Japan

Japan 日本国（にっぽんこく／にほんこく）
Flag Coat of arms
Capital and largest city	Tokyo
Official languages	Japanese
Dominant mode of production	Imperialist Capitalism
Government	Unitary parliamentary monarchy
• Emperor	Naruhito
• Prime Minister	Fumio Kishida
Area
• Total	377,975 km²
Population
• 2021 estimate	125,360,000
Currency	Japanese yen

Japan (日本) is a constitutional monarchy and a liberal democratic island country in East Asia. Japan spans an archipelago of 6,852 islands; the four main islands are Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, Kyushu.

The first written mention of the archipelago appears in the Chinese chronicle, the Book of Han, finished in the 2nd century AD. The country was unified in 1603 under the Tokugawa shogunate. In 1931, Japan invaded China, and later in 1937 Japan reignited hostilities, starting World War II. Japan surrendered in 1945 and came under a seven-year occupation.

Japan is a member of the United Nations, the OECD, and the Group of Seven. It is an ally of the United States, and is also a capitalist country. Japan is a highly economically developed country, but suffers from the wealth inequality inherent in capitalism. Japan also has a problem with ultranationalist groups, one being Nippon Kaigi, of which the previous Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, was a member.

Despite being a capitalist country and geopolitical US ally, the US still saw them as an economic rival in the 1980s due to their rising economic power, and actively sabotaged their economy.

Japan has not invaded another country since World War II, as their constitution forbids them from doing so. However, their military bases are of vital importance for the US to maintain their hegemony in east Asia. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is planning to double Japan's military spending by 2027 to commit acts of aggression against China.

History

Feudal era

Japanese and Russian colonization of the Ainu people from c. 700 to 1945

In the sixth century CE, Japan came into contact with China on a large scale, and its culture was deeply influenced by Chinese culture and entered into feudal society.

Feudal civil wars split Japan apart during the 15th and 16th centuries. Lords (daimyo) hired armies of samurai to fight for them. In the early 17th century, the Tokugawa clan defeated all of its rivals. The Tokugawa shogun became the absolute ruler of Japan and reduced the emperor to a figurehead. The Tokugawa Shogunate also banned guns and foreign books and restricted trade to a single port. Many former samurai became farmers or merchants, and capitalism began to develop.

Meiji Restoration and early empire

In 1853, Statesian warships forced their way into Edo Bay, which was called the Black Ship Turmoil (黒船来航). They signed an unequal treaty with Japan which increased foreign imports to Japan and restricted Japanese exports. Between 1867 and 1869, an alliance of lords overthrew the Tokugawa Shogunate and put emperor Meiji in power, bringing Japan into capitalism. Using heavy taxes and conscription, they industrialized Japan and reformed its army and navy based on British and German forces. Peasants and former samurai frequently rebelled, and Japan began imperialist acts of foreign expansion.

Early expansion

In 1894, Japan invaded China and Korea and started the Sino-Japanese War. The Qing army was defeated and signed the unequal Treaty of Shimonoseki, which required China to cede Taiwan and some other islands to Japan. In 1904, war broke out between two imperialist countries, Japan and Russia. Most of the battles of this war were fought on the territory of China and Korea. Japan eventually won the war.

Second World War

The 14-year Chinese war of resistance against Japanese aggression began on 18 September 1931 with the Japanese invasion of Manchuria.

The Japanese invasion united the Communist Party of China with the Kuomintang, and on July 7, 1937 the Japanese army, claiming that its soldiers had wandered off during maneuvers on Chinese territory, demanded to enter the city of Wanping to search it, and after being refused, launched a heavy attack on the city.

Atrocities committed by the Japanese

In northeast China, the Japanese Army established the 731 Biochemical Unit to conduct bacteriological and poisonous gas experiments on Chinese people, including exposing living people to -20 degrees Celsius outdoors for several hours before pouring hot boiling water over them. The unit also released plague-infected rats into villages to study the spread of the disease. More than 3,000 victims of live experiments by the unit alone are registered.

In December 1937, the Japanese army carried out a massacre after capturing the Chinese capital Nanjing. The death toll exceeded 300,000, and China designated December 13 as the National Day of Public Sacrifice. Japanese newspapers openly reported a killing contest between two Japanese soldiers (Toshiaki Mukai and Takeshi Noda), in which the first one to kill 100 Chinese people won. At the same time, Japan stole ancient Chinese documents and artifacts from Nanjing and sent them to Japan itself. John H. D. Rabe, a member of the Nazi Party in Nanjing, relied on his status to shelter, along with other foreigners, 250,000 Chinese from Japanese murder. His diaries reveal Japanese atrocities.

Japan surrendered on 1945 August 9. This decision is often blamed on the U.S. bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but was also influenced by the Soviet Union's invasion of southern Sakhalin and preparation to invade Hokkaido.

Postwar history

After the war, U.S. imperialists made Japan into a puppet state and exempted the Unit 731 war criminals from punishment in order to obtain the experimental data of Unit 731. They installed Nobusuke Kishi, a war criminal who oversaw the occupation of Manchuria, as Japan's new prime minister. The CIA interfered in at least five Japanese elections between 1946 and 2000.

To this day, the Japanese right wing refuses to acknowledge Japan's atrocities in China, and history textbooks make no mention of the Nanjing Massacre. Japan's Yasukuni Shrine is dedicated mainly to World War II war criminals, and former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has repeatedly visited it, causing national outrage in China and Korea. Abe also passed the Conspiracy bill to criminalize actions against U.S. military bases.

Government

Article 9 of the Japanese constitution prevents Japan from having an army, air force, or navy. Since 1952, Japan has used the Japanese Self-Defense Forces as an extension of the police and prison system. The U.S. government and Prime Minister Fumio Kishida are trying to remove the article and rearm Japan. The right-wing imperialist Liberal Democratic Party, which has ruled almost continually since the 1950s, also supports militarism and rearmament.

Culture

Art

Animation

Japanese animation is a staple of Japanese popular culture. After the 1960s, Japan has garnered a reputation for the production of Japanese animation; a particular style of Japanese animation is a mix of foreign and Japanese influence, often referred to by foreigners as anime.

The Japanese animation industry was worth 2.4 trillion yen (17.2 billion USD) in 2020.

The Japanese animation industry notoriously exploits workers. Japanese animators are commonly overworked for low wages.

Religion

The dominant religions in Japan are Shinto (the native polytheistic religion of the country) and Buddhism. Shinto practices are deeply ingrained in Japanese culture. Most Japanese practice both of these religions at the same time. As of 2021, 48.6% of Japanese claim to practice Shinto, 46.4% Buddhism, 1.1% Christianity, and 4% "others." The number of Japanese claiming to follow any religion at all has been declining.