A History of Japan: From Stone Age to Superpower (74 page)

In negotiations with America Kishi had obtained what he saw as a concession. Japan was now to be consulted before America used its Japan-based troops. Many others saw this rather as increasing the likelihood of Japan becoming embroiled in armed conflict, because it now effectively made Japan seem a willing participant in any America action. There was great opposition to the proposed ratification of renewal, including a series of riots and physical confrontations between parliamentarians in the Diet. At a midnight session in May Kishi succeeded in getting Diet approval for the renewal, catching the opposition unawares. Even greater unrest followed, including a partial takeover of the Diet building in mid-June. President Eisenhower had planned to visit Japan later that month but his trip was cancelled as a result of the unrest. Kishi resigned a few days later, being replaced as prime minister by Ikeda Hayato. Ikeda promised never to repeat the Diet-bulldozing tactic of Kishi, and he also partly assuaged the public with a promise of doubling incomes before the 1960s were out.

Protesters against the treaty renewal included many leftwingers, and this provoked a rightwing reaction. One victim of this was Asanuma Inejir
, chairman of the Japan Socialist Party. Asanuma, who among other things had made a number of anti-American pronouncements in recent times, was fatally stabbed by a fanatical rightwing youth during a televised speech in October.
⁹¹
Most of Japan and much of the world saw in naked and frightening detail the deadly penetration of the 18-inch blade.

It came to symbolise a turbulent year. The year was itself a symbol of unrest and the seeming fragility of western-style democracy – not unlike the fragility of the Taish
period half a century earlier. Unrest in the work-place was eventually quietened, but the public continued to feel uneasy for some time. Students in particular staged increasingly violent demonstrations over the next few years. Extremists in the leftwing
Zengakuren
(a nationwide student federation) deliberately adopted a policy of violent confrontation, including the use of weapons such as firebombs, and caused the closure of many campuses.
⁹²
Some of their anger continued to focus on the treaty renewal, for America’s entry into the Vietnam War in 1961 made the threat of Japan’s involvement even greater. They were also angered by the growing expense and increasingly controlled nature of education in Japan, as well as corruption among university officials. Later in the 1960s the most extreme among the students helped form the infamous terrorist organisation the Red Army (
Sekigun
).

But again like the Taish
period, there was both lightness and darkness during the 1960s. Amidst all the unrest and authoritarianism, there were definite milestones in Japan’s re-recognition by the world. In 1961 the
Shinkansen
(Bullet Train) started operating, at the time the most technologically advanced train in the world. In contrast to the dark symbol of the assassin’s blade, it was a bright symbol of a new era of prosperity and technology, and was a great source of pride to the Japanese. They were able to show it off to the many foreigners who visited Japan for the 1964 T
ky
Olympics. Staging the Olympics clinched the real readmittance of Japan to the international community, which had been formally staged in 1956 when it was admitted to the United Nations. In the same year of 1964 travel restrictions were greatly eased, and Japanese started travelling overseas in numbers. The restrictions had been in place informally since the war partly because of foreign-exchange factors but also in deference to lingering anti-Japanese feeling abroad. Then at the end of the decade, in 1970, the World Exposition was held in Osaka, and again Japan was able proudly to display its prosperity and major-nation status.

The most important factor in its acceptance, however, was undoubtedly its economic growth. Ikeda’s promise in 1960 to double incomes within
ten years was met ahead of time. Incomes doubled by 1967. The following year Japan’s GNP overtook that of West Germany to make it the second biggest in the Free World after the United States.

The re-emergence of Japan as a major power was obviously noted overseas. Books started to appear around the world analysing its route to success, not only in terms of economics but in terms of state management, education, and other more general terms. Among other acknowledgements of its status, it featured prominently in world scenarios projected by ‘think-tank’ specialists in international affairs. A well-known early example was Herman Kahn’s well-known 1971 work
The Emerging Japanese Superstate
, which sang Japan’s praises. Such works tended to play down the negative effects of intense economic growth, such as massive pollution problems.

The Japanese, too, proudly wrote works that sought to explain their success, both to themselves and to the world. These usually followed a line of argument that Japan was somehow unique and special, and they claimed national characteristics such as loyalty, harmony, and group-orientation. These works were considered a genre in their own right, known as
Nihonjinron
(‘Theories about the Japanese’). Two very well known examples were Nakane Chie’s 1967 work
Tate-shakai no Ningen Kankei: Tan’itsu-shakai no Riron
(‘Personal Relations in a Vertical Society: a Theory of Homogeneous Society’), which appeared in English in 1970 as
Japanese Society
, and Doi Takeo’s
Amae no K
z
(
‘The Anatomy of Dependence’
) of 1971, which appeared in English in 1973.
⁹³
Both claimed, with questionable evidence, that Japanese interpersonal relations were unique and stronger than in other societies. Some
Nihonjinron
works, usually implicitly but sometimes explicitly, went a step further and raised once again the spectre of racial purity and superiority, causing alarm among Asian nations in particular.

The praise at home and abroad continued during the 1970s, a decade that was the high point in world respect for Japan as an economic super-power. It was not always unqualified praise, for there were a number of obvious problems, but on balance it was the praise that prevailed over the criticism. One of the greatest of all accolades came in 1979 in the form of Ezra Vogel’s work
Japan as Number One.
Vogel praised in particular Japan’s economic performance and its apparent skills in state management and national coordination. Not surprisingly, the book immediately became one of the best-selling works ever in Japan as the Japanese flocked to the bookstores to lap up this praise from a Harvard professor.
⁹⁴
His sub-title
Lessons for America
was especially satisfying, for it showed that the pupil had learned so well it was now able to teach the master.

In many regards this was true. In a world now dominated by business, westerners keen to learn the secrets of Japan’s success looked enviously towards its management practices in particular. A massive body of literature appeared on the topic,
⁹⁵
much of it superficial. Not all bandwagon authors realised the recency of practices such as lifetime employment. Even fewer realised that some of the practices associated with Japanese managers were in fact learned from the west – it was just that Japan had made them more effective. These included quality control, which was introduced into Japan in the 1950s by the American engineer W. Edwards Deming, and the use of suggestion-boxes to encourage employee participation, which had been practised by companies such as America’s Eastman Kodak as early as the 1890s.
⁹⁶
To some extent there was even western influence detectable in the practice of lifetime employment, and its companion practice of paternalistic care of an employee’s personal life as well as professional.
⁹⁷