Japan: Records of the U.S. Department of State, 1950-1959
In 1945 Japan was a devastated and occupied country. A decade later it reemerged as an independent state within an American-led order of capitalist states. This rapid transformation was the product of the unusual circumstances of the U.S. occupation and the global rivalry of the Cold War. Eager to ensure Japan's dependability as an anti-Communist ally in Asia, staunch anti-Communist leaders found favor with the occupation, and postwar Japan was born as a coalescence of renewed commitments to democracy and an East Asia fractured by U.S.-Soviet rivalry. The primary beneficiaries of this formula became Japan's export industries. Favorable currency exchange rates gave Japanese manufactures easy access to the large U.S. market. In these years, Japan's economy grew at a double-digit pace. Commercial documents include, for example, Pacific Ocean Fisheries Convention between the United States, Canada, and Japan (1950); the duty of frozen tuna fish (1951); finding of "radioactive radiation in the fisherman, fish and boat affected by the explosion of the hydrogen bomb at Bikini" (March 1954); records of Philippine tourists to Japan 1953-1956. Diplomatic correspondences include those of U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and discussions of U.S.-Japanese policies in the Pacific and East Asia (June 1957).