What if victorious Allies restore the Tokugawa Shogunate after WWII?

[Strategos' Risk]

Just a wild idea. What if the Allies go further in punishing Japan after WWII, but instead of getting rid of the emperor altogether, they have the cockamamie plan of reinstating the shogunate as a means to check both the power of the emperor as a ceremonial head, and limit the diet's power? Basically then political power is divided between the diet and a revived, reformed bakufu, and the ceremonial symbolism is divided between the emperor and the shogun. It doesn't have to return to the Tokugawa clan, but funnily enough the Tokugawa Iesato who died in 1940 seemed to have pretty good relations with the U.S. as he was a goodwill ambassador during peacetime.

Basically I'm wondering if the Allies could have punished Japan a little harder but still working within the framework of the Japan of the past century. So you blow away the Meiji Era slightly by reintroducing the bakufu and keeping power fragmented.

 

[Wendell]

This is literally ASB.

 

[Lalli]

That sounds pretty ASB. Why they would restore something which was gone decades ago. Even restoring Kaiserreich is more plausible.

 

[ShySusan]

Depending on how you read it, you could argue that this is exactly what the United States did with MacArthur. Though without the formal title and only on a temporary basis. Mac was called the American Shogun for a reason.

 

[Strategos' Risk]

The Meiji period itself was ASB, so if anything it would the Allied powers putting the genie back into the bottle, so to speak. Undoing Perry's folly.

 

[Michael B]

Might work right up until the start of the Korean. From there it makes sense for the USA to switch to OTL because an industrialised Japan makes a good anti-communist bulwark.

 

[Gokbay]

The Meiji period itself was ASB, so if anything it would the Allied powers putting the genie back into the bottle, so to speak. Undoing Perry's folly.

Please explain how Meiji period was ASB, since it happened.

Especially since there had already been an earlier (albeit brief) time were power was restored to the Emperor (Kenmu Restoration)

 

[Strategos' Risk]

I mean, there are plenty of historical events that are considered ASB in the sense they were low-probability and unexpected, yet they happened.

The rapid industrialization and modernization that marked the Meiji period (and which the term is a synecdoche for) was ASB.

Might work right up until the start of the Korean. From there it makes sense for the USA to switch to OTL because an industrialised Japan makes a good anti-communist bulwark.

I'm not saying the U.S. has to pursue some sort of Morgenthau Plan for Japan, just a way to splinter political power there further to prevent any one group from gaining absolute power again.

 

[Strategos' Risk]

Okay so forget the Allies doing this.

But let's jump into the world of the fringe. What if there was a movement within far right ultranationalist circles in Japan that denies the post-Meiji role of the emperor, if not the man himself, either for losing WWII, surrendering in WWII, and/or renouncing his divinity? And so argues that because the role of the centralized emperor has failed, the proper way is to embrace tradition and go back to the system of the bakufu, where the emperor's role is ceremonial, religious, and symbolic, and a good powerful shogun is the dictator that Japan needs?

I mean if there are post-WWII ultra-rights who are still anachronistically clinging on to the old role of the emperor, what about one that clings to the order before him?

 

[ShySusan]

Okay so forget the Allies doing this.

But let's jump into the world of the fringe. What if there was a movement within far right ultranationalist circles in Japan that denies the post-Meiji role of the emperor, if not the man himself, either for losing WWII, surrendering in WWII, and/or renouncing his divinity? And so argues that because the role of the centralized emperor has failed, the proper way is to embrace tradition and go back to the system of the bakufu, where the emperor's role is ceremonial, religious, and symbolic, and a good powerful shogun is the dictator that Japan needs?

I mean if there are post-WWII ultra-rights who are still anachronistically clinging on to the old role of the emperor, what about one that clings to the order before him?

Cue resumed military occupation of Japan in 3...2...1...

The US and Japan didn't sign their official peace treaty until September, 1951 and they didn't end their occupation of Japan until April, 1952. And to this day, the US still maintains a large military presence there. And a hard right government doing this would likely be considered to be in violation of the terms of that treaty.

 

[Admiral Bloonbeard]

This is literally ASB.

Lots of things are ASB, Greek monarchy restored in 1935, Italy becoming a republic in 1946, Ethiopia becoming Communist, China becoming a republic then communist, South Korea industrializing and becoming a first world nation democracy, Spanish monarchy restored in 1975...

 

[Thon Taddeo]

Lots of things are ASB, Greek monarchy restored in 1935, Italy becoming a republic in 1946, Ethiopia becoming Communist, China becoming a republic then communist, South Korea industrializing and becoming a first world nation democracy, Spanish monarchy restored in 1975...

None of those events is ASB.

 

[Strategos' Risk]

Cue resumed military occupation of Japan in 3...2...1...

The US and Japan didn't sign their official peace treaty until September, 1951 and they didn't end their occupation of Japan until April, 1952. And to this day, the US still maintains a large military presence there. And a hard right government doing this would likely be considered to be in violation of the terms of that treaty.

the existence of a fringe group doesn’t mean they’d be popular, the U.S. didn’t reoccupy Japan over Mishima’s “coup” or the existence of his Shield Society, I’m not saying this movement could get mass adoption, I’m asking if it’s ideologically feasible.

 

[Marius Mazzini]

I mean, there are plenty of historical events that are considered ASB in the sense they were low-probability and unexpected, yet they happened.

The rapid industrialization and modernization that marked the Meiji period (and which the term is a synecdoche for) was ASB.



I'm not saying the U.S. has to pursue some sort of Morgenthau Plan for Japan, just a way to splinter political power there further to prevent any one group from gaining absolute power again.

The discontinuity between the Edo and Meiji periods in Japanese history is quite exaggerated. Not saying that Japanese modernization could have been delayed by contingent events, but there were reasons why Japan was much more fertile ground for modernization than much of the non-Western world. Edo period Japan was unusually urbanized, with high levels of commercial activity. Nor was it completely isolated from the rest of the world-thanks to the trade with the Dutch at Nagasaki, a trickle of Western books came in throughout the period fostering intellectual activity.

 

[Strategos' Risk]

I guess it would be cool if someone actually believed in this

Taylor Swift Breaks Political Silence To Throw Support Behind Restoring Shōgun To Throne Of Japan

NEW YORK—In a heartfelt social media statement to her fans, singer–songwriter Taylor Swift broke her long-standing political silence Monday to support restoring an all-powerful shōgun to its rightful place on the throne of Japan. “Hey guys, Taylor here—I’m writing this post because I’ve been...

entertainment.theonion.com

 

[Grey Wolf]

It could be done. Turn the country into a federal state with much weakened central authority, but that authority under the Emperor, so divided in a way as well.

 

[Strategos' Risk]

It could be done. Turn the country into a federal state with much weakened central authority, but that authority under the Emperor, so divided in a way as well.

Maybe this way you take the control of the JSDF out of hands of the prime minister (and thus the diet) and instead in the hands of a newly-revived shogun, just to make it even more powerless. Or maybe that shogun is a governor-general type role appointed by the American occupation/United Nations- making MacArthur literally a shogun. Just to reinforce how Japan's capability to make war is no longer in her hands.

So by the 21st century, this foreign bakufu is the hands of some five-star American general, but there is agitation both by Japanese nationalists and the Pentagon to make an actual Japanese leader the shogun, because both sides want to slowly make the JSDF less of a self-defensive force to resist China's rising military power.