The world is very unstable.With the demise of the USSR, the world has entered a period of disequilibrium. The states which were essential to the West in the Cold War are no longer  as special as they once were. One such country is Japan. Japan, like Germany, is occupied. It has no free will. It can complain and nothing else. It is the third largest economy in the world, but its significance or influence is less than that of Iran. Why is that?. Simple. Iran is independent and Japan is not.

This month of August is the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Japan. Hiroshima was bombed on August 7,1945 and Nagasaki on August 9,1945. The war in Europe ended in May of 1945. Japan was willing to surrender and begged for peace. There was tremendous hatred of Japan. Japan was an imperial power. If one is Chinese one cannot forget the massacre of Nanjing, where it is claimed that about a half million Chinese were killed. Chinese people may have forgiven but cannot forget. The Japanese relationship with the US was different. Japan treated the US with deference. The Empire of Japan was a possible threat to the Hawaiian Islands which were possession of US. It was not the US proper. The Japanese threat to the US mainland was very remote. The US and the West had an economic hammer lock on Japan. All of South-East Asia was under US Western European control. To break out of this control it formed an alliance with Italy and Germany. When the Second World War started in Europe and Germany invaded the USSR and when in the early stages it looked like Germany would win, Japan took a huge gamble and attacked the US in Hawaii, a possession of the US. The plan was to destroy the American Pacific Fleet. The bait was set. Japan attacked which doomed it as Germany was losing the war in Europe,especially on the Eastern front. We know the results. Japan became the occupied territory of the US and it still is today…

The economic recovery of Japan after the war was phenomenal and was supported by the US. The primary reason was to create a prosperous bulwark against communism, and that’s exactly what it became. With the demise of the USSR, things changed. Japan became less important, China more. Accommodation with China was in order. The reason? Simple.  The huge market and cheap labour. As a result, Japan lost its way. It stayed an occupied  and subservient state. Japan did not even think about neutrality. Japan was to the US what India was to the British Empire. The Fukushima disaster has made the situation unbearable. The trade surplus is decreasing. It is either gone or will be soon. Demographically and economically, Japan is dying. Japan needs new challenges to stimulate itself. It needs to abandon the buying of US treasury debt. It needs to proclaim independence and turn neutral. It will be painful, but it will be worth it. Time will tell….