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Tag Archives: Shigeru Yoshida

Shigeru Yoshida and the Conservative Client State

Shigeru Yoshida’s second premiership from 1948-1954 was one of the most transformative in Japanese history, taking the nation from its progressive, unstable early postwar era into a long period of entrenched conservative rule, ostensibly exercising independence but in reality functioning as a client state absorbed into the informal American empire.

Hitoshi Ashida and the Cold War

Hitoshi Ashida attempted in 1948 to give a reorganized Democratic Party-Socialist Party coalition a second chance at leading Japan’s government. But at this time the progressive phase of the US Occupation was ending, and pressure to create a conservative regime embracing Washington’s Cold War objectives became irresistible.

Tetsu Katayama and the Socialist Party

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.

Kijuro Shidehara and the New Deal

English-speaking diplomat Kijuro Shidehara served as prime minister in 1945-1946, corresponding with the most progressive phase of a US military occupation which was initially guided by the principles of the New Deal and the American concern that Japan never again pose a military challenge to US hegemony in the Pacific.

Red-Baiting in 2016

A recent attempt by the Liberal Democratic Party to brand the Japan Communist Party as violent has sparked a new debate on the political history of Japan, but it seems to be primarily a cynical political ploy.