ABSTRACT
Following the cataclysmic failure of Japan's debut as a creator of regional norms and institutions governing economic and political arrangements, Japan became even more than it had been in mid-nineteenth century a passive recipient, and beneficiary, of global structures authored by others. The terms on which Japan was becoming modem could be and were contested within Japan, but Japan exercised little voice in defining
modernity beyond its borders.! It is true that Japan's domestic political economy, with its decidedly mercantilist cast, did not conform closely to prevailing global norms, but Japan had very limited capacity to shape significantly the behavior of other states or the terms under which they confronted modernity. Neither could Japan influence the norms and rules governing the behavior of international institutions that in turn shaped the global capitalist political economy. Japan began to extend economic assistance to Asian capitalist countries in the latter 1950s, but these war reparations payments were designed simply to promote Japanese exports and to mollify Asian criticism of large Japanese bilateral trade surpluses. Japanese officials did not attempt to use this aid to exert political influence in Southeast Asia. Similarly, Japanese efforts in the 1950s to interest the United States in an Asian Marshal Plan were aimed largely at boosting Japan's exports to the region.
