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How Did The Second World War And Subsequent Allied Occupation Affect The Development Of Japan?

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How did the Second World War and subsequent Allied occupation affect the development of Japan? Introduction The Second World War was the bloodiest conflict in the history of humanity. It has largely affected the evolution of many nations throughout the whole globe. This essay focuses on the impact of World War II and successive Allied occupation on the vector of development of the Japanese state. In this paper, I will argue that those events had a huge impact on every sector of the Japanese state-development. Moreover, I will argue that the results of those events were mostly positive for the Asian state. My essay will be structured in the following way. Firstly, I will analyze the economic change, which occurred as a result of the …show more content…

Many large cities, industries and transportation networks were heavily damaged. Additionally, the conflicts took the lives of many Japanese citizens, who largely contributed to the economic activity before the war. However, in my view, Cohen has underestimated the benefits that economic concentration on military, brought to the postwar Japanese economic development. In accordance with John Dower, during the war period, there was a huge increase in the production of machinery (252%), nonferrous metals (70%), steel (46%) and manufacturing (24%), which was extremely beneficial for the after war economic growth. Personally, I assume that Dower was right and without the rapid increase in these industries, Japan would not be able to achieve its postwar economic prosperity. A good verification of this argument is that after the war was over, many of the wartime companies (Toyota, Nissan, Normura Securities, Toshiba) were successfully transformed into peaceful and prosperous commercial corporations, which exist until today. Kenneth Pyle argued that nationalistic and military goals of these companies were quickly replaced by commercial aims – “gun factories started to make sewing machines and optical vehicle manufactories began to produce cameras”. The Occupation of Japan, which was the result of Japan’s defeat in the World War, was destined to change the economy of the state and turn it into a western-style

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