I'm not saying that things were hunky-dory by any stretch, but looking at the horror stories from most of the world, Japan seems tonhave been considerably less fucked over. Why?
Answers will be at different stages of Japan's history.
Japan was considered isolationist by Western colonists for quite some time and succeeded in delaying all forms of colonization until basically the mid-1800s approximately around the beginning of the Meiji Restoration. The same playbook was followed in Japan as towards other colonized countries: forced to abandon tariffs and sell off lands and companies to foreign powers or we will destroy you with our Navy (this time, the US Navy). The Meiji Restoration was in many ways a reaction to this and bolstered Japan's own military power to reject much of the colonial policies that had been forced upon them. There is of course more to it than this, and much about their economic base, but their military power and deciding to use it to secure their own trade positions is what guarded them against the extraction and travesties that their neighbors suffered at the hands of European powers.
Japan fully reoriented around becoming its own imperial power beyond the borders of Japan. It was carving out its own sphere of influence and this was so fully at odds with US imperialist interests that Lenin famously predicted a war between them. Japan set out and did its own version of imperialism on its neighbors, famously in Manchuria and Korea and then eventually carrying out the full-scale assault and expansion during WWII.
You might then wonder why Japan kept a high economic status after the war given that it was the US' rival and that a "strong Japan" had been directly against its interests. The answer to this question is anticommunism. The US took every foothold they could to maintain forward bases against (first) the USSR (who actually forced Japan's surrender), (second) China, and later Korea. That included maintaining sea and air power throughout the Pacific, in Japan, in Taiwan, and taking over European colonial outposts in places like Singapore and Indonesia. Japan in particular got the Marshall Plan treatment of getting built up to act as a counterbalance to the neighboring communist countries, receiving a steady stream of stimulus from the imperialists and hosting US military bases and personnel.
This is, more or less, why Japan has kept its economic status. It's no guarantee, of course. The US deliberately crashed their economy in the 90s because they were outcompeting them on key industries.
The US deliberately crashed their economy in the 90s because they were outcompeting them on key industries.
And the “lost decade” of the nineties has lasted like 35 years now.
I didn't know the lost decade was deliberate! Also: The USSR forced Japanese surrender? I know the nukes weren't necessary and Japan was already on the verge of surrender, but I guess I assumed that was to the US, considering all that was going on in the pacific
The timeline of Japanese surrender suggests that they were trying to buy some time to get a favorable deal and the Soviets made that a non-option by invading Sakhalin. The Japanese then immediately surrendered to the Americans, presumably seeing no path forward for a better deal. The timeline of meetings of Japanese leadership suggest the same. They did not rapidly respond to the nukes. Not surprising, as the nukes were no different in impact than the previous firebombings. They flipped out when the Soviets declared war and rapidly took South Sakhalin, however.
Wait, how was the 90s crash deliberate? I know nothing about it but the basics but this sounds wild.
Wait, how was the 90s crash deliberate?
the US has like 600 military bases on the island so it can force them to do whatever it wants
That's not really an answer to the question. Are you implying that the US military threatened Japan into crashing its own economy? I don't think that's how that would work.
The main thing is that Japan was an export-oriented economy, that was growing at a rapid rate all throughout the 70s and 80s, and it was seen as a threat to the US, particularly the U.S. manucturing companies. Japan was able to do this in part because their currency was kept at a low value, which meant that japanese products were cheap to import to the US, and due to Japan having heavy public investment in making sure that their products were cheap (they were world-leading in manufacturing automation for a long while) this meant that American companies couldn't compete against Japanese products. Then the Plaza-Accords happened, which, among other things, meant that Japan could no longer keep the value of their currency low, and along with some relaxations on real-estate speculation, meant that Japanese companies could no longer compete on price with the US, which meant that a shitload of their excess money went into real estate speculation instead, which caused the largest property bubble in Japanese history (I think at one point the Imperial Palace in Tokyo was technically worth more than the entirety of the GDP of the state of California). The bubble then naturally burst, but since Japan could no longer export their goods to the West to the same degree that they previously had, and with China taking up all the lower levels of the manufacturing chain, there was nothing for the japanese economy to actually produce, leading to the current stagnation.
A lot of people, particularly on the left, believes that the Plaza Accords were such a monumentally stupid decision by the Japanese government, because it didn't benefit Japan in any way and basically worked as an economic death sentence, leading us to conclude that the agreement must have been signed under some form of duress, which would be easy to do for the country that basically has an army occupying part of it.
I have never seen anybody call Japan -- as in Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu -- a former colony. Ainu Mosir and Ruuchuu are areas which are continually being colonized by Japan and the United States, but Japan itself is better described as a vassal of the United States.
As I understand it (I could be wrong), the reason why basically boils down to that Japan itself was a fascistic genocidal empire, and so as their empire crumbled, they could be groomed into a useful bulwark against the USSR and Japan's own recently-liberated colonies, using the same methods of treat-giving that also worked in Europe.
The colonizer mindset itself remains alive and well in Japan.
Japan was economically colonized but not settler-colonized. The main reason material conditions are relatively good there compared to the global south is that the west found them useful against Russia and China in the cold war.
It was also instrumental as an arms manufacturing base for the U.S.' attempted genocide of True Korea.
Didn't the US also do a load of tech-transfers similar to Korea after their respective wars were over? Sure helps re-industrizaling when you just get given a whole load of cash along with blueprints for factories.
It was in America's best interest to flood Japan (and Germany) with resources for reconstruction to make capitalism look better than communist countries reconstructing with limited resources
The US controls the military of Japan and South Korea. I can't think of any sane world in which this is considered independent lol
We're going to nuke you just to scare the Ruskies.....twice......
You're now our cheap labor.
You will now buy our debt - Japan is the largest foreign holder of public U.S. government debt, owning $1.1 trillion in debt as of October 2023.
You will also be party to our hosilte imperalism by hosting our bases.
You will now develop a proxy army for us.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Next_100_Years:_A_Forecast_for_the_21st_Century
Japan will expand its economic influence to regions of coastal China, the Russian Far East, and many Pacific Islands. Friedman predicts that Japan will change its foreign policy during this time period, becoming more geopolitically aggressive, beginning a major military buildup. Friedman predicts that Japan will build military strength capable of regionally projecting power across East Asia during this time.
Finally, Poland will continue to lead its military alliance, the "Polish Bloc." Poland and its allies will be a major power, much like the time of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Now possessing substantial military strength, Poland will expand its economic influence into what was formerly European Russia, and will begin to compete with Turkey for influence in the important economic region of the Volga River Valley. Around this time, space programs for military use will begin to emerge, and Japan and Turkey will increasingly begin to develop military capabilities in space
In the 2020s, the collapse of the Russian government and the fragmentation of mainland China will leave Eurasia in general chaos. Other powers will then move in to annex or establish spheres of influence in the area, and in many cases, regional leaders will secede. In Russia, North Caucasus and other Muslim regions, as well as the Pacific Far East will become independent, Finland will annex Karelia, Romania will annex Moldova, Tibet will gain independence with help from India, Taiwan will extend its influence into mainland China, while the United States, European powers, and Japan will re-create regional spheres of influence in mainland China.
This is indistinguishable from /r/imaginarymaps lmao
pulling these from my ass: