The Colonial Roots of Japan's Post-War “Comprehensive National Land Development” Policies

As part of its rise into an economic and technological superpower from the 1960s, Japan transformed its landscape through a series of “comprehensive national land development” laws that coordinated major projects in industrial infrastructure, urban planning, power development, transportation, river control, and irrigation with the objective of “balanced development.”  They also exported similar conceptions to developing countries around the world as part of their increasingly influential Overseas Development Assistance programs. 

This paper examines the unexplored colonial origins of such policies.  From 1931, Japanese bureaucrats and engineers set about creating what Ramon Myers has called a “modern enclave economy” in Japan, Korea, Manchukuo, and North China consisting of interconnected mines, industrial zones, cities, transportation and communications networks, agricultural development schemes, and hydropower dams and electricity grids as part of its vision of building a “New East Asian Order.” By focusing on two wartime projects—the Liao River Flood Control Project in southern Manchukuo and the construction of a coastal industrial zone centered around Sup’ung Dam on the Korea-Manchukuo border—this paper examines how colonial ideology and power operated through universalizing tropes of comprehensive planning, national development, and technology prevalent throughout the world at the time.  In conclusion, it traces some post-war continuities of these development visions as many of the engineers and planners went on to take up leading positions in the businesses and government ministries that spurred Japan’s post-war development projects.