Japan: Changed on the outside, same on the inside

A twelve year old compare to the adult U.S?

Japan seems to have a lot of good things going for itself. It has an amazing economy and gives a lot of international aid. However, a lot of its success in the world depends now, as it has since WWII, on the U.S.'s puppeteering. This happened when the U.S. took over the government post-WWII and used the emperor as a Japanese face to a U.S. agenda. The goal in this was to keep loyalty to Americans while appealing to the pride Japanese people have in their culture and abilities. My question here was why would the proud Japanese allow this to happen? The answer provided by the author was that it ensured that Japan would be protected from big, bad nuclear North Korea. Here, the people value military security over other kinds of protection.

A cool thing I read in this chapter was how the successive rulers of Japan all claim to bring about a new "era" in Japan in which progress occurs consistently. It's as if they all claim to be moving in a direction where the Japanese advance militarily, economically, politically towards some greater state of being. Where are they going with this progress? What does Japan want and can it achieve this desire with U.S. pulling the strings? Is this just a revolution as the author says or is real reform going on amongst the Japanese people?

The future of Japan is very important to East Asia and the world because of the scale of Japan's economy. This explains the U.S.'s interests in maintaining control over Japanese affairs and why it coerces Japan into subordination with promises of diplomatic power and stability. Is the U.S. actually holding Japan back from legitimacy in world politics by being it's "Dad" by acting this way? Where would Japan's alliances, power, and influence flow if it is let go by the U.S.? How has Japan managed to maintain its identity and cultural uniqueness when so many other nations under U.S.'s influence have seemed to lose it. Can the U.S. hold on to this forever?