Paragraph: (History-Anthropology/oanc-HistoryJapan-13-2.txt)
Sent 1: Peace and Prosperity: After years of government propaganda predicting the worst atrocities, most Japanese civilians were surprised at the warmth and friendliness of the occupying forces.
Sent 2: The postwar period began, however, with millions of displaced people homeless and starving.
Sent 3: To counter a perceived communist threat from the Soviet Union, the US quickly set to work reconstructing the economy by transforming Japan's institutions and devising a new pacifist constitution.
Sent 4: Article 9 renounced Japan's right to maintain armed forces, although the ambiguous wording was later taken to permit the creati on of a "self-defense" force.
Sent 5: The zaibatsu conglomerates that had proved so instrumental in boosting Japan's militarism were disbanded, later to re-emerge as the keiretsu trading conglomerates that dominated the economy once again.
Sent 6: The entire economy received a massive jump-start with the outbreak of the Korean War, with Japan ironically becoming the chief local supplier for an army it had battled so furiously just a few years earlier.
Sent 7: The occupation lasted until 1952, having already planted the seeds for Japan's future stunning economic success.
Sent 8: Economic output was back to prewar levels, and British auto companies provided the support needed to get Japan's auto industry back on its feet.
Sent 9: Japanese companies then enthusiastically imported any Western technologies they could get their hands on.
Sent 10: This included transistor technology — invented in the US but then considered to have only limited applications — for the surreal sum of $25,000.
Sent 11: It was Japan that produced the world's first transistor radio.
Sent 12: The electronic technology spurt that followed is now legendary.
Sent 13: Parliamentary democracy finally came into its own, albeit with distinctly Japanese characteristics reflecting the dislike of debate and confrontation and the group-oriented preference for maintaining the appearance of harmony at all times.
Sent 14: The government, through the powerful Finance Ministry and Ministry of International Trade and Industry, generously supported favored private corporations: first shipping, then cars, then electronics firms basked in the warmth of the government's loving attentions.
Sent 15: Japan overtook Britain economically in 1964.
Sent 16: By the end of the decade, Japan's was the third largest economy in the world — less then two decades after the war had left the country in ruins.
Sent 17: Prosperity was not without its own problems: pollution caused by "dirty" industries, a high incidence of stomach ulcers (even suicides) among schoolchildren pressured by over-ambitious parents, and the awkward questions of what to do about nuclear energy.
Sent 18: The famous coziness among politicians, bureaucrats, and private companies, together with the strong cultural emphasis on relationship-building and a lack of transparency and accountability, eventually led to corrupt practices of endemic proportions.