Sept., 2, 1945: the date that marked the official end of the Second World War and the start of the occupation of Japan.

After a decade of war and the destruction of major cities, Japan lay in ruins. It was up to the victorious Allied powers—chiefly the United States—to rebuild the country politically and economically.

But were the people of the now-dethroned Empire of the Rising Sun treated fairly? I believe they were. To support this claim, we will examine Japan’s occupation from 1945 until its release in 1951, dividing it into three eras: political reconstruction, economic revival and building a peaceful alliance.

Japan’s political reconstruction can be compared to previous reconstructions that had happened in its past, such as the Meiji Restoration 80 years earlier, which “represented a period of rapid social and institutional change that was based on the borrowing and incorporation of foreign models.”

Under the leadership of Gen. MacArthur, the Supreme Commander of Allied Powers (SCAP), the nation was demilitarized and democratized. While this did negatively affect Japanese culture, its effects were not nearly as severe because MacArthur kept one aspect: the continued reign of Emperor Hirohito.

To fully understand Hirohito would require its own article, so for this article, all that needs to be known is his place in Japanese culture and his actions in the war.

To his people, Hirohito was The “god-emperor,” a man who was, in Shinto belief, a descendant of the sun goddess Amaterasu. You can, therefore, imagine how important he was in such a religious nation.

Hirohito was, however, no god to many in China, Southeast Asia, and the Allied Powers. To them, he was a war criminal, but he was one who was never prosecuted.

In MacArthur’s mind, prosecuting Hirohito would have created an uncontrollable nation, and this is a sentiment I agree with. With how deep the roots of Shinto beliefs were in Japanese society and culture, a rebellion would’ve arisen, even with a demilitarized nation. In the most extreme, but most likely in my opinion, case, it would’ve been a rebellion with sticks and stones against an occupier with guns and tanks—another massacre after a war that had already massacred so many. Hirohito was stripped of most of his political power and remained the nation’s figurehead.

With Japan’s political reconstruction underway, it was time for the nation’s economic revival, an undertaking that began in 1947 and lasted well into 1950.

It was mostly fueled by the democratic powers’ fear of a communist takeover in a weakened Japan, and with the rising chance of a communist victory in the Chinese Civil War, that fear increased.

And since the fear of communism was so fervent in the minds of the democratic world at the time, it’s worth skipping ahead to the largest factor in Japan’s economic success after the Second World War: the Korean War.

The Korean War saw a massive influx in Japan’s industrial sector, primarily with the production of military equipment for the democratic forces in South Korea. To some occupation officials, the Korean War “saved” their efforts of bringing Japan’s economy back up to speed, and they’re correct in almost every way.

It does prompt the question of what Japan’s economy would’ve been like had the Cold War not started, effectively bringing the Korean War front and center. I don’t see a possibility where enough sympathy for the Japanese people would’ve arisen in the occupying nations for its reconstruction to have continued for much longer, at least in a significant way. Even without the Cold War, America, Japan’s almost sole occupier, would’ve been far too preoccupied assisting Europe—and possibly the Russians in this hypothetical scenario—in rebuilding after the Nazis had raged across Europe. And of course, we can’t forget about the territories Japan had occupied during the Second World War, all of which still had plenty of wounds that required aid to heal.

It can be said then that the third part, the peaceful alliance, is a miracle.

This refers to when SCAP deemed that Japan was well on its way to recovering from the war, politically and economically. The once military foe was now on its way to becoming one of America’s strongest military allies.

As stated above, SCAP considered the real threat “to be the creep of communism, particularly in Asia.”

In Sept., of 1951, fifty-two nations met in San Fransico to discuss the future of Japan. The Treaty of San Francisco was created, and it dictated that America would retain many of its naval bases in the region, that Japan would receive a bilateral security pact, and that Japan would continue to assist in the Korean War. Of the fifty-two nations, forty-nine signed (the ones that didn’t being the communist nations of the Soviet Union, Poland, and Czechoslovakia).

In the years since the occupation of Japan ended, its alliance and ties with the west have only grown, and I believe that’s for the better. Had it fallen to communism, it very likely would’ve ended up like the Soviet Union did when it collapsed in 1991, or it could’ve turned into the dictatorships we see today in China and North Korea.

There’s every chance my opinion would’ve been different had I been affected by the Japanese in the war, but I’m thankful I can look at the occupation objectively and with a vast amount of information at my disposal.

I wish to finish by stating a special thank you to those who fought for the continuation of freedom in the Second World War. Without those sacrifices, nations like Japan would’ve stayed under the reign of dictators, with the liberties we hold so dear unknown to them.