpose of the SCAP-inspired re-
forms was to prevent the police from continuing to be
an enforcement agency directly under the cabinet which
could use them for its own ends. Prime Minister
Yoshida, in the face of Communist disturbances and
protracted strikes, maintained that the dual system of
municipal and national rural police was inefficient and
incapable of dealing with internal peace and security.
He proposed, therefore, that many of the changes in-
augurated during the occupation be abandoned and that
a national police system under the supervision of a
Central Police Board responsible directly to the Prime
Minister be established. He also recommended that
police chiefs in the various prefectures be named by the
Chairman of the Police Board and that they be national

THE NEW JAPAN 59

government employees. In February 1953, Parliament
refused to consider the national budget unless Yoshida
withdrew his proposal. Finally, in June 1954, after the
Socialists had boycotted the Lower House, the conserv-
ative majority approved the new bill. Consequently, the
police in small communities and the five largest cities in
the country lost their autonomy and were again placed
in a position to enforce the will of the government and
to threaten democratization.

The movement to revise or reconsider the constitu-
tion, which has notably gained momentum ... is more
complicated than the other issues which are demanding
current reconsideration. The main question of revision
centers on the question of rearmament and is compli-
cated by the reversal of the American position on that
issue. Most Japanese realize that it was General Mac-
Arthur who insisted in February 1946 that the consti-
tution contain a provision (Article IX) prohibiting
Japan from maintaining armed forces. They also know
that there has been an increased tendency on the part of
American officials to emphasize the role Japan could
play in the defense against communism. For example,
Vice President Nixon stated in December 1953 that the
United States was mistaken in its earlier policy and that
the Japanese National Safety forces, which were planned
at over 110,000 men, were not enough.

In the meantime, the question whether the constitu-
tion should be amended has been made a political issue.
The Progressives, and their successors, the Democrats,
urged such action and the formation of regular armed
forces. Premier Yoshida argued that since the proposed
forces were to be defensive they were not unconstitu-
tional. Another aspect of revision of the constitution is
the position taken by some of the old nationalists who

60 THE REFERENCE SHELF

were influential members of the Manchuria clique. . . .
[Nobusuke] Kishi [the present premier], one of the
former directors of the General Affairs Bureau of Man-
chukuo, recently declared that "the time is here for a
wholesale scrutiny of the constitution/' His remarks
become even more ominous for the future of democracy
in Japan when it is realized that he served as minister of
commerce and industry under Tojo's cabinet . . . and
that in November 1954 he acted as chief mediator be-
tween the dissident Yoshida followers and the organizers
of the new conservative Democratic party.

Finally, a reversion to prewar educational policies is
a further indication of the present trend away from de-
mocratization in Japan. While Prime Minister, Yoshida
sponsored this reversal of Allied policy and a shift
toward centralization for financial and political reasons.
The war damage repairs and replacement of school
buildings were too great a burden for local communities
to bear. At the same time, the central government
sought ways to control the Left-wing-dominated Teach-
ers Union. Previous efforts to restrict the political ac-
tivity of this important union had failed, so a bill was
proposed to place teachers on the payroll of the national
government. As government employees, they would be
prohibited from political activity and the Teachers Union
could be controlled. Moreover, the law provided that the
power of appointment of teachers should revert to the
Ministry of Education. The Yoshida government was
severely attacked by the teachers and the press for con-
sciously attempting to destroy the liberalizing effect of
the occupational policies. As the Asahi, one of Tokyo's
leading papers, editorialized, "Passage of these laws will
have a more far-reaching effect on the freedom of edu-
cation and perhaps on other freedoms now enjoyed by

THE NEW JAPAN 61

the people than any other legislation since the war."
Consequently, when these new laws were approved early
in 1954, centralized control of the entire educational
system was possible.

Under the premiership of Hatoyama, the trend away
from the Allied policies which aimed at assisting the
process of democratization and toward authoritarian
control is likely to continue. The by-products of this
trend also cannot be overlooked. A rearmament move-
ment and the revitalization of the armed forces give
ample opportunity for the old militarists or their proteges
to reassert themselves as a significant nationalist in-
fluence. The reemergence of the large financial combines
(the Zaibatsu) and the rationalization of industry [or-
ganization on an orderly and economic basis] facilitate
a close alliance between the government and the leading
financiers. The concentration of police power and edu-
cational policies within the cabinet make regimentation
possible if not probable.

Balance of Forces

But over against this discouraging prognosis are
arrayed new forces which will retard the trend toward
totalitarian control and may even reverse it. First, the
labor movement has come of age and the unions have
tasted the giddying effect of political power. They and
their members will not easily give up their freedom of
action. Secondly, the agrarian reforms, which affected a
large portion of the population, have lifted a heavy debt
burden from many farm families. As a result, they are
reluctant to see a return to prewar conditions for fear
that they may lose what they have already gained. In the
third place, the equality of the sexes, guaranteed by the

62 THE REFERENCE SHELF

constitution, has released an entirely new force. Women
are coming into their own. They are equal before the
law, vote, work, and have greater educational opportuni-
ties than ever before. No politician will dare to deprive
them of their rights. Finally, the bitter pill of defeat
confronted many Japanese, particularly the youth, with
a new political philosophy to guide them; those who
have found it in democracy do not intend to give it up.
On balance, therefore, prospects for democratization
are not as bright as they appeared to be before the
Treaty of Peace was signed, but it is unlikely that au-
thoritarianism will be able to negate the advances already
made. The reactions against the occupation-inspired
reforms are natural ones and in the end Japan may
settle down to a moderate form of democracy well to
the right of center.

STRUCTURE OF GOVERNMENT 2

The main characteristics of the new constitution,
particularly in contrast with the old one, are as follows :
(1) the symbolization of the state by the emperor and
recognition of popular sovereignty, (2) renunciation of
war, (3) superiority of the House of Representatives
over the House of Councillors and (4) the assumption
by the cabinet of responsibility to the Diet. . .

Executive

Japan has adopted the parliamentary system of gov-
ernment, under which the executive and the legislature
are not as independent of each other as under the
United States governmental system. The prime minister

THE NEW JAPAN 63

in Japan is designated from among the members of the
Diet by the action of that body. All cabinet members
must be civilians, and at least half of them must be
selected from the Diet, to which they are collectively
answerable. If the House of Representatives passes a
non-confidence resolution, or rejects a confidence resolu-
tion, the cabinet must either resign en masse or dissolve
the House within ten days. . . .

For the purpose of local administration, Japan is
divided into forty-six districts. Under these regional
governmental organizations are the city, town and village
units. Local government personnel totaled 1,391,368 in
April 1956.

Diet

The Diet is the highest organ of state power and the
only lawmaking body. It consists of two Houses, the
House of Representatives (467 seats) and the House of
Councillors (250 seats). . . .

The members in the House of Representatives are
elected for a four-year term. But their term of office
can be terminated whenever the House is dissolved. The
electorate system for the House of Representatives is
based on the medium constituency. The members in the
House of Councillors are elected for a six-year term.
One half of the total membership of the House of Coun-
cillors are elected every three years. One hundred out
of the 250-member House of Councillors stand election
on the national constituency while the rest are elected
from the local constituencies.

Voters in all elections must be Japanese nationals,
both men and women, who are twenty years of age or
over. . . .

64 THE REFERENCE SHELF

Judiciary

Judicial power is vested in a supreme court and in
lower courts. All judges are permitted full independence
in the exercise of their conscience and they are bound
only by the constitution and the laws.

The supreme court is composed of a chief justice
and fourteen judges. The chief justice is appointed by the
emperor as designated by the cabinet and all other judges
are appointed by the cabinet, but reviewed by the people.

PRIME MINISTERS OF JAPAN

SINCE THE PROMULGATION OF THE

1947 CONSTITUTION 3

Tetsu Katayama, Socialist

May 1947-March 1948
Hitoshi Ashida, Democrat

March 1948-October 1948
Shigeru Yoshida, Liberal, second term

October-December 1948

(First term: May 1946-May 1947)
Shigeru Yoshida, third term

January 1949-August 1952
Shigeru Yoshida, fourth term

August 1952-April 1953
Shigeru Yoshida, fifth term

May 1953-November 1954
Ichiro Hatoyama, Japan Democrat

December 1954-March 1955
Ichiro Hatoyama, second term

March 1955-October 1955

1 Compiled by the Information Office, Consulate General of Japan, New York.

THE NEW JAPAN 65

Ichiro Hatoyama, third term

November 1955-November 1956

Tanzan Ishibashi, Liberal-Democrat
December 1956-February 1957

Nobusuke Kishi, Liberal Democrat
February 1957-

THE JAPANESE POLITICAL PARTIES*

Before the war Japan's two leading political parties
were the Seiyukai and Minsei-to. With the revival of
party government in the autumn of 1945, both re-
appeared to become the leading conservative parties, the
former as the Liberal party and the latter as the Pro-
gressive party. Meanwhile, members of former prole-
tarian parties organized the Japan Social Democratic
party, and the Communist party came out of hiding
with the return from exile or release from prison of its
former leaders. A profusion of minor parties ranged
from right to left behind candidates of widely varying
backgrounds and degrees of political experience. In the
1946 general elections, 267 parties entered candidates.
An inevitable weeding out of most of the minor parties
and splits or consolidations of the more vigorous of them
have made for a gradual simplification of the party
scene. Since late in 1955 there have been two main
parties, which between them have filled all but a handful
of seats in the lower house and three quarters of those
in the upper house. Backgrounds, policies, and person-
alities of the major parties are as follows.

A. The Japan Socialist party (Nihon Shakai-to).
Pre-occupation suppression of the socialist movement

4 From An Introduction to Japan, by Herschel Webb t instructor in Chinese
and Japanese at Columbia University. Columbia University Press. New York.
1957. p54-8. Reprinted by permission.

66 THE REFERENCE SHELF

gave the Japanese left wing a cohesiveness under stress
that it was not long to maintain after it was freed for
political activity. Early solidarity of the Social Demo-
cratic party (Shakai Minshu-to) led to unexpected
strength at the polls in April 1947, followed by strong
positions for the party in the two succeeding coalition
cabinets under their own leader Tetsu Katayama, from
May 1947, until March 1948, and under Prime Minister
Ashida, a Progressive, until October 1948. Yet there
came to be fundamental differences between extremists
and moderates within the party. In October 1951, the
two wings split. The immediate issue was Japanese rati-
fication of a peace treaty in the drafting of which neither
the Soviet Union nor China had participated. Right
Wingers, though they opposed the United States-Japa-
nese defense pact that accompanied the treaty, supported
the treaty itself. This the Left Wing refused to do. The
Right Wing took a firm stand against rearmament, but
avoided commitment to outright anti-Americanism.

Meanwhile, Left-Wing Socialists maintained strict
opposition to cooperation with the West in all phases of
its struggle with world communism. It opposed active
and passive aid to the South Korean cause during the
Korean War and after the war favored complete with-
drawal of foreign defense troops from Japanese soil. At
the same time it staunchly resisted rearmament for Japan
either with or without amendment of the constitution.
Such a program attracted some of Japan's neutralists, to
whom commitment on either side of the cold war seemed
ill-advised, but it also appealed to those committed on
the side of communism who were not actually Commu-
nist party members.

Relaxation of American-Soviet tension in 1955 had
the effect of diminishing some of the issues between the

THE NEW JAPAN 67

two wings, and in October 1955 they merged to form the
Japan Socialist party. Mosaburo Suzuki, leader of the
Left Wing, became party chairman, while Right-Wing
leader Inejiro Asanuma became chief secretary. Some
disagreements still remain among factions of the party,
though all of them agree on an anti-capitalistic program
of domestic economy and a greater or lesser degree of
opposition to the pro-American foreign program of the
majority party. Socialists hold less than a third of the
seats in the House of Representatives, but their program
has powerful support among labor unions and in intel-
lectual circles.

B. The Liberal-Democratic party (Jiyu-Minshu-to).
Japan's present majority party is basically conservative
and favors alliance with the West. It came into being in
November 1955, with the union of the Liberal and
Democratic parties. The latter had consisted of the mem-
bers of the old Progressive party plus dissidents from
the Liberals. Postwar conservative factions exhibit at
least one of the striking characteristics of their prewar
counterparts : they unify not so much around articulated
programs or policies as behind dominating politicians.
Personality clashes among conservative leaders delayed
formation of a united party until after reconciliation of
the Left- and Right-Wing Socialists had made it a politi-
cal necessity. These clashes have continued to plague the
new party since its establishment. It remains to be seen
whether the union will be stable.

In March 1957, Nobusuke Kishi, who became prime
minister on February 25, was made head of the party.

C. The Ryokufu-kai. In 1947 a group of House of
Councillors members of generally conservative political
philosophy formed a separate party known as the Ryo-
kufu-kai, or "Green Breeze Society." Its importance to

68 THE REFERENCE SHELF

Japanese political life lies in the fact that its upper-house
membership of thirty-one seats prevents either of the
major parties from obtaining majority control in the
House of Councillors. The Ryokufu-kai fared badly in
the elections of July 1956, and may be heading for
extinction.

D. The Japan Communist party (Nihon-Kyosan-
to). Communist strength in Japan cannot be gauged by
its numerical strength in the Diet, which declined from
a high of thirty-five representatives after the January
1949 elections to its present figure of two members in
the lower house and two in the upper. In terms of its
discipline, its hidden external support by Russia and the
international party organization, and its potential appeal
in times of crisis to possible millions not now swayed by
its program, the Japan Communist party must be con-
sidered one of the major parties. Its avowed aims in-
clude immediate withdrawal of United States security
forces, abrogation of the United States-Japanese defense
pact, continued disarmament, and social reforms. Incor-
poration of Japan into the Communist bloc of nations is
an ultimate aim.

During the occupation years the party offered a pro-
gram of so-called peaceful revolution, designed to build
popular support and at the same time ward off the wrath
of the occupying authorities that would have resulted
from a more overtly revolutionary policy. In conse-
quence, orders from Moscow in January 1950 purged
top Japanese party officials, replacing them with others
who supported more radical methods. Purge from the
opposite direction in July 1950 followed the outbreak of
the Korean War. The party's official newspaper, the
Akahata, was forced to suspend publication at the same
time that other measures were taken by the occupation

THE NEW JAPAN 69

to prevent Communist obstruction of the United Nations
war effort. Since the peace treaty became effective in
April 1952, the party has again enjoyed the legal status
of all other parties.

Composition of the House of Representatives, by
parties, as of November 1955, was as follows :

Liberal-Democratic party 299

Socialist party 154

Communist party 2

Other parties 6

Independents 3

Vacancies 3

Total 467

ULTRANATIONALISM IN POSTWAR JAPAN 5

There have been many changes in the decade since
occupation planners fashioned a democratic structure for
Japan. More and more old patterns, personalities, and
themes return to the stage. Premier Yoshida was suc-
ceeded by Mr. Hatoyama, the only prewar politician
favored by a personal purge decree from General Mac-
Arthur's headquarters. Of the seventeen members of
the Hatoyama cabinet . . . eleven were under the occu-
pation's ban, and Foreign Minister Shigemitsu served
a five years' sentence as a major war criminal. The
Liberal-Democratic party, a merger of the two conserva-
tive groups, commands a substantial majority in the
lower house of the Diet and is committed to establish-
ment of "public morality," educational reform, and
changes in occupation laws to make them "conform with

* From an article by Marius B. Jansen, associate professor of Japanese history,
University of Washington. Political Quarterly. 27:141-51. April 1956. Reprinted
by permission.

70 THE REFERENCE SHELF

national conditions." Steps are being taken to recentral-
ize the educational system, standardize textbooks, and
control their selection. And while revision of the consti-
tutional ban on maintenance of a "war potential" is still
in preparation planes and tanks are under manufacture.
Yet it is much too early for sweeping verdicts on
the demise of Japan's new democracy. Everywhere new
interest groups which have had a decade to root them-
selves stand to protest and moderate the plans of the
conservatives. Education boards and teacher groups are
waging a vigorous campaign against the centralization
and standardization which is planned. The labor unions
are preparing a spring offensive to protect their gains
and secure further benefits. Constitutional revision is
still very far from accomplished. The united Socialists
lose no opportunity to challenge the less united conserva-
tives. And there is room for misgivings about the justice
of the sweeping condemnations of occupation days. Most
of the present leaders stood against the extremism of
war-time. The reappearance of Mr. Hatoyama and Mr.
Shigemitsu does not necessarily mean a return of prewar
nationalism, and the reappearance of some of the war-
time military in posts of responsibility does not fore-
doom a rebirth of prewar militarism.

Ultranationdist Terrorist Societies

But there is no room for doubt as to the undesir-
ability of the return of ultranationalist, terrorist societies.
Such groups have gained in number and in boldness, and
their prewar leaders have regained some of the prestige
and respectability that they lost in defeat. As currents
of nationalism rise again, the ultranationalists rush to
make their old claims of national superiority. An esti-

THE NEW JAPAN 71

mate of the strength and possibilities of the right-wing
organizations, of their activities and handicaps in post-
war Japan, can serve as a useful indication of the dis-
tance which the Japanese people are prepared to travel
in going back to the old ways.

Rightist activities reached their postwar high during
the closing days of the Yoshida Cabinet in 1954. In that
year nationalist groups dropped leaflets from planes, they
showered leaflets on Diet sessions, they made at least
four plots against Mr. Yoshida's life, and addressed over
fifty threats to him. In November 1954 ultranationalists
staged their first public demonstration since Japan's de-
feat. Four thousand members and affiliates of the Na-
tional Martyr Youth Corps ( Junkoku Seinendan) rallied
at Hibiya Hall in Tokyo. Among the speakers was
Yoshio Kodama, a prominent prewar terrorist and war-
time navy agent, who assailed both the Yoshida govern-
ment and Japanese Communists. After his speech came
a street demonstration. The Martyrs wore their dark
blue uniforms with caps and black combat boots. They
marched quietly, carrying banners inscribed with pa-
triotic slogans, to the accompaniment of the national
anthem. This rally illustrates some of the distinctions to
be drawn when discussing the postwar right wing in
Japan. Kodama attacked both the centrist conservatives
and the left The rally was very different from those
sponsored by leftist groups; rigid discipline and order
were marked, and not a woman was present

The right wing in postwar Japan tries to carry on the
work of prewar ultranationalists. It recruits followers
among those who believe that Japan's war aims were
basically just and that Japan was defeated because it
failed to live up to its noble spirit Postwar changes in
democratization represent, they feel, still another failure

72 THE REFERENCE SHELF

to abide by that spirit, and close ties with America are
unworthy of the historical mission of Japan. Renova-
tion, purity, and self-respect will provide cures for cor-
ruption in politics, cowardice in diplomacy, and selfish-
ness in family and society. Japan can then be saved
from the dangers of the left, it will be unencumbered by
the self-seeking, craven politicians, and it will be free of
Mr. Dulles and the MacArthur constitution.

Although many writers use the term "fascist" when
discussing Japanese ultranationalist organizations, the
European exemplifications of that term fit the pre- and
postwar pattern in Japan rather poorly. The main stream
of the Japanese rightist movement has been rooted in the
distinctive mixture of traditional and industrial values
and practices in Japanese society, and its works can be
understood only by considering the tensions on which it
has fed.

The right-wing organizations of twentieth-century
Japan trace their ancestry back to societies formed by
disgruntled ex-Samurai in the early years of the 1880's.
Their founders were alarmed by the extent of social
and ideological change that had followed the overthrow
of the feudal regime, and they feared that Japan was
leaving its proper course. They were obscurantists and
xenophobes, and they were happy to receive support
from segments of the business world (notably the coal
industry) which valued their insistence on expansion and
internal unity. The most celebrated of these organiza-
tions, the Kokuryukai (Black Dragon, or Amur, Soci-
ety), formed in 1901, combined an insistence on tradi-
tional values with a call for leadership in Asia. Its
members fostered study of Asian conditions and helped
refugee Asian leaders, and they considered themselves
self-appointed guardians of the national morality. Be-

THE NEW JAPAN 73

sides receiving support from sections of the business,
army, and governmental groups, the ultranationalists
were involved in many questionable transactions on the
borderline between legitimate business and labor racket-
eering. Their organizations were not secret societies,
but neither were they mass societies. They were small
elite groups clustered around leaders who made every
attempt for full publicity in order to exaggerate their
influence. . . .

Decline of the Prewar Rightists

But the influence of the ultranationalists in prewar
days can easily be exaggerated. The rightists never
achieved unity, and they never won power. . . .

The surrender brought a sudden halt to the rightist
organizations. Although a small number of extremists
believed, with the young officers who assaulted the palace
guard, that the surrender was against the will of the
emperor, there were remarkably few spectacular protests
or suicides. Kodama reappeared briefly as councillor in
the post-surrender cabinet of Prince Higashi-Kuni, but
before long he was in Sugamo Prison while Higashi-
Kuni was operating a grocery store. General Mac-
Arthur's headquarters moved promptly against the right-
ist organizations, dissolving 232 and purging some 3,000
leaders from public life. Some attempted new organi-
zations only to have them stopped by summary orders
from SCAP. But in any case the post-surrender days
contained few opportunities for rightist propaganda.
The deflation of war-time boasts of Japanism, national
essence, and national purity was climaxed when the occu-
pation proved to be humane instead of vindictive. Kod-
ama, who writes that he never sensed defeat despite the

74 THE REFERENCE SHELF

bombings and horrors of the war, was crushed to find
that the Americans were well-behaved. "When I first
saw with my own eyes the civilized occupation/' he notes,
"I could not but cry out from the bottom of my heart,
'Japan has been defeated. We have been defeated !'"...

Reappearance of Extremists

The ultranationalist leaders have been able to resume
open work since the mass depurges of the late occupation
years. In 1950 the Korean War centered attention on
the Communist danger, and the following year came the
San. Francisco Peace Treaty which brought independence
in the spring of 1952. Since then the soil for a new
rightist movement has been good. Social confusion, eco-
nomic boom and fears of panic, a middle class hard hit
by inflation, the continuing presence of foreign troops,
and the constant picture of political corruption have
provided potential demagogues with rich material. In
1951 ... [it was] estimated that 540 branches of
266 organizations were in being. In July 1954 a news-
paper summary counted over 700 branches with a total
membership of 200,000.

Most of the organizations are related to prewar
bodies, and several, like the Fatherland Protection Corps,
are led by assassins of the early 1930's. Two or three
such organizations may be taken as outstanding. The
Fatherland Protection Corps devotes itself to fighting
communism, political corruption, and giving "proper
guidance to youth." It has about thirty standing mem-
bers who dress in a uniform patterned on that of the
American Air Force, and a total membership of around
500. Fourteen members, quartered in Tokyo for "group
training" in Spartan living, devote themselves to fencing,

THE NEW JAPAN " 75

judo, and ceremonies revering the emperor. The Martyr
Youth Corps . . . was formed in 1952 by Hidezo
Toyama, son of Japan's greatest prewar ultranationalist
It advocates patriotism as "the only salvation for the
nation which is now contaminated by both communism
and the tendency to be servile to the United States."
Its Tokyo headquarters houses thirty carefully selected
young men (frequenters of slot-machine parlors and
romantic films are excluded) who drill and study under
banners reading: "All members will die for the sake of
the country."

The Seisanto (Production Party) is a revival of a
group organized by the Black Dragon Society in 1931.
It was originally designed as an anti-Communist group
among the proletariat, but since its leader was a labor
contractor and the organization was financed by Osaka
business men its success was not great. The postwar
Seisanto claims twenty thousand "troops" in the Osaka
area, but police concede them one tenth as many. Its
program calls for complete independence for Japan, in-
cluding an "independent constitution," a grand union of
a self-reliant Asia, and absolute peace. In 1954 the presi-
dent and chairman of its central executive committee
traveled to Formosa to confer with Chiang Kai-shek
about the self-reliant Asia. The travelers told reporters
that they conceived of national socialism as the answer to
the two competing power systems of Russia and Amer-
ica, and that after their visit to Formosa they hoped to
go to the mainland to persuade Mao to leave the Russian
orbit in return for leading Japan out of the American
orbit.

A Seisanto leader, Toshiharu Kawakami, also heads
the League for the Defense Against Communization
(Sekka boshi dan) which he formed in May 1952, afte?

/o HIE REFERENCE SHELF

the Communist demonstrations on May Day. The
League's platform features worship of the Imperial
family, love of the fatherland, freedom and rights of the
people, and annihilation of Communist influence. Kawa-
kami, grandson of a xenophobic swashbuckler of [Meiji]
Restoration days who slew one of Japan's great western-
izers, is admirably equipped to train the 120 men he
houses in his Kyoto residence. Among those receiving
drill in swordsmanship, boxing, judo, and ideology is a
youth who tried to assassinate Mr. Yoshida in 1954. . . .

Evaluating the Threat

From all of this it would be possible to draw very
gloomy conclusions about the prospects for democracy
in Japan. Nevertheless from a study of the evidence
available one is led to the conclusion that the rightists
have very few of the advantages that were theirs in
prewar Japan while they have retained their handicaps.
The reemergence of colorful terrorists of the 1930's does
not mean that methods that were then effective can now
succeed.

First of all, the ultranationalists have been unable to
work together. . . . The ultranationalists have also failed
to come up with any really new ideas. . . . The leaders
cannot form mass movements, and yet it takes a mass
movement to get results in postwar Japan. . . .

What can the ultranationalists promise would-be
supporters ? Japan's relations with Asia furnish an illus-
tration of the way old slogans have lost efficacy. Before
the war, rightist leaders could point to ties with Asia in
ideological and political programs. They promised Asian
reformers Japanese help, and they promised Japanese
leaders Asian followers. And, failing leadership, there

THE NEW JAPAN 77

was always the possibility of conquest But today con-
quest, even of South Korea, is unthinkable. And the
rightists can hope to talk with almost no Asian leaders in
ideological terms with the possible exception of Chiang
Kai-shek and Syngman Rhee, neither of whom has
proven eager to follow Japanese leadership in the past
It is the left, and not the right, that can offer Japanese
businessmen ties with China today.

And . . . the rightists never really won out in the
1930's. They merely provided the instability in which
the military could take over. Their program, when shorn
of its mysticism and Confucianism, amounted to prepar-
ing the stage for army take-over; the army, they thought,
would know what to do next. But there is no comparable
group with which the ultranationalists can work in the
new Japan.

But once these disclaimers of imminent disaster are
made it must still be granted that the ultranationalist
revival presents a real danger to Japan. So long as
young fanatics see in chauvinism a code of values, so
long as politics are corrupt, and so long as depression
lurks behind the precarious balance of imports and ex-
ports, Japan's new democracy will be vulnerable to attack
by the demagogues. Economic pressures caused by re-
armament can add to the difficulties and opportunities.
Governmental attempts to revive patriotism and loyalty
as preliminary steps to rearmament offer new dangers.
And, while the old values are still in decline, no new
codes have come in to inspire the idealism of the young.
This is a setting in which the extremism of the left and
right can thrive.

Thus the rightists are a significant sign of a partial
return to prewar patterns in postwar Japan. But unless
standards of national and international political and eco-

78 THE REFERENCE SHELF

noniic health dwindle rapidly the ultranationalists seem
most unlikely to regain the influence that was theirs a
decade and more ago. Their problems illustrate the fact
that despite the apparent identity of persons and themes
in postwar Japan, the total balance of forces has changed
very considerably since 1945.

THE JAPANESE COMMUNIST PARTY:
STRATEGY AND STRENGTH 6

The signing of the Japanese Peace Treaty and the
United States-Japan Security Treaty at San Francisco in
September 1951 was the occasion for an unprecedented
shift in the Communist party line on Japan. A little
more than one month before Stalin's historic 1952 New
Year's message to the Japanese people in which he
wished them "success in their courageous struggle for
independence/' the Cominform (Communist Information
Bureau) recast the erstwhile imperialist state in the role
of colonial appendage of foreign imperialism, thereby
placing Japan for the first time in history in the category
of the anticolonial nations of Asia. . . .

Significantly, the "1951 Thesis," as the new party
program came to be called, remained the basic policy
guide for post-treaty strategy and tactics of the Japanese
Communist party (JCP) at least up to the party's na-
tional council meeting in July 1955. .

Party Strength

According to official registration figures party mem-
bership reached a peak of 100,000 in March 1950, but it

From "Japaxjeae Coamnunisra and foe Moscow-Peking Axis " article h v PrvWt.

THE NEW JAPAN 79

dwindled gradually to 65,000 in January 1951, 59,000
in May, 56,000 in August, and 48,000 in June 1952. Its
actual strength including nonregistered members, which
was once thought to be several times the registered
membership, was estimated early in 1954 to be between
60,000 and 70,000. The number of members who actu-
ally pay dues to the party was at the same time said to
be between 20,000 and 30,000.

A comparison of Communist results in the elections
of 1949, 1952, 1953, and 1955 offers another indication
of trends in post-treaty Communist strength. On Octo-
ber 1, 1952, a national election was held after a lapse of
nearly four years. The Communists campaigned vigor-
ously, putting up one candidate for each constituency
throughout the country. Whereas thirty-five Communist
candidates had been elected in the preceding election,
not a single seat was won by the Communist party in
the new House of Representatives. The aggregate vote
declined from 2,980,000 (9.1 per cent) in the 1949 elec-
tion to 890,000 (2.5 per cent) in the 1952 election. In
the general election of April 19, 1953, the Communist
vote decreased to 660,000 (1.89 per cent) of the total
votes cast, and the party managed to win one seat in the
House of Representatives. The February 1955 elections
to the House of Representatives shows the first slight
reversal in the downward trend in JCP popularity. Two
JCP members were elected, both of them from Osaka;
the party polled 773,120 (2 per cent) of the total votes
cast.

JCP and the Socialists

During 1954, the Communist party continued to woo
the Socialists, but the latter remained largely uncon-
vinced of the necessity, value, or wisdom of accepting

80 THE REFERENCE SHELF

Communist bids for "joint action," To be sure, certain
of their objectives coincided with those of the JCP, and
the Communist party "used" the Socialists when and
wherever possible.

Propaganda Themes

The principal Japanese Communist propaganda cam-
paigns of 1954-1955 revolved around themes of opposi-
tion to rearmament, military bases, and mutual security
aid, while the most sensational issue which the party
was able to exploit was the "Bikini incident/' involv-
ing atomic fallout on the Japanese fishing vessel Lucky
Dragon.

The Labor Front

The party has been most active on the labor front,
with the 3-million-member General Council of Trade
Unions of Japan (Sohyo) an identifiable target By
1954 Communist influence on the Council had become
substantial, but it appears to have declined somewhat
since that time. The party has made relatively less head-
way with the farmer and fisherman, and redoubled
efforts have recently been called for.

Sixth National Council Meeting

After the Geneva "summit" conference, the JCP
began to display aspects of the Soviet "new look." This
was in line with the world-wide Communist policy and
was not an unexpected development. Certain other re-
lated domestic developments also appear to have influ-
enced the transformation in JCP policy, especially the
evident failure of the party's militant underground policy

THE NEW JAPAN 81

and the replacement of the Yoshida government by the
Hatoyama government, with the increased strength of
the Socialist parties (and union as the Social Democratic
party), which, in turn, tended to create what the JCP
apparently regarded as a more fluid political situation.
The new modified policy was adopted at the party's
sixth national council meeting in July 1955, and was
published almost immediately in Akahata. After com-
menting on "favorable" developments on the interna-
tional scene (such as the Geneva and the Bandung con-
ferences) and noting that "the American imperialists are
still supervising and controlling our industry, agriculture,
and finances and trade, and exploiting and plundering
our people," the document takes up several fundamental
problems and errors, identified as failure to overcome
factionalism and to unify the party, the tactical error of
leftist adventurism, and the inability to strengthen the
ties between the party and the people. Each of these is
elaborated in some detail with the appropriate "lessons
the party must learn." The document concludes by pin-
pointing specific target areas or groups and suggesting
that there is an appropriate tactic towards each in the
national-democratic liberation revolution.

The new tactical line as outlined by the Resolution,
reminiscent of Mao's New Democracy, may be summar-
ized as follows: (1) Win labor and farmers by "correct-
ing the error of leftist sectionalism," by paying more
attention to the laborer's and farmer's daily needs, by not
forcing "mechanically the party's program on groups"
but by "winning them ideologically." (2) "Eradicate ex-
isting prejudice in the party against intellectuals" and
channel the political consciousness of the intellectuals,
youth, and women toward the correct cause. (3) Correct
mistakes such as supporting Shigemitsu and attacking the

82 THE REFERENCE SHELF

Socialist rnrty ght for the unity of all democratic
forces. (4) Be ready to exploit dissatisfaction with the
Japanese government on the part of small- and medium-
sized businesses, while realizing at the same time that
various types of governments, though reactionary and
pro-United States in large measure, can nevertheless con-
tribute to the revolution. (5) While the party must not
ally itself with monopoly capital, which supports traitors
and reactionary governments, certain "dissatisfied big
bourgeois" may be "encouraged" to take a neutral posi-
tion* (6) Expose and block the revival of anti-Commu-
nist, Fascist, terrorist, rightist groups. (7) Organize
broad peace movement among people of all walks of life
who are against atomic war the party must, in effect
stand publicly for neutralism while not being itself neu-
tral. (8) The party must raise its ideological level.

YOSHIDA "DEEP BOWS AND A TEMPER"*

Since Yoshida emerged in 1946 from the status of <
diplomat laid on the shelf by the military to that of th<
potentially most powerful statesman of postwar Japan
a dozen epithets, not all of them complimentary, hav<
been applied to the man and his policies.

He has, for instance, been called a representative o
the "extreme right," but this, except as a shorthand de
scription of an old-fashioned Japanese conservative, i
scarcely correct. He is profoundly anti-Communist, an<
suspicious of anything resembling fellow-traveling. H
made some sensation when, in the early stages of hi
last election campaign, he angrily called Japan's Lefl
wing Socialists Communists or little better. He is

* From an article by Luwtesar Parrott, former chief of the New York Tim
Tokyo Bureau. New York Times kaffazine. p 12+ . September 6, 1953. RcpriS
oy

THE NEW JAPAN 83

devoutly royalist, convinced, as perhaps most Japanese
are, that the imperial institution, no matter to what evil
uses it may have been put in the past, is the pivot around
which the nation turns.

"Extreme right" in Japan has a special connotation
the return of the military caste, reestablishment of tough-
muscled secret societies and "young officers" groups
which dominated Japan before the war, government-
backed family monopoly, and reestablishment of an
aggressive empire to dominate a new Greater East Asia.
None of these objectives has been endorsed by Mr.
Yoshida.

The policies he has followed . . . might be de-
scribed as somewhat to the right of middle of the road.
They, as he has outlined them in campaign speeches,
addresses to the Diet, parliamentary committee testimony
and rather rare press interviews, are about as follows:

On international relations : Close alignment with the
United Nations and with the United States. "Empty
arguments" by the Left and the idealist intellectual
fringe for absolute and unarmed neutrality in a troubled
world and against "one-sided reliance on America alone"
are Communist traps against which Japan must be on
guard.

On rearmament : Japan must have the forces for self-
defense and to insure internal security, but this requires
no immediate revision of the postwar national constitu-
tion outlawing war forever. Arming of Japan, however,
must wait on Japan's economic progress. "Under the
present economic conditions, the construction of a single
battleship would upset the whole of government finance."

On foreign aid : As the United States assisted Japan
immediately after the war, so America will continue
indeed has promised to lend a hand through special

84 THE REFERENCE SHELF

procurement. MSA [Mutual Security Administration]
aid would be acceptable. The United States would be
expected to make **no unreasonable demands" for an
arms program that might wreck the Japanese economy.

On trade icith communism: A profitable export-
import relationship between Japan and China remains a
question mark. Under the circumstances, Southeast Asia
is Japan's most likely source of raw materials and poten-
tially her best customer.

These are scarcely the opinions of an "extreme
Rightist." If Yoshida's views require a special charac-
terization, they smack more of the outlook of the states-
men of the Aleiji era, during \vhich, in Tokyo, he was
born, than they do of anything extreme.

Voshida was born a Takeuchi, a wealthy . . . fam-
ily, identified with the politics of the early imperial re-
vival. In common with many Japanese of every class, he
bears an adopted name. His adoptive father was Kenzo
Voshida, a business man and manufacturer of silk
Voshida passed through the Tokyo Imperial University,
then an essential training ground for public servants.

From 1906 to 1939 he worked his way through the
ranks of the imperial diplomatic corps, in China, in Rome
and finally as ambassador to the Court of St. James a
servant of the throne and a member of the professional-
business man's caste, little if at all responsible to the
shifting political administrations of Japan.

It is conceivable that England, another island empire
with a long royal tradition and a civil service upper class,
colored Yoshida's views more than any other nation iti
which he served. This and his advocacy of amity with
China were the main reasons for his earning the distrust
of the military clique that drove Japan's government
into the camps of Britain's foes in World War II. For

THE NEW JAPAN 85

opposing the militarists Yoshida in 1936 was vetoed as
foreign minister in the new cabinet formed after key
antimilitarists gained control of Japan's government.
With the outbreak of the war in Europe Yoshida, then
president of the Japan-Britain Society, went into virtual
retirement. After Pearl Harbor he smuggled to the thai
interned United States Ambassador, Joseph C Grew, his
regrets over Japan's plunge into the war. He spent the
last three months of the war in prison for advocating
peace negotiations through British channels. . . .

It is perhaps a paradox that Yoshida, after his career
as a diplomat and a retirement which he probably de-
signed to be permanent, was tossed into the dogfight of
postwar Japanese party politics more or less by accident
Originally in occupied Japan, under General Douglas
MacArthur as Supreme Commander for the Allied
Powers, Ichiro Hatoyama, ex-cabinet minister and poli-
tician, organized and led the conservative forces, was
elected to the Diet and virtually assured of the first
ministry. Then, suddenly, he was purged for his acts
and writings while Japan was still a member of the Axis.
Yoshida, with little or no knowledge of party politics,
took the job almost by default.

The occupation ended and the purges were with-
drawn. But when Hatoyama attempted to reassume con-
trol of the party he had formed Yoshida was in full
command.

ICHIRO HATOYAMA 8

The transfer of power [in December 1954] from the
Liberals of ex-Premier Shigeru Yoshida to Hatoyama's
Democrats was in great part a result of Hatoyama's

From "Japan Land of tfce Reluctant Sparrows." Time. 65:34-7. March 14,
1955. Reprinted by permission.

86 THE REFERENCE SHELF

personal popularity, his canny exploitation of Japan's
disillusionment with his highhanded and distant prede-
cessor, Yoshida. But, as Hatoyama was among the first
to acknowledge, his mandate went far deeper than a
change of personalities. In sweeping out the Liberals,
the Japanese were sweeping away a regime that repre-
sented to the majority of Japanese a decade of meek
complaisance to the commands and suggestions of the
United States occupiers. . . .

In place of the Yoshida men, the electorate had
turned to men of almost identical pin-stripe; indeed,
some were the very same men. But they wore new colors
more independence from the United States; negotia-
tions with the Chinese Communists and Russia; some
second thoughts about rearming and lining up on the
Western side of the cold war. "... I feel that align-
ment only with the Western nations and the ignoring of
the Communist nations . . . could lead to a third world
war," said Ichiro ttatoyama. "I would like to awaken
the people to a deeper, more serious sense of their
independence."

A Tokyo businessman put it more crudely. "Yo-
shida," he said, "sold Japan from under his kimono, like
a Parisian selling dirty pictures. Hatoyama is different
He is like a brand-new shopkeeper on the Ginza his
door is open to everybody." . . .

^For all his political canniness and his present popu-
larity, it is by no means certain that aged, crippled Ichiro
Hatoyama is the one who can do the job. He is essen-
tially a politician, a man who made his way up by nifty
deals across the ... [gaming] tables, by tough brawling
in the Diet (once he rushed to the rostrum and tried to
punch a fellow Diet member in the nose), and by tack-
ing with the winds of national sentiment "He is not

THE NEW JAPAN 87

the kind of leader who stands out and looks down on the
people," said a friend, "but more the kind who leads by
standing in the middle of them."

His manner and his mode of living are Western.
Brought up on John Wesley and Adam Smith, he wor-
shiped for years as a Christian, and still devotes several
hours a week to robust singing of Christian hymns. But
when the militarists took over in the 1930's to pursue
their dream of empire, Hatoyama accepted it, endorsed
it on a tour of foreign capitals, wrote a book praising
Hitler and Mussolini. He was not close enough to the
team to be completely trusted, so before war's end he
was nudged into retirement; but he was not clean enough
to pass the occupation's purview, and was purged (along
with 201,815 other Japanese) after he had formed the
postwar Liberal party and was about to become premier.

Until he could return, Hatoyama entrusted the Lib-
eral party to his good friend Yoshida. By the time he
was depurged five years later, Hatoyama had been laid
low by a stroke, and tough-minded Shigeru Yoshida had
grown too attached to the job to relinquish it Hato-
yama bided his time until the conservatives and their
business backers began chafing under Yoshida's leader-
ship, and the public began showing its irritation with the
remnants of United States occupation and those who
cooperated with it All that was then necessary was a
shrewd deal across the game tables. Overnight ... a
chunk of the Liberals broke off, styled themselves the
Democrats, and chose Ichiro Hatoyama as their leader.
Another convenient arrangement with the Yoshida-
hating Socialists knocked the premier out and brought
Hatoyama in.

III. JAPAN'S ECONOMIC PROBLEMS

EDITORS' INTRODUCTION

An understanding of Japan is impossible without a
grasp of the problems arising from her island economy.
Forced to rely for her economic existence on imports
of raw materials and on export of finished goods, she
has since the end of World War II struggled to stabilize
a shaky balance of trade. While the country shows signs
of a remarkably quick industrial recovery, she still
desperately needs markets abroad to support a growing
population and an expanding economy. Until recently,
Japan depended almost exclusively on Western markets ;
now she is turning to Asia and Communist China.

The first article in this section gives a general picture
of the nature of Japan's economy and the twin problems
of population and labor force. An article from the New
York Times special section on foreign trade (January
1957) shows Japan's rapid postwar industrial progress.
Another article briefly describes the role of trade unions
in Japanese industry and politics. The comeback of
Japan's giant prewar trade combines is reported in a
news story from Newsweek. Japanese-United States
trade relations are first taken up in a discussion of the
invasion of United States markets by Japanese goods.
This is followed by a short news story from the New
York Times on the boycott by southern states of Japa-
nese textiles. An article by C. L. Sulzberger warns that
Japan is being forced to look to China for markets as
a result of restrictive measures taken by Western coun-
tries against Japanese goods. Another New York Times
news story reports on the Japanese lifting an embargo

THE NEW JAPAN 89

on 272 items to be shipped to China. In the concluding
article Vera Micheles Dean sums up Japan's economic
dilemma, raising the further question of the country's
new need to divert money and manpower to defense
(with the withdrawal of the United States Armed
Forces).

THE NATURE OF JAPAN'S ECONOMY 1

Few travelers to Japan realize they are visiting three
different but related countries. In the rice paddies farm-
ers use methods of hand labor which date back to primi-
tive times; in the small shops and cottage industries
there are medieval-feudal patterns of manufacture and
distribution, and even semi feudal social relationships; in
the large factories labor unions are strong, and there are
faint beginnings of automation and of an economy of
abundance.

On the farms almost half of Japan's population
reaches old age in the middle forties, and children are
valued if only to take care of the prematurely aged.
Indeed, in certain areas, large numbers of children are
necessary if the family is to survive. Thanks to agri-
cultural reforms, tenant farmers are now only a small
minority, and democratic cooperative organizations have
spread through the land.

Well-informed Japanese call the agricultural coopera-
tives one of the best of the occupation reforms and say
that the Japanese bosses who at first dominated the
cooperatives have gradually been replaced. Nevertheless
American movie-makers recently found that to rent a
Japanese farm, theoretically belonging to its farmer-
owner, they had to consult a Nipponese Capone.

1 From "Atlantic Report on the World Today Japan." Atlantic Monthly.
198:17-22. August 1956. Reprinted by permission.

90 THE REFERENCE SHELF

The small shops and cottage industries produce the
hr.r.'Irrrsf*? cattery, lacquerware, silk, and damascene
for which Japan is famous. They also produce all
sorts of industrial products on a sub-contract system,
with some attempt at standardization, and with a re-
markable ability to shift rapidly from one temporarily
successful export to another. Here one can see at its
most fascinating the Japanese social system of paternal-
ism, or substitute father, substitute child, as the Japanese
sociologists call it One does not fire an inefficient father
or an incapable son, but one does not need to pay him
very much either.

On the farms the working day is ten hours except
at the time of planting or harvest; and the pay is often
as low as $10 a month. Wages in the large industries
are the best in Japan, about $55 a month. Usually the
working day is eight hours, and the productivity of
these workers is far greater than that of workers in
smaller industries.

Too Many People

The population of Japan is steadily increasing. In a
country roughly the size of California (which has about
13 million inhabitants) there are close to 90 million, and
each year 1.5 million new Japanese appear on the
crowded scene.

Japan is one of two countries in the world (India is
the other) in which systematic private and public efforts
are being made to spread knowledge of birth control.
Meanwhile abortion is widely used, and one estimate
has it that there are each year as many abortions as
births. . . .

The immediate question is what to do about the
young employables who are already born and who for

THE NEW JAPAN 91

at least fifteen years will threaten the Japanese economy
with chaos. The examples of Belgium and the Nether-
lands, both more densely populated than Japan, suggest
that an answer can be found. Those who advocate emi-
gration are fond of citing the fact that only 16 per cent
of Japan's land is usable. But in this respect Japan is
better off than North America, and far better off than
the world as a whole. More can be done to reclaim land
from the sea and, as one experiment has shown, to use
land above 1200 feet in altitude.

Productivity and Efficiency

If Japanese productivity continues to increase at its
present rate, there will be new jobs each year for per-
haps 320,000 new workers. That leaves a balance each
year of close to 400,000 young workers for whom new
jobs must be found, for at least a decade. The only
answer now in sight is a still further increase in pro-
ductivity.

Productivity in Japan, however measured, is certainly
above the prewar years perhaps as much as 150 per
cent of that period & remarkable achievement when one
remembers that Japan lost 40 per cent of its national
wealth and 45 per cent of its territory in the Second
World War. . . .

The Japanese, who in their internal affairs show a
marked distaste for competition, are facing for the first
time on a large scale the necessity for reaching a com-
petitive position in international trade. Some Asian na-
tions are reaching self-sufficiency in the light industrial
goods Japan exported before the war; and others, such*
as Red China, are beginning to undersell the Japanese
in exports of cloth, a Japanese world specialty. In heavy

92 THE REFERENCE SHELF

industrial goods and chemicals, Japan is a less efficient
producer than the United Kingdom, West Germany, or
the United States. . . -

The Fear of Competition

Japan's great pool of cheap and surplus labor is a
disadvantage, rather than an advantage, for it leads to
a lack of interest in efficiency. And Japanese workers
in the largest labor union, Sohyo, have even opposed
productivity. In all walks of Japanese society, raises in
pay are awarded mainly according to seniority rather
than merit; and generally speaking, it is more important
to age than to think.

The unions object, for the most part, to time and
motion studies, or even to aptitude testing for jobs. The
main concern of a worker is keeping his job. A Japa-
nese worker who seeks to better himself by transferring
from one company to another is immediately suspect as
disloyal. A worker expects his employer, or substitute
father, to take care of him for life, and hiring a worker
is closer to adoption of a child than to fitting the right
worker to the right job.

Japanese industry is also weak in marketing prac-
tices, both in finding out whether there is any consumer
demand for a given product, and in selling the product
once it has been manufactured. Aside from neon light-
ing, advertising balloons, and a few sandwich men
equipped with drums, umbrellas, and clackers, there is
little salesmanship. A salesman is ranked with a factory
worker in prestige.

Another weakness of Japanese industry, particularly
the smaller industries, is the lack of adequate cost-
accounting procedures. Often a company assigns an arbi-

THE NEW JAPAN 93

trary price for its product and hopes for the best Some
companies will keep as many as three sets of books : one
for themselves, one for their investors, and one for the
government. . . .

Cultural Interchange

Japanese scholars and businessmen are now traveling
abroad at a rate far greater than in the early days of the
Meiji era, when Japan first made its effort to draw level
with the Western world. Thanks to the Fulbright pro-
gram, and similar but much smaller British, German,
and French programs, foreign experts of all kinds are
visiting Japan as never before in its history.

The most remarkable, and as yet little noticed, effort
at cultural interchange is that represented by the still
new Japan Productivity Center. Its efforts are being
aided by an able and energetic group of Americans in
the United States Overseas Operations Mission. These
two agencies make it possible for teams of Japanese,
usually twelve in number, from industries chosen with
an eye to the long-range future of Japan, to visit the
United States for six weeks of study. This program has
only just begun, but its final effects may reach every
circle of Japanese society. Badly needed in Japan is a
business and industrial college which, free from tradi-
tion, could approach Japan's industrial productivity in a
Japanese way. Such a college, properly run, could serve
as an inspiration for Japanese education in general.

A period of far-reaching re-education lies ahead for
the industrial and business world of Japan. . . .

It is not likely that the Japanese can make further
improvements in Japanese industrial production without
introducing industrial democracy and a more truly com-

94 THE REFERENCE SHELF

petitive pattern of life. In the long run, historians may
be able to record that even more significant and lasting
than the democratic influences of the occupation were
the new democratic forces in Japanese business and edu-
cation which appeared after the occupation was over.

JAPAN REGAINS PLACE AS INDUSTRIAL GREAT 2

Japan is rapidly returning to the forefront among
the great industrial nations. This is evidenced by hum-
ming factories, bustling offices, roaring traffic and huge,
well-dressed throngs in hundreds of richly-stocked de-
partment stores of the nation.

Generally speaking, the people never have lived so
well. If the average Japanese still cannot afford an auto-
mobile, it is now no impossible strain on his budget to
buy a motorbike. He can afford electric lights in his
house and a radio. The electric refrigerator is becoming
common, and nearly 500,000 Japanese own television
sets.

If an average annual income of about $230 a person
seems inordinately low to an American, it is very high
for a Japanese accustomed to an extremely frugal cul-
ture. It is about 4 per cent more than he made last year,
more than 10 per cent above the peak years of 1934-36.
"Real" wages, earnings beyond rising price levels, have
increased 7.1 per cent in the last year. Wholesale prices
jumped 24.5 index points, but the consumer price level
has held to a reasonable 4.3. . . .

Analysts generally concede that the prospects for the
future are bright. However it is never forgotten that
Japan must import 20 per cent of her food and 80 per
cent of her raw materials; that the population . . . con-

N~*? 1 T ?t5cle *.?**$ Trumhl ?', f <5 * New York Times Tokyo Bureau.
New Ttork Times. p47-f . January 3, 1957. Reprinted by permission.

THE NEW JAPAN 95

timies to expand; and that the export economy, by which
Japan must live, is at the mercy of economic winds in
the buying countries.

Problems and Progress

Japanese exports are still little more than half the
figure for the prewar peak years. Internally, economic
expansion is being hampered by transportation bottle-
necks and power shortages, which can be attributed, at
least, in part, to shortsighted planning. The failure of
urban gains in income to keep pace with the new pros-
perity of the farmers has an adverse political affect.
And abroad, Japan faces new competitors and continuing
discrimination against Japanese goods for one reason or
another. . . .

However, the progress being made amazes observers
who found a rather despairing picture here only two
years ago.

From the utter economic prostration at the end of
the war, Japan has risen to become the leader of the
world in fishing, second in shipbuilding (first in number
of ships built for export), third in cotton textile produc-
tion, and sixth in steel output. And every month sees
new postwar records in production.

A comparison of foreign trade figures for the first
nine months of the calendar year 1956 with the totals
for the comparable period in the previous year tells part
of the story. The following table is in thousands of
dollars :

Jan.-Oct Jan.-Oct

1955 1956

Imports .... $1,516,300 $2,628,795
Exports .... $1,582,000 $2,004,910

96 THE REFERENCE SHELF

In the 1956 figure, the trade deficit of $623,885,000
is partly compensated by a $285,771,000 excess in "in-
visible" exports (United States procurement contracts
and cash spending by United States servicemen and
tourists) over invisible imports. . . .

As an indicator of domestic prosperity, production
levels in mining and manufacturing, based on an index
figure of 100 for 1950, hit 250.4 in August, 1956. Con-
tinued good rice crops, except in frost-stricken Hokkaido,
enabled farmers to raise their consumption index to 132,
against 100 for 1934-36. The same figure for urban
workers was 127.1.

It would perhaps be misleading to dwell here on the
contribution of the United States to the resurgence in
Japan's economy. In the six years and eight months of
Allied occupation under United States direction, a thor-
ough revamping of the economic pattern, helped by a
cash advance of $2 billion that is yet to be repaid, put
the prostrate country back on its feet. As the occupation
ended, Japan was enjoying the extraordinary boom
caused by the Korean War.

United States Expenditures Cited

The negative effects of World War II on Japan's
economy will continue to be felt for many years, entirely
apart from the disintegration of her prewar overseas
empire. She must pay reparations of $200 million to
Burma, $550 million to the Philippines, and yet undeter-
mined amounts to Indonesia and Vietnam probably
more than $1 billion in all. The United States is not
expected to remit more than two thirds of the $2 billion
rehabilitation and occupation debt.

THE NEW JAPAN 97

Today, the United States contribution to Japan's
expanding economy has its chief significance in the over-
seas procurement program which in 1956 has paid into
Tokyo $188,345,000 in contracts awarded up to October
this year. The visiting servicemen and others spend
about another $325 million a year in various ways swell-
ing the "invisible" exports.

Significant as this addition to the export economy is,
Japanese analysts now say confidently that Japan would
be able to survive if the United States contribution were
withdrawn. They are less happy, however, over the im-
plications of continuing and sometimes growing hostility
to Japanese competition in United States markets, par-
ticularly in textiles.

Competition for Markets

The Japanese say they are among the best customers
of the United States. In the first nine months of 1956,
for example, Japan purchased $736 million in goods
from the United States. Much of this is in raw cotton,
a small part of which is made into cloth . . . and sent
back to the United States, often to the dismay of Ameri-
can textile interests who find themselves being undersold
by Japanese competitors.

It appears that this conflict will be resolved by nego-
tiation. The Japanese have shown a willingness to im-
pose voluntary quotas on shipments in delicate areas, and
to police exporters who tend to such sharp practices as
over-concentrating on easy selling items.

Reforms in Japanese selling methods are only one
facet in a vastly changing business philosophy. . . .
Where once Japan concentrated on cheap, inferior con-
sumer goods and low-priced textiles, she is now going in

98 THE REFERENCE SHELF

for machinery and quality products. She also is tapping
new markets to replace those she lost when her prewar
colonies were taken away from her.

The new markets are in the underdeveloped countries
of Southeast Asia. There Japan runs into heavy compe-
tition from India in the textile field, and there are indi-
cations that some day, Communist China, rapidly indus-
trializing, may offer a challenge in consumer goods. So
Japan is placing her dependence on heavy equipment and
machinery, areas in which she can compete with the
United States, Britain and Europe for the Asian market.
^ At the end of the year Japan sent a floating sample
fair, showing a myriad of quality products, to all the
great commercial ports of South and Southeast Asia. At
the same time her agents are plentiful in many other
countries, particularly Latin America of late, with sample
cases bulging and order books open.

Resumption of formal diplomatic and trade relations
with^the Soviet Union, and rising hopes for an easing of
restrictions on trade with Communist China in strategic
goods, place new commercial vistas before Japanese
industrialists.

The disturbances in the Middle East, and their reper-
cussions on the trade patterns of West Europe, have
been to Japan's advantage, perhaps more than tempo-
rarily. The diversion of South Asian orders to Japan
with the closure of the Suez Canal was particularly
significant. ... J

The rebirth of Japan as the "workshop of Asia " in
a wider sense than before, has prompted one more his-
torical readjustment now in process. . . . This is the
development, hitherto unnecessary but vital now, of serv-
icing facilities, pools of replacement parts, and other
necessities for building permanent markets in major

THE NEW JAPAN 99

THE JAPANESE LABOR MOVEMENT 8

One cannot understand the present condition of
Japan's labor movement and with it the nature of its
social problems without at least a cursory look at the
structure of the Japanese economy. Side by side with a
handful of industrial giants, there are many thousands
of small enterprises that are little more than artisans'
shops. The larger firms, those with more than two hun-
dred workers, employ only thirty per cent of the labor
force. The big companies generally comply with the
United States-inspired labor laws that were introduced
after the war. In these companies the workers are organ-
ized. The smaller enterprises, employing more than two
thirds of all Japanese workers, do not bother much
about these laws, and their employees remain largely out-
side the unions. Wages, too, are substantially higher in
the larger enterprises, and they are the ones that are
usually cited abroad.

The smaller employer still runs his business on a
patriarchal basis, combining incredible exploitation (low
wages, unpaid overtime, working days up to twelve or
fourteen hours) with a minimum of social benefits. In
many cases he employs far too many workers, because
it is contrary to the traditional social code to leave rela-
tives or friends on the street. The jobless and under-
employed in all categories are estimated at a minimum
of 6 to 7 million about 16 per cent of Japan's working
population of 44 million, and almost ten times the num-
ber of unemployed officially registered in the summer of
1955. . . .

Most of the 7 million unemployed and underemployed
are badly off indeed. They receive a nominal pittance or

From "Japan: Between Mane and the Midxfle Ages," article bj Lfly Abegg,
author and expert on Japanese affairs. Reporter. 14:23-6. March 8, 1956. Re-
printed Tty permission.

100 THE REFERENCE SHELF

no pay at all. They are undernourished and desperate.
Their 'number is further swollen by the army of day
laborers who live from hand to mouth and have no
unions. Many of the large Japanese enterprises employ
a high percentage of day laborers because they are much
cheaper. This means that the majority of Japanese
workers are not organized.

What, then, is the role of the Japanese unions : that,
for instance, of the large Communist-infiltrated General
Council of Trade Unions (Sohyo) with nearly 4 million
members ?

One can say that in Japan only the "rich" workers
are organized. * Next to the Sohyo, the Trade Union
Congress (Zenro) with about 700,000 members plays a
major role. The other unions number some 2 million
members altogether.

The surprising thing is that the Sohyo derives its
main support from the 1.8 million workers and em-
ployees of the government and of public enterprises. Its
other 2 million are made up of industrial workers from
the big companies. These are the highest-paid workers
in Japan; some of them are even entitled to pensions.

Naturally, not all Sohyo members are Communist-
inclined, but most of the Sohyo leaders are, and they try
to make their influence felt more and more. Sohyo is
more a political organization than an ordinary union.
In a certain sense it carries more weight than the newly
reunited Socialist party of Japan with its eleven million
votes.

Sohyo leadership is less concerned with the workers'
welfare than with their political indoctrination. Sohyo
strikes are almost always political, and pay increases and
other such demands serve merely as adjuncts. Since
Sohyo is mostly interested in political power, its first

THE NEW JAPAN 101

interest was in the "rich" workers in the largest enter-
prises and the government services who could be organ-
ized more easily.

Zenro, the more moderate federation, rejects political
strikes, stresses the unions' economic tasks and is close
to the right-wing Socialists.

Recently, however, Sohyo has realized that even the
"rich" workers, the left-wing intellectuals, the frustrated
youth, and other dissatisfied groups do not add up to
enough votes for the left-wing parties. The Japanese
House of Representatives still consists of about two
thirds conservatives and one third Socialists. (The Com-
munists have only two seats.)

For this reason, Sohyo [has] embarked ... on a
major organizing campaign among the smaller enter-
prises and the day laborers. The question who will
win these unorganized masses is of major importance
for Japan.

THE COMEBACK OF THE GIANT TRADE COMBINES 4

Prewar Japan boasted some of the biggest of the
world's big businesses. These great combines, such as
Mitsui, Mitsubishi, and Sumitomo, were broken up dur-
ing the postwar occupation. Now as Japan faces an
economic crisis, they are being reformed. The follow-
ing report explains the vital role these giant concerns
have played in the Japanese economy and in world trade
and outlines their plans for resuming this role. . . .

The Zaibatsu

The history of Mitsui, Mitsubishi, and Sumitomo,
the most famous of the Zaibatsu [Wealth-Clique] goes
back centuries and decades:

* From "Comeback of th* Great Japan Trade Combines." Newsweek. 43 :60-1.
April 12, 1954. Reprinted by permission.

102 THE REFERENCE SHELF

Three centuries ago a family named Mitsui owned a
plant making sake [the most popular alcoholic beverage
of Japan, fermented from rice] . They branched out into
retailing and money-lending. As Japan's industrial and
commercial expansion began in the second half of the
nineteenth century, Mitsui-Gumi (House of Mitsui) be-
came in 1871 financial agent for the government, in 1872
the backers (unwillingly) of the First National Bank,
and in 1876 the founders (willingly) of the Mitsui Bank.

In the days when Japan was opening up after Com-
modore Perry's visit, title financial adviser to the Lord of
Tosa, a noble on the island of Shikoku, was named
Iwasaki. He formed an enterprise called Tosa Kaisei
Shosa which acquired interests in mining, manufactur-
ing, and shipping, and became Mitsubishi.

In the sixteenth century a family named Sumitomo
operated a copper refinery in Sakai. About a century-
later it acquired the renowned Besshi copper mines.
Gradually the House of Sumitomo expanded, always
with mining as its base.

In this manner the Zaibatsu rose from humble be-
ginnings to giants that straddled the world. In late nine-
teenth- and early twentieth-century Japan their growth
was natural against a background of rapid moderniza-
tion, a growing labor supply, a shortage of capital, a
small investing class, and a primitive economy.

Strict "house rules," usually laid down through the
will of the founder, determined every action of the mem-
bers of the Zaibatsu families although later the compa-
nies tended to supplant family rule with a paid mana-
gerial class. The firms were holding-company pyramids,
each with a parent company, the Honsha, on top in
control of a number of manufacturing, commercial and
financial companies which in turn dominated affiliates
and subsidiaries.

THE NEW JAPAN 103

After the war the United States occupation began a
veritable crusade aimed at tearing down these Immense
enterprises and "purging" practically all their executives.
By 1947 these extreme measures, in the opinion of re-
sponsible officials in the Truman Administration, were
threatening permanently to cripple the Japanese economy.
From that time on measures were taken by Washington
to temper and often to reverse the directives issued by
occupation authorities. Behind the scenes the Zaibatsu
companies maintained the old ties and, by the time the
Japanese peace treaty was signed in 1951, it became
obvious that the parent organizations would be revived
in one form or another.

The old Zaibatsu had their faults. The rivalry of
Mitsui and Mitsubishi through the political parties they
controlled or tried to control was unhealthy. Competi-
tion to a considerable extent was stifled. The maze of
interlocking companies made accurate cost accounting
difficult and preserved inefficient enterprises. Neverthe-
less, the old Zaibatsu played a predominant role in
Japan's rise to industrial greatness. Few authorities now
doubt that the new Zaibatsu will have to play the same
role if Japan's industrial strength is to be restored.

New Circumstances

Just as a peculiar set of economic circumstances fos-
tered the growth of the old Zaibatsu, so postwar consid-
erations are dictating the reappearance of the Zaibatsu
in a new guise. These considerations are:

1. The general obsolescence of the Japanese indus-
trial plant. ... A good start has been made on the in-
stallation of new machinery but there is still a long road
ahead before Japan can measure up to such advanced
countries as the United States and West Germany.

104 THE REFERENCE SHELF

2. The need for large industrial facilities to cope
with rearmament orders.

3. A high wage structure for Japan and a great need
for "rationalization" in the employment of labor.

4. The high price of imported raw materials. Japan
lost control of important raw-material areas in the war.
The postwar period, generally speaking, has brought
greater rises in raw-material prices than in those of
manufactured products to Japan's detriment.

5. Tough competition in the regions that are natural
markets for Japanese products. The Germans, notably,
are underselling the Japanese in Southeast Asia, India,
and the Middle East.

6. The closing off of some natural markets, such as
China, and the difficulty of developing trade in other
natural markets, such as the Philippines, because of
political considerations.

Toward the Future

In order to cope with these circumstances, the Japa-
nese need companies with large reserves of capital, good
credit ratings abroad, managerial competence, long ex-
perience in foreign markets, and a reputation for honest
dealing and sound products. The reconstituted Zaibatsu
firms can meet these requirements. That is the reason
they are now able to go ahead with ambitious plans for
the future as outlined in this report from Compton
Pakenham, chief of Neivsweek's Tokyo bureau :

The re-amalgamation of the big firms is being carried
out through the banks the Mitsubishi, Mitsui, and
Sumitomo banks have dropped their occupation-imposed
names by means of stockholdings in, and loans to, pre-
viously affiliated companies. The Korean-War boom,

THE NEW JAPAN 105

which brought unexpected dollar orders to Japan, started
this development.

For example, the Mitsubishi Bank has given priority
to loans to such firms as Mitsubishi Heavy Industries,
Mitsubishi Steel, and Mitsubishi Petroleum. These com-
panies are still among the most prominent of their kind
from the point of view of facilities and personnel. Other
former Zaibatsu banks have followed suit, assuming
more and more the aspects of holding companies along
the old lines.

As such they began sending their personnel into
executive positions with the firms borrowing from them.
The managing director of the Mitsui Shipping Company
was transplanted from the Mitsui Bank. The Mitsubishi
Bank has placed directors on the boards of three former
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries companies. Today all eleven
of the largest shipbuilding companies have one or more
bank executives on their boards.

On December 10, 1953, it was announced that four
ex-Mitsubishi trading firms, Mitsubishi Shoji, Fuji
Shoji, Tozai Koeki, and Tokyo Boeki, had signed an
agreement to merge into a single unit under the same
name as the old trading pivot of the complex-Mitsubishi
Shoji (literally Commercial Affairs). Its first overseas
venture will be an office, under United States law, in
New York. Along the same lines, Mitsui is reorganizing
the Muromachi Bussan Kaisha into a new Mitsui Bussan
Kaisha (its great prewar trading unit).

The big companies, as they reorganize, are naturally
playing a leading role in various schemes for increasing
Japan's exports. For example, they are behind the gov-
ernment's plan to conclude the technical agreements with
the Southeast Asian countries and the formation of an
"Asia Association" for trade promotion.

106 THE REFERENCE SHELF

MADE IN JAPAN 5

More and more United States stores, especially in the
East and on the West Coast, are carrying Japanese goods
toys, cameras, chinaware, sewing machines, furniture,
ladies' blouses, cashmere sweaters, silks, Christmas orna-
ments, pearls. Add these items to heavy imports of
plywood, tuna, and cotton cloth and you have a real
movement into the United States market. . . . Japanese
traders, sometimes aided by United States importers,
have shown a remarkable ability to find a whole new
gamut of products for the United States market. On
top of that they have had official United States help in
reestablishing Japan's traditional markets in this country.
This has been part of our Pacific strategy aimed at hang-
ing on to our principal ally in the area and helping it
become economically strong again.

Success in the American Market

Some United States industries feel that the tariff
concessions carry this help beyond reasonable bounds
They recall that in the 1930's some United States indus-
tries were pushed to the wall by cut-throat Japanese
competition based on "starvation" wages and "dumping/'
Even if these practices are not revived, Japanese success
m the United States market has already given quite a
few businessmen cause for worry.

In Japan, interest in the United States market has
reached fever pitch. Fred H. Schoeman, vice president
for the Far East of Metasco, Inc., importing subsidiary
of Allied Stores Corp., says hardly a week goes by that
a Japanese manufacturer doesn't drop by his New York

THE NEW JAPAN 107

office asking for advice about tackling the United States
market. Other importers tell of receiving direct-mail
advertising from Japan. And the Japanese government's
trade and information center on Fifth Avenue in New
York is sparking all kinds of promotional gimmicks. . * .

This enthusiasm for making a big pitch at the United
States market is paying off. Metasco, for example, has
developed a whole line of modern design dinnerware
manufactured from basic Japanese patterns. The quality
of the article does not recall cheap Japanese imports of
the past. Metasco is using snob-appeal to sell the mer-
chandise, including promotions with Shirley Yamaguchi,
Japanese movie star now in United States films.

Japan's blossoming postwar optical industry with its
35mm. cameras, binoculars, and microscopes is another
example of new products in the United States market.
Japan is selling cashmere sweaters, in direct competition
with Britain; they have almost become a staple in many
West Coast department stores and are seen increasingly
in the East. Some scientific instruments of high quality
and low price a voltameter, for example are now
entering the United States market. Most retailers report
that the high quality of these new Japanese products is
overcoming whatever sales resistance there might have
been in the past to Japanese imports.

The Japanese, in fact, are moving into higher priced
goods as a planned policy. And it isn't just a tactic to
defeat United States protectionist interests. They recog-
nize that merely copying United States and European
products and selling them for a lower price won't gain
the ends of the Japanese export program. Japan must
put as much labor as possible into the exports it makes
from raw material imports. The Japanese feel that's the
only way their industry can support the country's grow-
ing population.

108 THE REFERENCE SHELF

Most United States importers agree with this policy.
"The only way we can help ourselves and the Japanese
is to raise the level of the quality of Japanese imports
into this country," Schoeman of Metasco says. He also
acknowledges that higher quality and prices for an im-
ported article mean larger profits for the importer.
Schoeman believes a whole new group of Japanese
products, based on Japan's great artistic traditions, can
change United States homes as much as the Scandi-
navian-modern designs did in the 1930's and the 1940's.

American Resistance

But not all United States importers are willing to go
along with this appeal to higher quality and higher priced
merchandise. That's why there have been several power-
ful, if little publicized, blowups in Japanese imports. . . .

In cotton textiles, the Japanese are trying a ...
policing system. The Japanese Cotton, Yarn, & Cloth
Export Association . . . [has] provisionally decided
to curtail all exports to the United States and Canada,
and made plans to set up minimum quality standards for
United States shipments.

A part of this story is the "notorious dollar blouse/*
as one Japanese consular official in New York calls it.
Two Japanese companies, after three years of study in
the United States market, began turning out a blouse
that could be sold here for $1 or even 89 cents. So far
more than 1 million have been ordered in Japan. Now
the Japanese government has moved in and put a floor
under blouse prices. Last year a similar situation oc-
curred with sewing machine heads. . . . The present
Japanese government has been quick, in most cases, to
act in response to American industries' demands. It
knows that sharp tactics by Japanese traders could under-
mine the whole United States- Japanese alliance.

THE NEW JAPAN 109

So far, by working with United States importers and
trade associations, this policing has been successful. It
remains to be seen whether it will be equally effective
as the volume of Japanese imports rises. If it is not,
outcries from United States industry and protectionist
forces in Congress are likely to bring quotas on Japanese
imports.

The reduction of some tariffs ... has sharpened
the demands of some United States manufacturing firms
for such quotas. Thomas N. Ingram, head of the Char-
lotte, North Carolina, branch of the American Cotton
Manufacturers Institute, asserts that quotas will be
necessary in his industry.

But the cotton textile problem is not simply one of
undercutting domestic production by Japanese cheap
labor receiving sometimes as little as a tenth of United
States wages. Japan's textiles were almost completely
destroyed by the war. Facilities have now been rebuilt
in the most modern fashion, and as a result productivity
is up 15 per cent to 20 per cent. That's why, in spite of
substantial wage increases, Japanese textiles are cheap.

This agitation by the textile industry has been inten-
sified by the tariff concessions. There's a feeling that
the concessions will make the greatest difference in the
United States textile industry. . . .

Effect on Japanese Trade

More important than any of the actual reductions in
tariff, most United States observers believe, is the psy-
chological effect on Japanese traders. The United States
concessions are being taken in Japan as proof that the
Administration means to back up the pledges to help
Japan's comeback in world trade, which it made at ...
[the 1955] Geneva meetings on the General Agreement
on Trade and Tariffs. . . .

110 THE REFERENCE SHELF

Shikichi Minami, director of Daiichi Bussan Kaisha,
Ltd., in New York, Japan's largest trading company,
puts Japan's argument in a nutshell : "I hope the United
States public appreciates that we must sell if we are to
buy here." Japanese imports from the United States
we're $725 million last year [1954] about three times
Japan's sales in the United States. Furthermore, Japan
bought $185 million worth of fibers, the largest single
customer abroad for American cotton. Minami points
out that a relatively small part of that came back as Japa-
nese textiles only 1.5 per cent of United States con-
sumption.

SOUTHERN BOYCOTT OF JAPANESE TEXTILES 6

The Administration is worried about the long-range
effects of a southern campaign to boycott Japanese
textiles.

The State Department has not yet spoken out or
intervened lest it strengthen the forces in Congress intent
on curbing the President's treaty-making powers.

On March 8 [1956] South Carolina took the lead
by decreeing that wholesalers and retailers selling Japa-
nese textiles, or garments made from them, must post a
sign saying, "J a P anese textiles sold here." The sign must
be displayed "in a conspicuous place upon the door" in
letters "not less than four inches high," the law said.

Meanwhile, the City Council of Greenwood, South
Carolina, adopted a resolution March 16 urging a citi-
zens* boycott of Japanese goods.

Alabama's legislature passed a similar bill. . . .

* From "Boycott of Japan Upsets Officials," by Elie Abel, New York Times
Washington Bureau. New Yoric Times, p 12. April 12, 1956. Reprinted by

THE NEW JAPAN 111

Tokyo protested in a note delivered ... [in Washing-
ton]. It said the South Carolina law violated the 1953
treaty of friendship, commerce and navigation. Article
16 of the treaty accords to Japanese goods in the United
States market treatment no less favorable than that re-
ceived by exports from any other country.

The effect on the United States foreign policy is held
damaging in these respects:

1. Discriminatory legislation of the type adopted in
South Carolina contradicts the basic tenet of postwar
policy for the Far East, which is to help a friendly and
politically reliable Japan establish a sound economic
system.

2. The boycott movement is expected to incite neu-
tralist and left-wing politicians in Japan to step up their
attacks on the United States.

3. Officials are concerned lest South Carolina's ac-
tion expose United States business interests in Japan to
retaliation and cause other countries to doubt similar
treaties with the United States.

4. Japan is the largest single market for United
States raw cotton in a period of declining exports and
increasing surpluses. In 1955, the Japanese bought
647,000 bales, 26 per cent of the total exported. If
Japan's textile exports encounter discrimination in the
United States she may reduce raw cotton imports in
retaliation.

Officials make the additional point that the United
States sells far more cotton cloth to Japan than it buys
in return. In the last year Japan bought 542 million
square yards of cotton cloth from the United States,
while exporting 99.5 million square yards.

112 THE REFERENCE SHELF

The State Department has avoided such open inter-
vention as urging ... [a governor] to veto . . . [a]
bill. Secretary of State Dulles, asked about the Japanese
protest at his April 3 news conference, acknowledged
that "there is a possibility of setting up forces here which
could be very inimical to the operation of our most-
favored-nation policy with respect to trade."

THE LURE OF PEIPING 7

Our State Department is often referred to as Foggy
Bottom because of its miasmal Potomac lowland site.
Japan's Foreign Office is similarly known as Misty Bar-
rier. Sometimes these labels stimulate sardonic quips. But
economic rather than diplomatic vapors most threaten
the health of our relations. When Wall Street sneezes,
Tokyo catches influenza.

Japan is not only our most important Asian ally but
also our second greatest international market Com-
merce with us is even more vital to this land of traders.
Its diplomacy must ultimately respond to their require-
ments. . . .

Hopes and Prospects

The Japanese hope to expand sales in America.
Nevertheless, prospects are limited. Our manufacturers
resent the prospect of further competitive incursions.
Therefore, Tokyo scans the rest of the world for other
opportunities. However, in Western Europe it sees a
restrictive common market sponsored by us. And in
the Commonwealth not only Britain but Australia, New
Zealand and even India refuse to accord this nation equal
treatment. In Asia, Japan is hampered by two factors.

THE NEW JAPAN 113

There is a legacy of resentment left in lands like Indo-
nesia and the Philippines by Tokyo's imperial armies.
And on the mainland we have forced them to participate
in our economic blockade against the Communist bloc.

While still patient under these circumstances, it is to
the mainland and above all to China that Japanese in-
dustrialists ultimately look. We tell them this is a differ-
ent China; that it makes its own textiles and needs its
own iron and coal. But not only do the Japanese re-
member prewar days when Manchuria fed their hungry
furnaces. Their businessmen have been scouring the
continent and come back with optimistic views. This is
reflected in Tokyo's diplomacy.

Japan would like to tidy up the complex Chinese
picture. It favors a "two China" solution which would
guarantee Formosan independence while recognizing
Peiping. It hopes mercantile restrictions on the Com-
munist bloc will gradually wither away. It even desires
a reunited neutralized Korea.

These concepts run counter to some of our announced
policies. As yet there is no conflict because Japanese-
American trade still flourishes. The present government
remains highly responsive to Washington's suggestions
and politically well entrenched.

Effects on Japanese- American Relationships

But diplomacy must plan for possible contingencies.
Peiping has promised massive trade if the country de-
nounces its security treaty with us. China pledges aid in
restoring sovereignty over American-occupied Okinawa.
This impresses Japan's opposition Socialists. Right now
they are weak and their prospects poor. But any eco-
nomic crisis might easily catapult them into office. . . .

114 THE REFERENCE SHELF

As long as we can keep . . . [Japan's] trade balances
relatively healthy it is almost certain that a strongly
pro-American administration will remain in office. . . .
In such an event subsidiary disputes are unlikely to upset
our basic position.

However, diplomacy cannot control the economics of
democracy. Any recession in the United States will be
mirrored in Japanese ballot boxes. Tokyo's policy, as we
know better than anyone, is subject to swift and astonish-
ing change. In Washington the Pentagon has a large
say in relationships with Japan. . . . [In Japan] the big
voice is business; business is survival.

EMBARGO ON TRADE WITH CHINA LIFTED 8

Japan joined Britain and some Western European
nations today in the race for the Chinese Communist
market.

The Ministry of Trade and Industry announced,
after a two-hour Cabinet session, a list of 272 previously
banned items whose shipments to the Chinese mainland
now would be permitted.

The list followed exactly the one announced ... by
Britain when she eased her trade restrictions with Com-
munist China [in May 1957].

The changes mean that the Peiping regime will be in
the same category as the Soviet Union and the Eastern
European Communist countries as far as trade is con-
cerned. Previously, some items banned for shipment to
Communist China could be sent to the Soviet Union and
other Communist lands.

From "Japan Joins Race for China Trade," news story by Foster Hailey,
Tokyo BttPeaa of the New York Times. New tforic Times. p3. July 17/1957.
Reprinted oy penmssaon.

THE NEW JAPAN 115

Still restricted to all Communist countries are about
170 items, including those considered to have direct war-
making potential.

The new move will be popular among members of
the ruling Liberal-Democratic party as it robs the oppo-
sition Socialists of one of their main platform planks.

But Japanese trading circles expressed skepticism
whether the action would mean much economically. They
said that most of the items on the list were machinery
and that Japanese machinery was not competitive in
price with that of the British and Western European
manufacturers.

The only way in which the China trade could be sub-
stantially improved, they said, would be by the extension
of long-term credits. There was no indication from any
government source that such a move was in prospect.

Some optimists predicted, however, that even with
the handicaps of high prices and lack of official relations
with the Chinese Communists, trade next year probably
could be doubled from the 1956 total of $150 million.

Japan's decision to follow Britain's lead in canceling
part of the United States-sponsored embargo list came
as a surprise.

On his recent visit to the United States, Premier
Nobusuke Kishi had left the impression in both public
and private talks that Japan intended to move slowly in
amending the embargo, out of deference to Wash-
ington's ideas. The Japanese press had so interpreted
his words and had censured him for taking that attitude.

Apparently the pressure of events was so great that
the Premier felt it necessary to take action promptly.
Japan's trade balance has been steadily deteriorating in
recent months and stringent import controls have had to
be imposed. Even a small increase in exports would be
heartening.

116 THE REFERENCE SHELF

It could not be learned today whether the govern-
ment intended to take any further steps to stimulate the
China trade. An unofficial trade agreement expired in
May and has not been renewed.

The Chinese have refused to send a trade mission to
Japan unless Japan waives her requirement for finger-
printing its members. The Foreign Office restated today
its position that it would not grant privileges to the
Chinese Communists that were not extended to other
foreigners, since such a move might be accepted abroad
as tacit diplomatic recognition of the Peiping Govern-
ment. Japan does not appear ready to give even an
appearance of inclining in that direction as yet.

THE HARD ECONOMIC FACTS 9

Put in the bluntest terms, Japan once again faces the
dilemma which harassed its pre-World War II leaders
and finally induced them to embark on an attempt to con-
quer mainland China and Southeast Asia. Their dilemma
is starkly clear. Japan, pinned into a cluster of islands
which lack the principal raw materials essential for mod-
ern industry and having developed a highly industrialized
economy, must import raw materials. To do this it must
find expanding markets where it can sell its manufac-
tured goods, preferably for hard currencies, American
and Canadian dollars and pounds sterling.

This raw-materials-plus-export-markets dilemma had
been temporarily relieved by the United States military
and defense-support expenditures in Japan, first during
the occupation and then during the Korean war, when
Japan served as a supply base for United Nations troops,

From "Japan's Year of Decisions." by Vera Mickeies Dean, editor,
Policy Bulletin. Foreign Policy Bulletin. 36:172+. August 1/i 957

THE NEW JAPAN 117

American expenditures, in any case nonrenewable (un-
less war is resumed in Korea, which the Japanese are the
last to wish for), will be further reduced now that the
United States plans to withdraw some 25,000 ground
combat troops and has transferred the Far Eastern Com-
mand from Tokyo to Hawaii. Troop withdrawal alone,
it is estimated, will reduce spending by American mili-
tary personnel by $100 million.

The United States plans to cushion the impact of
this change-over by increasing military procurement in
Japan of items needed to provide military assistance and
economic aid to Asian nations. This, however, cannot
of itself provide a long-term alleviation of Japan f s eco-
nomic problem, which is now clearly seen as a widening
gap between its expenditures on imports notably raw
materials and capital goods for industrial expansion
and receipts on its exports.

The man in the street is still unaware of this prob-
lem and looks forward to the continuance of the current
high employment and boom prosperity. Even govern-
ment officials have been slow to recognize the possible
consequences of the country's economic difficulties. At
first, former Finance Minister Hayato Ikeda thought that
financial controls would be sufficient to deal with the
crisis. But the governor of the Central Bank, Masamichi
Yamagiwa, and a five-man brain trust of economic ex-
perts appointed by Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi urged
a stern over-all plan to check the deterioration of Japan's
international monetary position. . . .

New Economic Policy

The cabinet on June 14 [1957] approved a series of
over-all economic measures drafted earlier by the ruling
Liberal-Democratic party. These measures include inten-

118 THE REFERENCE SHELF

sive export promotion, such as the famed export finance
system to increase exports; curbing of imports; wide
retrenchment of state investment and loan programs;
deferment of investment in plants which are not key
industries and even in some key industries; tighter con-
trols on financial policy, accompanied by efforts to help
small industries; price stabilization; and new foreign
credits, including a loan of $125 million from the Inter-
national Monetary Fund and projected borrowing from
the World Bank and the Export-Import Bank of the
United States.

Japan's predicament is that any economic move it
makes threatens to create new problems. Cuts in govern-
ment spending particularly on housing, of which, with
the growth of population, there is a dire shortage will
lower living standards. Emphasis on large-scale pro-
duction for export may drive small enterprises manu-
facturing for internal consumption to the wall, creating
unemployment. In turn, unemployment would weaken
the position of the Liberal-Democratic party and play
into the hands of the opposition party, the Socialists.
And efforts to push Japanese exports invariably arouse
hostility in hard-currency countries, notably Britain and
the United States.

Trade with Asian Countries

The hard economic facts are that even with the best
will in the world, Britain, the Commonwealth and the
United States cannot provide the markets Japan needs
for its exports, if for no other reason than that they
produce much the same goods, often better, even though
sometimes more expensively. Recognizing this, Mr.
Kishi has proposed the establishment of a South Asia
Development Fund, chiefly with United States financial

THE NEW JAPAN 119

contributions, under which Japan would supply manufac-
tured goods of all kinds to the industrially less developed
countries of Southeast Asia, obtaining from them the
raw materials it needs.

So far, the Asian response to this proposal can only
be described as cool. Except for Thailand, which escaped
Japanese conquest in World War II, most of the coun-
tries of this area suffered from Japanese invasion and
deprivation, and are not roused by visions of a plan
which reminds them of Tokyo's wartime slogan for a
"Co-prosperity Sphere." Moreover, these countries, no-
tably the Philippines and Indonesia, demand reparations
in kind from Japan. None of them wants to see Japan
acting as a sort of major-domo for Washington, and all
prefer to get aid from the United States direct, to be
spent as they think best for their own needs. They also
fear that Japan's proposal would prevent their indus-
trialization.

The prospect for the fund, then, is distinctly dim.
Japan hopes to enlist the support of India, which has
already benefited by Japanese experience in rice growing
and the development of small industries. Meanwhile,
they talk of trade with Communist China, although they
recognize that the Chinese, now engaged in an indus-
trialization program of their own, may be unable to
export much in the way of the raw materials Japan
needs. What the Japanese hope for is to participate
jointly with the Chinese in developing new raw materials.

But in one way or another Japan has to solve its
raw-materials-plus-exports dilemma if it is to maintain
its high living standard and avoid social unrest and
political strains. Twenty years later, with 20 million
people more, Japan faces the same problems it did before

120 THE REFERENCE SHELF

it turned to war and conquest in the early 1930's. War
proved an ineffective instrument of economic policy;
now Japan, with the aid of the United States and the
United Nations, hopes to find a peaceful way out of its
difficulties.

IV. JAPAN BETWEEN EAST AND WEST

EDITORS' INTRODUCTION

The dilemma of Japan today is most manifest in her
foreign relations, which are closely interwoven with her
trade relations. First, Japan's course is naturally affected
by the bufferings of the cold war. Newly freed from
United States military occupation, she is yet dependent
on the United States for her defense. Aligned with the
West, and having roundly rejected communism at home,
she is nonetheless drawn to Communist China by historic
ties and the need for China markets. Finally, she must
reckon at home with a rising tide of pacifist, neutralist
sentiment.

There are essentially three main courses open to
Japan: She can remain linked with the West as a sort
of junior partner of the United States; she can adopt
neutrality and join with the Bandung powers as part of
an Asian-African "Third Force"; or she can look for
closer economic and political ties with Communist China
and with the Soviet Union. At the moment it would
appear that she has chosen the role of a neutral nation.

In the first article in this section Harold S. Quigley
defines Japan's present neutralism. Next, Foreign Min-
ister Fujiyama explains why it is natural for Japan to
want ties with Asia. Secretary of State John Foster
Dulles outlines United States policy toward Japan in
terms of markets and trade. An article by Ralph Brai-
banti presents reasons why Japan should continue close,
friendly relations with the United States. Demaree Bess
reports on anti-Americanism in Japan which was par-

124 THE REFERENCE SHELF

Ing of cooperation has dawned upon the Japanese. Hav-
ing learned it the hard way they are determined to
experiment with it. They are making encouraging head-
way. Among the lesser states of East Asia whose good
will has been sought, only South Korea has stood
aloof. . . .

Relationship with the United States

It is apparent from recent utterances of Japanese
political leaders that, while they wish to cooperate closely
with the United States, they prefer to do so from a
position of complete independence. Obviously they do
not occupy that position at present and will not do so
during the life of the existing Mutual Security Treaty
and its accompanying Administrative Agreement. [For-
mer] Prime Minister Hatoyama, who heads the majority
Liberal-Democratic party, declared nearly two years ago
that "national pride does not allow the indefinite con-
tinuation of a situation in which national defense is
mainly dependent upon foreign military forces." The
platform of his party, announced on January 1, 1956,
called for development of self-defense "so as to prepare
for the eventual withdrawal of foreign troops stationed
in this country." Shortly before this announcement the
strong, labor-backed Socialist party asserted in its plat-
form that "Japan, since her defeat, has been seriously
limited and controlled by a foreign power and is virtu-
ally in a state where she has lost her real independence."
All of these statements are moderately phrased and
hardly express the degree of disagreement with Ameri-
can policies which is felt by many Japanese. As seen by
Arata Sugihara, a recognized expert on Far Eastern
questions, "cooperation between the two nations should
constitute the mainstay of Japan's foreign policy but

THE NEW JAPAN 125

without any semi-occupational coloring." American con-
sciousness of the absence of any thought of limiting the
independence of Japan should not lead us to discount
Japanese interpretations of our relationship to their
country. It will hardly be denied that this relationship
is of our choosing. If the Japanese do not regard it as
protective to them, its importance for the protection of
the United States will decline. If, as seems probable, its
value to both Japan and the United States can be assured
by some modification of the existing relationship that
takes fuller account of Japanese sensibilities, all relevant
factors, historical and contemporary, should be under
consideration in Washington and Tokyo to that end.

Japan and the Communist Countries

Until October 1956 the technical state of war between
Japan and the Soviet Union had continued, in view of
the latter's failure to sign the peace treaty of San Fran-
cisco, Both states desired to resume diplomatic relations
and they had been discussing possible bases of agreement
at intervals since June 1955. Speaking in the Diet on
April 25, 1955, Prime Minister Hatoyama said :

The Government, as has been stated frequently, hopes
to terminate speedily the state of war and restore normal
diplomatic relations with the U.S.S.R. The Government also
intends to make efforts to improve the trade relations be-
tween Japan and Communist China. I should like to make
clear again one particular point on this occasion. That is, the
normalization of diplomatic relations with Communist coun-
tries is one thing and the acceptance of communism is an-
other. We are firmly resolved to adhere to our attitude of
anti-communism and to adopt every available means in de-
fense of the cause of democracy.

He continued:

Meanwhile it is an undeniable fact that, however strongly
opposed we may be to the Communist ideology, there now

126 THE REFERENCE SHELF

exist in the world certain powers which are adherents of
communism. In dealing with such powers it would be advis-
able to respect each other's sovereignty and thereby to open
normal diplomatic or economic relations to mutual advantage
without propagandizing or trying to impose one's ideology
on the ,-ther. I arr. firmly convinced that this very course
should be adopted also as a means of forestalling another
world war, the possibility of which is now filling all the
peoples of the world with terror.

On February 27 of the same year the two wings of
the Socialist party issued a joint statement of similar
tenor. It called for the

issuance of a joint statement declaring the termination of a
state of war between Japan on one side and Communist
China and Soviet Russia on the other, thereby to conclude a
peace treaty, to restore normal diplomatic relations, and to
promote greater trade with the aforementioned nations.

Although Russia initiated an exchange of notes on
January 25, 1955, indicating her readiness to negotiate
in Tokyo or Moscow, and subsequently appeared to ac-
quiesce in Japan's preference for New York, the two
governments ultimately agreed upon London as the site
for talks, which began on June 1, 1955. Matsumoto
Shunichi represented Japan and Jacob Malik, Russia.
Until March 1956 the two men sought to reach agree-
ment on points deemed to be obstacles to the establish-
ment of regular diplomatic relations. The principal
issues arose from the diplomatic and military conse-
quences of World War II. They involved the repatria-
tion of Japanese held as war prisoners by Russia, Japa-
nese claims to South Sakhalin and the Kurile Islands
(all of which were Japanese before the war but are now
occupied by the U.S.S.R.), and Japan's desire to resume
fishing rights in Soviet-controlled waters. Also of great

THE NEW JAPAN 127

importance to Japan was the vote of Russia in support
of her admission to the United Nations. When the talks
began, Japan contended that some 1,450 of her citizens
were known to be alive under Soviet detention and that
some 19,700 others had not been reported upon. . . .

Russo-Japanese Declaration

On October 19 [1956] at Moscow Bulganin and
Hatoyama signed a joint declaration which embodied
the following terms: (1) the state of war ends on the
day the present declaration enters into force; (2) diplo-
matic and consular relations are re-established; (3) rela-
tions will be guided by the principles of the United
Nations Charter; (4) the U.S.S.R. will support Japan's
admission to the United Nations; (5) all Japanese pris-
oners will be repatriated and the U.S.S.R. will investi-
gate as to the fate of other Japanese believed by Japan
to be in the U.S.S.R.; (6) the U.S.S.R. renounces all
reparations claims and both governments renounce all
claims for war damages originated since August 9, 1945 ;
(7) talks looking toward a trade and navigation agree-
ment w r ill be begun as soon as possible; (8) the fishing
convention and the agreement for cooperation in rescue
at sea, both signed at Moscow on May 14, 1956, will
enter into force with this declaration; (9) the two coun-
tries will cooperate in measures to conserve fish and
other marine resources; (10) the U.S.S.R. agrees to
hand over to Japan the islands of Habomai and Shikotan
after the conclusion of a treaty of peace; (11) negotia-
tions for a peace treaty will be continued after diplo-
matic relations have been established; (12) this declara-
tion is subject to ratification and will enter into force as
soon as ratifications are exchanged in Tokyo. . . .

128 THE REFERENCE SHELF

Japan's Neutralism

There is something to be said in extenuation of
Japan's "neutralism" or, preferably, nonpartisanism. But
it need hardly be spelled out, since the fate of Japan as a
participant in World War III, should it occur, would be
that of Hiroshima many times compounded. The Japa-
nese find it difficult to look beyond such a war to its
consequences in the event of a Communist victory. How-
ever, they are not in a position, quite apart from their
security arrangements with the United States, to be un-
qualifiedly neutral in the strict sense of neutrality since
they agreed at San Francisco "to give the United
Nations every assistance in any action it takes in accord-
ance with the Charter and to refrain from giving assist-
ance to any State against which the United Nations may
take preventive or enforcement action." This obligation,
however, obviously has no reference to nonpartisanism
in time of peace nor to. a war not involving the United
Nations.

In attempting to understand the current policy of
Japan one cannot overlook the apparent general desire
of her people to be free from the heavy cost of large-
scale rearmament and from a revived "Supreme Com-
mand" and the militarists' probable renewed interference
in every aspect of the political and social order. That
this attitude should have arisen in Japan is something of
a miracle. In the light of history and of what happened
in Germany between the world wars, one might justifi-
ably doubt that it will endure. But the policies of
friendly states should be directed toward its encourage-
ment, not toward the revival of militarism. Japan in the

role of mediator between democracy and communism

which her statesmen seem to be seeking may not be

THE NEW JAPAN 129

well cast The conduct of World War II by their prede-
cessors still fresh in memory may prompt questions
as to whether they are either sincere in seeking the role
or capable of playing it Japan's immaturity in her
understanding of liberalism and her penchant for bu-
reaucracy add weight to such questions. She has, how-
ever, one qualification that no other people can claim:
she knows from experience what atomic warfare means.
In the contest for the Japanese political mind, de-
mocracy is winning over communism; the people have
weighed communism in the balance and found it want-
ing. They have not outlawed it because they are not
afraid of it. Moreover, they came through the postwar
occupation with a sense of gratitude and a feeling of
admiration for Americans, although these sentiments
were mixed with resentment and chagrin. They looked
beneath the surface of the un- Japanese changes that were
imposed upon them and saw that the motivation was
good. Many of these changes will disappear but there
will remain a permanent residue of liberalism. It seems
wise, therefore, to put doubt aside and to afford Japan
an opportunity to attempt the role of nonpartisan and
intermediary. The United States stands to gain thereby.
Democracy is winning not because representatives of
Western peoples have fulsomely proclaimed its superi-
ority to all other ideologies and forms of government
but because the Japanese have found that it is effective
in peace and war and interesting and adaptable at home.
Good works and courteous conduct in personal relations
and recognition of equality in public life are its most
effective advocates. The Japanese are particularly sensi-
tive to criticism and correspondingly responsive to con-
siderate treatment

130 THE REFERENCE SHELF

Maintaining Japan's Ties with the West

It would seem to be crucially important to capitalize
upon the favorable sentiment toward democracy and the
West before elements opposed to cooperation with the
United States can return to power. Communism and
rightist authoritarianism are latent forces of unknown
strength. Although in theory at opposite ends of the
political spectrum, their distaste for liberalism and inter-
nationalism and their liking for violence invite their
collaboration against Japan's renovated parliamentary
order. That order, while strongly impregnated with
bureaucratism, is popular today and has the sincere sup-
port of the fanners, organized labor, businessmen and
the professional and intellectual classes. The political
parties, if not yet cleansed of venality, are vigorous, and
elections bring out a larger proportion of voters than is
common in many Western states. Emperor Hirohito,
more a constitutional ruler and less a mere symbol of
authority than the new constitution would suggest, is a
reliable bulwark of parliamentarism. . . .

In practical terms this means that any feature of
America's present relationship with Japan which affords
grounds for charges that our government is treating her
as a satellite should be abandoned. It means revision of
the security treaty or its termination if that be the desire
of Japan, It means non-interference with her foreign
policy and greater attention to Japanese views in the
administration of the Ryukyus and in the conduct of
nuclear weapon tests in the Pacific, to the end that fisher-
men and the fish upon which they depend for a livelihood
and which are an important part of the Japanese diet
will not be endangered. It means a trade policy which
takes account of Japan's necessity to balance exports
against imports. It is incumbent upon Western peoples

THE NEW JAPAN 131

as well as their governments to recall the disastrous
effect of their prewar commercial policies upon Japan,
whose economic position today is far less favorable than
it was before the war.

If we must assume that Soviet Russia is determined
to destroy Western civilization and that she can rely
upon the Chinese people to forget their debt to the West
and to remember only the indignities suffered by their
great country under what Sun Yat-sen termed "hypo-
colonialism/' the instinct for self-preservation will con-
tinue to urge that the present-day world is no place for
"neutrals." But it may also be argued that partisanship
cannot be compelled and that, should democracy and
communism collide, Japan, if treated as an equal by the
democracies, will be on their side ; also, that her prospects
of building up her strength to a significant degree will
improve if her economy develops freely through world-
wide contacts. It is apparent that Japan is thinking in
these terms, while holding firmly to her desire for
friendly cooperation with the West, particularly with the
United States. Japan, the only country whose constitu-
tion prohibits war or armament, and whose geographical
situation renders her extremely vulnerable, is quite nat-
urally resolved to contribute her best efforts to the pre-
vention of a third world war in which she would be
crushed between the two major opponents.

PRINCIPLES OF JAPAN'S FOREIGN POLICY 2

Naturally, the direct aim of Japan's foreign policy is
to promote our political and economic interests in line

*From an address by Foreign Minister Aiichira Fujiyama to the Foreign
Correspondents' Club of Japan, Tokyo, September 5. 1957. Text from Japan
Report. 3. no 15:2-4. September 10, 1957. Reprinted by permissioa of the
Consulate General of Japan. 3 E. 54th St New York 22.

132 THE REFERENCE SHELF

with the needs and aspirations of our nation and in the
international environment in which our country is placed.
But the pursuit of this objective does not in any way
mean the sole advancement of our own selfish or exclu-
sive interests. In a world in which interdependence and
solidarity among nations have grown to the extent that
they have today, it would be unrealistic and to its own
disadvantage for a nation to seek to advance its own
interests in disregard of those of the other nations of
the world. It must be recognized that the pursuit of a
self-centered diplomacy has become a thing of the
past . . .

Japan an Asian Nation

Needless to say, a nation's foreign policy is governed
by its historical background, geographical position and
other factors. Thus we find Japan closely allied, politi-
cally and economically, with the United States and the
countries of Western Europe. She is perhaps the one
nation in Asia that has become most westernized during
the past hundred years. Be that as it may, there is no
question that Japan is a part of Asia; racially and spiritu-
ally the Japanese people are Asian. For instance, an oil
painting by a Japanese will have something about it that
will distinguish it from that by a French artist. It will
retain some quality that is distinctly Japanese from
which the Japanese painter cannot break away. And this
Japanese quality will, in turn, contain something that is
typically Asian in character. It is natural and inevitable,
therefore, that Japan's foreign policy should be based on
a feeling of kinship and unanimity with Asian countries.

When we speak of Asia, however, we must guard
against generalizing, as is often done. We must recog-
nise^ that the various countries of Asia have different
foreign policies arising from their respective historical

THE NEW JAPAN 133

backgrounds and political and economic positions. But
there are certain problems which are common to the
Asian countries. One is the rise of nationalism and the
resulting resistance against colonialism in whatever f orm.
Another is their aspirations for social and economic
progress in order to ensure their newly-won independ-
ence. The same can be said for the countries of the
Middle East and Africa. As a member of the Asian
community, we in Japan strongly sympathize with these
aims and aspirations of the peoples of the Asian and
Arab countries. We hope sincerely for a peaceful and
constructive solution which will make possible the attain-
ment of these aspirations, and we, on our part, wish to
contribute in every possible way to such a solution.

Need to Understafid Asian Aspirations

Never in her long history has Japan been placed
under a foreign colonial rule. Her recent unhappy ex-
perience of being placed under foreign military occupa-
tion as the result of a war she foolishly waged is, of
course, another matter. It may be for this reason that
we Japanese sometimes fail to fully understand the dis-
content and misery of the peoples of Asia who have had
to live under colonial rule for a long time. Perhaps we
have not made sufficient efforts to try to understand
their determination, once having won independence, to
build their own future with their own hands, rejecting
all outside interference. In the future development of
our Asian policy, I am deeply aware that there is need
for self-examination, naturally on rny own part as For-
eign Minister as well as on the part of the Japanese
people as a whole. Without doing so, we cannot win
their trust and good will as a true friend of Asia,

134 THE REFERENCE SHELF

I believe that the emergence of Asia on the world
political scene is an immovable fact and that the smooth
conduct of world affairs is impossible if this fact is
ignored. In order to make the lofty ideals of world
peace and world democracy a reality, Asia's historical
significance today must be recognized and Asia's voice
must be fully reflected in international affairs. It is
from a desire to play a constructive part in this effort
that Japan has decided to be a candidate for a seat as a
non-permanent member of the Security Council at the
forthcoming Twelfth Session of the United Nations
General Assembly. [Japan was elected to the Security
Council on October 1, 1957. Eds.]

UNITED STATES SECURITY AND JAPANESE TRADE 3

For approximately one hundred years, between 1830
and 1930, the United States had generally friendly rela-
tions with the nations on the other side of this vast
ocean, and we faced no threat from that direction.

Since 1930 there has been a change for the worse.
The economic depression of 1929-1930 cut Japan's for-
eign trade in half. It gave the Japanese extremists a
chance to press their program for extending the Japa-
nese Empire. In 1931, Japanese aggression began in
Manchuria.

Our Government saw the serious implications of that
move. ^ Secretary of State Stimson proposed to other
countries that there should be united action to restrain
Japanese aggression. The answer, in Secretary Stimson's
own words, was "a plain rebuff/' Matters went from
bad to worse until finally there came Pearl Harbor and

THE NEW JAPAN 135

the Japanese sweep through Southeast Asia and the
Western Pacific.

It took four years of terrible war to reverse that
situation. Now, happily, the island positions in the Paci-
fic, for the most part, are no longer in hostile hands.
Japan is a friendly power. However, on the mainland
the situation is different

When the Japanese surrender occurred, the Russian
Red armies were allowed to penetrate deeply into China
and Korea to accept the surrender of Japanese forces.
Also, the Soviet Government took over the Manchurian
railroads and Port Arthur and the Japanese northern
islands, as had been agreed at Yalta But, in violation
of its express agreement, the Soviet gave vast Japanese
war supplies to the Chinese Communist forces, so that,
by the end of 1949, they had gained control of substan-
tially all of the China mainland.

In June 1950 the Communists from North Korea
opened their military aggression, and in November 1950
the Chinese Communist regime launched its massive at-
tack against the forces of the United Nations engaged
in repelling the Korean aggression. . . .

Today, the vast Pacific is a friendly ocean only be-
cause the West Pacific islands and two peninsular posi-
tions are in friendly hands. Thus, the United States
itself holds Okinawa, Guam, and other islands. Also we
have security or defense arrangements covering the
Philippines, Australia, New Zealand, Korea, Formosa,
and Japan. . . . But close behind this island and
peninsular screen lies a mainland with many hundreds
of millions of people under a despotic rule that is
fanatically hostile to us and demonstrably aggressive
and treacherous.

136 THE REFERENCE SHELF

One problem which must particularly concern us is
the economy of Japan, a chain of rocky islands whose
area is about that of California.

Japan's population, now grown to 87 million, depends
for its livelihood upon foreign trade. Trade is offered
by the Communists at a price. The price is that Japan
the only industrial power in Asia should cease to
cooperate with the United Nations and with the United
States as it is now doing and should become a work-
shop where the abundant raw materials of Asia can be
converted into implements for Communist use against
the free world. Japan must trade to live, and if the free
nations fail to make it possible for Japan to earn its way,
then inevitably, though reluctantly, her people would turn
elsewhere. This would be stupid from an economic
standpoint and folly from a political standpoint. Japan
is an excellent customer for our cotton, wheat, and rice.
From a political standpoint it requires little imagination
to visualize what would happen if Russia, China and
Japan became a united hostile group in the Pacific.

It was difficult enough for the United States to
defeat Japan when Japan fought alone in the Pacific
with China its enemy and Russia neutral. The free
world must shun economic policies which would press
Japan into becoming the ally or the tool of Communist
China and Soviet Russia.

JAPAN: FUTURE ALLY? 4

Paradoxically, the blustering behavior of Commodore
Perry a century ago ushered in a long period of close
friendship between the unknown empire of the Tycoon

Sta ? s and Japa*' A New Century Begins," article

JSf ei 5 r of P^&t 1 s cncc MaftmSSSr. *

31:383-400. Slimmer 1955. Reprinted by permissioa.

THE NEW JAPAN 137

and the United States. Half a century of tranquility,
respect, and friendship was followed, however, by a
similar period of suspicion, hurt, and deteriorating diplo-
macy which reached its nadir with Pearl Harbor. A
second century of relations between the United States
and Japan now begins and the outset again seems marked
by auspicious signs. The visit of former Prime Minister
Shigeru Yoshida to the United States late in 1954 was
an appropriate symbol of this new era : that he insisted
on the visit reveals a feeling of amity; that his visit was
opposed by many of his countrymen suggests that the
feeling is not universal; that he came as a mendicant
diplomat exposes the really precarious and uncertain
future which Japan faces.

There can be no certainty that Japan and the United
States will remain bound together for the first half or,
indeed, for even the first decade of this second century.
Japan is one of a group of nations which, less firmly
attached to either of the poles of power, can move into
new alignments, freshen old enmities, and create new
friendships almost as imperceptibly as the drift of desert
sands. There are clear and powerful forces which bring
our two nations together, yet there are also latent ten-
sions which can push us apart and even rend us asunder.
An appraisal of both forces of pull and push seems
essential before we can ascertain if cleavage is inevitable
or if not, how it can be avoided.

Present Ties

Put in the plainest language, our purpose is to keep
Japan from entering the orbit of the Soviet Union's
influence. The enthusiasm and even vanity which im-
pelled us a decade ago to attempt to reweave the fabric
of Japanese culture into a Jeffersonian doth of agrarian,

138 THE REFERENCE SHELF

rationalist, decentralized design has been almost totally
eclipsed by this impelling fact of power politics. The
danger of actual conquest by the Soviet Union is not as
imminent as the possibility that Japan might be slowly
pushed into the vortex of communism by peaceful or
even constitutional means. Anxiety over this latter pos-
sibility cannot easily be expressed in formal legal ar-
rangements, for no longer do we have any control over
the kind of government which Japan evolves. To be
sure, there are sinews of international law which bind
Japan to the United States, yet economic exigencies or
other circumstances can develop new sinews with the
Soviet Union and the older connections with our own
country can be allowed to wither through disuse.

Present relations between the two nations are con-
structed on a base of somewhat more than forty legal
instruments, five of which can be singled out as being
of crucial importance. Three of these five, namely, the
Treaty of Peace, the Security Treaty, and the Adminis-
trative Agreement, came into force in 1952. The Agree-
ment transferring the islands of Amami-Oshima to Japa-
nese sovereignty was effective in 1953 and the following
year the fifth of these important pacts, the Mutual
Defense Assistance Agreement, was signed and came
into force. Of these, the Peace Treaty is not only the
keystone, but, indeed, an important achievement in the
progress of international relations. Chief Justice Earl
Warren, governor of California during the San Fran-
cisco Conference, described it well when he said : "Never
before in history have victors been so magnanimous
with the vanquished never before in history have the
conquered been so encouraged to regain their normal
status of dignity and self-esteem." Prime Minister
Yoshida's reference to the treaty as "a magnanimous

THE NEW JAPAN 139

peace unparalleled in history" is an indication that
Warren's judgment was shared by Japan's political
leadership. . . .

Anti-Soviet Forces

The currents which seem to propel Japan in a west-
ward direction are from two separate sources. First,
there are forces which tend to alienate Japan from the
Soviet Union. Secondly, there are positive factors which
enhance and deepen understanding and good will with
the United States. Among the sources of disaffection
between the Soviet Union and Japan, the nature of
Japan's experience with the Communist party must be
regarded as an important influence. The Communist
party was allowed to function without restriction in
Japan from 1945 to 1949. It reached the pinnacle of its
popularity in 1949 when about ten per cent of the total
votes cast were for Communist candidates and thirty-five
members of the House of Representatives were Commu-
nists. Yet a spectacular repudiation of communism at
the polls came in the general election of 1952 when the
Communists failed to elect a single member to a seat in
the Diet. The underlying causes of this reversal cannot
be determined with certainty, but some reasons can be
hazarded. Not the least of these was Communist advo-
cacy of abolition of the Imperial Institution at a time
when the emperor was enjoying a peak of popularity.
This shockingly radical view of the deeply revered Tenno
system undoubtedly alienated great numbers of Japanese
who might otherwise have found communism appealing.
No doubt also the Japanese were appalled by the tactics
of riot and bloodshed used by the Communists in 1950.
Paradoxical though it may seem, the Japanese have a
strongly developed sense of order and peace and regard
riot and rebellion as contrary to propriety and therefore

140 THE REFERENCE SHELF

as tin- Japanese. Further, both the strength and the popu-
larity of the Communists were reduced by MacArthur's
justified severity in 1950 when members of the Central
Committee were purged and other repressive measures
taken. Finally, the invasion of South Korea by Com-
munist forces alerted the Japanese as it did the whole
Western world to the deceptions of aggression through
indigenous revolt which, since Korea, has become the
principal technique of communism.

Such factors reduced the peak membership of some
ninety thousand to about seventy-five thousand. ... In
any case the ability of the party to mobilize votes for its
own members in national elections has been severely
reduced. Yet it would be a mistake to discount the
potential influence of the Communist party. . . .

A second determinant in the alienation of the Soviet
Union and Japan is the stubborn unwillingness to re-
patriate Japanese prisoners of war still held in custody
by the Communists in Russia, China, and North Korea.
This situation has continued for more than ten years
with Russians and Japanese disagreeing as to the num-
ber of prisoners involved. In September 1954, Japan
stated that more than 252,000 Japanese wfio had never
been allowed to return from Communist-held areas had
been confirmed as dead. In addition, some 7,000 are
thought to be still retained in Communist areas. The net
effect of this failure to repatriate has been profound
throughout Japan. Almost every village has a family
one of whose members has been lost as a result of this
policy. To the Japanese the fate of the unrepatriated is
one of ignominy, for though separated from the Land
of the Gods, they could not share the glory of dying in
its defense. This policy of the Communists, deeply
affecting the Japanese, has stimulated speculation as to
its motivations. The Soviet pattern of action in North

THE NEW JAPAN 141

Korea is a frightening example which many Japanese
fear may be paralleled. It is now well known that the
Soviet occupation of North Korea was managed through
the shrewd use of Koreans who had fled to Russia since
1910 and had become naturalized citizens. Such Koreans
or their children staffed the new Korean government
and became officers and non-commissioned officers in the
new North Korean People's Army. A similar cadre of
trained Japanese could be very effective in bringing
Japan under Communist control. While no proof of this
intention can be presented, it is likely that the several
thousand Japanese remaining in Communist custody
would be more than adequate for any sinister designs
which the Communists may have. [Under the terms of
the Russo-Japanese joint declaration of October 1956,
a small number of Japanese prisoners have been re-
patriated. Eds. ]

Pro-American Forces

Certain positive forces which tend to push Japan
closer to the United States should be assessed. The effect
of the seven year occupation has been, generally, to
strengthen the ties that bind us together. There will be
many who, pointing to widespread anti-American senti-
ment and dissatisfaction with occupation reforms, may
doubt the validity of this appraisal. It is true that im-
mediately after Japan regained her sovereignty there
swept across the islands a wave of sentiment against
Americans and against everything American. This is
hardly a cause for alarm; rather, it was a natural reac-
tion to long control by a nation of dissimilar culture. . . .

The occupation's residue of good will can be accounted
for by several factors. In the first place, the Japanese
were able to preserve their self-respect when we decided
to retain the emperor and to make changes gradually
through the existing government. Secondly, the conduct

142 THE REFERENCE SHELF

of Americans was, on the whole, dignified, friendly, and
relatively free of corrupt practices and scandals. Thirdly,
in a significant number of instances the Japanese them-
selves participated in making many of the policies.
Change could thus be shaped in a Japanese mold and
the base of acceptance broadened. Fourthly, the per-
sonal influence and conduct of General MacArthur can-
not be discounted. However controversial his personal-
ity or other accomplishments may be, he fitted neatly
the Japanese stereotype of leadership. The aristocratic
quality of his command, his intuitive understanding of
the Japanese mind, and the contagion of his classical
dedication to duty were very impressive to the Japanese ;
their admiration was inevitably transferred to Americans
and the United States. Fifthly, American action in sav-
ing the Japanese from almost certain starvation in the
early days of the occupation made an indelible impres-
sion on the minds of the people and created a burden of
indebtedness. . . . Lastly, the occupation came to a digni-
fied, indeed graceful, conclusion with the peace treaty
admired as a benevolence.

An attitude of identification with the Western powers
was reflected in the platforms of political parties in the
general election of 1952. At that time only one of the
four major parties, the Left-Wing Socialists, took a firm
anti-American attitude. But there was less certainty re-
vealed in the election returns of February 1955, which
returned the interim Hatoyama government. The revi-
sionists (Left and Right-Wing Socialists, Labor-Farmer,
and Communists) who are strongly against rearmament
and favor strengthening ties with Communist China and
the Soviet Union, greatly improved their position by
securing more than a third of the seats in the House of
Representatives. Most of the newly-made voters cast
their ballots for the revisionist parties. For the moment,

THE NEW JAPAN 143

at least, Japan has decided to continue her policy of
working with the Western powers. But we cannot be as
certain what the next moment will bring as we were
before the 1955 election.

Potential Threats

The balance which now appears to be somewhat tilted
in favor of the West can be upset by several potential
sources of tension. Although it is relatively easy to
isolate and assess these forces, it is perhaps impossible
to predict under what conditions and in what propor-
tions they may interact.

The question of rearmament has been and may con-
tinue to be a source of misunderstanding between the
two countries. The ninth article of the 1946 constitution,
cast as it is in the rhetoric of MacArthur, compels Japan
forever to renounce war as a sovereign right. Mac-
Arthur felt strongly that this constitutional pacifism
would become a feature of Japanese civilization to be
copied by the nations of the world. At a moment of
defeat and exhaustion, he breathed into the Japanese
people the revivifying hope of being the foremost paci-
fist democracy in the world. None would deny the nobil-
ity of this ideal. But the creation of a power vacuum
in this strategic area of the Pacific was hardly in accord
with the concept of regional security which was then
emerging from the United Nations. It has been argued
that this proclamation of pacifism was necessary to in-
sure demilitarization of Japan. But Japan's demilitari-
zation was actually accomplished quite independently of
any influence of the constitution. Dispersion, if not dis-
integration, of the military clique (Gumbatsu) and
American fiat and continuing surveillance over the manu-
facture of weapons easily demilitarized the nation. Ger-

144 THE REFERENCE SHELF

many was successfully demilitarized without recourse to
constitutional pacifism. When in November 1953 Vice
President Nixon characterized Article Nine as a mistake,
he made one of the wisest, and certainly the briefest,
interpretations ever made of an important constitutional
principle. Mistake or not, pacifism succeeded too well.
It captivated the imagination of the Japanese, enervated
by the privations of war, terrorized by two atomic bomb-
ings, and only too eager to renounce war forever. The
terrible irony is that the cruel realities of international
politics reduced this glorious aspiration to a faded wisp.
Yet it has been, at least until now, impossible to excise
Article Nine from the constitution. Other constitutional
innovations sponsored by the United States conspire
against revision. The constitution cannot be amended
without popular ratification. Among the voters, for the
first time in Japanese history, are women. This newly
created portion of the electorate feels most strongly
about the ideal of peace. Thus far, Japan's leaders have
not dared risk amending the constitution for fear the
people might not ratify the proposal. . . .

A second facet of Japanese political thought which
must be weighed in assessing the permanence of Japan's
identification with the powers of the West is the peren-
nial fascination of the concept loosely called "neutral-
ism." The hope that Japan could remain happily neutral
as a Switzerland of the Pacific was especially popular
immediately before ratification of the peace treaty in
1952. Neutralism is grounded in part on the conviction
that an Asian bloc of nations could effectively serve as
a kind of "Third Force" capable of reducing tensions
between the West and the Soviet Union. It also results
from the uncertainty of continued American loyalty to
Japan. The greatest fear is that Japan will be the battle-

THE NEW JAPAN 145

field of the next war, that Japanese will be simply fodder
in the cannons of the great powers. . . .

To a great extent neutralism has lost its captivating
force, yet it can find new strength, particularly if fears
of nuclear bombing are rekindled. Japan's dilemma of
being hopelessly trapped between two world powers is
heightened by the unfortunate results of the hydrogen
bomb tests on Bikini in March 1954. The death in Sep-
tember 1954, of one of the twenty-three men exposed to
radioactive fallout brought a resurgence of Japanese
uncertainty and fright. Nor were the Japanese alone in
their concern for the effects of radioactivity, for the
British House of Commons discussed the subject in No-
vember 1954. No doubt our position at the dropping
rather than the receiving end accounts for our callous
response to the horrors of nuclear bombing. It would do
Americans good to read again John Hersey's descrip-
tions in his novel Hiroshima and Dr. Takashi Nagai's
moving account in We of Nagasaki. Many Japanese
associate Nagasaki and Hiroshima with other evidences
of Caucasian racist notions. Why, they ask, were atomic
bombs used in Asia rather than in Europe? The Ger-
mans were guilty of scientifically planned bestiality at
Dachau, Buchenwald, and elsewhere. The spontaneous
atrocities of the Japanese were less in scope and number
and different in motivation. In view of the greater guilt
of Germany in crimes of inhumanity, it is not difficult
for Japanese to regard their selection as atomic bomb
victims as but another aspect of a policy of racial dis-
crimination which has included the Gentlemen's Agree-
ment, the Oriental Exclusion Act, the Immigation Act,
and the relocation of Japanese citizens from the West
coast to government camps. Nor is this feeling dispelled
by the cold chronological facts showing that the German
surrender occurred in May 1945, before the atom bomb

146 THE REFERENCE SHELF

was ready for use. It is difficult for Japanese to believe
that American intelligence was so poorly informed that
it was not aware that Japan was on the verge of collapse
and would have surrendered without resort to atomic
bombing.

These deeply felt emotions regarding nuclear bomb-
ing have not been adequately assessed in the United
States. Our reaction to the radioactive fallout of the
spring of 1954, dwelling on the propriety of the Japa-
nese vessels' presence within the danger area, was more
quarrelsome than tender. To be sure, we later expressed
our sympathies and after the death of the first victim we
promptly sent a check for a million yen, and later gave
two million dollars as compensation for damages suffered
by Japanese. Few episodes in recent times better illus-
trate the need for articulating diplomatic practices with
the emotional, non-rational qualities of Japanese thought.
[See "Japan and the H-Bomb," in this section, below
Eds.]

A third imponderable force which looms ever larger
as a real threat to relations between Japan and the
United States is the increasingly popular view in Japan
that Peiping has found the correct formula for the solu-
tion of Asia's problems. . . .

Need for American Understanding

Japan's second century of contact with the West
begins with elements of both stability and uncertainty.
It is possible that Japan can become the outstanding
model of Asian democracy, regaining the confidence of
the nations of Southeast Asia, strengthening her de-
fenses, and reweaving strands of Western and Asian
culture into her own inimitable fabric of life. Japan
could then be the Pacific proof of the capacity of West-

THE NEW JAPAN 147

ern constitutionalism to adapt to Asian ways and solve
the problems of Asian nations. Such a possibility is con-
tingent upon Japan's ability to survive, upon the confi-
dence and trust which she can inspire in her Asian
neighbors and upon her trust that the United States
will reciprocate the loyalty which Japan seems to have
pledged to the West. Her survival as an ally of the West
is possible only with American understanding and help;
her standing among her neighbors can come only from
upright behavior made possible by a confident economic
and political security; her trust in the United States will
continue only if we respect her integrity as a nation and
as one of the great civilizations of the world. These
contingencies demand a statecraft of the greatest erudi-
tion and finesse. Nor have these qualities been totally
lacking in our policy toward Japan since the peace treaty.
Should they not be continued and refined, the alternative
would be a Japan lost to the West Neither right reason
nor self survival can permit the acceptance of this possi-
bility for more than a fleeting moment

ANTI-AMERICANISM 5

[In the occupation period] Americans played a big
part in breaking down the deeply ingrained Japanese in-
scrutability. After American armies landed in Japan,
our representatives heartily encouraged Japanese verbal
assaults upon their own most revered customs and lead*
ers, up to and including their emperor. Americans thus
hastened the transformation in Japanese manners which
has produced the current flood of frankness about Amer-
icans. This flood was bottled up during the six years

8 From "The Japs Have Us on the Griddle Now,** article by Demaree Bess,
associate editor of the Saturday Evening Post. Saturday Evening Post. 225 :24-5-f-.
April 4, 1954. Reprinted by permiasioo.

148 THE REFERENCE SHELF

and eight months of our occupation because our military
government did not relish criticism of its own activities.

So Japanese publishers accumulated a great store-
house of "revelations" about Americans, and they have
handled this material very much as American publishers
would do in the same circumstances. In Japan, as in the
United States, there are readers for every kind of printed
matter, ranging from the cheapest kind of sensational-
ism to scholarly dissertations. Japan is the only Asiatic
country which has taught all its boys and girls to read
and write during several generations as contrasted with
10 per cent literacy in China and the Japanese have
managed to keep all their children in school all through
their wars and occupation.

That explains why American behavior in Japan
past, present and future has been getting such full
treatment in recent months from every variety of Japa-
nese publication. The "yellow press/' with its particular
emphasis upon sex and crime, has been disinterring the
private lives of Americans stationed in Japan who were
immune from public exposure during the occupation.
Apparently some scandal sheets have been hoarding for
years stories about romances between high-ranking
American occupants and aristocratic Japanese ladies.

Memoirs of "Purged" Leaders

While a considerable part of the recent stream of
stories about Americans is thus either deliberately sensa-
tional or merely entertaining, most Japanese publishers
have aimed at more serious readers. They are finally
releasing hundreds of "memoirs" in books and articles
which were held in reserve during the occupation for
fear they might offend the American authorities. De-
layed also for many years were the recorded impressions

THE NEW JAPAN 149

of so-called "purgees" prominent Japanese leaders who
were forbidden to publish anything until recently.

Last summer in Tokyo an American friend suggested
to me, only half jokingly, that the so-called purges con-
ducted by Americans probably did more than anything
else to improve the quality of Japanese war and postwar
memoirs. Washington decided in 1947 to "purge" all
Japanese who held top posts between 1931 and 1945 in
such activities as politics, finance, industry and journal-
ism. These leaders were forbidden not only to publish
anything but also to take any active part in national life.
So for several years these immobilized Japanese some
of the brainiest in the country had plenty of leisure to
think about what had happened, was happening and was
likely to happen. They became, in fact, a sort of Japa-
nese brain trust, as their memoirs are now revealing, dis-
cussing with one another long-range policies for Japan.
Some of them also recorded their impressions of develop-
ments during and after the war, and they could afford
to give much more time to this than Americans who were
similarly prominent. The memoirs of our recent leaders,
when they have been written at all, usually have been a
mere by-product of otherwise crowded days.

These belatedly published impressions by Japanese
leaders, including the "purgees," are being read very at-
tentively not only by the Japanese but also by American
policy makers. Many purgees are now as active as before
the war in politics and industry, in banking and journal-
ism, and their influence is growing, because the Japanese
consider that many of them were unjustly treated by
Americans. Our policy makers are interested in their
present views because, whether we like it or not, the
destinies of the United States and Japan are more closely
involved than ever before.

150 THE REFERENCE SHELF

I have been reading in translation extensive samples
from recently published Japanese memoirs, and one com-
plaint about Americans has reappeared in them time and
time again. American behavior seems to be at least as
puzzling to Japanese observers as Japanese behavior ever
was to us. They describe Americans with such adjectives
as baffling, peculiar and unpredictable, and they cite ex-
amples which have convinced them that Americans are a
curious mixture of hardheaded common sense and quix-
otic utopianism.

Japanese Impressions of Americans

As an example of our farsightedness, they mention
the immense reserve of good will which Americans
stored up immediately after the Japanese surrender by
treating them with more consideration than they had
expected. They express gratitude to General Douglas
MacArthur, for protecting them, as they believe, from
vengeful Russians, Chinese, Koreans, Australians and
Filipinos. Japanese writers present evidence which has
convinced them that only American influence prevented
widespread starvation in Japan, as other victorious na-
tions demanded withholding of food in 1945, and that
Americans also prevented the destruction or removal of
industrial plants, without which Japan cannot hope to
support its people.

But our occupation was only a few weeks old when
Americans began to demonstrate what the Japanese now
describe as quixotic utopianism. Our military govern-
ment, despite the fact that it was headed by conservative-
minded General MacArthur, nevertheless launched what
seems, in retrospect, a revolution almost as radical as
communism. This was no temporary whimsey; for sev-
eral years a host of American reformers, working under

THE NEW JAPAN 151

General MacArthur's command, was given a more or
less free hand to abolish the established order in Japan
and replace it with an American-type political and social

system.

This American project still fascinates Japanese mem-
oir writers far more than anything else which has hap-
pened to them in recent times, including their war. All
through their accounts runs an incredulous wonder and
grudging admiration for the imaginative audacity behind
this scheme, even though almost all Japanese now agree
that it has failed. They ask themselves why this "Amer-
ican revolution" has fizzled out, and most of them feel
that American made the fatal mistake of trying to re-
mold Japan in our own image without taking into
account fundamental differences between the two peoples.
A veteran Japanese radio executive recalls that Americans
put up signs over the washrooms in all buildings which
we used, reading, JAPANESE KEEP OUT! He dryly re-
marks that this sign really summed up our whole reform
program, which was a fantastic attempt to create a new
Japan out of American heads, whereas no kind of lasting
changes in Japan could be made by anybody except the
Japanese themselves.

Even more harsh is the judgment of a prominent
publisher, Otoku Obama, who writes :

I think the fundamental reason for the failure of re-
forms introduced by Americans was the absence of any guid-
ing principle in American politics. That explains why such
inferior Americans were sent to Japan to handle the affairs
of 80 million people. The Japanese would Jhave gained a
great deal (especially in industrial reorganization) and would
be grateful today to the United States if only more capable
American officials had come to Japan. The ignorant and
narrow-minded Americans who composed so large a part of
the occupation personnel made many mistakes which have
been equally harmf ul to Japan and to the United States. . . .

152 THE REFERENCE SHELF

To a number of Japanese economists and industrial-
ists the most sensational American working for the occu-
pation was a young lady whom they describe as the
"glamorous girl trust buster." The Japanese give this
young woman chief credit for almost halting Japanese
industrial activity. She took a leading part in plans to
dissolve the great Japanese family corporations, known
as Zaibatsu, which have dominated Japan's industry and
commerce for several generations.

Operating on the theory that these family corpora-
tions were mainly responsible for Japanese aggression
a questionable assumption Washington policy makers
decreed that they should be broken up. The Japanese
were ordered to appoint a liquidation commission, which
was headed successively by Tadao Sasayama and Iwajiro
Noda. In the memoirs of these two men, the American
woman is pictured as the most implacable and persistent
enemy of the Zaibatsu. She spent many months going
through their books.

Mr. Noda comments that the young lady combined
"extremely rigid views" with the charming and vigorous
personality which gave her great influence with top mem-
bers of General MacArthur's staff. The Japanese are
convinced that this young woman actually wrote the
drastic dissolution decree which they considered ruinous
to their whole economic order. The Japanese were
warned that the American government would not con-
sider a peace treaty until this decree had been accepted.

Mr. Sasayama explains what happened then:

A peace treaty was, of course, the principal objective of
Japanese official policy, and nothing could stand in its way.
So it was up to us to satisfy the American conditions as
smoothly as possible. Fortunately, the Zaibatsu chiefs (who
were supposed to be purged at that time) showed a good

THE NEW JAPAN 153

understanding of the problem. We Japanese try to be far-
sighted and submissive to the inevitable. This national trait
helped to handle the Zaibatsu question without wrecking the
country's economy. . . .

American Policy Questioned

An altogether different expression of doubt about
American policy in the Far East comes to me in a letter
from Tokyo, written by the eminent Japanese historian,
Shunkichi Akimoto. ... As long as I have known Mr.
Akimoto he has been a vigorous advocate of a firm
working agreement between Japan and the United States,
a dangerous position for any Japanese to take between
1931 and 1945. Last summer I asked Mr. Akimoto how
he felt now about an American- Japanese working agree-
ment, and he replied that the kind of agreement he once
advocated is no longer possible. Neither Americans nor
Japanese, he said, seem to have realized the most revolu-
tionary change in the Far East caused by the war
namely, the destruction of Japan as an empire and a
military power.

It is therefore foolish, Mr. Akimoto believes, for any
Japanese to talk about remaining neutral today. . . .
Today the Japanese are almost completely unarmed and
cannot even fight to preserve neutrality for many years
to come. So the Japanese are offered only two alterna-
tives to throw in their lot with the United States or to
take a minor role in the Soviet system.

When the question is thus reduced to its simplest
terms, said Mr. Akimoto, there can be no doubt that the
great majority of Japanese prefer a working agreement
with the United States upon one condition. That con-
dition is assurance that Americans now consider them-
selves a permanent fixture in the Far East, as Russia

154 THE REFERENCE SHELF

most certainly is and has been for three centuries. Many
Japanese still fear, Mr. Akimoto told me, that Americans
will refuse to pay the price of our Far Eastern commit-
ments, and thus leave the field to Russia when we once
realize what a long and costly conflict confronts us across
the Pacific.

JAPAN AND THE H-BOMB

There is a feeling among the Japanese these days
bordering on paranoia that they are the fated victims of
American atomic policy. Whenever America lifts an
atom, some Japanese gets hurt. Not only did we drop
the only two atom bombs ever used against human beings
on the Japanese, but they were also the first victims of
the H-bomb, in the fall-out at Bikini. To Americans the
words "Fukuryu-Maru" [the fishing vessel which entered
the danger area during the H-bomb test], "Kuboyama"
[one of the bomb-dusted fishermen, who died a few
months later], and "radioactive tuna" are almost mean-
ingless collocations of sounds; but to the Japanese they
have become household words that stir a deep sense of
resentment. It is true, of course, that American soldiers
and Marshall Islanders were also affected by the fall-out
But most Japanese do not know about this nor do they
want to know. If asked, they would argue that it is your
business if you hurt "your own" people; but you have
no right to jeopardize others. Besides, most Japanese
prefer to think of themselves as unique, the privileged
victims, and they do not want to share the spotlight with
American GFs or Marshallese natives. As Professor
Ikutaro Shimizu of the Gakushuin University said in an
argument that seems to be very persuasive to Japanese

research associate with the Department

"

THE NEW JAPAN 155

intellectuals, twenty-three fishermen may seem like a
small number compared to the hundreds of thousands
of Hiroshima and Nagasaki victims, but in a symbolic
sense it is even worse. "During the war, Japan and
America were enemies. But this time, the injury was
done to an ally, or at least to a friendly nation." . . ,
This is, to be sure, somewhat disingenuous of Professor
Shimizu because he has been devoting a good part of his
intellectual activity to persuading people not to be
friendly to America; but whatever the source of the
argument, it holds great appeal for the Japanese.

What we sense immediately here in Japan is that
Americans and Japanese are looking at this problem in
a different way, that they are not on the same wave
length. For Americans, the problems created by the
Bikini fallout were essentially technical The explosion
was enormous; the fall-out exceeded calculations. Since
the consequences were quite unintentional, it is enough
to estimate the amount of the damage and make proper
compensation. For the Japanese, however, the problems
were emotional. Why are we always the victims? Are
we destined to suffer from every contact we have with
America? Does this not show America's contempt for
us ? In addition, there was something peculiarly horrify-
ing in the prospect that fish, Japan's main protein source,
might be contaminated by radioactivity.

The Fukuryit-Maru Wall

There was, therefore, a complete lack of congruence
in American and Japanese reactions, both sides failing to
understand or to recognize the sincerity of the other.
Whatever the Americans said inevitably sounded like an
insult to the Japanese, since it was technical and rational
and seemed to regard feelings and anxieties as irrelevant,

156 THE REFERENCE SHELF

Many things that we did, however well meaning they
may have seemed at home, were wrong in the emotional
atmosphere of Japan at the time. \Vhen Japanese doctors
requested certain information on radioactivity, for ex-
ample, the Americans refused it on the grounds that it
was "unnecessary" for the treatment of radioactive
burns. As Professor Shigeo Oketani of Tokyo Engineer-
ing University said, the Americans may very well have
been right, but "probably nothing has made Japanese
people who were originally friendly to America incline a
favorable ear to the fashionable anti- Americanism of
intellectual circles more than this refusal." . . .

The American statement, however correct it may
have been, was not on the same emotional wave length
as the Japanese request. Professor Tetsuzo Tanikawa,
Dean of the Faculty of Literature of Hosei University,
a leading proponent of world government, speaks for
much Japanese sentiment when he says :

I am not what is called an "anti- Americanist." ... I
. - . have long been censuring Russia's attitude toward world
government. But today I must censure America as well . . .
W G . a . re informed that American newspapers dealt with the
Bikini incident only as a problem of leakage of secrets. And
Chairman Cole of the Joint Congressional Committee on
Atomic Energy reportedly said that it was possible that the
Japanese fishermen had been spying on the test. This plain
national egoism has completely forgotten respect for the lives
of ^the unfortunate fishermen and the danger threatening the
daily life of the Japanese people. We cannot but conclude
that this comes from a subconscious contempt for colored
people. . . .

This disparity in emotional tone can be seen at every
step. The first American reaction was that perhaps the
Fukuryu-Maru had run too close to the danger area.
Perhaps it was spying. If not, what was it doing so close
to the blast? For responsible officials who must take

THE NEW JAPAN 157

into consideration all possibilities, this is undoubtedly a
perfectly reasonable speculation. But speculating in pub-
lic, as high-placed Americans do all too often, can have
disastrous effects that cannot be effaced by official state-
ments. The possibility of spying, for example, was prob-
ably not seriously entertained. And as it turned out, it
was very quickly rejected. But its very announcement
was enough to cause harm, and its retraction was unable
to overcome the resentment it had caused. For some reason
the charge was especially galling to Japanese sensitivi-
ties, and it opened the way to a flood of resounding
denunciations in the press of American "arrogance" and
laborious proofs that the charges were false. Learned
articles appeared both in the academic and the popular
press to demonstrate that even on the evidence as given
and it was strongly hinted that much was kept back by
the Americans for security reasons the fishermen must
have been outside the danger area.

. . . [On] April 18, 1954, Ryuzaburo Taguchi, Presi-
dent of the Color Film Research Institute, argued, for
example, that sound waves of explosive origin travel
faster than ordinary sound waves, and that given the
temperature of the Marshall Islands and the size of the
explosion, the sound would have reached the distance
claimed by the fishermen in 6 minutes 15 seconds. Then
when the American side accepted with what seemed to
the Japanese considerable reluctance the conclusion that
the ship was actually beyond the designated area, the
American reaction was again a "correct" and rational
one : this confirms that the fall-out was greater than ex-
pectations; the problem must be studied. It was this feel-
ing that the Americans were concerned only with the
technical aspects of the problem and that they dis-
regarded the damage to Japan that outraged Japanese
sentiment.

158 THE REFERENCE SHELF

In Japanese eyes, the American reaction appearec
surly and ungracious. "Why didn't the fishermen repon
what happened right away?" we asked. If they hac
washed the ashes off immediately, the results would no1
have been so serious. All perfectly reasonable observa-
tions. But we were being querulous and logical when the
situation called for demonstrating one's sympathy; tech-
nical issues should have taken second place in these first
reactions.

The Tuna Economy

The problem of the "radioactive tuna" shows the
same lack of communication. The Americans seemed to
take the attitude that the Japanese were being unneces-
sarily hysterical. Again, although the American may
have been right, the statement could only sound cold and
unfeeling. For one thing, Americans are unable to com-
prehend how important fish is to Japan and therefore
how terrifying to basic security this anxiety about con-
tamination can be. It is true that anti- American elements
deliberately inflated the issue, but they were able to do
so because it did touch on primordial sensitivities of the
Japanese people. For Americans, Pacific tuna is a canned
delicacy that is nice to have but that we can do without.
For Japanese, fish from the Pacific is a daily necessity.

But there is another aspect of the problem that Amer-
icans do not understand. Since the end of the war, Japa-
nese fishermen have been having a hard time. Their
traditional fishing areas have been cut off on all sides:
the Russians have taken their best fishing grounds in the
north, right down to within two miles of the coast of
the home island of Hokkaido; the Chinese have cut off
important fishing waters on the west; the South Koreans
have established the "Rhee Line," and all Japanese

THE NEW JAPAN 159

vessels caught beyond it are impounded and their crews
interned; and many of the Central Pacific fisheries in
the former mandated islands are now under American
control. So anything that appears to threaten their liveli-
hood is a very serious matter, and since there are more
than a million fishermen in Japan, this anxiety spreads
itself to all corners of the country.

A young fisherman in Chiba Prefecture expressed
what is undoubtedly a widespread view :

I was repatriated from the Soviet Union in the autumn
of 1948. So far, I have been very grateful for America's
policy toward Japan. But since this H-bomb business I find
that in spite of myself I am more sympathetic to the Com-
munist position. ... It is outrageous for the Chairman of
the Congressional Atomic Energy Committee to suggest that
the Fukuryu-Maru fishermen were spies. The American
Army here in Japan has taken over the Kujukurihama Coast
for a firing and maneuver ground ; and then when fishermen
move out to the deep seas to try to make their living, impor-
tant fishery grounds there are turned into H-bomb proving
areas.

For several years now the American Army has been
engaged in a dispute with local fishermen on a stretch
of beach known as Kujukurihama over artillery practice
in the area. The fishermen claim that the firing harms
their catch, while the Americans contend that they need
the area for training purposes* Both sides are probably
right.

What made the American attitude seem particularly
insincere was that no sooner had the Americans made
the suggestion that the Japanese were perhaps being
overanxious about the radioactivity of the tuna when
the American tuna packers announced that they would
not accept Japanese tuna for the time being because it
might be contaminated !

160 THE REFERENCE SHELF

Medical Misunderstandings

When the injuries to the fishermen became known,
Ambassador Allison offered his condolences on behalf of
the United States government. But by the time these
official condolences were transmitted, it was almost too
late. The impression of American "coldness" was al-
ready firmly fixed by the initial reactions of Americans
reported in the press.

Then came one of the worst mistakes of all. As a
friendly gesture, the Americans offered the use of the
facilities of the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission
(ABCC) in Hiroshima. Now this offer could only be
based on a complete misreading of Japanese sentiment
The ABCC had been established in Hiroshima and Naga-
saki by the United States Atomic Energy Commission
as a research institution. From its very foundation, the
Japanese have resented the fact that it was designed for
diagnosis and research but not for treatment. The Amer-
ican government has campaigned for years to convince
the Japanese that the ABCC was not set up for treat-
ment and that this was as it should be. The findings of
objective scientific investigation, we argued, would in the
long run benefit the Japanese people as much or more
than mere treatment. But the Japanese have never fully
given up their suspicions that they are being used as
"guinea pigs" by the ABCC. Therefore to offer the
ABCC facilities after all this suggested one of two
things : that the original contention that the ABBC could
not provide treatment was untrue; or that the Americans
wanted these fresh cases for research purposes. Neither
conclusion was to our benefit. Said the [newspaper]
Shukan Asahi on April 4, 1954, "The ABCC has never
once treated A-bomb sufferers in Hiroshima and Naga-
saki with kindness, and it treats the patients as 'guinea

THE NEW JAPAN 161

pigs/ " When Dr. Morton of the ABCC visited Tokyo
University Hospital, it was taken for granted by Japa-
nese that he had not come on a visit of sympathy or
cooperation, but simply to do some research on the
secondary symptoms of H-bomb radioactivity. Dozens
of articles in the press appeared on the general theme
that "We are not guinea pigs!"

Thus every action meant something different to the
two sides. The Americans, for example, offered to make
a joint medical investigation. From an American point
of view this may have looked like cooperation, but from
a Japanese point of view it smacked of insult to the
Japanese medical profession. They immediately in-
terpreted the offer to mean that the Americans were
going to challenge the Japanese diagnoses and estimates
of damage, perhaps in order to reduce the extent of
America's financial liability. The Japanese were indig-
nant. "We know more about radioactive burns than any-
one else in the world, including the Americans. We are
the only people in the world who have been exposed to
atomic radiation on a large scale/' Therefore, Japanese
medical circles, interpreting our offer of cooperation and
of ABCC facilities to imply distrust of their ability, were
bitterly offended. Dr. Kazuo Miyoshi of the Okinaka
Internal Department, Toyko University Hospital, in a
medical report on the condition of the twenty-three fish-
ermen, said coldly:

We are glad to have American good will. But this can
only be on a collaboration basis, not a joint-study basis. We
have never refused to allow American doctors to examine the
patients. But we did not want them interrogating patients
for three or four hours at a time because the patients need a
good rest and they are worried about being used as guinea
pigs. . . .

162 THE REFERENCE SHELF

Unfortunately, this sensitivity has been rubbed raw
by a continuing series of statements made by American
doctors, private and governmental, expressing doubts
about the Japanese diagnosis of the causes of the death
of Aiichiro Kuboyama, one of the bomb-dusted fisher-
men, on September 23, 1954. The suggestion has been
made that the cause of death may not have been radio-
activity, but rather jaundice resulting from a transfusion
infection. Whether this is true or not and American
statements are only suggestions of alternative possibili-
ties they rub everybody the wrong way because of their
clear implication that Japanese doctors are incompetent.
In the latest of this series, Dr. Berry repeats the charges.
. . . Since Dr. Berry is in the Defense Department, the
Japanese regard his statement as the official statement
of the United States government, and no amount of
denial will convince them otherwise. Japanese medical
circles have therefore turned with warm relief to the
more sympathetic statement of three foreign doctors on
June 1, 1955, at the International Radiation Conference
in Hiroshima which had an anti-American flavor and
was not attended by Americans. Dr. Simon Sevitt, pa-
thologist from Birmingham, England, Dr. Leonardo
Guzman, Director of the National Institute of Radium
of Chile, and Dr. Karl Holubec, Czech surgeon, agreed
that the Japanese diagnosis was correct and that there
were no grounds for the American doubts. . . .

United States and Soviet Tests
The net result has been a strong feeling against
American atomic and thermonuclear experiments. It is
true that the Russians conduct them too, and it is even
true that Japan was bothered by "radioactive rains" on
its Japan Sea side as a result of the Russian explosions
of middle September and late October 1954. But in spite

THE NEW JAPAN 163

of the attempts of cooler heads to put these matters in
perspective, there is without doubt a tendency to con-
sider the United States more at fault than Russia. The
Russians conduct their tests on their own territory. But
the American tests are held in the Pacific. By what right
does America use the Pacific Ocean for its own experi-
ments which endanger Japan and her food sources?
America is violating the freedom of the sea by denying
its use to other nations.

"The Pacific is not an American lake!" announced
the Shukan Asahi in its April 4, 1954, issue, echoing
the Daily Herald of London. Learned jurists, lawyers,
and professors filled the press with detailed analyses of
the position of the tests in international law. Fuel was
added to the flames by the statement of the Secretary of
the House Atomic Energy Committee, Nichols, that ex-
periments would continue in spite of Japanese protests.
Koichi Fukui, a member of the radioactivity team that
went to Bikini in May 1954, expressed the views of
many Japanese when he said :

It is impermissible to contaminate the sea by H-bomb
tests when no one has any idea of what its effects will be.
The American scientists (fid not really know, whatever they
may claim. . . . Two months after the explosion, the fish
were still dangerously radioactive. . . .

America and the Atom

America's failure to meet the emotion of Japanese
reaction has led to the charge that we are cruel and
inhuman, perhaps, in the suspicion given voice by Pro-
fessor Tanikawa, because we are fundamentally con-
temptuous of "colored people." It must be remembered
that throughout Asia, and particularly in India, it is
widely believed that America dropped the first atom
bomb on Japan, rather than on Germany, because the

164 THE REFERENCE SHELF

Japanese are "colored people" and the Germans are
"whites/* No amount of argument will convince people
that the atom bomb was only developed after the Ger-
man surrender. And if America is capable of such in-
humanity, "treating the masses like animals," in the
words of the novelist Kojoro Serizawa . . . then perhaps
the Communist charges of germ warfare in Korea are
also true. . . .

With this background, it is understandable that the
Japanese become jittery whenever the words "American"
and "atomic" appear in the same sentence. So when
Americans come, atom in hand, to make an offer, there
is a strong inclination to look long and hard. It was this
mood that lay behind the protracted hassle over our offer
of enriched uranium to Japan, which was part of Presi-
dent Eisenhower's "atoms-for-peace" program. Once
again America found itself in the ridiculous position of
offering gifts to people who were not at all certain that
they wanted to receive them. Although the offer was
welcomed by engineers and businessmen, most scientists
were very suspicious and inclined to reject it. The debate
raged in scientific and academic bodies providing the
staple of Japan Science Council deliberations for weeks
on end in the press, and in the Diet committees, and
bitter sentiments were expressed on all sides. The issue
divided the country politically, with the Right and the
Left Socialists (not to mention the Communists and the
Farmer-Labor party) opposed, and the conservative par-
ties more or less in favor.

Although many specific points of objection were
raised, what the debate showed was something more
important: a real distrust of American atomic policy.
Speaking of the American offer, which he characterized

THE NEW JAPAN 165

as the "American atomic energy offensive," Professor
Koji Fushimi, physicist of Osaka University, argued that

the United States is motivated by the desire to divert world
opposition to the military uses of atomic energy by empha-
sizing its peaceful uses; to support its domestic armament
industry; to assure overseas supplies of uranium; and to
capture markets for her atomic energy industry. . . . The
consequence of cooperation with the United States in electric
power generation by atomic energy [one of the proposals
involved in the uranium offer] would be the domination of
all of Japanese industry by American monopoly capitalism
through the manipulation of electric power prices. . . .

Although an agreement was finally signed between
the Japanese and American governments on June 21,
1955, the opposition of the "progressive front" -of sci-
entists, intellectuals, socialists, and trade unionists has
succeeded in leaving the impression that this was not a
generous American gift, but just something else America
has forced down Japan's throat.

This attitude is, of course, strengthened by the grow-
ing political hostility toward American foreign policy
here and the recent moves to "normalize" relations with
Russia and China. . . .

Revising Our Policies

In respect to atomic policy, what this means is that
many people are becoming more favorable to the Com-
munist bloc. A favorable attitude toward Communist
atomic policy seems to be psychologically the necessary
counterpart of the resumption of "normal" relations.
This feeling coincides with the growing Russian and
Chinese campaign to woo Japanese intellectuals, a cam-
paign that has been having striking success. . . .

It is this mood that American atomic policy must
take into account in future dealings with Japan. We

166 THE REFERENCE SHELF

cannot act In international relations on the basis of
purely rational and technical calculations of what we
think is good for people. . . . From a narrow point of
view, the problem is essentially one of public relations.
This is supposed to be our specialty, but we still cannot
present the face to the world that we want to present
But from a larger point of view, the problem is how to
make manifest the feelings of a whole people, their
spontaneous warmth and sympathy. That is why the
warm personal gestures the treatment of the "Hiro-
shima maidens," or the meeting together of people in
international conferences have more effect at certain
moments in history than the giant official actions. As
long as America held undisputed lead in atomic develop-
ment, we could get away with unilateral actions. But
resentment against our policy now has other places to
turn. The Japanese reaction should alert us to the
dangers before it is too late.

THE BONIN ISLANDS: PAWNS IN A POWER GAME*

An ominous question mark hangs over the future of
the 178 persons comprising the civilian population of the
tiny Bonin Islands.

The inhabitants want to become United States citi-
zens, but have become, instead, pawns in an international
game.

The Bonins are sheer, grim volcanic outcroppings in
the western Pacific, about midway between Japan and the
United States island territory of Guam. Hundreds of
miles from regular shipping lanes, they have been islands
of mystery except to officials and others who have lived

by

THE NEW JAPAN 167

in the lonely jungle clearings. Occasional visitors in
whaling and fishing craft were almost exclusively Japa-
nese nationals until the end of the World War II. ...

The islands figure prominently in the postwar conten-
tions that inevitably followed Japan's resumption of tech-
nical sovereignty over them with the United States
continuing in military occupation.

The question, as far as the islanders are concerned,
is whether they shall remain under the jurisdiction of
the United States, now represented by a dilapidated and
undermanned naval station on the main island of Chichi,
or whether they shall revert to the unwelcome rule of
the Japanese.

Conflicting Claims

The Japanese claimed the islands eighty years ago,
ignoring the assertions of the settlers that they were
Americans.

Most of the tightly inbred island fishing and farming
community today claims relationship, either by direct
descent or through intermarriage, to Nathaniel Savory,
a Massachusetts seafarer who settled here in 1830, when
the Bonins were uninhabited and unclaimed. He died in
1874. . . .

International considerations that may affect the even-
tual fate of this strange community in the far Pacific
are these:

Japan wants the United States to permit 7,711 for-
mer Japanese residents of the islands to return, partly
because this matter has become a national issue in Japan,
and partly because this would give Japan a lever on the
Soviet Union for return of the Kuriles and other former
Japanese territories held by the Russians.

168 THE REFERENCE SHELF

The United States Navy, administering the islands
for Washington under a security agreement with Japan,
apparently has long-range plans for an important sub-
marine base in the Bonins, and wants no Japanese settlers
complicating the situation. The present residents heartily
concur in discouragement of the Japanese, albeit for
different reasons that are economic and political.

Eager to strengthen United States ties with Japan,
but also mindful of prospective relations between Tokyo
and Moscow, the United States State Department ap-
pears to be supporting the case of the Navy and the "in-
digenous" islanders without real conviction.

Spokesmen for the former islanders now residing in
Japan evince impatience with the Navy's contention that
resettlement of the Bonins would compromise military
security. They declare that a Japanese population in the
Bonins would be no more of a security risk than those
near United States bases in Japan and Okinawa.

The Navy, in rebuttal, cites the smallness of the
islands and the necessity of supplying any civilian settlers
through the only port, which is on Chichi and is the
heart of the military base.

All the adult islanders, simple fishermen and farmers
with names like Gilley, Robinson, Webb and Washing-
ton, unanimously signed a petition to the State Depart-
ment a year ago. It opposed Japanese resettlement on
the grounds that the 7,711 listed as wishing to return
"are mostly immigrants of the early 1930's and are not
true Bonin Islanders."

The petition added that "only a nominal percentage
of these would be able to subsist on the natural resources
of the islands and the surrounding waters." The rest,
the petition said, worked for the Japanese military.

THE NEW JAPAN 169

Later, the Islanders sent a delegation of four persons
to Washington to plead their case. Meanwhile, the is-
landers as a group have twice requested United States
citizenship, without result.

Historical Background

The Bonin Islanders legally are Japanese nationals.
In the peace treaty signed in San Francisco in 1951, the
United States recognized Japan's "residual sovereignty"
over the Bonins and Okinawa. These islands were left
under United States military government for an indefi-
nite time in a concurrent agreement on Pacific security.

Japan's historical claim to the Bonins goes back to a
visit there by Sadayori Ogasawara in 1593, just fifty
years after the Spanish navigator Don Ruy Lopez de
Villalobos was said to have sighted the islands for the
first time on record. The Japanese named the group
Ogasawara Gunto, but did not get around to asserting
sovereignty until 1876.

Tokyo's annexation of the tiny group was not dis-
puted by anyone at that time except Nathaniel Savory
and his little band who had been on Chichi (then called
Peel Island) for forty-six years. In 1853 Commodore
Matthew Perry, who called at Chichi on his historic
voyage to open up Japan, strongly recommended that the
United States acquire the Bonins, but he was disregarded.

Until the time of World War II, the Caucasian blood
of the original colonists had been mixed with that of
Malayan, Japanese, Polynesian and Negro stock. Chichi
had become a principal Japanese submarine base and one
of the strongest fortifications in the Pacific.

The Bonins, originally so called through a corruption
of the Japanese name Bune Shima, or Islands Without

170 THE REFERENCE SHELF

Men, now teemed with 25,000 or more soldiers, more
than 7,000 Japanese civilians and the little community
that still defiantly regarded itself as American. . . .

In 1944, under intensive American bombing, all but
the military personnel were evacuated to Japan. After
the war, United States occupation authorities repatriated
the Savory clan and the other descendants of pre-
Japanese colonists. The others were barred.

The Japanese, the Islanders, and the
United States Navy

The League of Bonin Evacuees for Hastening Repa-
triation also sent a delegation to Washington last year
with powerful Japanese political backing. It asserted
that before World War II these now nearly destitute
refugees had earned in the islands nearly $2 million a
year by farming, nearly $1 million by fishing, and nearly
$500,000 by whaling.

While these Japanese figures could not be checked,
most of the many Bonin Islanders interviewed . . . [on
Chichi] agreed that the hard-working Japanese settlers
had prospered in the islands. Now it is they who are
prospering by sending produce to Guam through a
cooperative trading company. But that is not the only
reason they do not want the Japanese back.

"The Japanese, while treating us fairly until the war,
always regarded us with contempt because we weren't
Japanese," said Charles Washington, stately descendant
of a Negro who left an American whaling ship here in
the early 1840's. The islanders fear worse discrimina-
tion because of their present pro-American stand

The Tokyo Government wishes to set up a complete
civil administration in the Bonins. The United States

THE NEW JAPAN 171

Navy, like the islanders, views the prospective complica-
tions with disquiet.

The two top Navy officers here are . . . veteran sub-
mariners who view the Bonins as a potentially important
base for undersea craft. . . .

Many United States submarines have made Chichi a
port of call since the war. In time of hostilities in the
Pacific they could replenish their torpedoes and other
supplies here, as the Japanese once did.

OKINAWA: UNITED STATES WARD IN
THE PACIFIC*

Sakini, the wily Okinawan interpreter in The Tea-
house of the August Moon, observes in the preamble to
the play that the process of learning from the conqueror
is "sometimes painful." And sometimes, as is happening
on Okinawa today, it is the conqueror who suffers the
pain. It came as a sharp jolt to the Americans who have
tutored Okinawans in democracy for nearly twelve years
when the voters of Naha, the capital, recently elected
as their mayor Kamejiro Senaga, a reputed Communist
who had campaigned largely on a platform of "Yankees,
Go Home!"

Some Americans here believe that if affairs were
handled right in Washington, this tiny island [of the
Ryukyu chain] with its wholly Oriental indigenous popu-
lation, would be "a showcase for American democracy
in the East." It is so far from that today, however,
that the authorities considered it wise to cancel plans for
an international conference of Asian educators this year
at the American-instituted University of the Ryukyus in

From "Okinawa: 'Sometimes Painful' Lesson for Us," article by Robert
Trumbull, chief of the New York Times bureau in Tokyo. New Yoric Timts bfaffa-
mne. p29-K April 7, 1957. Reprinted by permission.

172 THE REFERENCE SHELF

Naha. They feared that the visitors, especially those
from neutralist countries, might be so influenced by criti-
cal elements that they would go home as propagandists
for the return of the Ryukyus to Japan.

There is little outward evidence of unfriendliness to
Americans in Okinawa. When you drive through a vil-
lage laughing children hail you with beaming smiles and
screams of "Hello, baby!" which they apparently have
come to think is the standard American greeting. Like
their Japanese cousins, Okinawans are invariably polite,
but they have an independence of character which often
leads them to go their way in defiance of the conqueror.
A visitor to the villages will find that these people think
and discuss critically the problems of the day with greater
sophistication than the average American is likely to
suspect.

Citizenship Status

A paramount problem for most Okinawans appears
to be their anomalous political status as citizens of Japan
and wards of the United States. One high-ranking
American here describes the Okinawans as "people with-
out a flag" and suggests that much apparent anti-
Americanism on the island may be largely the product
of their feeling of insecurity.

The Ryukyuans, who speak a dialect Japanese and
have been attuned to Japanese culture since their incor-
poration into that empire as a prefecture in 1876, say
frankly that they feel like Japanese and want to revert
to Tokyo's rule. They still nurture many grievances
against the repressive regime they knew until the Ameri-
can forces captured the island in April 1945 in one of
the bloodiest battles of the Pacific. But they also believe

THE NEW JAPAN 173

that relations with the Japanese, themselves newly de-
mocratized under American influence, would be different
today.

Economic Problems

Another yearning that disturbs the Okinawans is the
yearning for land. Their island, sixty-seven miles long
and from three to twenty miles wide, has a population
density about twenty-two times that of the United States,
or about 1,270 persons a square mile to 54. A congres-
sional land committee which visited here last fall esti-
mated in its report that if the United States were as
crowded as Okinawa, her population would be 2.75 bil-
lion more people than there are on earth.

Since the island contains only 80,000 acres of tillable
land one acre for every seven and a half persons the
Okinawans were understandably exercised when the
United States armed forces took about one cultivable
acre of every five for military use. The construction of
an eighteen-hole golf course for personnel also started a
controversy between the Army and Okinawan farm or-
ganizations. The farmers say they can understand appro-
priating farm land for military purposes, although they
may not like it. But they do not understand taking their
crop land for amusement. The Army's answer is that
the former occupants of the golfing area are now making
more by working on the links than they ever earned
from their farms.

In the long dispute over appropriation of farmland
the United States, it appears now, has met every objec-
tion but one. Rent to be paid by the United States was
tripled; lump-sum compensation for long-term use at
least doubled. A development fund in which Okinawan
owners may invest their money and earn a perpetual in-
come may be set up, resettlement programs are afoot

174 THE REFERENCE SHELF

and, finally, the United States is leaving actual title to
the land with the Okinawan owners, who, in theory, may
hope some day to return to it.

But the problem turned out to be more than eco-
nomic. Okinawans, the Americans discovered, have a
fanatical attachment to their land that is akin to religion.
Land has been the core of their social organization as
well as their livelihood and, before the Americans came,
transfer of land from one owner to another was rare.
No way has been found to compensate for this love of
the land.

A third grievance of the Okinawans stems from their
work on Army projects. The United States construction
program and the expenditure of more than $4 million a
month by the armed forces sustain the island economy.
The armed forces currently employ more than 50,000
Okinawans more than half the total labor force. About
10,000 Okinawan girls find work as domestics in
American quarters and many other islanders find jobs
in local industries that have sprung up with the military
expansion.

But the pay of Okinawans in defense work, set by a
military wage board in faraway Washington, is very low;
it ranges from 10 cents an hour minimum for a heavy
laborer to 36 cents maximum for a skilled foreman. The
Okinawan is embittered, not only because an American
doing the same work receives up to twenty times as
much, but also because an imported Japanese employee
may be getting five to ten times the pay of his Okinawan
counterpart, although retail prices of a range of daily
needs are said to average 28 per cent more here than in
Japan.

Okinawa today is a combined "Little America" and
"Little Japan." Most of the 40,000 Americans, service

THE NEW JAPAN 175

men and dependents on the island live in a different
world from the 600,000 "indigenous personnel," as serv-
ice gobbledygook calls the islanders.

Defense Installations

From a height on the island one can see the twin
white ribbons of Kadena Air Base's two 12,000-foot
concrete runways, longest in the Far East and capable
of accommodating any plane in the Air Force inventory.
The other major air installation is outside Naha, where
civilian transocean airliners landing and taking off dur-
ing daylight hours are required to have their window
curtains drawn, according to United States security
regulations.

These and several subsidiary airfields, the naval head-
quarters of the Taiwan (Formosa) Straits Command,
the Third Marine Division's barracks, vast forests of
antennas for far-ranging communications installations
and a network of radar-guided anti-aircraft gun emplace-
ments on a round-the-clock alert these are the visible
heart of the $588,600,000 United States defense bastion
on Okinawa. There are also immense storage areas and
underground secret chambers believed to contain atomic
bombs. In this panorama of military might lies the
reason the United States retained Okinawa and the other
Ryukyu Islands, a prefecture of Japan, when the occu-
pation ended in 1952. These defenses are why we show
every indication of meaning to stay for as long as any-
one can foresee.

The military installations are enclosed by miles of
high steel-mesh fencing, guarded in some places by fierce
dogs trained to attack any unknown intruder. Barring
occasional destructive typhoons and a certain amount of
island claustrophobia, life for Americans behind these

176 THE REFERENCE SHELF

fences Is considered good by Army standards. Officers,
higher-grade enlisted men and civilian employees of the
United States Government who have families here are
generally quartered in attractive concrete houses, more or
less typhoon-proof. Their nightly television is broadcast
by an Air Force station from filmed stateside network
programs, commercials included. They can also tune in
the Armed Forces radio and Okinawan stations. . . .

Many service families, paying one or more maids
around $20 a month to do the cooking and other house-
work, look back on high-priced though possibly substand-
ard housing, a complete lack of domestic help and other
undesirable features of many stateside assignments and
consider Okinawa a "good deal"; so much so, in fact,
that the Army has felt it necessary to limit Okinawa
tours to three years.

Okinawan Life

From one of these self-contained American commu-
nities it is not very far in miles over a good highway
mostly paved and some portions four-lane to a village
like Nakagusuku, under the hill where the castle of Oki-
nawan kings once stood. But it's a long way and all
downhill in other respects.

Here, in conditions approximating those of the aver-
age Okinawan, you find a crowded cluster of thatched,
one-room shacks lacking running water and elementary
sanitation. Chickens wander among the littered huts, a
pig squeals from an enclosure of rushes. Some of the
older women, mashing sweet potatoes to yellow pulp
with mallets in old wooden bowls, have floral and other
designs tatooed on their fingers. You chat with a man,
the head of a family, and find that his whole day's wages

THE NEW JAPAN 177

wouldn't have paid for your $1.50 dinner in the club last
night.

But the experienced Asian traveler notes that the ap-
parent standard of living here, while lower than the
average in Japan, is far better than in most rural vil-
lages in India and a dozen other countries of the Far
East. The villagers are eating rice every day, which they
could seldom afford a few years ago. They have shoes
and clothes that hundreds of millions of other Asians
would envy. And here are a schoolhouse and community
hall of permanent construction and a playground facili-
ties that most Indian villages are only now getting, one
by one, under the Community Development Plan.

The Okinawan knows that he is better off than he
was before the Americans came and he is also aware
as he w r ill readily tell you that conditions on Amami
Oshima, in the northern Ryukyu group returned to Japan
in 1953, have become a great deal worse since the Amer-
icans left. Yet because he is confronted daily with ex-
amples of the highest standard of living in the world he
thinks he should be doing even better than he is.

Among Okinawa's three political parties, there is
little difference in principle on domestic issues all are
for reversion of Okinawa to Japan sooner or later and
all oppose the American land policy. The Communists
and their supporters, however, differ from the others in
demanding that the Americans get out right now. Few
Okinawans appear to be serious about this. The Demo-
crats, who are the dominant and conservative party, and
the Socialist Masses party, which is the principal opposi-
tion, favor letting Americans stay on after reversion by
arrangement with the Japanese Government, on the same
basis as they now remain in Japan itself. . . .

178 THE REFERENCE SHELF

American Policy

Many Americans here believe that the United States
should give long and careful thought to ways of counter-
ing the Communist-led exploitation of Okinawan griev-
ances and frustrations. It is widely said by Okinawans
as well as Americans that continual agitation for rever-
sion to Japan would abate if Washington were to say
that abandonment of the Ryukyus would not be consid-
ered for a stated number of years. Many also think that
Washington should initiate a thoughtfully conceived,
long-range program for economic and social develop-
ment to replace the more or less limited and uncertain
operation that has been in effect since 1945.

Jugo Thoma, the Army-appointed chief executive of
the locally manned government of the Ryukyu Islands,
believes that as time goes on and if conditions continue
to improve, the anxiety of Okinawa for reversion to
Japan will lessen. At any rate, Mr. Thoma, a former
judge and Naha city mayor, urges Okinawans to recon-
cile themselves to the expectation that the United States
will hold onto Okinawa for another generation at least
^ In the long run, the policy of the United States ad-
ministration of the island appears to foreshadow a dras-
tic reconstruction of an ancient way of life. Lieutenant
General James E. Moore, United States Army deputy
governor and supreme authority on the island, has urged
dramatic development of industries to replace an agri-
cultural economy that has always been a poor one and
can only become more inadequate with the population
growing by 20,000 a yean

Thoughtful Okinawans are urging the United States
to sponsor an intensive emigration program to other
countries and perhaps to the many islands of the Pacific
Trust Territory administered by the United States as

THE NEW JAPAN 179

sole United Nations trustee. Many, in agreement with
some Americans, believe Washingon should embark on a
"crash" program of social betterment along Point Four
principles to make Okinawa really a "showcase." And
a majority, it appears, believe we fail to practice what
we preach when we refuse to let Okinawans elect their
chief executive. As Sakini said, "Okinawans most eager
to be educated."

THE FACTS OF THE GIRARD CASE'

The United States agreed . . , that a Japanese court
should try an American soldier charged with having
killed a Japanese woman.

The soldier is Army Specialist 3/c William S. Girard,
twenty-one years old, of Ottawa, Illinois.

. . . [On January 30, 1957] Girard fired an empty
cartridge case from a grenade launcher to frighten away
several Japanese scavenging for metal on the firing range
at Somagahara. Mme. Naka Sakai, forty-six years old,
was hit in the back by the shell case and killed.

In a joint statement issued at the Pentagon . . .
Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson and Secretary
of State John Foster Dulles said that Girard's action
"was not authorized" and therefore was not done in the
performance of duty.

Consequently, the two officials said that they had con-
cluded that the trial of Girard in Japanese courts was
"in full accord" with an agreement between Japan and
the United States governing the status of American
forces in Japan.

From "U.S. Agrees to Let Japanese Try GX in Woman's DeaA," br E. W.
KenTOtby, of tbe New Yoric .Times Tokyo Bureau. New Yoric Times, p 1+. June
5, 1957. Reprinted by permfamon.

180 THE REFERENCE SHELF

The question of jurisdiction in the Girard case has
become a heated issue in the Japanese press and has in-
flamed public opinion.

The Government's decision in the Girard case came
less than two weeks after the destructive anti-American
rioting in Taipei, Taiwan. The rioters, who sacked the
United States Embassy and the United States Inf orma-
tion Agency building, were angered by a United States
Army court-martial's acquittal of a sergeant accused of
having killed a Chinese Peeping Tom. . . .

Under the status-of-forces agreements, an offense
committed by United States service men against foreign
nationals is within the jurisdiction of United States
courts-martial if the offense arises "out of an act or
omission done in the performance of official duty."
Otherwise it is within the jurisdiction of the host coun-
try's courts.

However, the host country has the final decision, in
case of dispute, over whether an offense is, or is not,
committed in performance of duty.

Facts of the Incident

In the Girard case, the basic facts of what happened
are not in dispute. The incident, as described by Secre-
taries Dulles and Wilson today, happened in this way:

A number of Japanese were on the firing range gath-
ering empty brass cartridge cases. These civilians had
created such a risk of injury to themselves during morn-
ing exercises that the commanding officer withdrew live
ammunition before the start of the afternoon exercises.

In the interval between the two exercises, Girard and
another soldier were ordered to guard a machine gun
and other equipment. It was during this interval that
Girard put a cartridge case in his grenade launcher,
fired it. and killed Mme. Sakai.

THE NEW JAPAN 181

The grenade launcher is a device that fastens on the
muzzle of a rifle. The firing of a blank charge in place
of a regular cartridge in the rifle launches an explosive
grenade for an arched flight up to 100 yards. In this
case an empty cartridge case rather than a grenade was
launched.

Under the treaty provisions, the case went to the
Joint United States- Japan Committee. The United States
representative asked for military jurisdiction because the
divisional commander had certified that Girard's action
was committed in the performance of duty.

The Japanese held that it was not part of his duty
to fire at the scavengers, that the firing was done between
exercises, and that Girard had thrown out empty shell
cases to entice the scavengers to come closer. Girard
denied this, and said that he had been merely trying to
frighten the scavengers.

For the first time in more than 14,000 alleged
offenses against Japanese law, Japanese officials claimed
their right to judge whether the offense was connected
with performance of duty.

With the Joint United States-Japan Committee dead-
locked, the United States representative was finally au-
thorized on May 16 to surrender jurisdiction. There
%vas an immediate uproar in Congress, and the next day
Secretary Wilson ordered that Girard be held in United
States custody pending a review.

The Wilson order brought an outcry in Japan. Since
a treaty question was involved, as well as Japanese-
American relations, the State Department at this point
stepped into the situation, and the question was ulti-
mately carried to the President. [The trial of Girard in
a Japanese court ended in a three-year suspended sen-
tence for Girard in late 1957 Eds.]

182 THE REFERENCE SHELF

UNITED STATES AGREES TO WITHDRAW TROOPS
FROM JAPAN 10

The United States agreed ... [on June 21, 1957]
to a prompt withdrawal of all its ground combat forces
from Japan.

In step with the buildup of Japan's own defense
force, it also pledged to cut the strength of its other
military elements stationed there.

This was announced in a communique concluding
the three-day visit of Premier Nobusuke Kishi. There
was no immediate Defense Department estimate of how
many men would be involved in the initial cutback.

The Pentagon estimated, however, that Army and
Air Force elements stationed in Japan totaled about
35,000 men. The Air Force and Army supply and ad-
ministrative elements are not affected by the first-stage
cutback.

The United States Government was also understood
to be studying Japanese requests for assistance in various
forms, totaling about $500 million.

In addition, Mr. Kishi was reported to have notified
the Administration that Japan would soon follow the
British lead and step up her non-strategic trade with
Communist China.

The Premier was said to have been unsuccessful in
his efforts to gain for Japan a voice in governing the
Ryukyu and Bonin Islands, territory seized by the
United States in World War II and now used for de-
fense purposes by this country.

The communique supplied generalities on all points
except the ground troop withdrawal agreement . . .

*From "U.S. Agrees to Withdraw Combat Troops in Japan; Studies 500
Mfflion in Aid," by Russell Baker, of the New York Times Washington Bureau.
New York Times, p 1+. June 22, 1957. Reprinted by permission.

THE NEW JAPAN 183

Administration officials emphasized that the decision
to start a military cutback in Japan was not prompted by
the controversial case of Specialist 3/c William S.
Girard. In fact, it was understood that the basic decision
had been taken some time ago but that the announce-
ment was delayed to coincide with Mr. Kishi's visit.

The communique, nevertheless, was a far cry from
the advance billing that was given the meeting by the
White House, which had said no specific agreements
were expected to result from the talks. Indeed, high
Army officials said tonight the troop withdrawal an-
nouncement caught them completely by surprise. It had
been their understanding that no reduction was planned
for some time yet. . . .

The basic decision . . . was being interpreted here
tonight as the start of a general United States military,
pullout from Japan phased to the buildup of Japanese
military forces.

There are several reasons for the United States
action. One primary factor from Washington's view-
point is budgetary. Another is the fact that the large
military community in Japan is an inevitable point of
friction increasingly apt to touch off trouble such as the
recent Taiwan (Formosa) riots and the dispute sur-
rounding the Girard case.

The communique said that an intergovernmental com-
mittee would be established to study the present Security
Treaty of 1951, under which the troops are kept in Japan.
The committee's functions will be to consult on the
disposition and use of United States forces in Japan
and to "assure that any action taken tinder the treaty
conforms to the principles of the United Nations
Charter.' 5

184 THE REFERENCE SHELF

JAPANESE SOCIALISTS MAP ANTI-WEST POLICY"

The Central Committee of the opposition Socialist
party concluded a two-day session . . . [on June 28,
1957] with adoption of a foreign policy report that
would, in effect, put Japan in a position of opposition
to the Western world.

It also adopted a "criticism" of Premier Nobusuke
Kishi's program of cooperation with the United States
that denounced almost everything the Premier did in his
. . . [June 1957] visit to the United States.

The eight-point program adopted as the Socialists'
foreign policy if they should win power was as follows :

1. Termination of the Japanese-United States Secu-
rity Treaty and immediate withdrawal of all United
States military units based here.

2. Revision of the 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty.

3. Full economic cooperation with the Soviet Union.

4. The immediate return to Japan of Okinawa and
the other Ryukyu and Bonin Islands.

5. Recognition of Communist China and establish-
ment of diplomatic relations with Peiping.

6. Early settlement of problems between Japan and
South Korea and peaceful unification of Korea.

7. Close economic cooperation with Southeast Asian
nations but without any financial assistance from the
United States.

8. Imposition of an international ban on the testing
or use of nuclear weapons and absolute prohibition of
their introduction into Japan.

" From "Kishi's Rivals Map Anti-West Policy." New Yoik Times. p3. June
29, 1957. Reprinted by permission.

THE JNJbAV JAfAJN

ATTEMPT TO BUILD SECURITY UPON PARADOX 1=

Our military relationships with Japan are based on
paradox. We imposed upon this defeated former enemy
a constitution forbidding all armed forces. By law the
Japanese cannot fight even a defensive war.

We also introduced democracy. This functions M>
well that a strong opposition prevents amendment of
crippling constitutional limitations. The arrangement
seemed all right in the peaceful world we dreamed of
once. But it falters now.

After the Korean conflict started we saw the illogic
of the situation. At our behest and quite illegally the
Japanese created an armed police and, from that nucleus,
what is euphemistically termed a Self -Defense Force.

This has been developing slowly too slowly for our
revised tastes. We would like it to grow into an army
of 180,000 soldiers, a small navy and an aviation of
thirty-three squadrons. If this happens within four
years we will be lucky.

The Japanese discovered advantages to living in an
American-protected incubator. It is inexpensive. Even
today . . . [Japan] invests only 1.3 per cent of its gross
national income in defense compared with 9 per cent
in the United States.

It insures democracy. When there is no army, or
at best a weak one, there can be no revival of a dominant
military class. And it is practical. The Japanese know
we must protect their islands in our own strategic in-
terest Therefore they can invest industrial energy that
might be expended on rearmament in the manufacture
of export goods.

From article by C. L. Sulrbcrgwr, columnist for the New Yoric Times. New
York Times. p!8. October 12, 1957. Reprinted by permission.

186 THE REFERENCE SHELF

As might be expected from all this, the result is dis-
tinct apathy on the subject of national defense. More
than two years ago we decided we could no longer af-
ford to heavily garrison Japan, that therefore we must
apply shock treatment to stimulate greater local effort.
This took the form of notice that we intended to reduce
and eventally to withdraw our forces.

Clever diplomacy made this economizing move ap-
pear as a gesture to our political friends. Many Japa-
nese thought, as the reduction became evident, that it
resulted from . . . [the] Kishi-Eisenhower talks. Thus
the Premier gained popularity; and we saved money.

But can Japan fill the vacuum now being created?
The present answer is no. Its ordnance industry lags.
Conventional arms manufacture remains inadequate.
And there has been virtually no start toward fabricating
weapons of the future.

Furthermore, because of a political situation we cre-
ated, the legal structure is hopelessly inadequate. There
is no security law. It is virtually impossible to prosecute
leakage of military secrets. Consequently, the United
States is reluctant to furnish truly modern equipment.
We won't risk giving this country such devices as Nike
missiles.

With its impressive industrial complex, Japan is East
Asia's greatest potential military power. But, relatively,
it becomes weaker every month as we withdraw. Across
the water is a Sino-Soviet force of eight thousand air-
craft, one hundred submarines and seventy-five combat
divisions.

Our security treaty with Japan has neither time limit
nor provision for abrogation. However, Tokyo is only
obligated to aid us in repelling aggression against these
islands. No clause covers the possibility of another
Korea or a Formosau war.

The agreement allows us bases. But were we to try
to operate from them in a conflict not resulting from
attack on the Japanese, we might find the going difficult.
A resentful population could sabotage our communica-
tions and render key points incommunicado. No matter
what treaties say, we remain here today as Tokyo's
military guests. The weaker our presence becomes, the
more this is true.

The paradox boils down to one all-important factor.
Japan's ultimate defense shelters beneath the umbrella
of our strategic striking power. In East Asian terms,
where is that power based? Upon Okinawa an island
\vhose Japanese sovereignty we figuratively acknowledge.

But our security treaty simply doesn't guarantee this
country would fight beside us in any Pacific war. There-
fore our generals and admirals calculate we cannot re-
linquish Okinawa, a quintessentially important base, The
threat of riposte from there is the greatest immediate
deterrent to assault on the island chain extending through
Japan and Formosa from the Aleutians to the Philip-
pines.

This will remain the case for years to come, even
when missiles replace planes. Our planners insist on re-
taining control of Okinawa as long as we face a power-
ful opponent in the Orient. Right now that seems to
imply "forever." But our tenure of Okinawa increas-
ingly poisons relations with Japan, America's most in-
fluential Eastern ally.

This embarrassment is still politely avoided in diplo-
matic exchanges. So, for that matter Is Article Nine of
the Constitution forbidding Japan "the right of bel-
ligerence." We cannot afford to let this country slip
from our political sphere. But we are building forces
which one day must repel it. "Paradox," says the dic-
tionary, is a "seemingly absurd though perhaps really
well-founded statement."

188 THE REFERENCE SHELF

JAPAN AND COMMUNIST CHINA 13

What Japanese think and feel about Communist
China is largely an outgrowth of their attitudes toward
the country itself and the Chinese people, attitudes that
long antedate the advent of the People's Republic. The
Japanese know a great deal about China, which plays an
important part in their lives. Ties with China go back to
the very beginnings of the Japanese nation. Over many
centuries China influenced profoundly the emerging Japa-
nese civilization. It provided Japan with its written
script and with some of its ethical foundation stones in
Buddhism and Confucianism. It gave the model for the
traditional educational system and the very forms in
which for centuries Japanese history was written. All
educated Japanese are well aware of these historic ties.

When educated Japanese and Chinese meet there
exists a common cultural bond. They understand the
same etiquette and have read the same classical literature.
Before dinner they can discuss poetry and painting, after
dinner they can play Chinese chess. They can fall back
on a common written script if there is any difficulty of
oral understanding. The cultural bonds which link Amer-
ica with England are hardly closer than those which
draw the two Asian neighbors together.

During the past fifty years Japan has been deeply in-
volved in China in wars against it or on its soil, in
control of Chinese territories and people (Manchuria
and Formosa), and in very close economic and cultural
relations. Hundreds of thousands of Japanese have lived
and worked in China, and scores of thousands of Chinese
have come to Japan to secure a modern education. Mil-

**From chapter entitled "Japan and the Rise of Communist China," by
C. Martin Wilbur, director, East Asian Institute, Columbia University, in Japan
Between East and West. Published for the Council on Foreign Relations by
Harper & Brothers. New York. 1957. p223-31. Reprinted by permission.

THE NEW JAPAN . 189

lions of Japanese young men served in the Army in China
between 1931 and 1945. Japan is full of "China experts"
and "old China hands."

Popular Attitudes Toward Communist China

It is not easy for an outsider to perceive, let alone
describe, the attitudes of one people toward another.
Without attempting so subtle an exercise, I should like
merely to suggest a few elements that enter into the
prevalent Japanese viewpoints on Communist China. One
is the feeling of close relationship, mentioned above,
which derives both from ancient cultural bonds and from
pre-1945 economic and personal ties. This makes the
present isolation from the mainland seem unnatural and
uncomfortable. It accounts in part for the lively interest
in all kinds of news of recent developments in China. It
may also account for a sense of gratification at China's
successes against the United States and at its evident
internal achievements.

In addition to the feeling of cultural indebtedness,
Japanese also seem to have a strong feeling of superi-
ority toward the Chinese. Perhaps this arises in part
from Japan's success in modernization while China
lagged so far behind. In Japanese accounts of the mate-
rial progress in China since 1949 there is a strong under-
tone of astonishment. Japanese seem quite confident of
their ability to understand the Chinese and to handle
them. Among some Japanese there are also evident feel-
ings of remorse and guilt at the way Japan mistreated
China in the past, and this in turn leads to the view that
Japanese have no grounds to criticize China for the
course it is following under communism. Statements by
Chinese leaders exonerating the Japanese people from
blame or disclaiming any desire for revenge seem to
make a deep impression.

190 THE REFERENCE SHELF

Japanese draw a clear line of distinction, whether
justified or not, between Communist China and Soviet
Russia. From reading the Japanese press, talking with
Japanese friends about the Communist problem, or
studying public opinion polls, one quickly observes that
the Japanese view Russia with a great deal of suspicion
and dislike. In part this is a legacy of more than a half
century of contest for influence in Manchuria and Korea
and for possession of Sakhalin and the Kuriles. In part
it is a reaction to Russia's having broken the nonaggres-
sion treaty of 1941 and plunged into the Pacific war at
the very moment when Japan was already suing for
peace. It is fanned by the belief that Russia held many
thousands of Japanese war prisoners for more than a
decade after their surrender and allowed the death by
disease and starvation of many thousands more.

Dislike of Russia does not seriously reduce the tra-
ditional affection for China merely because China has
adopted the Russian path toward socialism. There is a
strong belief that the Chinese revolution has been far
more humane than the Russian one. Many Japanese who
detest communism see no reason to fear Communist
China. Or, on the contrary, a Japanese may say, "There
is nothing wrong with communism, except that it was
first taken up by the Slavs, who are cold-blooded." . . .

It should be emphasized that there are great differ-
ences of emphasis within the left and liberal side of the
political spectrum. Communists are implacably anti-
American and unqualifiedly pro-Soviet. They stand at
the forefront, or just behind the scenes, of drives against
rearmament and against American bases. Right-wing
Socialists are more neutralist, more skeptical of the in-
tentions of Soviet Russia and China, and cautiously in
favor of a strictly controlled rearmament. Russia's brutal
intervention in Hungary shocked Japanese opinion, and

THE NEW JAPAN 191

Communist China's support of that action was not ap-
proved. The Socialists were split right and left, as to
where to place the blame for the Hungarian uprising
and its suppression. Many liberals are fond of America
but believe its policies toward Japan since the cold war
became intense have been misguided. On all these issues
there are many gradations of opinion.

The Political Parties and Communist China

Since 1953 the China problem has been of increasing
importance in Japanese politics, especially the question
of encouraging trade with China.

The platforms of the two major parties show clear
differences on relations with America and Communist
China. The conservative Liberal-Democratic party,
which controls about two thirds of the lower house, ad-
vocates "cooperation with free, democratic countries as
the keynote of diplomacy," It proposes to "promote re-
duction in the joint cost of defense, decrease in the num-
ber of military bases, and amendment of the Japan-
United States Security Treaty and the Administrative
Agreement." Referring to China and Russia, it promises
to "try to normalize or adjust diplomatic relations with
the countries with which such relations have not been
resumed/* It will "pursue economic diplomacy, and try
to expand trade with various countries, especially eco-
nomic cooperation with Southeast Asia and the promo-
tion of trade with Communist China. . . ."

These rather ambiguous statements of general aims
are accompanied by policies of promoting close coopera-
tion with the United States in trade and rearmament,
participation in the embargo against the sale of strategic
goods to Communist China, and the absence of any ob-
vious effort to enter into diplomatic relations with

192 THE REFERENCE SHELF

Peking. However, both Yoshida and Hatoyama, and
more recently Ishibashi and Kishi, have found the pres-
sure of public opinion and of some business groups run-
ning so strongly in favor of facilitating trade with China
that the government has taken some steps in that direc-
tion. The party's platform accepts this as necessary.
Furthermore, the government is moving toward forms
of quasi-recognition. ... [It has been] reported that a
postal agreement is likely to be concluded for the ex-
change of postal matter between China and Japan, al-
though the Foreign Office has pointed out that this step
has nothing to do with the question of recognition. . . .

The Social-Democratic party caps its views toward
the United States and Communist China by a broader
theory that Japan and China working together should
attempt to form a bridge between America and Russia
in the Far East. To bring this about Japan should per-
suade the United States to give up the Mutual Security
Treaty of September 1951, and China should persuade
Russia to give up the Sino-Soviet Treaty of February
1950, which unites those countries against the possibility
of attack by Japan or a country allied to it. Then the
security of both China and Japan should be guaranteed
by a multilateral collective security pact among the four
countries.

In sum, all Japanese political parties favor trade and
diplomatic relations with Communist China. They dis-
agree only on the manner and timing. To the Com-
munists and the left wing of the Social-Democratic party,
close relations with China are a point of cardinal im-
portance. They want full relations established immedi-
ately. Members of the right wing in the Socialist party
are troubled about the problem of Formosa and do not
wish to imperil good relations with the United States
through a precipitate move to open relations with China.
Leaders of the conservative party also favor trade and

THE NEW JAPAN 193

other relations but feel under heavy pressure from the
American government to delay and proceed cautiously.
They have held back, at some risk to their own political
positions, against the strong tide within Japanese pub-
lic opinion.

OUTLOOK FOR THE FUTURE

Japan is the only thoroughly modernized nation in
Asia, the only major center of industrial power, and the
only Asian country that has ranked as a first-rate mili-
tary power in modern times. Yet the free world has
made nothing of this great potential in its struggle
against totalitarianism. We have been content to keep
Japan a minor American problem rather than to help her
become a major asset for the democratic side.

If Japan does not become a major asset for our side,
there is always the possibility it is fortunately not a
probability at the present time that she might join the
Communist camp. As a working member of the opposi-
tion, she could easily restore herself as the greatest mili-
tary force in all Asia. Her industrial strength and tech-
nical skills would unquestionably insure the success of
the Chinese Communists. Such a defection, in fact,
might well prove the death blow to democratic hopes in
Asia.

What, in contrast to this possibility, has the free
world done to develop the Japanese potential? Very
little. Nothing significant has been attempted and, worse
still, neither the partisans of democracy in Japan nor
the leaders of the Western democracies even visualize
Japan in these terms.

"From "To Make
Reischatier, professor of
of Wanted: An Asian Policy,
1956. Reprinted by permission.

194 THE REFERENCE SHELF

Japan's possible contribution to the democracies falls
roughly into three categories military, economic and
ideological. And the most vital of these is the ideologi-
cal. It is clear that the military role of a democratic
Japan cannot in the foreseeable future be more than that
of a useful base for the free world and even then useful
only in a limited war. Her economic potential could in-
deed be as valuable to the democratic world as to the
Communists, not only in terms of goods and machines
(Japan represents the greatest concentration of factory
power in all Asia), but also through full use of her vast
technical knowledge. But it is in the third category that
Japan presents the potential of greatest value; her suc-
cess as a working democracy may prove to be a psycho-
logical factor of the greatest importance in the battle
for Asia.

A Demonstration of Democracy in Asia

It is no small thing that Asia's most advanced nation
is a living demonstration that democracy can work suc-
cessfully in an Asian cultural setting and at Asian eco-
nomic levels. The successes of this experiment in democ-
racy speak for themselves. The failures and they have
been many and serious would prove instructive as a
working plan of the pitfalls that threaten the newer
Asian democracies.

Many Asians, mostly notably the Chinese, have al-
ready abandoned their earlier hope that democracy is a
realistic pattern of social and political organization. The
problem, therefore, is not to convince them that ideal
democracy is a beautiful theory or even to demonstrate
to them that it has proved a marvelously successful
mechanism in some parts of the Western world. The
real problem is to convince them that it is a practical

THE NEW JAPAN 195

pattern for Asians and then to help them prove the
truth of this bold hypothesis in the face of the obvious
difficulties. Here the Japanese could help. Their experts
in sociological and political problems would probably be
of more value in Asian countries than would Western
experts in the same field, simply because the personal
experience of the Japanese economically and culturally
has always been closer to that of other Asian nations
than has our own.

We are not the only ones who have overlooked
Japan's various potentialities in the battle for Asia. The
Japanese themselves, as well as the other peoples of
Asia, have been equally blind. The Japanese still have
not recovered their self-confidence after their cata-
strophic attempt to carve out an empire and they are
content to leave to us the worries of solving the world's
problems.

Asian Attitudes Toward Japan

The blindness of the other peoples of Asia is still
easier to explain. Those closest to Japan fear the Japa-
nese for their past aggressions, hate them for the destruc-
tion and suffering their armies brought and despise them
for having failed in their foolhardy attempt to conquer
the Far East. Such antipathies become progressively
weaker the further west one goes in Asia, but they are
replaced not by respect for Japan but by complete in-
difference. All Asians, despite their emotional pan- Asian
bias, in reality continue to look toward the West and to
ignore with some disdain the rest of their own continent.
And Japan in particular is ignored by the other Asian
nations because its relationship with the United States is
commonly considered to be semi-colonial. . . .

While it is primarily up to the Japanese to determine
their own role in Asia, the United States can at least be

196 THE REFERENCE SHELF

of assistance in bringing Japan and the rest of Asia into
more beneficial contact with each other. Asian suspicion
and resentment of the United States unquestionably limit
our role as a sponsor in Asian society of an equally un-
popular Japan, but much can still be accomplished if we
are willing to exercise tact and imagination. We could
help the Japanese solve the disputes over reparations that
stand between them and some other Asian peoples; we
could do more than we are doing to use Japanese techni-
cal skills and industrial power in the economic aid pro-
grams we are sponsoring in Asia ; we could certainly help
the Japanese realize the full economic potentiality of
which they are capable.

More important than such specific steps, however,
would be a basic change in attitude. We have concen-
trated on Japan's very limited role as a military base and
thereby have allowed her more significant potential to go
begging. For just as a Japanese switch to communism
would probably prove the decisive factor in a Communist
triumph throughout Asia, Japan's continued success with
the democratic pattern of life might well prove the most
important psychological factor in the eventual victory of
democracy in that vast area.

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202 THE REFERENCE SHELF

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