I’m trying to wrap my head around how the USA and Japan shifted from being fierce enemies during World War II to becoming close allies in just a few decades. It seems like a huge turnaround in international relations from an American perspective. What happened and why this dramatic change?
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During the occupation and reconstruction of Japan, the US chose to ally with the existing class of elites. They had similar interests: mainly opposing communism, particularly the revolutionary sort of communism that involves peasants killing the elites.
Many of the same social class of people who were in charge of Japan before the war were in charge (or assisting American authorities) after the war. This meant that the US occupation had local allies who already held many of the powers of the government. There was no need to build a state from scratch.
For the Japanese authorities, their primary objective was maintaining the existing social order and avoiding any sort of Bolshevik style revolution that would see the Emperor killed, the country’s elites exterminated, and every symbol of Japanese culture destroyed and replaced by a cult of Marx- and alliance with the Americans was the most effective means to avert such a catastrophe for Japan’s ruling elite.
Both parties viewed rebuilding the Japanese economy and restoring the food supply as critical to keeping communism and revolution at bay. This shared goal meant that American and Japanese authorities worked together towards a common goal.
Disagreements did exist in some cases, but for their part the Japanese elites figured they could cooperate fully while the occupation was ongoing and just wait for the Americans to leave and then make any changes to their society afterwards- only to find out that many Japanese had become accustomed to new postwar way of life, and a return to the old ways wasn’t as easy as they had believed.
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