Eagle, I don't want to form an alliance anymore.

Yuji Tanaka's neighbor was an engineer working at a Japanese electronics factory in the Far East Special Economic Zone. After the bubble burst, the factory's Tokyo headquarters couldn't hold on, and the factory in the Far East was taken over by the Soviet Union. He was "politely" informed that his contract was terminated and asked to return to Japan.

After returning, he couldn't find a job.

The electronics industry is laying off workers, the service industry is laying off workers, all industries are laying off workers!

Later, his neighbor's house was seized by the bank because he used the house to take out a loan to speculate in stocks, and now he has to sleep on the streets.

Japan's unemployment rate is soaring, and so is its suicide rate. Businesses are going bankrupt one after another, and the lifetime employment system, which had never laid off employees for decades, is now being torn apart like paper! Japanese employees who thought they would work for the same company until retirement and considered their company their home are being thrown onto the streets overnight.

The most terrifying thing is not poverty itself, but the confusion of "What did I do wrong?"

A person who had followed the rules and regulations his whole life, just like everyone around him, was suddenly kicked over by fate! He didn't know who kicked him or why; he only knew that he was in pain, that he was furious, and that there was nowhere to vent his anger!

Soon, the anger found an outlet—foreigners.

Foreigners in Japan became the target of this anger that had nowhere else to go. First, they were verbally abused and shoved on the street. Then it escalated to shops being vandalized and things being thrown at them. And then it escalated again to foreigners being chased, beaten, kicked, and kidnapped in the street.

The situation is getting worse every day.

Those Koreans, Filipinos, Pakistanis, and Chinese who were brought in during the bubble economy era to do the dirty and hard work that the Japanese were unwilling to do became the most direct victims. The Japanese do not dare to touch the Americans at present, but dealing with these cowards is not a problem.

They were besieged and driven away by angry unemployed people, their homes were vandalized with graffiti and windows smashed, and they had to go to the embassy seeking asylum with stocks and yen that had become worthless.

In some places, things were even worse. Mobs stormed into neighborhoods where foreigners lived, dragged people out of their homes, and beat them to death in the street.

But the newspapers only published a few lines about it before it was drowned out by the overwhelming news of economic collapse.

The violence is still burning; it's the most primal outburst of human emotion. Ordinary people whose lives have been crushed by economic collapse need a scapegoat, someone to punch!

"They stole our jobs!" "These foreigners plundered our property!"

Everything that Americans experienced two years ago has been replicated by the Japanese.

Two weeks later, the Japanese prime minister resigned, and an emergency election was held for parliament. However, the parliament was rife with infighting, and no one could compromise. The pro-surrender comprador faction was the first to be ousted, and the establishment was quickly crushed by the angry crowd. As for the left wing—

After Nobusuke Kishi signed the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty more than a decade ago, which triggered the failure of the All-Japan Communist Party movement by the Japanese left, a large number of Japanese leftists were purged by the Japanese government and the United States, leaving the left-wing forces too weak.

So the House of Representatives only has one answer left—turn right!

Japanese civilians, fueled by populism, were filled with anger and even blocked the gates of US military bases. They believed that the US, the Soviet Union, and other foreign countries were dividing up Japanese assets, leaving the destitute people with nothing but anger.

...

U.S. military base in Yokosuka.

Nearly 50,000 American soldiers are stationed on Japanese soil, occupying Japanese land and enjoying Japanese wealth. During the bubble economy era, most Japanese people took this for granted—with American soldiers here, it was safe!

But now, this familiarity has turned into humiliation.

It was the Americans who forced us to sign the Plaza Accord! It was the Americans who manipulated our exchange rate! It was the Americans who removed our brakes! It was the Americans who inflated our bubble and then burst it themselves! It was the Americans and the Soviet Union who, like two sharks, tore our great nation to pieces!

And after all that—after they’ve wrecked our economy—their army is still brazenly stationed on our land!

Japanese citizens began besieging a US military base.

First, it happened in Okinawa. The resentment of Okinawans towards the US military is long-standing: land occupation, noise pollution, soldier crimes, the arrogance of white people towards Asians... Once the bubble burst, all these years of grievances surfaced. Thousands of people surrounded the base's barbed wire fence, holding signs and chanting slogans, demanding that the US military get out.

Then the protests spread to the mainland, with bases in Yokosuka, Sasebo, Misawa, and other locations being besieged by angry mobs.

The Self-Defense Forces were deployed to suppress the protests, but when the soldiers stood before their angry compatriots who spoke the same language and shared the same blood, they couldn't raise their hands!

The Self-Defense Forces are unwilling to suppress their own people.

Some Self-Defense Force officers privately sympathize with the protesters; they themselves feel the same way.

"Yes, the Americans have done this to us, so why should their troops stay here? The Self-Defense Forces are the Japanese army! They're not here to guard the gates for the Americans!"

The Self-Defense Forces' passive stance made the commanders at the US military bases uneasy. They consulted Washington, and Washington's response was swift—maintain order.

The U.S. military took action.

Tear gas, water cannons, rubber bullets, helmets and shields... Bloodshed also occurred in Okinawa, where, instigated by right-wing groups, people drove tractors through the gates of a US military base. It is unclear who fired the first shot, but the two sides began exchanging fire.

Seven U.S. soldiers were killed and more than 30 were injured. The base commander directly ordered armored vehicles to ram civilian vehicles, and Molotov cocktails, which appeared out of nowhere, hit the vehicles and destroyed American equipment.

Helicopters then entered the area, and the US military loosened its firepower to drive away the rioters who had broken into the base. After suffering heavy casualties, the Japanese began to flee, and the exact number of deaths was unknown. When reporters arrived, the US military base was already under martial law, and they could only see helicopters carrying black body bags going back and forth, taking off and landing all night.

Behind the blood-stained base gates, photos of American helicopters transporting body bags quickly appeared on television screens around the world.

That day, Yuji Tanaka sat in front of the television watching the images. The white smoke from tear gas spread outside the barbed wire fence; some people were running, some were crying, some were lying on the ground covering their faces; the noisy rotors of helicopters overhead irritated him.

He sat motionless in front of the TV, holding a bowl of cold miso soup in his hand.

He thought back to his eleven years working at the exchange, to those numbers that kept jumping upwards, and to the days when he thought things would always be this good.

Last month, the girl in Tokyo he had a crush on wrote to him saying that this was the best summer she had ever had since she became an adult.

That year, she found a job and invested all her salary in the stock market, earning five years' worth of wages. Airfares were discounted everywhere, and she could easily fly to an island for a swim with just a week's salary.

That day, she was walking in Tokyo when suddenly everyone on the street stopped what they were doing, hugged each other, and cheered because the Nikkei index had hit its daily limit.

She said she was very happy, and it felt like a golden age for humanity.

Then he remembered his grandfather. His grandfather had watched the boots of the occupying forces walk past him in the ruins after the Tokyo bombings, and now he would watch another batch of occupying forces' boots trample through Japanese markets.

That was in 1945, and it is now 1990.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

The images of the US military suppressing Japanese civilians quickly ignited anger throughout Japan.

It ripped open the deepest wound in the heart of Japanese society for forty-five years after the war—a wound that had been carefully covered up by the words "Peace Constitution," "economic miracle," and "US-Japan alliance."

This wound is called humiliation.

The humiliation of defeat, the humiliation of occupation, the humiliation of having our military power crippled, the humiliation of being held in the hands of the United States and being released and ceded at will...

For years, the Japanese used economic success to cover up this wound. But now the economy is gone, and that shell plastered on with money has shattered.

Following the emergency elections, Japanese politics began a visible rightward shift. Right-wing voices that could only murmur in the corners during the bubble economy era have now become mainstream. Those who wear right-wing propaganda vehicles and play Japanese military anthems on the streets—once considered eccentrics and lunatics by most Japanese—are now increasingly finding merit in their words.

Newspapers began to feature topics that would never have been openly discussed a few years ago.

"Is Article 9 of the Constitution still necessary?" "Should the Self-Defense Forces be upgraded to a formal national defense force?"

"Shouldn't Japan possess its own nuclear deterrent force?" "Drive out the American beasts! Drive out the communist bandits! The Great Japanese Empire will rise again from the corpses of its enemies!"

The Americans acted quickly. Major media outlets were given stern warnings, and reports that could easily incite public anger or shift blame onto Americans were suppressed. Only reports that shifted the blame to the Soviet Union were allowed to appear in the newspapers.

The Soviet Union was not to be outdone. After entering the Japanese market, it also gained control of some media outlets, leading to a war of words between the US and the USSR in the Japanese media arena. Eventually, even the Japanese people grew weary of this.

You damned Japanese and your damned Chinese should all get out of Japan!

Faced with the increasingly out-of-control situation in Japan, President Gepphardt chose to acquiesce in order to appease Japanese sentiments and reduce American costs in Japan.

Americans tacitly allow the Japanese people to "vent their emotions." In Gephart's view, as long as the US military bases in Japan do not withdraw and as long as Japan does not have nuclear weapons, it is perfectly fine for the Japanese to vent their frustrations.

After all, if Japan were to really go berserk, the first to worry would definitely be the Soviet Union and China.

Since there are tall people to hold up the sky even if it falls, it makes perfect sense for the US to sit below and count its yen.

But Gephart did not anticipate that the consequences of the US and the Soviet Union inflating the bubble to almost twice its original height would be far more severe than they imagined.

As mainstream media is suppressed by the Americans, a sentiment that has been permeating the depths of Japanese society is spreading.

This emotion is called revenge.

"We are being trampled underfoot, but one day we will stand up!"

This longing, which had lain dormant for forty-five years of peace and prosperity, has now awakened.

It was awakened by the Great Depression, by the Plaza Accord, by the combined exploitation by the US and the Soviet Union, and by the bullets fired by the US military on Japanese soil.

It doesn't know where it's going yet; it doesn't have a specific direction, a specific plan, or a specific leader.

Once a nation's sense of revenge awakens—

History has proven that it will not easily fall back into a slumber.

...

A few months later, Yuji Tanaka was still working at the stock exchange.

The exchange was still operating, the numbers were still dropping, and every day he went in to do his clearing work, like a waiter wiping tables on a sinking ship.

The International Food Relief Agency had already arrived in Japan. This time, the United Nations showed a rare act of kindness, providing Japan with a large amount of relief food and clothing to help a large number of homeless people barely survive.

One evening, Tanaka was walking home from get off work when he passed a street in Tokyo and saw a small bookstall on the side of the street.

The bookstall displayed some newly published books. He glanced at them and noticed a few titles:

One of the books had the Rising Sun flag on its cover.

One of the books has the words "Greater East Asia" in its title.

One of the books is a biography of a pre-war soldier.

A few years ago, these books would only appear in right-wing bookstores frequented by a select few; now they are displayed on ordinary street stalls, alongside comics and gossip magazines.

Yuji Tanaka gazed at the books for a long time, hesitated, bought one, and continued walking home.

Behind him, more and more people stopped and began to flip through the books, hoping to find something in them that would make them feel less pain, less humiliation, and less despair.

A nation pushed into the abyss will grasp at any rope that makes it feel it still has dignity, even if that rope comes from the darkest part of its past history.

Tanaka Yuji walked home.

The news on TV reported that Shinzo Abe, a member of parliament, has proposed a bill to amend Article 9 of the Constitution.

He swallowed hard, glanced at the picture book with the Rising Sun Flag printed on it, and turned off the TV.

He sat in the dark for a long time.

Outside the window, the lights of Tokyo were still on, but the city beneath those lights was no longer the same city he had entered the stock exchange eleven years ago.

That glittering, confident Tokyo that once looked down on the world is dead.

An angry Tokyo, groping its way through the ruins, is rising from its corpse.

Chapter 105 The Buran Space Shuttle is a Great Success

After 45 years of patience and hard work, Japan's dream of regaining its status as a major power with its strong economy finally came to an end amid the tearing apart and partitioning of countries around the world.

But Japan’s efforts to rise continue. This time, will it risk its national destiny to unleash an even more powerful force that will shake the world and make the glory of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere stand at the top of the Pacific Ocean, or will it simply become a geographical concept?

Whether Japan's future is one of obscurity or global fame, the stories of the millions of working people living on this land are far from over.

...

After the story in Japan has come to a temporary end, let's turn back the clock to 1988.

In the autumn of 1988, the numbers in Tokyo were still soaring. The Nikkei index hit a new high, newspapers debated how much it could rise next year, and Japanese money was flowing all over the world, into those glamorous stories about the Soviet Union.

Everyone felt that the good days were just beginning.

In the same autumn, 6,000 kilometers west of Tokyo, the Kazakh steppes saw their first snowfall of the year.

Baikonur Cosmodrome, Launch Pad 110. A pure white spacecraft stands against the middle of a steel frame, its back against the launch vehicle.

The wind from the grassland swept across the tower, making the engineers' coats flap loudly, and a thin layer of frost formed on the beautiful white fuselage.

It is now November 15, 1988, and the Buran space shuttle, a culmination of Soviet wisdom and technology, is undergoing its final pre-launch checks.

Sixteen days ago, the Buran spacecraft experienced a malfunction when its automated launch control system detected an anomaly and decided to abort the launch. After troubleshooting and fixing the software glitch, scientists have scheduled the next launch for today.

This aircraft is highly automated. It was designed to be automatically controlled by a computer. Soviet scientists racked their brains for more than a decade before finally turning their hard work from blueprints into a physical entity on the launch pad.

Upon hearing this news, Slava decided to go to Baikonur in person.

He had never seen a rocket launch in his life, and now that he finally had some free time, he had to witness this historic moment.

Buran was the culmination of the Soviet space industry. It was originally conceived to compete with the American Space Shuttle. However, after the successful conclusion of the American Apollo program in the 70s and the Soviet Union's abandonment of manned lunar landing, the United States began to reduce its investment in space programs.

The space race left both sides feeling like they couldn't keep up.

The Soviet Union paid a huge economic price. In its efforts to catch up with the United States in the lunar race, the Soviet Union burned through a lot of resources on the N1 rocket, and all four launches failed.

Americans also discovered that spaceflight is too expensive. The Apollo program landed on the moon six times, and its political significance far outweighed its actual economic benefits. The input and output were completely disproportionate.

The first space race occurred because the launch of the Soviet Sputnik satellite in 1957 shocked the United States, which felt a real security threat—if the Soviets could send satellites into space, they could send nuclear bombs at New York!

This fear drove the U.S. government to invest more than four percent of its GDP in NASA over a decade. This was during the height of the Cold War, when space became the front line of the ideological competition between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.

As the 1970s approached, the first space race ended in victory for the Americans. The Apollo program achieved 6 out of 7 moon landings. After Apollo 17 carried out the final manned moon landing mission in December 1972, NASA's budget began to be cut every year.

As for the Soviet Union? The Soviet Union chose a different path—building a space station.

However, the two oil crises of the 70s and the war in Afghanistan in the 80s gradually dragged the Soviet economy into a quagmire of collapse, which made the Soviet space program stumble and barely move forward.