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Comment by harpratap | Hacker News Reader

It simply boggles my mind all the things US did to Japan when they were booming and were supposed to go past US and the fact that we don't really talk about it much.

I think it all can be traced to this - https://www.nytimes.com/1994/10/09/world/cia-spent-millions-... this party has essentially been the defacto leader of Japan and it's policies.

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Or maybe traced to WW2. Let's not forget what Japan did to get the US involved at all. After Japan surrendered, the US helped Japan back on their feet, much to the surprise of many older Japanese who were expecting to be raped and pillaged. After all, that's what Japan was doing to China at the time, and probably what it had planned to do to the US if they won.

I don't see how it is mind boggling that the winner of an armed conflict would try to install a friendly post war government. Or that the US still had influence lasting decades after the conflict.

> Or maybe traced to WW2. Let's not forget what Japan did to get the US involved at all.

But wasn't the point of Marshall Plan to not repeat what Treaty of Versailles led to? If you keep demanding an eye for an eye the wars will never end. It does not justify what US did to Japan or other countries.

> But wasn't the point of Marshall Plan to not repeat what Treaty of Versailles led to?

Yes, plus the danger from the USSR.

> If you keep demanding an eye for an eye the wars will never end.

Never do an enemy a small injury. From a realpolitik point of view, either make them a friend or smash them for good.

> Never do an enemy a small injury. From a realpolitik point of view, either make them a friend or smash them for good

The strategy used to great effect by Rome.

This is a narrative that was taught in my high school. My college professors explained how wrong it was. Germany, despite the reparations demanded by the treaty, was in much better shape after WWI than WWII. The first world war ended without cities being leveled, and with German industry largely intact. By comparison Germany after WWII was in literal ruins, and ceased to exist as a unified country. The Marshall Plan's spending on German reconstruction actually didn't meet the figure Germany had to pay on reparations. We didn't repeat what the Treaty of Versailles led to because Germany was obliterated and split in two.

Also, I'm not sure how this leads to Japan. Japan broke the Washington Naval treaty (related to but separate from the Treaty of Versailles) which was meant to prevent a naval arms race.

I don't think what the US did was as bad as Versailles (which was a disaster). And I don't see how it was eye for an eye. Japan attempted global domination and genocide with their friend Nazi Germany. Eye for an eye implies an equal punishment, what could be equal to that? Certainly not restrictions on semiconductor development and forced currency rebalancing. Lets keep things in context here.

> If you keep demanding an eye for an eye the wars will never end. It does not justify what US did to Japan or other countries.

What are they teaching in school these days?

The funny thing is that the US tried to install two different post war governments, one before the "fall of china", the other after: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_Course

As for influence lasting decades after, I am still searching for a reason that the Japanese would have benefited from signing the Plaza Accord. Anyone have one?

From what I heard, it was not that rosy. But US needed a base for the Korean war. That gave Japan some leverage.

War occupations are never rosy, I didn't mean to paint it that way. But you could certainly make the argument it was rosy compared to the Japanese occupation of China.

My first reaction is that the implication the Korean war was somehow being planned by the US at the time of the Japanese surrender is some crazy revisionist propaganda.

But can you elaborate on what you are trying to say and what supports it?

see e.g. "Reverse Course"

Is it that hard to provide a proper link or reference and a hint why I should bother?

Japan was the Bogeyman.

The Coming War With Japan, 1991 by George Friedman https://www.amazon.com/Coming-War-Japan-George-Friedman/dp/0...

There are plenty of examples, but I think to call that the zeitgeist is overstated. I mentioned in another thread in a different context, a near-future SF book from the early 90s, which posited an early 21st century war with Japan and the US on one side and Russia on the other, I forget who else. Things changed very quickly in the bubble-era.

It was zeitgeist in the 80s.

Ronald Reagan asked in his campaign “What do we want our kids to do? Sweep up around the Japanese computers?” "an economic Pearl Harbor" was a term used.

While the US was fighting double digit inflation Japanese were buying American companies and real estate like candy. Sony bought movies studio, someone else bought Rockefeller Center. Japan's 5th generation computer systems and AI was seen as threat to the US. Japanese management philosophy was seen as superior.

Even in popular culture movies like "Back To The Future 2", "Die Hard" etc. Japanese dominate.

Well, I was there, and I say it wasn't. "Double digit inflation" seems like a giveaway that you at best have skimmed the history. Inflation was ultra high very briefly very early in the 80s. Do you know the name Volcker?

Japanese cars became mainstream. People started to become interested in anime. Nobody remembers or noticed what Reagan said, unless the hivemind/AI decides to resurrect it now and pound cherry picked things into our heads until we assent that Eurasia was always at war with Eastasia.

You can debate until you turn blue, but it's lazy revisionism.

Well, I was there, and I say that while it might not have been the zeitgeist, it was certainly an idea and concern that was known and discussed publicly, both in political rhetoric and in fiction.

You can debate until you turn blue, but it's lazy revisionism.

Your first sentence is not at odds with what I wrote, so repeating the second sentence back to me makes no sense.

"Nobody remembers or noticed what Reagan said" is equivalent to asserting, on a hypothetical 2056 HN, that "nobody remembers or noticed what Trump* said".

* At least he hasn't said "We begin bombing in five minutes".

(besides, can't have Oceania at war with Eastasia until you all get Airstrip One back from Eurasia, innit?)

Are you from 2056? I can't be sure what will stick with people over that time, but I can look back at the Reagan/Bush administrations in retrospect.

Also, I think maybe younger people don't appreciate how much less people were plugged in to a very narrow channel of hysteria and BS before the late 2010s and the rise of ad-tech.

For a hint of what it was like, look at your local newspaper if it still exists or current events on Wikipedia.

We both agree that Reagan/Bush were 1980-1988, right?

Other than that, it doesn't sound like we had much in common. I was going to search old USENET for (Reagan|Raygun) references, but those archives seem to have gone down the memory hole.

Maybe we're from different timelines? I do see an amazing number of people around with goatees. Do you know how I can get back to my timeline? Should I ask evil Spock or evil Cartman for help?

> It simply boggles my mind all the things US did to Japan when they were booming and were supposed to go past US and the fact that we don't really talk about it much.

Well, you have to realize that MITI (at the time, now METI) was absolutely doing a number on American businesses (some of it deserved--see US auto manufacturers) with its subsidies. It damn near killed the US semiconductor industry.

If it weren't for the US government and VHSIC, the US semiconductor industry would have died.

> It simply boggles my mind all the things US did to Japan when they were booming

...and also before WW2, which pushed Japan into war.

Into the war with the United States. Japan has been waging its imperialist war by that point, which exactly was what has prompted the embargo.

The US also upset the Tokugawa Shogunate, the isolationist military-fuelaistic government which had ruled Japan for more than two hundred years. I don't think any of this is so clear cut.

So is it not interesting that the US went to great efforts to keep the same corrupt government in place that attacked them just because the alternative was socialism?

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