Japan: Postwar Japan

Postwar Japan

The elections in 1952 kept the conservative Liberal party and Premier Shigeru Yoshida in power. In Nov., 1954, the Japan Democratic party was founded. This new group attacked governmental corruption and advocated stable relations with the USSR and Communist China. In Dec., 1954, Yoshida resigned, and Ichiro Hatoyama, leader of the opposition, succeeded him. The Liberal and Japan Democratic parties merged in 1955 to become the Liberal Democratic party (LDP). Hatoyama resigned because of illness in 1956 and was succeeded by Tanzan Ishibashi of the LDP. Ishibashi was also forced to resign because of illness and was followed by fellow party member Nobusuke Kishi in 1957.

In the 1950s Japan signed peace treaties with Taiwan, India, Burma (Myanmar), the Philippines, and Indonesia. Reparations agreements were concluded with Burma (Myanmar), the Philippines, Indonesia, and South Vietnam, with reparations to be paid in the form of goods and services to stimulate Asian economic development. In 1951, Japan signed a security treaty with the United States, providing for U.S. defense of Japan against external attack and allowing the United States to station troops in the country. New security treaties with the United States were negotiated in 1960 and 1970. Many Japanese felt that military ties with the United States would draw them into another war. Student groups and labor unions, often led by Communists, demonstrated during the 1950s and 1960s against military alliances and nuclear testing.

Prime Minister Kishi was forced to resign in 1960 following the diet's acceptance, under pressure, of the U.S.-Japanese security treaty. He was succeeded by Hayato Ikeda, also of the LDP. Ikeda led his party to two resounding victories in 1960 and 1963. He resigned in 1964 because of illness and was replaced by Eisaku Sato, also of the LDP. Sato overcame strong opposition to his policies and managed to keep himself and his party in firm control of the government throughout the 1960s.

Opposition to the government because of its U.S. ties abated somewhat in the early 1970s when the United States agreed to relinquish its control of the Ryukyu Islands, including Okinawa, which had come under U.S. administration after World War II. All of the Ryukyus formally reverted to Japanese control in 1972. In that same year, Sato resigned and was succeeded by Kakuei Tanaka, also a Liberal Democrat. For his efforts in opposing the development of nuclear weapons in Japan, Sato was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1974. Later that year, Tanaka resigned and was replaced as prime minister by Takeo Miki, another Liberal Democrat. Miki, who became embroiled in a scandal over his personal finances, was replaced by Takeo Fukuda. Though Fukuda was considered to be an expert in economic policy, he had difficulty in combating the economic downturn of the late 1970s. He was replaced by Masayoshi Ohira, who died in office in 1980 and was replaced by Zenko Suzuki.

In 1982, the more outspoken Yasuhiro Nakasone took office. He argued for an increase in Japan's defensive capability, extended his second term by an extra year, and appointed his own successor, Noboru Takeshita. The terms of both Takeshita and his replacement, Sosuke Uno, were cut short by influence-peddling and other scandals that shook the LDP and caused a public outcry for governmental reform. In the general election of 1989, the LDP lost in the upper house of the parliament for the first time in 35 years; nonetheless, LDP president Toshiki Kaifu became prime minister later that year. He drew much criticism for pledging $9 million to the United States for military operations in the Persian Gulf, and in 1991 he was succeeded as prime minister by Kiichi Miyazawa.

After the LDP split over the issue of political reforms in 1993, the Miyazawa government fell. None of Japan's political parties managed to win a majority in the subsequent elections. An opposition coalition formed a government and Morihiro Hosokawa became prime minister. Hosokawa resigned in 1994 and was succeeded by fellow coalition member Tsutomi Hata, who resigned after just two months in office. In June, 1994, Tomiichi Murayama was named prime minister of an unlikely coalition of Socialists (who later became the Social Democrats) and Liberal Democrats, thus becoming the nation's first Socialist leader since 1948.

During 1995, Japan was shaken by two major disasters. The worst earthquake in Japan in more than 70 years struck the Kobe region on Jan. 17, killing more than 6,400 people. On Mar. 20, lethal nerve gas was released through plastic bags left in the Tokyo subway system by members of the Aum Shinrikyo religious group; 13 people were killed, and more than 5,000 others suffered ill effects.

Murayama resigned as prime minister early in 1996 and was succeeded by LDP leader Ryutaro Hashimoto. In 1997, Japan suffered a major economic crisis resulting from the failure of stock brokerage firms and banks. The financial industry was rocked by scandals, leading to a number of prosecutions and, in early 1998, the resignation of the finance minister and the governor of the Bank of Japan, the nation's central bank. Although Prime Minister Hashimoto announced a program of tax cuts and spending to spur the economy, Japan slipped into its deepest recession since the end of World War II. The country's bad debt was estimated at near $1 trillion when Keizo Obuchi was elected head of the LDP and succeeded Hashimoto as prime minister in mid-1998. In Oct., 1998, the parliament approved legislation to allow the government to nationalize failing banks and to commit more than $500 billion to rescue the nation's banking system. By the time Japan's economy began to revive somewhat in 1999, the government had spent more than $1 trillion in a series of economic stimulus packages that included numerous public works projects.

In Jan., 1999, the LDP agreed to form a coalition government with the Liberal party, and the New Komeito party (a Buddhist-influenced party) later joined the coalition. The Liberals withdrew from the government in Apr., 2000. Shortly afterward, Obuchi was incapacitated by a severe stroke and was replaced as prime minister by Yoshiro Mori, secretary-general of the LDP. lower-house elections the LDP-led coalition lost seats, but it retained control of the house and Mori remained prime minister. A series of political blunders undermined Mori, who was replaced by Junichiro Koizumi, an insurgent supported by the LDP rank and file, in Apr., 2001; the same month the New Conservative party joined the governing coalition. An LDP victory in upper-house elections in July, which the party had earlier been expected to lose, was regarded by Koizumi as a mandate for his government. Reform was resisted, however, by entrenched government bureaucrats as well as by LDP factions that would be affected by it, and Koizumi's government has tended to avoid difficult choices and largely has continued the status quo.

Despite that mandate and his initial popularity, Koizumi had difficulty passing more than superficial economic reforms, as powerful and entrenched bureaucratic and LDP interests resisted change. The stagnant economy, hindered by a domestic deflationary spiral that began in the early 1990s and did not clearly end until 2006 and by contraction overseas, experienced its fourth recession in 10 years in 2001. In November unemployment reached 5.5%, a postwar high. In part because of already high levels of government debt, Koizumi's government adopted a 2002 budget that reduced expenditures, instead of increasing spending to stimulate the economy. The economy improved beginning in 2002, but the government continued to fail to make any significant economic reforms. Also in 2002, Koizumi made a landmark visit to North Korea, which led to an agreement to establish diplomatic relations between Japan and North Korea.

Elections in 2003 resulted in large gains for the opposition Democratic party of Japan (DPJ), but the LDP-led coalition retained a significant majority in parliament. Following the election, the New Conservatives merged with the LDP. The LDP and New Komeito party largely held onto their majority in the July, 2004, upper house elections, but the DPJ made solid gains at the expense of smaller parties.

In 2005, Koizumi sought to win passage of a plan to privatize Japan Post, which includes Japan's largest savings and insurance systems in addition to the postal system, but failed to win support for it in the upper house when a sizable number of LDP members voted against it. Calling a snap lower-house election, Koizumi gained (Sept., 2005) a huge victory in which the LDP took 60% of the seats, and the following month secured passage of legislation to privatize Japan Post over the decade beginning in 2007. A 2006 proposal by Koizumi to allow women, and children through the maternal line, to succeed to the Japanese throne (because the current emperor has no grandsons) brought protests from Japanese conservatives. That opposition and the birth of a son to the emperor's younger son led the prime minister to shelve the proposed change.

Koizumi retired as prime minister in Sept., 2006; newly elected LDP-leader Shinzo Abe succeeded him in the post. The agency responsible for overseeing Japan's self-defense forces was upgraded to a ministry in Dec., 2006, and the forces' mandate was expanded to include international peacekeeping and relief. At the same time the Abe government enacted legislation designed to promote patriotism in Japanese schools. A series of financial scandals involving cabinet officials and electoral losses (July, 2007) that ended the LDP's control of the Diet's upper house led to Abe's resignation as prime minister in Sept., 2007. Liberal Democrat Yasuo Fukuda, a former chief cabinet secretary and the son of former Prime Minister Takeo Fukuda, was chosen as Abe's successor.

Fukuda's term in office turned out to be as brief as his predecessor's. An economic downturn and series of scandals hurt undermined his prime ministership, although there was an improvement in Japan's relations with China, including the first visit to Japan by a Chinese head of state (May, 2008) and an agreement (June, 2008) to develop jointly a contested natural gas field in the East China Sea. However, the opposition's control of the Diet's upper house enabled it to stymie the passage of significant legislation, including an economic stimulus package, and Fukuda resigned in Sept., 2008.

Taro Aso, an outspoken conservative and former foreign minister, became LDP party leader and prime minister. A series of stumbles and Japan's slide into recession in 2008 soon undermined Aso's government as well. The recession, which developed into the worst downturn since World War II as demand for Japanese exports plunged, led the government to propose stimulus packages cumulatively worth $27.4 trillion yen by Apr., 2009. Beginning in Mar., 2009, Japan also experienced a new round of deflation. Also that year, Japan joined the antipiracy forces off the Somali coast and in June expanded the powers of the self-defense forces to allow them to protect vessels of any nation from piracy.

After the LDP suffered losses in local elections in Tokyo in July, Aso moved to call parliamentary elections for late August. The DPJ subsequently won control of the Diet's lower house in a landslide, ending the LDP's postwar dominance of Japan's government; DPJ leader Yukio Hatoyama became prime minister. The DPJ assured control of the upper house as well by forming a coalition with two smaller parties, but one of the parties quit the coalition in May, 2010, after the government agreed to continue basing U.S. forces on Okinawa despite DPJ campaign promises to the contrary. Hatoyama subsequently resigned as DPJ leader and prime minister, and in June Naoto Kan, the finance minister, succeeded him; the new government did not change Hatoyama's decision concerning Okinawa. The DPJ subsequently lost control of the Diet's upper house in the July, 2010, elections, but in September Kan survived a DPJ leadership challenge from Ichiro Ozawa.

Funding scandals involving Ozawa and the foreign minister led (Mar., 2011) to calls for Kan to step down, but that was soon eclipsed by the effects of a 9.0 offshore earthquake and subsequent tsunami, which devastated many areas of the NE Honshu coast on March 11. Some 18,500 were killed or missing, mainly as a result of the tsunami, which overtopped many seawalls and reached as far as 5 mi (8 km) inland in some places. Damage was estimated at $210 billion, and the nation's economy suffered a slowdown as a result. Japan's worst natural disaster since the 1923 Tokyo earthquake also led to cooling failures at a nuclear power plant in Fukushima that resulted in meltdowns and the release of radioactive material into the air and sea.

In June, Kan, who had become to be regarded as indecisive in the aftermath of the disaster, survived a no-confidence vote and a rebellion by members of his own party by promising to step down after the worst of the nuclear crisis had passed. When he resigned in August, Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda succeeded him as DPJ leader and prime minister. Passage of an increase in the sales tax in June, 2012, led Ichiro Ozawa and his faction to quit the DPJ.

In the elections of Dec., 2012, the LDP won a resounding victory, winning a sizable majority and, with its coalition partner New Komeito, securing two thirds of the lower house seats. Shinzo Abe, who had led Japan in 2006–7, again became prime minister. In 2013, the new government subsequently adopted a stimulus package, and the Bank of Japan eased its monetary policy and undertook other measures to spur growth; despite these efforts, which continued in subsequent years, Japan's economy continued to experience generally weak growth. In the July, 2013, the governing coalition also won control of the upper house, in an election marked by light turnout and a fragmented opposition vote. Abe called early elections for Dec., 2014, and the LDP-led coalition again won a landslide victory in the lower house. Partial upper house elections in July, 2016, also resulted in an increased majority for the coalition. The following year Abe again called for early elections (October), and his coalition maintained its two-thirds majority in the lower house. In July, 2018, extreme rainfall in SW Japan, especially in Okayama and Hiroshima prefectures, caused devastating flooding, killing more than 200 people and forcing more than 2 million from their homes. Partial upper house elections in July, 2019, preserved Abe's majority despite the loss of some seats. In Oct., 2019, the strongest typhoon to hit Japan since the 1950s caused extensive damage, due mainly to flooding, in central and NE Honshu. Abe resigned in Sept., 2020, for health reasons; he was succeeded as prime minister by his chief cabinet secretary and close ally Yoshihide Suga. Suga decided not to seek reelection after just one year in office due largely to his difficulties handling the economic impacts of the country's outbreak of COVID-19 . The LDP selected Fumio Kishida,, a former Minister for Foreign Affairs, as his replacement, who lead the party to victory in the Parliamentary elections in October 2021, although it lost 23 seats that it had held previously.

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