ABSTRACT

For the Japanese public, 360 yen to the dollar was second nature. It was only as a result of Nixon's New Economic Policy that Japan came to realize once again the international economic order was something that humans maintained. Throughout the postwar, under the Bretton Woods System, the dollar had a fixed value of $35 against one ounce of gold. Worldwide, there were fixed exchange rates as well, with $1 equaling 360 yen in Japan's case. The race to succeed Sato Eisaku Cabinets heated up in 1972, and four candidates – Tanaka Kakuei, Ohira Masayoshi, Miki Takeo, and Nakasone Yasuhiro – formed an anti-Fukuda alliance, the commonality being a change in China policy. During the Cold War, the Liberal Democratic Party led Japan and helped it to develop and prosper as a junior partner of the United States amid the bilateral security relationship.