Decolonization and Postwar Settlements

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Decolonization and Postwar Settlements
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Post-Surrender Terms for Japan

• Condition of Japan following war
• Japan was devastated.
• All the cities (except Kyoto), the industries,
  and transportation networks were severely
  damaged.
• A severe shortage of food continued for several
  years.
• Inflation the cost of living rose by 10 percent
  each month for about two years.

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Occupation of Japan (August 1945 - April 1952)

• The entire operation was mainly carried out by
  the United States.
• General Douglass MacArthur was named the Supreme
  Commander of the Allied Powers (SCAP).
• The Japanese people cooperated willingly with the
  occupation authorities.
• The chief objective of SCAP were demilitarization
  and democratization.

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Occupation of Japan (August 1945 - April 1952)

• Demilitarization
• The remains of Japans war machine were
  destroyed.
• Japan basically lost all the territory seized
  after 1894.
• Eventually able to maintain self-defense forces.

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Occupation of Japan (August 1945 - April 1952)

• Democratization
• Economic reforms
• Effort to eliminate big business conglomerates
  independent companies such as Honda, Toyota, and
  Sony emerged.
• Land reform program to achieve a more equitable
  distribution of wealth.

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Occupation of Japan (August 1945 - April 1952)

• Democratization, cont.
• Educational reforms
• Efforts to remove militaristic and
  ultranationalistic influences from schools.
• Suspended the teaching of Japanese history and
  geography until new textbooks could be written.
• Encouraged students to think (no rote learning).
• Reorganized school system after U.S. pattern.

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Occupation of Japan (August 1945 - April 1952)

• Democratization, cont.
• Political reforms
• Eliminate the power of the emperor (figurehead)
  announce that he was not divine peerage
  eliminated.
• Make the executive power of the government
  responsible to the people or the representatives.
• Establish a legislative body that would be
  directly responsible to all adult citizens
  (universal suffrage).
• Develop democratically controlled political
  parties.
• Eliminate ties between the government and Shinto
  shrines.
• Adoption of a new constitution and bill of rights.

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Peace Treaty

• U.S. policy changed from keeping Japan from
  reemerging as a military power to rebuilding its
  economy and transforming it into an important
  part in the anti-Communist bloc.
• On the same day that the peace treaty was signed,
  a mutual security pact was signed between Japan
  and the U.S. It provided for continued U.S.
  military presence to protect it from communism.
• Okinawa was to remain under U.S. occupation
  (1972) retaining rights to military bases.
• Ratified October 1951 went into effect April
  1952.

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Decolonization

• As it became apparent that the Europe-centered
  world was no more, anti-colonial nationalism
  surged after 1945.
• The process of decolonization followed three
  broad patterns
• Civil war (China)
• Negotiated independence (Indian subcontinent and
  much of Africa)
• Incomplete decolonization (Algeria and South
  Africa)

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Civil War in China

• Communist movement in China grew as poverty and
  civil unrest spread.
• Rise of Mao Tse-tung (Communist)
• Party membership swelled from a mere 40,000 in
  1937 to over a million in 1945.
• After Japan surrendered to end World War II, the
  civil war between the Nationalists and the
  Communists resumed.
• U.S. supports Chiang Kai-shek and his
  Nationalists
• Never fully recovered from its demoralizing
  defeat at the hands of the Japanese. (Lost
  popular support)
• Corrupt and inefficient government.

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Civil War in China

• Faced with Communist victory, the Nationalist
  leaders escaped and set up a rival Chinese state
  on the island of Formosa (Taiwan) in 1949.

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Negotiated Independence in India and Africa

• In India and much of colonial Africa,
  independence came with little bloodshed.
• The British withdrew after WWII.
• Pakistan and India gained independence in August,
  1947.
• Problems in India between Hindu majority and
  Muslim minority.
• Gandhi shot dead by a Hindu zealot in 1948.
• Indias first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru
  was committed to the goal of state-directed
  modernization.

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Decolonization in Africa and Asia after World War
II
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Negotiated Independence in India and Africa

• Within a decade and a half of Indian
  independence, most of the African states also
  gained their sovereignty.
• In 1957, the Gold Coast (renamed Ghana) became
  tropical Africas first independent state.
• By 1963 all of British-ruled Africa except for
  Southern Rhodesia was independent.
• In each of these colonial possessions,
  charismatic nationalist leaders took charge of
  populist political parties and became the leaders
  to whom the British turned over power.

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Decolonization in Africa and Asia after World War
II
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Decolonization in Africa and Asia after World War
II
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Negotiated Independence in India and Africa

• Decolonization in much of French-ruled Africa
  followed a similarly smooth path, though the
  French were initially more resistant than the
  British.
• At first, treated decolonization as assimilation.
• France dissolved its political ties with French
  West Africa and French Equatorial Africa in 1960,
  having already given the protectorates in Morocco
  and Tunisia their independence in 1956.

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Incomplete Decolonization Algeria and South
Africa

• The presence of sizeable European settler
  populations complicated the path from colony to
  nation.
• Algeria 1 million Europeans
• French leaders claimed that Algeria was an
  integral part of metropolitan France.
• The colons constituted a minority to the 9
  million indigenous Arabs and Berber peoples.
• South Africa 4 million Europeans
• Minority white rule (Afrikaners) persisted.

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Incomplete Decolonization Algeria and South
Africa

• The Algerian War of Independence
• The war dragged on for eight years (1954-1962),
  at a cost of as many as 300,000 lives.
• At home, French society was torn apart.
• The negotiations to end the war began only after
  an insurrection led by colons and army officers
  had caused the French Fourth Republic to fall in
  1958 and brought Charles de Gaulle to power.
• By 1962, more than 9/10ths of the European
  population had departed.

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Incomplete Decolonization Algeria and South
Africa

• After winning the elections of 1948, the
  Afrikaner-dominated National Party in South
  Africa enacted an extreme form of racial
  segregation known as apartheid.
• Apartheid laws stripped Africans, Indians, and
  colored persons (mixed descent) of their few
  political rights.
• Schools segregated country divided into racial
  homelands
• The African National Congress opposed this
  legislation.
• After the Sharpeville massacre of 1960, peaceful
  protest turned into violent protest.
• Nelson Mandela was sentenced to life in prison in
  1962.
• The West (U.S.) supported South Africa as a
  bulwark against the spread of communism in Africa.