Challenge: Yukio Mishima's coup works

archaeogeek

Banned
POD is too late, character is badly chosen.
Mishima, from what his friend seems to have believed, didn't consider his coup had any chance to succeed, it was an excuse to suicide.
 
Here's the best I got.

When the Republicans take back control of Congress in 1946, isolationist forces prevail rather than the internationalists, and they gut American occupational spending in Japan. The situation deteriorates there, with Japanese Communists growing in number and influence, and though both Truman and MacArthur call for back up from the Congress, it never arrives. Bob Taft defeats Truman in 1948 and finishes pulling American troops out of Japan, which is returned to local governance in 1950.

A General Election brings the Japan Socialist Party to power, though its left flank and communist agitation keeps it from governing well, allowing the conservative forces to regain control, although with little precious support from the country, which is still largely poor and starving thanks to a generous lack of infrastructure. While the conservatives heavily invest in infrastructure and try to bring the economy back on a stable footing, they are unable to defeat the growing Japanese Communist Party, which organizes within the labor movement and other sectors, such as the agricultural sector. Intellectuals join in the fray in the sixties, when, as an economic shock sends the Japanese economy into a spiral, the campuses and factories revolt.

The Japanese Revolution of 1968 spirals out of control quickly, with various communes established in major cities and with the Japanese Self Defense Forces doing their best to maintain order. A state of emergency is declared, though the incumbent government is largely seen as impotent to protect the nation from the growing unrest and the activity of the commune governments.

A rousing speech by Yukio Mishima, a former author and actor leads to a coup d'etat against the incumbent government in 1970, with the restoration of the powers of the Emperor on paper, but in reality, the imposition of what is termed the 'Mishima Shogunate' by the foreign press. Mishima reorganizes the Self Defense forces into the Imperial Japanese Army and crushes the communes, bans the Japanese Communist Party, and liquidates it's supporters.

By 1971, order has been mostly restored. Mishima, now Prime Minister of Japan, begins to implement a rigidly reactionary social program to return Japan to it's 'founding values', which loosely translates to turning Japan into a reactionary state of Emperor worship and state Shintoism. The last vestiges of Japanese democracy are abolished and society is 'reformed' in the seventies and eighties, all the while Mishima also promotes the development of 'egalitarian capitalism', i.e. state capitalism, to compete with the Soviet Union, now the world's largest economic power thanks to the rise of American isolationism, and with the closed American economy. The 'Japanese miracle' dominates literature of the decade, and with the collapse of the United States in a socialist revolution in 1989 and the eventual rise of communism in Latin America, Japan assumes the leadership of the 'Free World' (however distorted this now coalition of fascist and theocratic states has become) and begins a military build up to challenge the power of the Soviet Union.

Mishima dies in 1995, and is succeeded by a close family member. As the military build up continues, the Japanese Committee of Public Safety (the de facto ruling commission of Japan) announces in 2006 that it has acquired nuclear weapons and that it shall produce nuclear weapons to contain communist influence in the Pacific. The Soviet Union is not amused, and tensions continue to rise between the two powers, with a 'Second Russo-Japanese War' continually predicted by pundits every other week...
 
I think Mishima never had a chance of succeeding, period. You can bet the JSDF would have had the nearby US forces at Atsugi, Yokota, and Camp Zama and even Okinawa to move right in with them and crush Mishima.
 
I agree with the posters above who said that even Mishima didn't expect his "coup" to work. It was just political theater, a kind of public suicide note. I don't see a way for the kind of plot Mishima envisioned to work, but I have an idea for a coup lead by others with Mishima serving as the "voice" of the group.

Although Japan returned to democracy in the post-war era, the CIA was still pouring in money and other aid to ensure LDP victories at the polls. If, in the late 60's, the LDP loses power to the Socialist anyway, it might discredit the LDP in the eyes of the US. This would the 60's socialist party, not the mainstream party that had a PM in 93, so they might actually live up to their party platform. This would include better/normalized relations with North Korea, the PRC, USSR, etc. They would probably try to cancel the defense treaty with the US, maybe even try to send the troops home--during the middle of the Viet Nam War.

I can't imagine the US would be too happy about any of this. If they don't see any recourse through elections, I don't think it is too ASB for some CIA agent to start chatting up some ambitious JSDF general or other. If they get really clever, they can kill off a few civilian authorities and blame it on the Japanese Red Army or similar. Maybe even stage an attack on the Imperial Family. It gives them an excuse to crack down on the Reds and the party in power. After that, the JSDF and the US forces pick up the pieces to restore order. This is where Mishima comes in. He is an intellectual--he could offer valuable assistance making sense of all this to the Japanese people. He'd probably be more than happy to do it, too, it is just what he wanted for his country. Just have a couple of generals join the Tatenokai.

Maybe afterwards, the Japanese general in charge revises the constitution and shows their graditude to the US by sending a division or two to fight alongside the RoK Army and the US Army in Nam...

What do you guys think?
 
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