Perhaps some thought the eightieth anniversary of that brutal battle would be a chance for both the Japanese and the Americans to recognize their terrible brutality towards the people of Okinawa.
So much quantifiable opportunity and trust between the United States and Canada has been squandered over the venality of one man.
We have an American president who has declared himself king while the legislative branch abdicates its oversight powers, and the judiciary grants immunity.
From 1957-1960 Japan was led by the rightwing Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi, a barely reconstructed figure of the Pacific War. Kishi had gained the trust of US Cold Warriors, however, and they were rewarded when he forcefully pushed Japan into a new treaty alliance with the United States.
China’s leadership in many green technology fields is being met by the West with feelings of wounded pride more than an appreciation of climate policy urgency.
In the winter of 1956-1957, the liberal figure of Tanzan Ishibashi assumed the premiership, aiming to normalize Japan’s relations with the Communist world and to depart from US Cold War policy. However, he was almost immediately felled by a stroke and resigned, leaving the government in the hands of the rightwing Nobusuke Kishi, who had the exact opposite vision for the country.
What Fujimori did with power became a cautionary tale—of how an outsider, once let in, can corrupt everything.
Tetsu Katayama served as Japan’s first socialist prime minister in 1947-1948. His moderate approach, however, proved unable to satisfy the increasingly contradictory demands of his political base and the US occupiers.
How Japan treats its non-citizen residents and diverse communities is a bellwether for how future neofascist demagogues in other countries will treat their minority voices and views.
Prince Naruhiko Higashikuni stepped in to manage the surrender of the Japanese Empire in 1945. This was handled quite effectively, but it soon became clear that he was not even remotely on the same page with the incoming US occupation forces about what should come next.
