Samurai Revolt 1970

[Mike Collins]

Title is a little misleading. I was afraid if I put down Yukio Mishima, nobody would take a look! Well, Mishima thought he was a Samurai of a sort.

In 1970, Japanese author and ultra nationalist Yukio Mishima and heand picked leaders of his militia appeared at a Self Defense Force Army headquarters and tried to incite a rebellion against Japan's pacifist government. It was a major failure. Soldiers that saw the activities booed and hissed him down. Mishima and two of his militia proceeded to commit seppuku.

What if he succeeded?

 

[NapoleonXIV]

Without knowing what POD would create a Japan in 1970 allowing Mishima to succeed I can say that the US response would be fairly swift and strong. Japan was and still is one of the main couterweights to Chinese/Russian influence in East Asia in US diplomatic policy.

Mishima was and remains a man of enormous philosophical influence on the Japanese Right and the modern Japanese psyche in general. The Japanese far right at that time also had a considerable number of dangerous terrorists. I don't think that any resurgent militaristic Japan would get much sympathy from the Soviets so the US would have a free hand here and a lot of support, at home, worldwide, and even in Japan itself, for not letting Rightists take over a showcase Democracy. A second war is not out of the question.

The other problem is, like I say, what could possibly make Mishima succeed? Perhaps 25 years of a harsh US occupation? Certainly not the overwhelming prosperity of 1970 which was seeing Japan achieve almost all of its wartime economic goals peacefully. Mishima is IMHO, probably the best Japanese writer of this century, but as a politician he sucked wind.

 

[Prunesquallor]

He could never have succeeded. The Japanese troops laughed themselves sick. It's a bit like asking what would have happened had Robert E Howard or John Milius led a successful military coup in America.