Defeat, Reconstruction and Renewal-- Reading Notes for Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II

Abstract After the war, Japan fell into a state of decadence and isolation. Under the transformation and support of the United States, the former defeated country was revived into the world's second largest economy, and the former sworn enemies, the United States and Japan, became close allies. In this book, Doyle focuses on social and cultural developments, recounting the many dramatic changes that took place in Japan between 1945 and 1952. He summarises the experience and understanding of Japan's defeat, looking at the journey from the perspective of the Japanese people and trying to find out what defeat meant to Japan. Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II is not only an important part of international Japan studies, but also another pathway for people to look back on the war.

Keywords Embracing Defeat, Japan-US Relations, Post-War Reconstruction

I. Background of the book

The first generation of researchers were diplomats and missionaries in the usual sense, who provided a panoramic introduction of Japan to the West, but these research documents often lacked professionalism and topicality; the second generation of researchers was represented by scholars such as Reischauer and Benedict, who drew on their personal experiences of growing up and contact with the Japanese The third generation, which emerged after the Pacific War, began to integrate regional and disciplinary studies and was the backbone of postwar American Japan studies; the more active scholars on Japan are now the fourth generation, who cover a wider range of scientific perspectives and subject areas, and whose works, such as those of Fu Gao-Yi and Chalmers Johnson, have increasingly inspired The works of Fu Gaoyi, Chalmers Johnson and others are increasingly inspiring further exploration and reflection by contemporary scholars of Japan studies.

As a student of Reischauer's, John Doyle began his study of Japan during its period of rapid economic growth, but did not publish his book Embracing Defeat until 1999, by which time Japan had fallen into a prolonged economic slump, the whole country was once again empty after piercing its dream of prosperity, the country and society did not know where to go, and no one was repeating the "Japan First No one was repeating the myth of "Japan first". As Doyle himself says, to understand where Japan stands at the beginning of the twenty-first century, it is necessary to understand the so-called "Showa era" and the uniqueness of Japan, forged during the war years, reinforced by defeat and occupation, and created by a chronic fear of national weakness and the need for protection in order to achieve maximum economic growth. The "Japanese model", or the "occupying army model".

The seven years of the early post-war period are undoubtedly the richest in material, the most dramatic in social change, and the most appropriate period to study in order to understand this model, as Doyle calls it. The author's intention and purpose in describing this period is not only to learn from history, but also to observe how Japan understands its defeat today, in order to help the world, including Japan, to be more committed to "peace and democracy".

II. Contents of the Bibliography

(I) The Ruins of Defeat

Benedict's description has probably become the first impression most people have of Japan: aggressive but gentle, militaristic but beautiful, arrogant and self-respecting but polite, etc. Whether her description is accurate or not, what we can observe is that Japan did lay down its arms the moment Emperor Hirohito Tamayo released the Edict of Final War, and even when MacArthur landed in Japan there was no resistance or attack - MacArthur had feared leading too few American troops and being attacked by the Japanese, but the Japanese surprised him It cannot be surprising to think of the assassinations of Nicholas II in 1891 and Li Hongzhang in 1895, which were unexpectedly stable.

Of course, getting the Japanese to fully accept defeat was difficult, and by the time the fighting continued in 1945 the wealth and population lost in the war could not be accurately calculated, the figures quoted by Doyle suggesting that some 4% of the population had died, 25% of the wealth had been destroyed, 30% of the civilian population had been left homeless and 66 major cities had been virtually razed to the ground. The streets of Japan were flooded with refugees, some of whom were homeless because of the war, and others were repatriated servicemen overseas, to whom Japanese society showed no tolerance, but rather alienation and abandonment.

The apathy and alienation shown by Japanese society after the war meant not only that Japan was materially wiped out of resistance, but more importantly a breakdown of faith that left a complete vacuum morally, spiritually and physically. Liberated from the mental strain of 15 years of war, the Japanese entered a state of defeat and confusion, manifesting itself in social disorder and moral collapse. Doyle accurately captured this shift in social mentality, during a period when the social elite continued to live in squalor, taking advantage of their position to sell goods; but the private sector was rampant with a black market, the people were in a state of disarray, epidemics were spreading, women were selling their bodies for a living, crime and suicide There were many crimes and suicides. As a result, a decadence and nihilism, known as "Kasatori culture", which originated in Japan, spread.

The first two chapters of the book, 'Victors and Losers' and 'Beyond Despair', depict such a degenerate Japanese society - escapist idealism, sexually provocative excitement and naked vulgarity. The nakedly low class. It was in this environment that the great social vacuum in Japan needed to be filled, and MacArthur and the United States played such a role. Some scholars have argued that, like the relationship between the American soldier and 'Pan Pan', Japan's transformation from brutal aggressor to docile conquered after its defeat led to its eroticisation in the eyes of the US, suggesting that Japan-US relations were like a hypothetical relationship between a man and a woman.

(Ⅱ) US-led democratisation reforms

If one were to count the three most important reforms in Japanese history, they would undoubtedly be the Daika Reform, the Meiji Restoration and the post-war democratisation reforms. The Japanese had no lack of experience of such top-down reforms, and even sought change in each case because they realised the gap between themselves and other powers, the only difference being that this post-war reform introduced an American element, particularly a strong military man like MacArthur.

In China, MacArthur is always jokingly referred to as the "Five Star Emperor", but I think this is debatable because it is actually judging the Japanese emperor system from the perspective of the Chinese emperor system, which rarely wielded real power, but MacArthur's Allied High Command had extraordinary centralised power and sometimes interfere directly with the running of Japan, but mostly relied on the existing Japanese government to give orders. In the sense of MacArthur's relationship with the Japanese government, MacArthur would be more aptly compared to the 'Shogun'.

In any case, MacArthur was indeed a special figure, representing the status of the American victor. He embraced American freedom, but also, of course, military autocracy and the arrogance that comes with military success. Although military authority and political democracy have always been at odds, fortunately Japan was not yet comfortable with democracy and was more accepting of MacArthur's dictatorship; after all, the enemy's supreme commander was both awe-inspiring and fascinating, and his remarkable organisational and performance skills soon captured the hearts and minds of the Japanese. Nevertheless, MacArthur, as the ruler of an alien civilisation, found it tricky to implement an unprecedented sociological experiment in an Eastern country steeped in feudal traditions for thousands of years and home to 80 million people. Fortunately, the Americans had realised that the Japanese state apparatus was centred on the emperor, with a trio of military, bureaucrats and oligarchs exercising political power, and that reform of Japan would therefore first need to take into account whether the emperor's system would stay or go.

As early as 1942, Washington was aware of the importance of the emperor and discussed what to do with Emperor Hirohito and the imperial system. The advice of MacArthur, the good offices of Japanese officials and the flexibility of Emperor Hirohito himself led the Truman administration to agree to retain the imperial system while restoring Japan's military power to a limited extent. In the Tokyo trial, the court punished as many former Japanese government officials as possible, but was extremely ambiguous about the emperor's treatment, with all war criminals tacitly careful to avoid implicating the emperor himself and the United States intent on exonerating Hirohito.

Nevertheless, there was a need to revamp the emperor's system, and in addition to issuing the Declaration of Humanity and touring the country, the High Command was planning to draft a new constitution. MacArthur had pinned his hopes on Japan's own revision of the constitution, but it was clear that the drafts of Fumimaro Konoe and Matsumoto Mitsuruji did not satisfy him. Japan's own constitutional committee, composed mostly of privileged men born in the Meiji era and themselves part of the old system, was almost impossible to hope for self-reinvention, and the result of the revision was nothing more than an old constitution with a few changes of wording that completely failed to understand the the historical juncture at which Japan finds itself. So, combining the amendments proposed by private citizens and other political parties, MacArthur appointed Whitney to lead this revision, and he proposed only three principles: (1) to retain the emperor system; (2) to renounce the right to war; and (3) to abolish the feudal system. Whitney accomplished his task brilliantly and this constitution, according to him, constituted a dramatic shift in political thought from the far right to the left without ever succumbing to the radical ideas of the far left.

Despite the fact that Japan was an occupied country, the United States formally respected the Japanese government and did not declare the new constitution in force directly, but forwarded it to the cabinet and parliament for adoption. Emperor Hirohito himself was pleased that this constitution preserved himself and the imperial system, and so the new constitution was adopted without incident. The international pacifism, democracy and sovereignty of the people embodied in the new constitution restrained Japan's right to war, and the United States 'gifted' Japan with democracy, while the Emperor remained the symbol of the nation.

(Ⅲ) A new lease of life

One of the most interesting topics in Western studies of Japan is the post-war economic take-off of Japan, in which the Dodge Plan and the outbreak of the Korean War played an important role, especially the latter, which led directly to the rearmament and economic transfusion of Japan by the United States and dragged Japan directly from the "outside world" into the Western world. Japan was soon able to reap the benefits, as many companies not only imported large quantities of raw materials and semi-finished products, but were also able to upgrade their equipment and acquire advanced foreign technology, giving the Japanese economy an immediate impetus to grow significantly.

Although the Allied High Command was abolished in 1952, its organisational model of intervention in the running of Japanese society was inherited by the Japanese government, particularly the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (now the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry), which was not cleansed by the defeat and where the old bureaucracy and institutions were retained, and the ensuing wartime mobilisation system, with its high concentration of capital in a few zaibatsu, allowed some of the pre-war institutions to be recreated after the war. However, this could not be called a return to pre-war Japan, where both the US and Japanese governments were intent on dismantling the old zaibatsu and hereditary families, but this new model of capitalism was indeed more flexible and resilient than the previous model of zaibatsu domination.

In contrast to the US model of the regulatory state, the Japanese economic model is also known as the development-oriented state model, where officials who set economic policy often enjoyed high authority and through a variety of economic and industrial policies the government was able to rapidly foster much-needed industries and grow the economy. However, some argue that this was actually a continuation or even development of Japan's wartime bureaucracy in the economic sphere, and that the United States was effectively given back some of its regulatory authority and the institutionalisation of a system of foreign trade and foreign exchange control by Japan.

In addition to this, because of the Korean War, Japan gained rearmament, but the proponents of the Yoshida line were not interested in developing the military, and Shigeru Yoshida spoke out against rearmament, arguing that it would not only be unhelpful to the economy but would also provoke scorn from its neighbours, even though it would have little practical effect. But Japan's reflection and repentance stemmed from a sense of powerlessness in the face of defeat. For political reasons and cultural traditions, they did not feel guilty for starting the war or for hurting the people of other countries; they believed that the backwardness of science and technology had led to defeat and to Japan's present state. With MacArthur's removal from office, Japan was increasingly removed from the depression of defeat, and with the help of the United States achieved a one-sided peace, even sweeping the Western market with its industrial power in the 1960s, so much so that Takayoshi Fu was able to write his book "Japan First" and Japan was considered to have completely emerged from defeat.

Ⅲ.The connotation of "Embrace" and the analysis of the bibliography

From the point of view of writing, the book is rich in historical information and detailed, and Doyle is indeed very good at using a subtle story to attract people, which is necessary from the point of view of pluralism and all-class perspective. Nevertheless, Doyle devotes too much space to the minutiae of the story, which makes the book too long and weakens the theoretical analysis of key historical facts.

Doyle's use of the term 'Embracing' to describe post-war Japan reveals four dimensions: firstly, the Japanese militancy, which made them deeply submissive to American force, accepting and even welcoming the arrival of the victor; secondly, the ambivalence of Japanese fierceness and docility, which led to Thirdly, the Americans brought about the reconstruction of democracy, revolution and demilitarisation on a material level, and Japan also gained a spiritual rebirth, "embracing" once more meant liberation and hope; fourthly, and most importantly in the author's view, from today's perspective, Japan and the United States have since become In other words, it was Japan and the US - the defeated and the victorious powers - who "embraced" defeat and continue to shape the Japanese and American perception of the world today.

But while Doyle stresses that he does not view post-war Japan from a condescending Western perspective, I believe that the sympathy he shows for Japan is a failure to recognise the roots of Japan's defeat. From today's standpoint, we can say that this sociological experiment conducted by the Americans was imperfect, that even the Japanese themselves were not fully aware of the mistakes of the war or the root causes of their defeat, and that the quest for power and a return to normalcy dominated Japan's right-wing politics, causing today's Asian neighbours to express deep concern about the resurgence of Japanese militarism.

The legacy of the class limitations of the Meiji Restoration Movement's constitutional ills ultimately incurred dire consequences, and it was this harrowing experience of social dysfunction that led many Japanese to recognise the brutality of war, but more often than not, contemporary Japanese only stand in their own way against the war, ignoring the enormous disasters and losses that Japan had inflicted on other countries, and which Doyle did not clearly illustrate. Without a proper understanding of history, it is difficult to guarantee that it will not repeat itself, and as the author himself says, neither the conceptual debate nor the heavy historical memory is unique to Japan in the struggle for "peace and democracy".