The Diplomatic History Of Postwar Japan Analysis

This paper argues that Chapter 1 of “The Diplomatic History of Postwar Japan” is based on how in the 1940s, the Japanese government was able to use diplomacy to preserve its interests under occupation. This case will be structured in the following sections: 1) point, 2) reason, 3) evidence, and 4) conclusion.

Point:

The essence of this chapter is how the Japanese government used diplomacy to overcome challenging circumstances to fulfill its interests during the 1940s.
To elaborate, the Japanese government signed the Potsdam Declaration of 1945, which resulted in Japan losing various state rights and put the US in complete power to rehabilitate the country through demilitarization, democratization, and economic recovery. The Japanese government with limited power was able to manage to find unique diplomatic methods that the occupational forces didn’t override or trample on Japan’s interests. In turn, the author uses historical narration to
Essentially, the author initiates the chapter through a historical narration about how the occupation began (e.g. dynamics between states to invade Japan, evolution of US leading up to occupation, and the policies/plans in overtaking
Japan) after this, the author between page 23 to 25 lays out the foundation of the chapter. The author essentially states that there were four stages of
Japanese diplomacy during the occupation (the fourth stage was in the 1950s and thus was not talked about in this chapter) were centred around how the Japanese government was able to deal with problems during the occupation and ultimately achieve national goals with limited power. The stages were the following:

1) Japanese governments gaining and maintain indirect occupation (i.e. avoiding direct military occupation and thus the US would utilize the Japanese government and Emperor system to manage the public and implement policies) and preserving the emperor