The effect of the first stage of Japan’s postwar evolution was to take its strategic orientation out of Cold War contests, freeing it to focus on a transformative program of economic development. Japan placed itself legally in the camp of the developed democracies but—citing its pacifist orientation and commitment to world community—declined to join the ideological struggles of the age. The result of this subtle strategy was a period of concerted economic growth paralleled only by that following the 1868 Meiji Revolution. Within two decades of its wartime devastation, Japan had rebuilt itself
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