Post-Occupation Japan is a phrase used to describe the period in the history of Japan which started at the end of the Allied occupation in 1952. During this period, Japan re-established itself as a global economic and political power. The Allied occupation ended on April 28, 1952, when the terms of the Treaty of San Francisco went into effect. By the terms of the treaty, Japan regained its sovereignty, but lost many of its possessions from before World War II, including Korea, Taiwan and Sakhalin. It also lost control over a number of small islands in the Pacific which it administered as... League of Nations Mandates, such as the Marianas and the Marshalls. The new treaty also gave Japan the freedom to engage in international defense blocs. Japan did this on the same day it signed the San Francisco Treaty: Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida and U.S. President Harry S. Truman signed a document that allowed the United States Armed Forces to continue their use of bases in Japan. Even before Japan regained full sovereignty, the government had rehabilitated nearly 80,000 people who had been purged, many of whom returned to their former political and government positions.
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