Why do 日本人 dislike 熊田曜子 but like 安部晋三? I find that rather strange that people would prefer a right-wing Japanese politician over a cute girl. The possibility lies with Abe actually having a brain and taking a stand on various issues while all Kumada Yoko can do is just look pretty and have people look at her nice breasts. Then again it could be the possibility that there are prettier and less overexposed models out there such as 安田美沙子 and 夏川純 as I have discovered while playing Yakuza very recently.
Then again, the conservative Japanese LDP members may be getting sick of what they perceive as progressive reforms by 小泉純一郎 , who also had a super-happy time visiting the 靖国神社 during his reign. According to news organisations, Abe had a lengthy phone call with President Roh of ROK with plans to have a ROK-Japan summit to discuss regional and bilateral issues. If Abe has at least half a brain, he will keep whatever personal views he has of post-war Japan, and World War II all to himself.
He has publicly stated that certain war crimes never happened, the International Tribunal in Japan was just a farce conducted by the victors and the current Constitution was imposed by Americans. I only agree with Abe on the point about the Constitution, which was drafted by a group of American lawyers who took no account of Japanese culture and history when it was imposed on the Japanese government. At least the Germans were able to draft their own Constitution, albeit with Allied supervision, and the “Basic Law” has worked quite well since then.
Then there is a consequences of incomplete post-war reforms due to the Cold War. The post-war reforms were completed in Germany due to aggressive Allied reform of the country, presenting evidence to the German people of crimes committed by the Nazis, and purging the country of any influential Nazi elements. Few people know that the post-war government passed laws banning the Nazi party and the current German government is hellbent on undermining any Neo-Nazi groups that have sprung up since German reunification.
The same cannot be said about Japan since it was only the Americans who were in charge of reforming the country (although China, Britain, and Russia were part of the Allied nations assigned to reform Japan on paper). It’s quite hard to rebuild a nation after you’ve reduced it to rubble as seen in current-day Afghanistan and Iraq and it was even harder to reform Japan. The Americans realised this and actually took some shortcuts in reforms.
First they tried most of wartime generals and bureaucrats who conducted the war but failed to put Hirohito on trial or even testify to his contributions in the “Greater East Asian War”. It did not help that some of the judges sitting in the International Tribunal were actually anti-American aand some of the accused managed to commit suicide before they were formally charged or sentenced. This allowed the right-wingers to argue that the trial was a sham and argue their wartime leaders were never convicted of any wrongdoing.
Second, the Americans made efforts to reform the Japanese educational system, business practises, and even women’s rights. However, with the onset of the Korean War and Cold War, the Americans started to focus less on reform and more on rearming Japan to use as a shield against the spread of communism in Asia. This led to certain convicted war criminals such as Kishii being pardoned to serve as Prime Minister and in effect allow for some continuation of wartime attitudes to carry over to the “New” Japan.
Additionally, the Americans worked actively with Japanese corporations to undermine any strong labor movements and encouraged cooperation with the state to accelerate post-war economic growth in Japan. This would help explain why corporations had such a strong influence on Japanese society and the influence of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry. Basically, the Cold War led America to quickly restore Japan’s independence by returning some wartime officials into power, leaving pre-war problems unresolved and leaving Japan with incomplete reforms. What was worse was that the Japanese government gradually abolished many of the American reforms as soon as they regained full sovereignty of the nation.
This could account for some of the perceived “weirdness” that has made Japan such a distinct culture in East Asia as well as lingering problems that are plaguing the country. Decisions that made a great deal of sense at the onset of the Cold War are now showing unintended consequences that the Americans could not have anticipated. There was no way the Americans would have imagined that Japan would have became an economic superpower from their years of encouraging American companies to liberally provide technical assistance to develop the post-war Japanese industries.
It’s interesting how much information American companies provided to their Japanese counterparts with the belief that they would never surpass them when the Japanese companies were actually able to first emulate what the Americans taught them, then improve upon it and later continuously innovate. The Big Three automakers at the time allowed Toyota, Honda and Nissan to observe their plants and management practises while RCA taught Sony, Matsushita how to properly make TVs. Decisions the Americans made during the Cold War led to greater consequences that what the politicians had originally intended.
It would not surprise me if Otakus or idiot Japanophiles would attack me for being “anti-Japanese” for making such observations on Japan. Then again, I would anger many pro-war Americans and conservatives if I had discussed how the American intervention in Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan have led to the problems that the US faces today.
