Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, August 15, 1995 TAG: 9508150057
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: T.R. REID AND PAUL BLUSTEIN THE WASHINGTON POST
DATELINE: TOKYO LENGTH: Long
Shortly before noon today, Emperor Akihito will board a long black limousine - Japanese-made, of course - for a short trip through downtown Tokyo.
He will ride by the lavish fur and jewelry stores of the Ginza section, site of the world's most expensive real estate. He will pass the gleaming skyscrapers of the Otemachi district that house 13 of the world's 15 largest banks. He will drive under the elevated tracks of the bullet train, high-tech symbol of Japan's global industrial might.
But when the emperor arrives at his destination, he will step back into a vastly different Japan.
At noon, Akihito is to preside over the solemn ceremony recalling the moment - precisely half a century ago - when the starving, ragged people of a shattered nation learned their military exploits had ended in abject and unconditional defeat.
The Japan of Aug. 15, 1945, was one of the poorest nations on Earth; there were no skyscrapers, no wealthy banks, no jewelry marts. There was devastation everywhere, with a desperate population living in open shacks and scraping bark from ginkgo trees for food - in a country with virtually no natural resources and too little arable land to grow its own food.
The Japan of Aug. 15, 1995, in contrast, is a world economic superpower. In total gross national product, Japan ranks just behind the United States as the second-richest nation on Earth. On a per-person basis, the Japanese have far surpassed Americans, with per-capita income of $31,450, compared with $24,135 in the United States in 1993, the latest figure available.
Postwar Japan also has established a commanding economic presence in Asia, thereby gaining through peaceful means at least part of what it had hoped to get through military conquest and colonial rule.
This transformation from rubble to riches, achieved within a single human life span, has been called Japan's postwar ``miracle.'' And yet the nation is hardly in a celebratory mood as it marks the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II.
Rather, as Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama noted recently, ``Many Japanese people are discontented with the present and worried about the future.'' Five years of persistent recession, coupled with various social problems, have led to widespread doubts as to whether the formula that worked so well for half a century will meet the nation's needs for the next 50 years.
With some prodding, Japanese who remember that bitter August of '45 can relate the tales of how their lives have changed.
``That flower garden you see out in front of my house - that was all potatoes and daikon after the war,'' recalled Makiko Yoshida, a retired teacher in Kumamoto. ``We only had enough to eat one per day: Monday one potato, Tuesday one daikon. When we got chewing gum from the American soldiers, I split one stick four ways so everybody got some.
``We never went anywhere. The bus fare downtown was, what, about one sen - and we didn't have it.''
Today, Yoshida, 77, goes everywhere. With the world's strongest currency in her pocket, she has made 12 international trips in five years. She will miss today's war memorial ceremonies because her travel club is heading off for two weeks in Mongolia.
Her story, repeated by millions, is largely the story of Japan's stupendous industrial growth.
Among the 500 biggest companies in the world ranked by Fortune magazine, 149 are Japanese, 151 are American. Japan is the world's dominant maker of high-tech products such as industrial robots and liquid crystal display screens. With the resulting wealth, Japan has become the largest creditor nation and biggest foreign-aid donor.
With a population of 125 million, Japan has an economy nearly 70 percent the size of that in the United States, which has 250 million people. This enormous wealth is distributed more evenly than in the United States and most other nations, which contributes to an atmosphere of social harmony that gives Japan the lowest crime rate of any developed country.
All this success has been enjoyed by a country so shattered by war that, a decade after Hiroshima, its economy was still smaller than that of its erstwhile colony, the Philippines. How did Japan, bereft of natural resources, do it?
Japan's miracle sprang largely from its most valuable resource - its people. With their penchant for working hard, commitment to education, devotion to their companies and endless zeal for improving products, the Japanese threw themselves into economic pursuits with the same obsessive energy they had brought to military action.
``It was just work, work, work. My boss and myself, and all the people I covered, they didn't have Saturdays off, they didn't have Sundays off, and enjoying life was beyond imagination,'' said Tadae Takubo, 62, a former journalist.
Another key was the development of a uniquely Japanese system of capitalism, based on lifetime employment - at least for male employees at major companies - and corporate ``families'' that permit management to place top priority on long-term growth and jobs rather than on quarterly profits.
The Japanese government, meanwhile, dedicated itself to the goal of economic growth and catching up with the West. By the early 1950s, the Ministry of International Trade and Industry had established long-term plans for the development of basic industries, which received low-interest government loans, subsidies and protection from imports.
One other precious resource that contributed greatly to the Japanese ``miracle'' was its best friend, biggest market and military protector: the United States.
While other major nations were spending mightily on defense, Japan enjoyed the protective umbrella of the U.S. military. While this situation has been reversed today - Japan has one of the world's biggest defense budgets, and most of the money goes to pay for U.S. forces here - the earlier free protection gave Japan a major advantage that persisted for decades.
Moreover, it was the postwar U.S. occupation, in the person of a hard-nosed Detroit banker, Joseph Dodge, that established austere budget-cutting and credit-restricting policies. This set Japan on its much-admired path of low inflation and high national savings.
By the end of the 1980s, the total value of all the land in Japan had soared to more than four times that of the United States, and the Tokyo Stock Exchange had become the world's biggest, based on the market value of Japanese shares.
But then the ``bubble economy'' burst. Real estate and stock prices fell by more than 50 percent. Today, the frothy growth of the late '80s looks like the final blowout of a nation that had failed to recognize its arrival at economic maturity.
by CNB