Zaibatsu dissolution and the American restoration of Japan

Abstract

In virtually all of the nations of Asia, American activity in Japan after 1947 aroused deep fears and bitter opposition. Washington unilaterally announced policies designed to encourage the reemergence of Japan as the dominant economic power in the Pacific. This “reverse course,” as it was commonly called, entailed the drastic curtailment of early Occupation reform measures in the business, labor, military, and reparations areas. The reorientation of American policy was publicly explained as a response to the acute economic crisis in Japan and the reluctance of Congress to underwrite the growing costs of the Occupation. Such explanations were met with skepticism by both critics and supporters of the new policies for Japan. They noted that the economic rehabilitation of Japan coincided with the rapid disintegration of the Chinese Nationalist regime, the breakdown in Soviet-American relations, and paralleled a similar change in policy in American-occupied Germany. The paramount motivation in America's Far Eastern policy, they believed, was the need to establish Japan as “a mighty bulwark against Moscow's domination of Asia.”