So I recently watched this video purporting to explain why the Japanese have such a favorable view of the US despite the dropping of the atomic bombs. I'm wondering how accurate the video is in general, but particularly curious about two points.
It says that the Japanese practice of suicide attacks (or suicide in general) being preferable to capture was due to orders from the Emperor; my previous impression was that it was more of a voluntary choice brought on by combining modern nationalism with old samurai practices. Is one of those explanations accurate, or a combination, or neither?
The video contributes a lot of Japanese success and appreciation for the US to the US being some kind of heroic bringer of democracy and capitalism, and doesn't really seem to give much agency to the Japanese people themselves. Did the US really have that big of a hand in shaping Japanese governmental policy, or has it overstated their influence?
Thanks in advance for any responses.
Question 2:
The US definitely had a large impact. The Japanese people reforming their constitution was one of the main agenda points for the US. Japan would be allowed to keep their emperor, but the Americans 'threatened' that if they did not rebuild the constitution, there'd be no way the emperor could stay, so that was a strong incentive. That's why the first article of the constitution today is still about the emperor.
Shidehara, prime minister at the time made a draft for the constitution, but they tried to make changes as minimal as possible, claiming 'they needed more time'. The draft was mainly a litteral copy of the old constitution. When general MacArthur, responsible for Japan's 'reform', saw the draft, he promptly discarded it. He secretely commissioned a team of Americans to write a new constitution, focussing on minimalising the emperor's power, renouncing war and removing all feodal principles. A week later, the commisioned draft was ready (they were in a hurry, because many people wanted the emperor to be judged by the Tokyo Tribunal, and a constitution would've made this impossible. MacArthur, probably rightly so, thought that if the emperor would be punished, the Japanese would riot). They managed to pass this in the parliament soon after in 1946, under the new prime minister Yoshida Shigeru, because lots of adverseries of the Americans had been 'purified' out earlier, for their warcrimes. Yoshida, even though very nationalistic, supported this new constitution, probably because he wanted Japan to be sovereign again as soon as possible. The Lower house approved of it, with only 8 out of 421 voting against it.
The Japanese constitution is an entirely American document (with a footnote that sometimes the Japanese took small liberties in the translations, making the English and japanese text somewhat different at times), approved by the Japanese. They also cleaned up government budget: more taxes, beter tax collection, less support for small companies, more for big companies in growing industries, and ministries were reformed.
At the start of the Cold War, America wanted Japan to be part of their Iron curtain against the USSR though. They were afraid to lose control, so they limited the power of labor unions, promoted schooling for everyone below 16, and installed an economic bureaucraty in the MITI, Ministery of International Trade and Industry. The MITI worked with 'administrative guidance', which meant they got to decide which industries received extra help, allowing them to filter out companies who didn't comply to what they had planned. The effect of this is sometimes criticized though, since the car industry for example did not follow the MITI's guidance, and thus did not receive any help from the government, but still went on to be one of the biggest growing industries in that time in Japan.
The Americans also fixed the exchange rate (360 yen for 1 dollar), which meant the Japanese could export to the US very cheaply. Nixon changed this fixed rate (a tadbit late) in '85 at the Plaza Accord.
A big part of it is the Korean War though. By '52 Japan was allowed to govern itself independantly once again, and they received lots of investments from the US in heavy industry; because for the US logistics it was way easier to buy stuff from Japan, rather than bringing it from the US to Korea. Which lead to a huge boost in Japan's industry.
In short, yes, the US did have a huge impact on Japan's post-war industry and politics.
Source; op zoek naar het nieuwe Japan (新しき日本を求めて戦後日本政治動向) - E. Adriaensens & D. Vanoverbeke