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Japan Economic Achievements and the Liberal Democratic Party
Throughout the postwar period, Japan's economy
continued to
boom, with results far outstripping expectations. Japan
rapidly
caught up with the West in foreign trade, gross national
product
(GNP--see Glossary),
and general quality of life
(see Living Standards
, ch. 4;
Postwar Development
, ch. 5). These
achievements
were underscored by the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games and the
Osaka
International Exposition (Expo '70) world's fair in 1970.
The high economic growth and political tranquillity of
the midto late 1960s were tempered by the quadrupling of oil
prices by the
Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)
in 1973.
Almost completely dependent on imports for petroleum,
Japan
experienced its first recession since World War II.
Despite its wealth and central position in the world
economy,
Japan has had little or no influence in global politics
for much of
the postwar period. Under the prime ministership of Tanaka
Kakuei
(1972-74), Japan took a stronger but still low-key stance
by
steadily increasing its defense spending and easing trade
frictions
with the United States. Tanaka's administration was also
characterized by high-level talks with United States,
Soviet, and
Chinese leaders, if with mixed results. His visits to
Indonesia and
Thailand prompted riots, a manifestation of long-standing
antiJapanese sentiments
(see Relations with Other Asia-Pacific Countries
, ch. 7). Tanaka was forced to resign in 1974
because of
his alleged connection to financial scandals and, in the
face of
charges of involvement in the Lockheed bribery scandal, he
was
arrested and jailed briefly in 1976.
By the late 1970s, the Komeito and the Democratic
Socialist
Party had come to accept the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation
and
Security, and the Democratic Socialist Party even came to
support
a small defense buildup. The Japan Socialist Party, too,
was forced
to abandon its once strict antimilitary stance. The United
States
kept up pressure on Japan to increase its defense spending
above 1
percent of its GNP, engendering much debate in the Diet,
with most
opposition coming not from minority parties or public
opinion but
from budget-conscious officials in the Ministry of Finance
(see Defense Spending
, ch. 8).
The fractious politics of the LDP hindered consensus in
the
Diet in the late 1970s. The sudden death of Prime Minister
Ohira
Masayoshi just before the June 1980 elections, however,
brought out
a sympathy vote for the party and gave the new prime
minister,
Suzuki Zenko, a working majority. Suzuki was soon swept up
in a
controversy over the publication of a textbook that
appeared to
many of Japan's former enemies as a whitewash of Japanese
aggression in World War II. This incident, and serious
fiscal
problems, caused the Suzuki cabinet, composed of numerous
LDP
factions, to fall.
Nakasone Yasuhiro, a conservative backed by the
still-powerful
Tanaka and Suzuki factions who once served as director
general of
the Defense Agency, became prime minister in November
1982. Several
cordial visits between Nakasone and United States
president Ronald
Reagan were aimed at improving relations between their
countries.
Nakasone's more strident position on Japanese defense
issues made
him popular with some United States officials but not,
generally,
in Japan or among Asian neighbors. Although his
characterization of
Japan as an "unsinkable aircraft carrier," his noting the
"common
destiny" of Japan and the United States, and his calling
for
revisions to Article 9 of the Constitution (which
renounced war as
the sovereign right of the nation), among other
prorearmament
statements, produced negative reactions at home and
abroad, a
gradual acceptance emerged of the Self-Defense Forces and
the
mutual security treaty with the United States in the
mid-1980s.
Another serious problem was Japan's growing trade
surplus,
which reached record heights during Nakasone's first term
(see
Foreign Trade Policies;
Trade and Investment Relations
, ch. 5). The
United States pressured Japan to remedy the imbalance,
demanding
that Tokyo raise the value of the yen and open its markets
further
to facilitate more imports from the United States. Because
the
Japanese government aids and protects its key industries,
it was
accused of creating an unfair competitive advantage. Tokyo
agreed
to try to resolve these problems but generally defended
its
industrial policies and made concessions on its trade
restrictions
very reluctantly.
In November 1984, Nakasone was chosen for a second term
as LDP
president. His cabinet received an unusually high rating,
a 50
percent favorable response in polling during his first
term, while
opposition parties reached a new low in popular support.
As he
moved into his second term, Nakasone thus held a strong
position in
the Diet and the nation. Despite being found guilty of
bribery in
1983, Tanaka in the early to mid-1980s remained a power
behind the
scenes through his control of the party's informal
apparatus, and
he continued as an influential adviser to the more
internationally
minded Nakasone. The end of Nakasone's tenure as prime
minister in
October 1987 (his second two-year term had been extended
for one
year) was a momentous point in modern Japanese history.
Just
fifteen months before Nakasone's retirement, the LDP
unexpectedly
had won its largest majority ever in the House of
Representatives
by securing 304 out of the 512 seats. Despite the solid
conservative majority, the government was faced with
growing
crises. Land prices were rapidly increasing, inflation
increased at
the highest rate since 1975, unemployment reached a record
high at
3.2 percent, bankruptcies were rife, and there was
political rancor
over LDP-proposed tax reform. In the summer of 1987,
economic
indicators showed signs of recovery, but on October 20,
1987, the
same day Nakasone officially named his successor,
Takeshita Noboru,
the Tokyo Stock Market crashed. Japan's economy and its
political
system had reached a watershed in their postwar
development that
would continue to play out into the 1990s.
* * *
Many histories of Japan are available to Western
readers. H.
Paul Varley's A Syllabus of Japanese Civilization
provides
a structure for studying Japanese history while suggesting
useful
additional readings. Short general overview histories
include Edwin
O. Reischauer's Japan: The Story of a Nation, Edwin
O.
Reischauer and Albert M. Craig's Japan: Tradition and
Transformation, Richard Storry's A History of
Modern
Japan, and Conrad Totman's Japan Before Perry.
More
detailed studies are Richard Pearson's Ancient
Japan, John
Whitney Hall's Japan: From Prehistory to Modern
Times,
Arthur E. Tiedemann's An Introduction to Japanese
Civilization, and George B. Sansom's three-volume A
History
of Japan. Feudalism in Japan by Peter Duus
provides an
excellent overview of the evolution from tribal rule to
premodern
Japan, while Studies in the Institutional History of
Early
Modern Japan, edited by John Whitney Hall and Marius
B. Jansen,
is an excellent analytical collection on the Tokugawa
period. A
similar collection, covering the Meiji, Taisho, and Showa
periods,
is Harry Wray and Hilary Conroy's Japan Examined.
Books by
Donald Keene (The Japanese Discovery of Europe,
1720-1830)
and Michael Cooper (They Came to Japan) are useful
in
understanding the dynamics of Japanese-Western relations
starting
in the sixteenth century. The Rise of Modern Japan
by Peter
Duus, The Modern History of Japan by W.G. Beasley,
and
Political Development in Modern Japan by Robert E.
Ward
provide useful information on the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries.
Analyses and translations of historical works are found
in
Ryusaku Tsunoda and colleagues' Sources of Japanese
Tradition. Another excellent reference is the
nine-volume
Kodansha Encyclopedia of Japan. The Cambridge
History of
Japan, four of the six volumes of which have been
published,
provides in-depth analyses of many topics. (For further
information
and complete citations,
see
Bibliography.)
Data as of January 1994
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