Re: [A-List] Michael Hudson's Super-imperialism (euro)

[jenyang <enyang@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, 24 Jun 2003 Hudsonmi@xxxxxxx wrote:
>
>     Japan is a case in point. The US has promoted politicians on whom it
> holds abundant blackmail files.
>     On the other hand, there are well-meaning fools that really believe that
> Britain is SO weak that it MUST rely on the United States for aid, or go under.
>     Ditto Germany. I remember when I first met Helmut Schmidt in New York.
> Because I was introduced by the president of Volkswagen-US, he assumed that he
> had to wear his US hat and told me how loyal he was to US plans, in Vietnam and
> elsewhere. I hardly could believe my ears. He was like a puppy dog sucking up
> and then masturbating against my leg.
>     Harold Wilson had much the same quality.
>

To Michael Hudson's comment on Japan, we probably should add that the U.S.
occupation (1945-52) took great care  in reconstituting the Japanese
bureacratic and political elite to protect U.S. interests in East Asia.

The occupation can be broken down into roughly two phases. First was the
"democratic" phase under which the war-renouncing constitution was
drafted, and the Zaibatsu (pre-war financial-industrial groups like
Mitsubishi who had a large part in the the war) were broken up, universal
suffrage introduced and political and social rights of minorities (such as
the buraku) and the popular classes given formal legal recognition.

By 1947 U.S. policy in Japan switched from undermining the social and
political base of Japanese elites who had just lost their contest with the
U.S. for dominance in East Asia, to reconstituting them on terms
favourable to U.S. hegemony in the region. No doubt a significant cause of
this change of heart was the weakness of Nationalist China and the
possibility of victory of Mao's PLA.

The second phase of the occupation came to be called the "reverse course".
During this period the Zaibatsu were reconsolidated and important figures
behind the war rehabitated politically. These interests, with U.S.
blessing or sponsorship, came together in 1953 to form Jiminto (the
Liberal Democratic Party) which has governed Japan more or less
continuously since the 1950's. Thus a feature of the Japanese state since
WWII has been that the military,  bureacratic and political elite has been
deeply penetrated by U.S. making it basically impossible, short of a major
political crisis, to break with the U.S. clientism.

J.Enyang