Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
shifted its emphasis to policies that fostered economic growth and political stability. The fail-
ure of economic reform in Japan, worries about political instability, the victory of the com-
munists in China, and the growing strategic importance of Japan all contributed to a new
policy orientation stressing economic revival and incorporation into the world economy. The
State Department led the way in emphasizing the strategic importance of Japan in the region
and placing East Asia within the wider global context of the containment of communist influ-
ence. In the ensuing years, Japan was brought into the American security and economic orbit.
The United States took the lead in helping Japan find new commercial relations and sources
of raw materials in Southeast Asia to substitute for the loss of the Chinese and Korean mar-
kets. 93 Like Germany, Japan was now a junior partner of the United States, stripped of its
military capacities and reorganized as an engine of world economic growth. Containment in
Asia was based on the growth and integration of Japan in the wider, noncommunist Asian
regional economy—what Secretary of State Dean Acheson called the “great crescent,” refer-
ring to the countries arrayed from Japan through Southeast Asia to India. The historian Bruce
Cumings captured the logic behind this policy: “In East Asia, American planners envisioned
a regional economy driven by revived Japanese industry, with assured continental access to
markets and raw materials for its exports.” 94 This strategy would link threatened noncom-
munist states along the crescent, create strong economic links between the United States and
Japan, and lessen the importance of the remaining European colonial holdings in the area.
The United States would actively aid Japan in reestablishing a regional economic sphere of
influence in Asia, allowing Japan to prosper and play a regional leadership role within the
larger order. Japanese economic growth, the expansion of regional and world markets, and
the fighting of the Cold War went together.
In constructing security partnerships, the United States opened its domestic market and
tolerated economic discrimination in an effort to bolster the growth of its Cold War allies and
draw them into the American-led system. As Michael Mastanduno observes, “[t]he United
States encouraged, indeed demanded, the integration of the Western European economies
and the formation of a European customs union, even though the latter discriminated against
U.S. exports through a common external tariff. . . . In the case of Japan, in addition to toler-
ating high tariff and nontariff barriers, U.S. officials accommodated the desire of the Japan-
ese government to minimize U.S. foreign direct investment and thereby granted a significant
edge to Japan in the 'rivalry beyond trade.'” 95 Access to the U.S. market bolstered Western
European and Japanese economic growth and political stability and tied their governments
more closely to the United States. Deepened economic ties, in turn, reinforced the credibility
of the American security commitment. 96
The American security commitment in Western Europe and Japan brought with it specific
agreements between Washington and host governments. American overseas deployments
provided protection to these countries, but the bargain involved a sharing of costs and oblig-
 
 
 
 
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