SETTING SUN—RISING SUN Japan: The Last Twenty Years

By RICHARD STORRY

MR. SIIIGEMITSU and his Foreign Office aides wore black top hats and morning coats. General Umezu and the other representatives of the Supreme Command were in fielddress, with the ribbons of their decorations. For the van- quished, ceremonial formality was an imperfect shield. A thousand eyes stared down at them from the decks, the gun turrets, the hoists of USS Missouri. As Mr. Kase (who was at Shigemitsu's side) recalls, the pressure of that curious, hostile gaze was hard to bear. It weighed upon the Japanese like a physical pain. On that hot Septem- ber day, the victors, in open-neck shirts of khaki or white, included those who had once faced what the Japanese delegation was now called upon to endure. But Percival at Bukit Timah, Wainwright at Bataan, had surrendered fortresses and armies. In Tokyo Bay on September 2, 1945, a nation submitted to its enemies.

Ten days earlier, the first American troops had landed at Atsugi. They were driven in local trans- port to Yokohama, which was to be the head- quarters of the Eighth Army. As they entered what was left of the City—a 'desolation of rubble and ash—a surprising sight met their eyes. A Japanese soldier stood on guard at every inter- section, rifle and bayonet tucked horizontally under the arm. But each man had his back to the convoy and seemed to ignore it. The posture implied no disrespect. It was a precaution against attack by ultra-nationalist fanatics.

For from the moment when, on August 15, the Emperor had broadcast to the Japanese that he would 'bear the unbearable,' the one concern of the authorities was that relations with the Americans should be marred by no discord of any kind. And, in fact, the adamantine, irrecon- cilable, minority was no more than a handful— a few young airmen dropping leaflets that said the war must go on, some die-hards who blew themselves up with hand-grenades on Atagoyama hill, others who killed themselves in front of the palace walls. This was the last spasm of furor nipponicus; until that atrocious occasion in October 1960 when a half-crazed youth stabbed the socialist Asanuma to death in full view of the television cameras.

That the Occupation, lasting six and a half Years, proved to be a cordial and fructifying affair was thanks as much to the good sense of the Japanese people as to the vision of those who served MacArthur. However, it is worth remembering that during the early days the ex- ample set by the Emperor had a decisive in- fluence in the chaotic conditions of that time.

After the surrender, the Emperor was willing to retire from the throne in favour of his elder son, Akihito, then' no more than a boy. In the history of the imperial line abdication was so usual as to have been an honoured tradition. Still, that was in the past, before Japan became a modern state. Abdication during the first years of the Occupation could have destroyed the monarchy. It would have implied that there was a permanent and indissoluble link between the military high command and the imperial house, that when the one was discreditedthe other would

Richard Storry is author of A History of Modern Japan and The Double Patriots.

have to go. But the Japanese monarchy had been a civilised and civilising institution long before the first two-sworded samurai was ever heard of. The hegemony of the warrior was a usurpation of imperial prestige, and never more so, perhaps, than during the 1930s, when the throne was occu- pied by a scientist of a liberal and reflective cast of mind who was angered and dismayed by the excesses of his own army. Extraordinary circum- stances in August 1945 enabled him to call a halt to this abuse of power. In the last resort it was the Emperor's decision that brought Japanese resistance to an end and set the course for energetic co-operation with the Americans.

The position of the Emperor after Japan's defeat was acutely vulnerable. It was true that he had not filled a prominent role in the demonology of the Allies. It was nearly always Tojo who was bracketed, in the popular mind, with Hitler and Mussolini as Public Enemy No. I. There was a general feeling, nevertheless, that the Emperor of Japan must share responsibility for Pearl Harbor and all that followed. Especially, perhaps, to Americans, with their built-in anti- pathy to crowned heads, it seemed only natural that he should be called to account, once Japan had surrendered. As for the Russians, they de- manded the punishment of the Emperor as a war criminal. and the immediate abolition of the monarchy. A less resolute and, it must be said, less self-opinionated and dogmatic generalissimo than MacArthur might have failed to handle Washington with the required compound of firm- ness and finesse-, and ,so retain for the Japanese a beloved, if fragile, symbol of continuity and social cohesion. Things could have been different if Roosevelt had lived. Would he have allowed his satrap such untrammelled power to shape events?

Nowadays it tends to be forgotten, but in the first intolerable winter of peace, 1945-46, Japanese society was close to fundamental disintegration and collapse. Nobody could keep alive unless he dealt with the black market. A former judge tried to exist—for old-fashioned ethical reasons —solely on the ration scale authorised by the government. He died of starvation. There were other, less publicised, instances of the kind. Until 1946 only a few rudimentary shacks were built upon the ash-heaps. Meanwhile, like the members of some wholly different species, the Occupation forces lived and worked in their own well-heated preserves. The surviving good-class houses, the best rolling stock, all the large hotels still standing—these were commandeered for the exclusive use of the foreigners. There was and is `They ought to sit round a conference table.' no indication that this state of affairs was generally resented at the time. On the contrary, by those with energy to spare for emotions beyond their own concerns the Americans were much admired. The past' had been hell; the present was little better; the future could not be foreseen. Most traditions now seemed ridiculdus. Honour had lost its meaning. Hope lay, so every- one said, in the spread of freedom and democracy —in other words, with the Americans.

It is significant that the first popular tune of that post-war winter was 'The Apple Song,' in simple praise of eating a red apple in the clear blue open air. For all its intimations of hope, of relief that the war was over, the song had a terrible pathos, as though composed by someone. still in the trough of a nervous breakdown. Recovery, indeed, took some time. Japan was slower off •the mark than West Germany. The first shot in the arm came, of course, from the Korean war.•By September 1951, when peaCe was signed at San Francisco, Japan's industrial economy was once more a going concern. Since then there have been some pauses, but the ad- vance has been stupendous, at a pace faster than that of any other- nation.

When the measurable contributory factors have been assessed—UN procurements, Ameri- can aid on the broadest scale, the land reform, relatively low costs in certain sectors, the generous bank loans, the incomplete trade union structure, savings on defence and social over- heads—success has been due, above all else, to a cause familiar and indeed banal; namely, hard work by millions of skilled and literate men and women. The consequences for the average Japanese, in terms of material well-being, have been spectacular. For example, the phrase, `leisure boom,' was already a cliché three or four years ago. It means, among other things, exuberant overcrowding of beaches in summer, of ski resorts in winter. By contrast with the trading position before the war, the export drive is based on a thriving home market. Japan will soon be a mass middle-class society. To this degree only, it is 'Americanised.'

Whether, over the past twenty years, economic progress has been matched by a comparable ad- vance in other fields is an open question. But the spirit of the post-war constitution (the out- standing achievement, with the land reform, of the Occupation years) has permeated the climate of public opinion. So, although the tyranny of custom and the insolence of office are not neces- sarily abated by written guarantees, the corrupt and oppressive, and even the censorious, tend to be on the defensive. The pre-war generation may complain, with good reason at times, that liberty has become licence since 1945. Yet the threat to freedom arises, as often as not, from a kind of innocence rather than from vice.

The student demonstrators who sought to mob the Diet in 1960 were propelled by a high- minded fervour beyond manipulation by the cyni- cal and clear-headed. Admiration for Com- munist China is a guilt-offering even from those far too young to have seen the troopships leave for Shanghai. It was commendable, if naive, idealism—the profound but increasingly wistful attachment to the war-renouncing clause in the

constitution—that was outraged by budding re- armament after 1950, and by the Bikini hydrogen bomb incident of 1954. This sentiment is a lively force at the present time, influencing opinion on developments in Vietnam.

The first Chinese Bomb—an unpleasant post- script to the Olympic Games—brought some realism to the thinking of the Japanese left. But a double standard still obtains. It works against Washington and in favour of Peking. For the relationship with the United States has impinged, in a peculiarly direct and tangible manner, on every single inhabitant of Japan from the day the Missouri dropped anchor off Yokohama; or, for that matter, from December 7, 1941 (Hono- lulu time). In the eyes of the Japanese the Americans are both heroes and, demons. During the Occupation honeymoon, the first couple of Years after the surrender, the Americans repre- sented a genuinely liberating political force. The retributive side of their policy was accepted with- out demur, because in those years nothing too harsh could be said about militarism and its baneful effects.

When Occupation planning was seen to change its. emphasis from reform to retrenchment—a process very evident towards the end of ,1948 —the people of Japan were taken by surprise. The cold war attracted little interest. The rape of Prague and the Berlin blockade did not dis- turb the Japanese. In 1949 the headlong progress of Mao's armies was followed with no more than desultory attention in Japan. The Korean war, though a godsend to the economy, evoked unwelcome memories. The facts of international life were shut out from the conscious mind. Millions cherished the not ignoble dream that their homeland, Japan, could enjoy a status

unique in the world, as a permanently disarmed national community.

American insistence that this could not be so was, indeed, accepted. But in the process the standing of America was not enhanced. Appro- bation gave way to distrust, and the alliance now seemed more of a risk than a safeguard. Some- what ironically it was the magnanimous archi- tect of the San Francisco treaty, John Foster Dulles, who, as Secretary of State, aroused the keenest fears. Good personal relations with in- dividual Americans were not impaired. Yet genuine respect for the United States did not return until the Kennedy era. Since then the barometer has fallen a point or two; and the outlook, alas, is again unsettled.

From time to time, well-meaning diplomats, strategists and politicians, American and Euro- pean, urge Japan to play a bolder part in world affairs. Since Nehru's death, and perhaps because of her defeat by the Chinese, India is no longer so widely regarded as the most hopeful example of a working democracy in Asia. Japan, on the other hand, has been discovered, at last. Perhaps it was the Tokyo Olympics that did the trick. At all events, as the Chinese shadow lengthens, so favour shines more strongly on Japan.

But great expectations—like exhortations—are unjustified. In two, decades the Japanese have directed their considerable talents towards achiev- ing, successively, survival, recovery and rapid economic growth. They have, it seems, no in- clination yet to turn to other tasks. It is, indeed, fitting that they should play only a cautious part in international politics and diplomacy. This policy does nobody any harm and attracts certain benefits. It is rash, at this stage, to' seek to induce a change.