In-Person Panel PS5.5

Japan in the 1950s and Beyond: Reframing the Post-War Nation

The Problem of Post-War Japanese Reparations to Indonesia 

Robert Cribb

In the international reckoning with Japan following the Second World War, a central issue was the extent to which reparations should be sought from Japan for damage inflicted on occupied territories during the hostilities. The potential claimants against Japan – European powers, Australia and the United States on the one hand and sovereign Asian states on the other – proposed different policies and procedures for allocating confiscated Japanese resources. Indonesia’s claims against Japan rested on material damage, rather than loss of life or other human suffering, and were conditioned by Indonesia’s keenness to establish good relations with Japan in the post-war era. Uncertain about how best to proceed, Indonesian authorities were slow to make claims against Japan, and the eventual settlement did little to compensate ordinary Indonesians for wartime hardship.

Japan’s Return to the International Community in the 1950s 

Sandra Wilson

The idea that Japan does not recognise its true war guilt and that that guilt remains unexpiated is now widespread and well entrenched. This paper argues that international attitudes towards Japan in the 1950s were sharply different. In the fifteen years or so after 1945, Japan’s former adversaries, together with states that had been occupied by the Japanese military, embarked on a major program of reckoning with Japan for the damage it had wrought. About a thousand military personnel were executed for war crimes. Extensive reparations schemes were devised between the Japanese and other governments, and compensation was paid to individuals for personal suffering endured while under Japanese control. Often these schemes were not fully implemented, but they were watered down by international agreement, not by Japanese intransigence.  Though the process was uneven, anti-Japanese feeling gradually diminished. Japan was admitted to the United Nations and other international organisations. In this early era, there was little dissatisfaction with the terms of settlement between Japan and its former enemies, and few or no calls for Japan to do anything more or different. The idea that Japan had not shown sufficient contrition was a later development and a response to different world circumstances.

POW Responses to Captivity and the Protection of Reputation in the Post-War Trials of Suspected Japanese War Criminals

Paul Taucher

Conditions in many Japanese prisoner of war camps were notoriously bad: POWs suffered from poor accommodation, overwork and shortages of food and medicine, and could be subject to brutal physical punishment by their guards. Recent scholarly literature on the conditions of confinement shows that in many cases, these factors were the result of broader circumstances rather than of Japanese malice. These circumstances included the geographical location of camps, the impact of the war on the Japanese military’s capacity to supply large numbers of prisoners and their own soldiers and the hardening of Japanese public attitudes towards prisoners. This paper examines POW responses to these conditions at the Bilibid POW Hospital Camp in Manila. Some prisoners made the best of a bad situation and attempted to work with their captors to limit the suffering that they and their fellow prisoners experienced. Others prioritised their own security and position to the detriment of other POWs. In the post-war trials of accused Japanese war criminals, prisoners who had prioritised their own security appear to have been more willing to give evidence, in an attempt to protect their own reputation.

Positioning National Artistic Heritage in National Museums in Tokyo During the Post-War Period, 1952-64

Susanna Zheng

This paper analyses the narratives of national heritage represented through the special exhibitions held by the three national museums of Tokyo (the Tokyo National Museum, the Museum of Modern Art and the National Museum of Western Art), and how these institutions position Japan’s artistic past in relation to other nations. National museums (formerly Imperial museums) had a crucial role in forming new narratives of Japan’s place in the world, especially within Asia. National heritage was constructed differently leading up to and during the war, compared to post-war. New narratives of exceptionalism emerged to discuss Japan’s artistic heritage. Whether exhibitions chose to emphasise influences from other nations, and which ones, depended on Japan’s political relationship with them; for example, Japan’s recent wartime occupation of China made exhibits describing the long history of Chinese influence in Japanese art controversial. This analysis of historical representations of artistic heritage challenges curatorial practise and conventions in Japan, and invites a critical understanding of continuing representations of art and historical heritage.