Japan-US Alliance (Historical Overview)

1.Post WWII

(1) Following Japan’s surrender on August 14, 1945, General Douglas MacArthur arrived in Atsugi airfield on August 30 as Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers to receive the surrender of the Imperial Japanese forces and to administer the allied occupation of Japan.

　The surrender ceremony was held on board USS Missouri in Tokyo Harbor on September 2. US forces of occupation arrived in Tokyo on September 8, 1945.

(2) Given the scale of devastation and loss of livelihood in Japan caused by WWII, especially by allied bombing raids on major cities, including nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the US decided to provide generous amounts of aid in such forms as foodstuff to help the Japanese nation survive the immediate years that followed.

　 Representative of such efforts were the GARIOA and EROA Fund projects, through which a total of 1 billion 800 million US dollars were provided as loans to Japan, and this was to be reimbursed over 15 years. Japan also benefited from loans drawn from the World Bank from 1953 to 1966, and this came to a total of 860 million dollars.

(3) On November 3, 1946, the new Japanese Constitution was promulgated and replaced the old, Constitution of Imperial Japan. This was drawn up on the ideals of democratic government, greatly curbing the powers of the Emperor, so that he became a mere symbol of unity for the Japanese nation.*

　 It also contained the famed Article 9, whereby war was renounced as a means of settling disputes, and Japan announced it would not possess military forces for that purpose.

　 * It was the US that made the decision to retain the Emperor and Japanese Imperial Household intact after Japan’s surrender in August, 1945, in accordance with the wishes of the Japanese leadership, and for reasons of better governance by the GHQ in Tokyo; the Emperor Hirohito was not indicted in the Tokyo International Military Tribunal. This policy was adhered to during the American occupation that followed.

　2. The Cold War and Peace with Japan

(1) In March, 1947, US President Harry Truman expounded the Truman Doctrine, symbolizing the start of the Cold War.

(2) In January, 1948, COMECON was created to further economic cooperation within the Soviet bloc. In March, 1948, the Western European Union was created, and in April, 1949, the treaty for NATO was signed.

(3) In October, 1949, Chinese Communists drove out Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang Government from the continent to Taiwan, and founded the Peoples’ Republic of China with capital in Beijing.

(4) In June, 1950, US Foreign Policy Adviser John Foster Dulles visited Japan to do the groundwork for a framework of peace.

　On June 25, while he was in Japan, the Korean War began, and this prompted the US to expedite the peace process, to ensure that Japan would remain within the Western camp, despite growing leftist influence in Japanese politics.

(5) On September 22, 1950, the US proposed the following 7 principles on peace with Japan to Great Britain:

(a)Parties

　Countries in a state of war with Japan, that have the will to forge peace on the basis of agreed proposals.

(b)United Nations

　Japanese membership will be considered.

(c)Territories

　Japan is to agree to the following:

　Korean independence; the Ryukyu and Bonin islands under US administration will be placed under UN trusteeship; the status of Taiwan, the Pescadores, southern Sakhalin and the Kurile Islands, shall be decided by Great Britain, the Soviet Union, China, and the US. If this remains undecided 1 year after this treaty comes into effect, the UN General Assembly shall decide; Japan shall renounce special privileges in China.

(d)National Security

　Until security arrangements are in place for the UN to take full and effective responsibility, a relationship of cooperative responsibility shall continue between Japanese facilities and US and other armed forces.

(e)Political and Commercial Agreements

　Japan shall agree to become party to multilateral conventions on narcotics and fisheries.

(f)Claims

　All parties are to renounce claims deriving from acts of war prior to September 2, 1945. However, as exceptions, the allied nations shall come into possession of property belonging to Japanese nationals within their territory, and Japan shall restore property belonging to allied nationals; if full restoration is difficult, the losses shall be compensated in yen.

(g)Disputes

(6) The US distributed these 7 principles on peace with Japan to the other members of the Far Eastern Commission, and made this known to the public on November 24, 1950.

(7) Given difficult prospects for negotiations with the Communist states of the People’s Republic of China and the Soviet Union, the US began to approach Great Britain on the terms and modality of a peace treaty with Japan and on March 14, 1951, a US aide-memoire was handed to the British Embassy in Washington.

(8) On March 23, 1951, the US distributed its draft Peace Treaty with Japan to members of the Far Eastern Commission and to Japan. It mentioned that no nation should enjoy any benefits from the treaty unless it became a participant thereof.

　3. The San Francisco (SF) Peace Treaty

　This instrument was signed on September 8, 1951, and served to recover Japan’s independence.

(1) One of the noteworthy features of this treaty was that, it was led by the US and Great Britain, which made it a point to create a magnanimous peace in terms of reparations, given the lessons from the Treaty of Versailles after WWI, that placed a unrealistically heavy burden on Germany in terms of payment of damages to the victors, and which undermined the German economy, eventually leading to the rise of Nazism and WWII.

(a) Japan was made to waive all claims against Allied Powers and their nationals arising out of the war.

[Article 19(a)]

(b) With respect to Allied Powers whose present territories were occupied by Japanese forces and damaged by Japan, it was stipulated that Japan will promptly enter into negotiations with a view to assisting to make compensations, by making available the services of the Japanese people, but in a manner such that the Japanese economy would not carry any foreign exchange burden. [Article 14(a) 1.]

　 This led to such bilateral agreements on reparations as were concluded with the Philippines and South Vietnam among signatories to the San Francisco Peace Treaty.

(2) Allied Powers such as the US, Great Britain and Holland, whose home territories were not occupied by Japanese forces during the war, were given to understand they were not entitled to reparations from Japan, despite damages to their colonies and overseas possessions.

　They had to be satisfied with the idea that Japan was made to waive claims against the Allied Powers and that the US-Japan Security Treaty, to be signed concomitantly with the San Francisco Peace Treaty, would provide enough benefits and assurances for Allied Powers and their interests in the Asia-Pacific, as to substitute for punitive or restrictive measures against Japan*.

　*Dean Acheson, Present at the Creation, George J. McLeod Limited, Toronto, 1969.　

(3) However, despite the passage of decades since the end of WWII, it may be inferred that the total absence of reparations from Japan remains at the root of resentment and dissatisfaction among veterans of the Allied Powers, especially those in Western Europe that eventually lost their colonial territories following the War, and this turned into a factor of complication in their relations with Japan, especially in relation to issues of wartime responsibility, giving rise to more or less a harsh position on Japanese war crimes. This may include countries such as Australia, New Zealand and Canada.

(For Holland, a protocol was drawn up in 1956, in which Japan agreed to pay 10 million dollars for damages inflicted on Dutch citizens detained in Java during the war. In 1991, upon request by Queen Beatrix who visited Japan, Japan agreed to pay an additional 255 million yen for medical care and the welfare of former comfort women of Dutch origin.)

　4. Japan-US Security Treaty

(1) It was on the very date of signature of the San Francisco Peace Treaty, that the Japan-US Security Treaty was signed in the same city. On the basis of this latter treaty, US forces were to be allowed to remain in Japan, no longer as forces of occupation, but as allied forces, stationed to ensure Japan’s security and to support the UN war effort against Communist forces during the ongoing Korean War.

　Article 1 of this original version of the Japan-US Security Treaty reads as follows:

　“Japan grants, and the United States of America accepts, the right, upon the coming into force of the Treaty of Peace and of this Treaty, to dispose United States land, air and sea forces in and about Japan. Such forces may be utilized to contribute to the maintenance of international peace and security in the Far East and to the security of Japan against armed attack from without, including assistance given at the express request of the Japanese Government to put down large-scale internal riots and disturbances in Japan, caused through instigation or intervention by an outside power or powers.”

(2) On the same day, Japan promised US to assume obligations under the UN Charter to give support in and about Japan, to UN forces engaged in action in the Far East, obviously alluding to UN forces involved in the Korean War, in Notes exchanged between then Prime Minister Yoshida of Japan and US Secretary of State Acheson.

(The “UN Command Rear” still exists in Japan at Yokota Air Base, since 2007. It is a compact facility whose duties include supervising and directing the flow of essential military support and reinforcements toward South Korea, in case of contingencies and emergencies.)

(3) In 1960, well after the Korean War, the Japan-US Security Treaty was revised to explicitly provide for US obligations to defend Japan in case of an armed attack.

　The role of US Forces in Japan was yet again defined to cover the Far East, as provided for in Article 6:

　“For the purpose of contributing to the security of Japan and the maintenance of international peace and security in the Far East, the United States of America is granted the use by its land, air and naval forces of facilities and areas in Japan.”

(4) The Japan-US Security Treaty has been extended automatically since its initial period of 10 years was fulfilled in 1970, and the UN Forces Status Agreement with Japan remains in force to this day.

　5. Reversion of Islands

(1) In April, 1968, an agreement was signed in Tokyo on the reversion of the Bonin Islands (Ogasawara Islands), and this came into force in June.

(2) Relations between the Soviet Union and China suddenly came to a crisis in 1969, after an armed conflict developed in March over the disputed Damansky Islands in the Usuri River, a tributary of the Amur, and then in August, in the Shinjang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China. These incidents served to drive a wedge between the 2 Communist states and set the tone for international relations in the Far East for the next 3 decades or so; this difficulty in bilateral relations was to remain until 2004, when the territorial dispute was resolved.

(3) In November, 1969, Japanese PM Sato visited the US and met with US President Nixon. They issued a Joint Statement in which they agreed to work toward reversion of Okinawa to Japan in 1972, as follows:

　6. ………They therefore agreed that the two governments would immediately enter into consultations regarding specific arrangements for accomplishing the early reversion of Okinawa without detriment to the security of the Far East including Japan. They further agreed to expedite the consultations with a view to accomplishing the reversion during 1972 subject to the conclusion of these specific arrangements with the necessary legislative support. ………….

　7. The President and the Prime Minister agreed that, upon return of the administrative rights, the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security and its related arrangements would apply to Okinawa without modification thereof. …………..

(4) There is reference to the Korean Peninsula in this Joint Statement, as follows:

　“4. The President and the Prime Minister specifically noted the continuing tension over the Korean peninsula. The Prime Minister deeply appreciated the peacemaking efforts of the United Nations in the area and stated that the security of the Republic of Korea was essential to Japan’s own security.”

(5) In 1970, Japan signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as a non-nuclear weapons state, and ratified it in 1976.

(6) In 1971, the Japan-US Agreement on reversion of Okinawa (the Ryukyu Islands and Daito Islands), and this came into effect in 1972, reinstating Japanese sovereignty over the islands.