This essay reveals the reality that postwar Japan paid reparations under treaties with many countries, while also bearing the confiscation of overseas assets and the costs of occupation.
It reexamines the weight of postwar settlements that textbooks and the media have failed to convey, and asks how sincerely Japan has in fact fulfilled its responsibilities.

2019-07-10
Japan Paid Reparations Even to Italy and Switzerland.
Just as with the enormous tax expenditures and preferential treatment directed toward Okinawa, there are other things as well that textbooks and the media do not tell us.
The following is a chapter I published on July 25 under the title “Japan Paid Reparations Even to Italy and Switzerland.”
Today, July 25, I came across this laborious work online.
I am deeply impressed by this person, and I praise his work from the bottom of my heart.
https://blog.goo.ne.jp/yamanooyaji0220/e/10f78d33a2d00c1cc5293849122389f8
2013-06-01 09:32:49 | Materials
From the blog “A Country That Lost the War”
Japan Paid Reparations Even to Italy and Switzerland.
Just as with the enormous tax expenditures and preferential treatment directed toward Okinawa, there are other things as well that textbooks and the media do not tell us.
That is how greatly Japan sacrificed and how it carried out its postwar settlements.
These are precisely the facts that should be taught in detail in textbooks, and that the media should convey whenever the occasion arises.
[Japan Carried Out Its Postwar Settlements Sincerely]
Not only in China and on the Korean Peninsula, but also in America and Europe, there are still people who speak of Japan’s war responsibility.
And even among Japanese people, there seem to be many who carry a sense of guilt, wondering whether Japan’s postwar settlements toward foreign countries were insufficient.
But was Japan’s response really insufficient?
In fact, Japan carried out postwar settlements by paying sacrifices to the fullest extent possible.
Moreover, these were not terms devised by Japan itself, but even unreasonable terms decided by the other countries were accepted and carried out.
The first thing I would like to confirm is that in any war, it is impossible to go on making amends forever.
At the very least, in relations between states, that is resolved by concluding some kind of treaty, and this then leads to the establishment of diplomatic relations.
(Unless, in particular, the treaty explicitly states that postwar settlements remain unresolved.)
Japan fulfilled that faithfully.
It determined the terms of reparations through treaties with each country, and it paid them.
Even if one calls it negotiation, this was after defeat, and Japan had absolutely no power, so it seems there were many cases in which matters proceeded just as they demanded.
To use a harsh expression, one might say that Japan, unable to resist, was stripped exactly as they wished.
A list of those reparations is given in Note 1.
Please do take a look at it.
I am sure many people will be astonished.
Even Switzerland, which ought to have been a permanently neutral country, and even Italy, which ought to have been an ally, demanded and received reparations.
In addition, there are countries such as Greece, Argentina, and others that make one tilt one’s head in puzzlement.
When did Japan ever go to war with Greece or Switzerland?
Beyond that, all of Japan’s overseas government and private assets, totaling 379.499 billion yen in 1945 value, were confiscated.
In particular, the assets on the Korean Peninsula and in Manchuria amounted to enormous sums.
For reference, the starting salary of an elementary school teacher in 1952 is said to have been 5,850 yen.
If one infers from that, would their value today be roughly 25 to 30 times greater?
That would mean assets worth well over ten trillion yen were confiscated.
The confiscation of these overseas assets was, at least with regard to private assets, a violation of international law.
• Confiscation of private assets is strictly prohibited under international law (Article 46 of the Regulations Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land).
• Public and private assets in neutral countries are likewise strictly protected from confiscation.
It can only be seen as Japan, unable to resist because of defeat, being plundered at will.
In the occupation period that followed, Japan was also forced to bear the expenses of the occupation forces.
These included the costs of golf courses, mansion construction, luxury items, and the like, and they amounted to one-third of Japan’s national budget.
Moreover, assistance such as food aid, often regarded as American goodwill, was all demanded back with interest, and it became the largest item in postwar settlement expenditures.
*Furthermore, to present-day China, in the form of ODA, Japan had provided by the end of fiscal 2003 approximately 3.0472 trillion yen in yen loans, about 141.6 billion yen in grant aid, and about 144.6 billion yen in technical cooperation.
To be continued.