Yoshida Shigeru Research Articles

The birth of Japan's postwar constitution

Translator's Preface and Acknowledgments -- A Note on the Translation -- Preface to the English Edition -- Introduction: Seeking a New Perspective -- The Probing Begins -- Restoration of the People's Rights Ideology -- Captive Legal Scholars: The Committee to Study Constitutional Problems -- A Week in a Secret Room: Writing the SCAP Draft -- A Second Defeat Imposed on Japan? -- The Struggle to Japanize the American Draft -- MacArthur Against the Storm -- The Draft Constitution in the Last Imperial Diet -- Behind the Ashida Amendment of Article 9 -- Blooming Brightly in May: Popularizers of the Constitution -- Yoshida Shigeru's Counterattack -- The Forgotten Sequel

America's Road to its Asian Dilemma

America’s Road to its Asian Dilemma Yoneyuki Sugita (bio) Yoichi Miura. Yoshida Shigeru to San Furanshisuko Kowa [Yoshida Shigeru and the San Francisco Peace Treaty]. Tokyo: Ohtsuki Shoten, 1996. xiii + 253 pp., vol. 1, and v + 326 pp., vol. 2. Tables, illustrations, notes, and index. 3,090 yen (vol. 1) and 3,296 yen (vol. 2). Daizaburo Yui. Nichibei Sensokan no Sokoku [Japan-U.S. Gap of War Images]. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1995. viii + 236 pp. Tables, illustrations, and notes. 1,800 yen. “[H]istory . . . is a continuous process . . . an unending dialogue between the present and the past,” E. H. Carr wrote in What Is History(1974, p. 30). Yoichi Miura and Daizaburo Yui reexamine the Pacific War, the U.S. occupation of Japan, and war memories in both countries, with a critical view in regard to the current situation in Japan and in Japan-U.S. relations. Miura casts doubt on the prevailing postwar concept among conservative Japanese that they should accept economic growth and subjugation to the United States as inseparable imperatives. He focuses on the process of establishing the San Francisco Treaty (including both peace and security treaties) from the perspective of Japanese history. Those who approve of the treaty insist that it was the only realistic choice for Japan while those who disapprove believe that the treaty imposed the rearmament program and incorporated Japan into the American militaristic world strategy. With the demise of the Cold War and the Japan Socialist Party, the validity of the treaty is now widely accepted; however, Miura is still critical of it, speculating on an alternative road Japan could have taken. He believes that there was a good chance of concluding a peace treaty in 1947 that would have made Japan a demilitarized and neutral country. Then, the Korean War would not have happened in the way that it did and the Cold War in Asia would not have escalated as much as it did. He goes so far as to claim that postoccupation security and economic issues had nothing to do with a peace treaty. In Empire and Aftermath: Yoshida Shigeru and the Japanese Experience, 1878-1954(1988), John Dower sheds light on the pivotal importance of Yoshida Shigeru, who “bridged the decades from the turn of the century into the 1950s [End Page 326]as successfully and colorfully as anyone” (p. xii). Dower argues that since the Cold War enhanced Japan’s strategic importance, Yoshida used this as a bargaining chip to resist the American demand for swift and large-scale rearmament, successfully concluded a peace treaty, and firmly established the foundation for Japan’s postwar development. In contrast to Dower’s thesis, Miura regards this positive image as a “Yoshida myth.” Miura is convinced that Yoshida was an incompetent negotiator who relied completely on the United States, narrowing his focus only to acquiring independence. Miura criticizes Yoshida for not making much use of the outbreak of the Korean War increasing Japan’s strategic significance and John Foster Dulles’s concern about whether or not the United States could maintain bases in Japan after the occupation. Miura claims that Washington’s aim was not to pressure Japan to implement a prompt large-scale rearmament program but rather to establish a framework that would keep military bases in Japan and continue to channel Japan into a remilitarization course. Miura may have succeeded in destroying the Yoshida Myth; however, by doing so, he holds Yoshida himself responsible for establishing a distorted Japan-U.S. relationship. If Yoshida had been a better negotiator, could Japan have formulated a more equal relationship with the United States? He seems to argue in the rest of his book that the enormous difference in U.S.-Japan power relations and the emergence of the Cold War in Asia left Japan no choice but to wholeheartedly depend on the United States. In short, Miura’s challenge leads him to a self-contradiction. While Miura offers some empirical research with emphasis on security and the peace treaty, Yui tackles the broader issue of why the differences in the memories of the Asia-Pacific War widened over the last half century. Emphasizing images and cultural factors, Akira...

Winners in Peace: MacArthur, Yoshida, and Postwar Japan.

With singular breadth and balance, Winners in Peace chronicles the American occupation of Japan from 1945 to 1952. Richard B. Finn participated in the occupation as a young naval officer and diplomat. Now, using the insights gained from a lifetime of public service, he looks back on this epochal moment in postwar history. Finn focuses on the two main actors--Supreme Allied Commander Douglas MacArthur and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru--and details the era's major events, programs, and personalities. Finn draws on an impressive range of American, Japanese, British, and Australian sources, including interviews with nearly one hundred people who took part in the occupation. Throughout, his presentation is measured and realistic, filled with multi-faceted human beings--MacArthur is not made out to be a larger-than-life hero, nor is Yoshida portrayed as a right-wing extremist. Finn describes constitutional and political reforms, efforts to rebuild the country, and the war crimes trials, as well as the evolution of American policy toward Japan. By highlighting George Kennan's role in making political stability and economic recovery the top goals of the United States, Finn takes into account the powerful pressures of the looming Cold War. He also discusses Japanese and American scholarly theories of the occupation. Winners in Peace concludes its narrative with the peace treaty of 1952, but this book is equally important for our understanding of Japan today--its economic growth, its style of government, and the strong pacifist spirit of its people.

Yoshida Shigeru and the Japanese Transition to Liberal Democracy

Yoshida Shigeru,1 Prime Minister of Japan during the early postwar years, expounded a vision of Japan as a "Commercial State" dedicated to liberal principles in association with the United States. The vision put highest priority on Japan's economic growth, integration into the Western free-market trading system, non-involvement in overseas conflicts, and allegiance to the democratic and peaceful principles of the postwar Constitution. Resisting pressure from more nationalistic conservatives and from the political Left, Yoshida's moderate conservative economism became institutionalized through his efforts to establish a non-punitive peace treaty and bilateral security treaty that would recognize Japan's strategic importance to the West, to construct a political-bureaucratic-business interaction conducive to capitalistic development, and to develop a network for recruiting political successors who could carry forth his vision.

The British Model: Institutional Reform and Occupied Japan

They order these things differently in England. Such comment on the relevance of the British political and economic experience to postsurrender Japan has been overlooked by students ofthe occupation period. The explanation for this neglect appears to vary on national lines. Research interest into Britain's postwar foreign policy in east Asia has been limited until recently by the availability of government material, while American and later Japanese scholars following in their wake seem reluctant to recognize that in name and sometimes in reality the occupation was an allied venture, since this goes against the grain of American unilateralism. Where there has been note of allied contributions to the occupation the references have tended to be perfunctory. Two recent publications might be cited as representative of this trend among American historians. John Dower's voluminous work on Yoshida Shigeru has little on Yoshida's contacts with British occupation personnel despite frequent references to the premier's anglophilia. Justin Williams's version of the occupation is equally Americocentric. The author regards the Far Eastern Commission's role in Japan's enforced democratization as reactionary ‘because SCAP dealt with the real Japan and the FEC with an imaginary Japan. Long after SCAP became immersed in constructing the democratic Japan of the future, the FEC was still preoccupied with teaching a lesson to the Imperial Japan of old.’ As a challenging quotation useful for those setting examinations on the subject it may bear repetition but not a few British and Commonwealth diplomats might be forgiven for suggesting that the remark could be profitably reversed. The distance between the United States' image of Japan and the truth behind the rhetoric remained a persistent theme of despatches from the British mission in Tokyo (UKLIM) to the Foreign Office throughout this period.

Empire and aftermath: Yoshida Shigeru and the Japanese experience, 1878–1954. By John W. Dower. (Harvard East Asian Monographs, 84.) pp. xiii, 618. Cambridge, Mass., and London, Harvard University Press, 1979.

Empire and aftermath: Yoshida Shigeru and the Japanese experience, 1878–1954. By John W. Dower. (Harvard East Asian Monographs, 84.) pp. xiii, 618. Cambridge, Mass., and London, Harvard University Press, 1979.

T.A. Bison and the limits of reform in occupied Japan

In his memoirs former Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru identified a group within the American occupation bureaucracy as “radical elements—what might be called ‘New Dealers’ who sought to utilize occu...

J. W. Dower. <italic>Empire and Aftermath: Yoshida Shigeru and the Japanese Experience, 1878–1954</italic>. (Harvard East Asian Monographs, number 84.) Cambridge: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University; distributed by Harvard University Press. 1979. Pp. xiii, 618. $20.00

Journal Article J. W. Dower. Empire and Aftermath: Yoshida Shigeru and the Japanese Experience, 1878–1954. (Harvard East Asian Monographs, number 84.) Cambridge: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University; distributed by Harvard University Press. 1979. Pp. xiii, 618. $20.00 Get access Dower J. W.. Empire and Aftermath: Yoshida Shigeru and the Japanese Experience, 1878–1954. (Harvard East Asian Monographs, number 84.) Cambridge: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University; distributed by Harvard University Press. 1979. Pp. xiii, 618. $20.00. Thomas R. H. Havens Thomas R. H. Havens Connecticut College Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Historical Review, Volume 85, Issue 4, October 1980, Page 965, https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/85.4.965 Published: 01 October 1980

Empire and Aftermath: Yoshida Shigeru and the Japanese Experience, 1878-1954

Empire and Aftermath: Yoshida Shigeru and the Japanese Experience, 1878-1954

Empire and Aftermath: Yoshida Shigeru and the Japanese Experience, 1878-1954.

This detailed biography of Japan's postwar prime minister was favorably received in the United States and has sold widely in translation in Japan.

The Foreign Office and Yoshida's Bid for Rapprochement with Britain in 1936–1937: a Critical Reconsideration of the Anglo-Japanese Conversation

The complete history of the secret negotiations between Yoshida Shigeru, the Japanese ambassador to London, and Eden from July 1936 to July 1937 later known as the Anglo-Japanese conversation has never been written. Though the negotiations came to an abrupt end with the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese war in July 1937, they were greatly misunderstood at the time. The conversation gave rise to fears that Britain was planning a Far-Eastern 'Hoare-Laval Agreement'.1 Evidence from British sources now confutes earlier assessments and reveals, more importantly, a revulsion of feeling among the Foreign Office officials against the Japanese ambassador's proposal for an Anglo-Japanese agreement in 1936/7. It also indicates that Eden and his Foreign Office advisers were not prepared to injure Chinese interests for the sake of preserving Britain's own interest in the Far East. In short, British leaders were not prepared to use China as a bargaining counter when negotiating with Japan. They were also convinced that Japan had ambitions so large that they could only be satisfied in full if Britain accepted a Japanese domination of China. Above all, the officials of the Foreign Office knew that Yoshida did not possess the full confidence of his government in making his proposal. Yoshida had been sent to London in June 1936 when the military in Japan had refused to accept him as the Minister for Foreign Affairs. What Yoshida tried to do in London was to gain prestige by extracting something from Eden which he could represent as a triumph of himself in Tokyo. In essence, political expediency was a powerful influence in his proposal for an Anglo-Japanese rapprochement in 1936/7. This trace of opportunism in his search for an agreement with Britain, well appreciated by the Foreign Office officials, made them highly suspicious of his intention and this suspicion undermined any hope of an Anglo-Japanese agreement in 1937. Thus, the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese war in July 1937 actually helped to bring to an end the dreary conversations which had been Droceeding for almost one year.

Japan's Constitutions: 1890 and 1947

The Meiji constitution was in effect from November 29, 1890, until May 3, 1947, a period of fifty-six years and approximately five months. The present constitution, which may be known after the demise of Emperor Hirohito as the Showa constitution, was proclaimed in effect by Premier Yoshida Shigeru in the presence of Hirohito on May 3, 1947. The proclamation was read from a platform on the Palace plaza in Tokyo. The audience of five thousand people which stood in the rain before the platform was small in comparison with the huge crowd that surged around the imperial carriage on November 3, 1946, following the official ceremony of promulgation; but it was equally enthusiastic in its demonstration of loyalty. On both occasions, it was apparent that the embarrassed-looking, bespectacled little Emperor, and not the constitution, was the center of popular interest.

Japan's Constitutions: 1890 and 1947

The Meiji constitution was in effect from November 29, 1890, until May 3, 1947, a period of fifty-six years and approximately five months. The present constitution, which may be known after the demise of Emperor Hirohito as the Showa constitution, was proclaimed in effect by Premier Yoshida Shigeru in the presence of Hirohito on May 3, 1947. The proclamation was read from a platform on the Palace plaza in Tokyo. The audience of five thousand people which stood in the rain before the platform was small in comparison with the huge crowd that surged around the imperial carriage on November 3, 1946, following the official ceremony of promulgation; but it was equally enthusiastic in its demonstration of loyalty. On both occasions, it was apparent that the embarrassed-looking, bespectacled little Emperor, and not the constitution, was the center of popular interest.