Japan and America: Political Issues

Relations between any two major countries are always likely to be both complex and diverse, and yet in the present polarized world one particular aspect of these relations tends to override all others. The question is: Are the areas of possible cooperation and friction between two countries to be viewed from the standpoint of assumed friendship or hostility? With a few exceptions, the nations of the world, as seen from the United States, are clearly divided between self-admitted friends and foes. Naturally, then, the first question in analyzing Japanese-American relations is: in which camp is a fully independent Japan likely to place herself?

This basic question is not as easy to answer as one might at first assume. The benevolent nature of the American occupation and the peculiar response of the Japanese to it and to their defeat have created the appearance of a stronger Japanese-American friendship than really exists. Moreover, the continuation of a slightly masked but very real American control over some aspects of Japanese life in the post-treaty period tends to obscure and also to postpone the full reaction of the Japanese to restored independence. Present appearances, thus, should be discounted to some degree, and early attitudes should also not be overlooked. During the twentieth century as a whole no country has more consistently regarded itself as in essential conflict with the United States than has Japan, and no country has been more uniformly looked upon as a potential enemy by Americans. The burden of proof, perhaps, should rest on those who assume Japanese-American friendship rather than those who expect the contrary.

Historical precedent, however, is not an infallible yardstick. The world has changed much in the past decade and some of these changes have profoundly affected the whole framework of Japanese-American relations. Economically there has never been much reason for direct rivalry between the two lands, and this aspect of relations is not fundamentally changed. Japan and America in the past have afforded excellent markets for each other, and, while this is less true of the postwar situation, their economies remain more complementary than competitive. The chief areas of conflict in the past were not economic, but political and military. Japan aspired to empire in east Asia; the United States sought to maintain independent national units open to trade and intercourse with all, and American power was the chief military obstacle to the achievement of Japan's political aims. Today all this is changed. The Japanese, at least for the time being, have relinquished all thought of territorial conquest and as a result find little challenge in either American political objectives or American military power. Present realities rule out for the Japanese any program of empire-building, and as a result American support for national independence of the lands of east Asia and American opposition to military aggression there are no longer sources of conflict with the United States, but ​reasons for friendship. Conversely, Americans, instead of considering Japan's growth as a challenge to their Far Eastern policies, now regard Japan's well-being as desirable for the maintenance of a free and independent Asia, viewed as an essential link in a system of mutual security and international democracy rather than simply as an open preserve for international trade.

A considerable discrepancy can, of course, exist between realities and national attitudes. This, however, does not appear to be the case in Japanese-American relations today. Americans look only with approval upon Japan's attempts to improve her economic and military position. The Japanese, for their part, find comfort rather than danger in American prosperity and strength. And both peoples tend to look toward the Soviet Union with fear and distrust. For the Americans, this attitude is as new as it is violent. For the Japanese, fear and dislike of Russia are traditional and perhaps for that reason less intense than in the United States. But the important point is that in both countries the chief foreign object of fear and resentment is the same, while each expects from the other to a greater or lesser degree friendly support and cooperation. Of course, Japanese-American friendship has no long historical background or deep emotional support such as reinforce Canadian-American friendship or the amity between the United States and the United Kingdom or France, but it is likely to last at least as long as the world situation remains roughly what it is today.

This does not mean that Japanese and American interests are entirely identical or that the relations between the two nations will necessarily remain uniformly smooth. Even within the framework of basically compatible interests and objectives, there remains all too much room for discord. In fact, as in the case of most other international friends and allies, the sources of minor disagreement are so numerous that unless they are carefully handled they could nullify all cooperation and could even convince the peoples concerned that they are enemies rather than friends.

In the case of Japanese-American relations, as also in the relations between the United States and some of its chief European allies, disagreement stems not from conflicting interests but rather from a difference in approach to their common objectives. This difference in emphasis stems at least in part from the fact that the United States, already the most prosperous nation in the world, emerged from the last war as the least damaged of the major victor nations, while Japan was perhaps the most seriously hurt of the losers. The Americans, even richer than before the war and enjoying more national power than most of them are prepared or even wish to exercise, have what might be called a static view of the world. Their chief aim is to preserve existing gains from possible future loss. The Japanese, even poorer than before the war and nationally in a far more dangerous and less satisfactory position, have less to preserve and consequently are more interested in future gains than in the status quo.

This difference in attitude makes the Japanese and American approach to such problems as the Communist menace quite different. Although the United States is less directly threatened by Communism than are most other parts of the world, Americans, regardless of their domestic political sympathies, are united in ​regarding Soviet power as the only major threat to all the great benefits they now enjoy. Americans therefore tend to concentrate all their attention on this one issue and to view the many other problems of the world largely in terms of how they bear on the single great American concern.

To the Japanese, whose position vis-a-vis the Communists is much more precarious, the Communist menace appears less serious because they have less to lose to it and also because they are aware of other sources of danger to their future well-being which they feel to be comparable and possibly even greater than that of Communism. Japan's grim race between births and economic expansion looms larger to most Japanese than does Communist imperialism. Politically, many Japanese regard Communism as perhaps the lesser of two threats to democracy; the other being, in their view, the domestic totalitarian right. Where the United States is determined to take no avoidable risks with Communism, the Japanese believe that, faced as they are by many serious problems, they will have to take many chances and that taking chances with the external Communist threat may not be as hazardous as taking chances in some other fields.

Another difference in approach, though again not in objectives, between the United States and Japan is occasioned by the very unequal nature of their cooperation. Japan is dependent on substantial economic and military support from the United States, and for this reason the latter inevitably has considerable positive control even over a theoretically independent Japan. Japan in return has little capacity to influence, much less control, the United States. The best Japan can hope to contribute in the near future to this unequal partnership is an increasing share of its own economic and military support. Its powers of influencing the United States are purely negative, being limited for the most part to the possibility of proving noncooperative in American efforts to give economic aid and military support to Japan and surrounding areas.

Somewhat the same situation exists between the United States and its allies in Europe, but in Japan it is more acute, since the inequalities are greater and have been emphasized by six years of occupation. Unless carefully handled, this inequality of status between friends could lead to a domineering attitude on the part of Americans which would antagonize and alienate potential support in Japan, and at the same time it could produce a negative, uncooperative attitude on the part of the Japanese which would seriously limit the possibilities for a fruitful relationship. While Japanese and American interests and objectives today appear to be thoroughly compatible and the occupation has left a continuing pattern of external friendship and close cooperation, such discrepancies in status between the United States and Japan, when added to the difference in attitude which they bring to their common objectives, could produce enough friction to nullify their efforts at cooperation or even persuade them that their interests are too divergent to permit friendly relations.

This basic identity of interests but substantial disagreement over emphases between the United States and Japan becomes apparent as soon as one examines the chief areas of cooperation and dispute between the two countries. These fall roughly into two distinct but related categories--economic problems and those ​of political and military alignment, centering around the need for defense. To the Americans the latter seem all-important, and economic problems are felt to be of concern largely because of their bearing on defense. To most Japanese it is the economic problems which appear more important, and some Japanese are even ready to ignore completely the problems of external defense in order to concentrate their energies on economic issues and those domestic political problems which they feel to be closely related to the economy.

The problem of Japan's external defense has been temporarily solved by the theoretical conversion of American military occupation into American defense of Japan through military bases arranged for by treaty. While this solution has the support of both governments and a majority of the people in the United States and Japan, it is the source of many minor irritations, particularly for the Japanese.

For Americans the only major drawback to this solution is that it puts the cost of the defense of Japan in large part on the American taxpayer. As a temporary measure, this burden seems justified to most Americans, because our military position in east Asia depends largely on our bases in Japan and the skilled Japanese labor force available there, and a fundamental precept of our whole strategy is the denial of Japanese industrial power to the Communist war machine.

In Japan the drawbacks to the present defense situation are not only more numerous but also more obvious. Some Japanese actually believe that American defense of Japan increases rather than decreases the chance of military attack on their homeland. Still more view American military bases in Japan as potential stepping-stones to an outright colonial domination of Japan by the United States. Unlike the rest of Asia, the fear of colonialism in Japan is not an all-pervading emotional drive, and it is offset by the even greater fear on the part of some Japanese that without American protection Japan would fall prey to the Communists. Still, it is a present source of irritation which could develop serious proportions with great rapidity. In particular the semi-extraterritorial status of the American military, with all the unfortunate nineteenth-century associations of extraterritoriality, is a specific irritant stimulating this fear of American colonialism. It is certainly one detail in our relations with Japan which merits careful reexamination.

A more pervasive problem arising from American bases is the inevitable friction arising out of the daily contacts between a native civilian population and a foreign soldiery. While crimes committed by United States forces in Japan have been few and the tolerance of the Japanese public has been great, there has inevitably been a slow but steady growth of irritation over these contacts on the part of the Japanese public, running from ill-defined resentment at the too frequent sight of foreign uniforms to sharply focused indignation at the blatant sexual traffic and promiscuity surrounding foreign camps and rest resorts.

A third source of Japanese displeasure with the present defense system is its relationship to the territorial settlement. The Japanese may have given up their ambitions for empire, but they have not emotionally relinquished their claim to areas which they feel are rightfully theirs. There is resentment over the loss of the Kuriles, largely directed against the Russians, who now occupy these ​islands, rather than against the United States for having agreed to their transfer. There is some sentiment for the return of the Bonin Islands, though this issue is likely to remain as inconsequential as are these islands themselves. The chief Japanese irredenta is the Ryukyu Islands, where a native population of about 800,000 apparently shares Japanese desires for the return of these islands to Japan. The only reason why Okinawa and the lesser islands in this chain have not been restored to Japan is that the United States feels that it must have a major base there and that this base, unlike those in the main islands of Japan, should be under American political control. On this point American concepts of defense and Japanese national aspirations meet in a head-on clash.

Despite the various sources of possible friction over the present solution of the defense problem, it is basically satisfactory to both countries. The real difficulty arises over the fact that both sides recognize it as only temporary and have very different concepts of what the long-term solution should be. The United States takes for granted that Japan will rapidly restore its military power and assume at least the burden of its own defense and perhaps part of the mutual security load in other parts of the Far East. Most Japanese are quite unprepared to accept this view and hope to avoid rearmament by a policy of neutrality or else the development of a suddenly effective international order. The sharpness of the disagreement is epitomized by the differing views in the two countries on Japan's renunciation of war, which was written into the new constitution with the strong encouragement of the American occupation. In the United States this is regarded already as a dead letter awaiting formal interment. In Japan, however, the sentiment is so different that no political party has as yet dared openly advocate the abandonment of this pious but unfortunately still impractical national policy. Here lie the seeds of a major disagreement between the United States and Japan, not over objectives but over the best means of achieving the defense of Japan and continued peace in her part of the world.

This problem can be solved in the future only if both principals approach it with a willingness to compromise. There is reason to believe that through a series of small modifications in the defense of Japan the burden can be slowly but safely shifted from American shoulders to those of the Japanese to the mutual satisfaction of both. There is a danger, however, that either one side or the other might at any time take so uncompromising an attitude that cooperation would appear unfeasible to the other and a major break in friendly relations would result. This eventuality becomes more likely to the degree that the defense problem becomes an issue in domestic politics in either country and thereby becomes not an area for flexible international negotiation but for rigid, unilateral action.

In Japan the defense problem is already to a certain extent a domestic political issue. The Socialist Party, in its opposition to the now dominant Liberals, has openly opposed the defense pact with the United States and has bitterly objected to any Japanese rearmament as economically impossible and politically hazardous to the continuance of democracy in Japan. This does not mean that at least the right wing of the Socialist Party, if transferred from the opposition to a position of cabinet responsibility, might not alter its stand and support ​defense measures it now criticizes. But the split on this issue in Japanese domestic politics during the next few years may well become wider.

The rise in strength of the two Socialist factions in the recent elections was marked, but was still so far from producing a Socialist Government as to indicate that an important shift in public sympathies will be necessary before the Socialists can win a parliamentary majority. Such a shift is perhaps more likely to come over economic issues than over defense policies, but it could well come in such form as to influence the latter decisively. Many, if not most, Japanese feel that the United States is inevitably involved in all political issues in Japan. They assume, either with satisfaction or with resentment, that American economic and military cooperation is obtainable only by an essentially conservative Government in Japan. This argument is not used blatantly by the Liberals but nevertheless contributes decidedly to their present dominance. This, in turn, naturally tends to give a definitely anti-American flavor to opposition to the Government on any score. Such sentiment might so solidify as to commit the opposition in Japan to a policy of noncooperation, if not open conflict, with the United States. Present political trends in Japan, thus, suggest the definite possibility that a future change of Government based largely on public desire for a reversal of domestic economic policies might entail a complete re-orientation of Japan's foreign policy and the abandonment of the present course of cooperation with the United States for a hazardous experiment in unprotected neutrality.

Postwar policies in Japan have so far not become political issues in the United States, but it is perfectly possible that they might within the near future, perhaps with disastrous results. There is considerable political dynamite lying dormant in our position in Japan which has not been exploited in domestic American politics simply because of the accidental relationship of the opposition party to General Douglas MacArthur and subsequently to Mr. John Foster Dulles. This deterrent, however, may not remain valid in the future. Some day politicians may find it convenient to point to the seeming inconsistency of American policy in so disarming Japan and reforming her economy after the war that now we must protect and support her. There is actually more material for a possibly effective, though specious, attack on administration policy on the score of "pro-Communist activities" and "socialism" in our postwar record in Japan than in our relations with China, and, if these materials are ever made use of for partisan political ends, the repercussions on American-Japanese relations could be very serious.

Even without the eruption of a political battle over past policies in Japan, there is danger that any American administration, either on its own volition or under public pressure, might embark on a course of action which would disrupt Japanese-American cooperation. This could happen most easily because of American insistence on a rate of rearmament in Japan and a degree of participation in extra-Japanese defense problems which the Japanese are neither economically able nor psychologically prepared to support. Any marked decline in Japanese living standards attributable to military costs would probably produce a strong political reaction in Japan against further cooperation with the United States. Even widespread disappointment over the slowness of economic or political progress might easily be blamed on the burden of defense efforts and produce the same unfortunate political results.

​On the other hand the failure of the Japanese to cooperate in their own defense or in collective security efforts in east Asia as much as the American public feels to be reasonable could set off an equally dangerous reaction in the United States. The shift from interventionism to isolationism is a small one in those political circles most addicted to extreme stands on either issue. The rapid shift from a demand for the extension of the Korean war into Manchuria to a demand that the South Koreans assume the entire military load indicates how close these two logically opposed views can be. Those political forces in the United States which are most likely to demand an intolerable rate of rearmament for the Japanese are also the most likely to advocate the complete abandonment of American assistance in Japanese defense if their first demands are not met. While traditionally both parties in the United States have been more willing to support an active policy in Asia than in Europe, there are definite signs that this attitude is changing; the greater difficulties of the American position in Asia are perhaps beginning to make isolationist sentiment redirect itself from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

In the economic field there are fewer immediate differences of opinion between the United States and Japan and a clearer recognition on both sides of their mutual interests. There are, however, economic problems which tend to complicate those of defense and certain areas of potential disagreement which in time could grow to dangerous proportions.

One issue of possible future dispute is the continuance of American aid to Japan, if it proves necessary to support her or help pay for whatever degree of rearmament the United States demands. At present America is providing economic support to Japan through mutually beneficial military procurement occasioned by the Korean war. But this arrangement is not likely to continue indefinitely, and it could come to an end at a time when the United States is unwilling to supply any other economic assistance, owing either to domestic politics or to popular American dissatisfaction with Japan's defense role. Somewhat the same situation faces the United States in western Europe, where American aid and local defense measures are delicately balanced against each other, but the problem is likely to become more acute in Japan because her economic position is fundamentally more desperate than that of western Europe, and the people are less prepared psychologically to contribute to their own defense.

An even more basic problem is whether or not Japan can maintain a viable economy, even with American aid. This is fundamentally a problem of cheap sources of essential raw materials and adequate markets for both visible and invisible exports. The United States no longer figures prominently as a direct market for Japanese goods. With the end of the great American demand for silk, Japan lost its one major item of export to the United States. Obviously American restrictive tariffs decidedly reduce the flow of Japanese goods to this country. The Japanese, like our allies in Europe, resent this but realize that even a radical shift in American tariff policies would not aid Japan much.

A more crucial area for Japan's economy than exports to the United States is services, particularly shipping. It does not seem probable that Japan's economy can survive unless Japanese bottoms again carry the bulk of Japan's imports and exports and at the same time contribute substantially to Japan's ​economic position through services to other nations. But here Japan's economic interests do conflict directly with those of shipping circles in the United States. Arguments for a subsidized American merchant marine are based not on economic but on strategic grounds. Here again appears the divergence between the Japanese emphasis on economic problems and ours on defense.

A fully restored Japanese merchant marine would come into even stronger competition with European shipping, particularly that of the United Kingdom and Scandinavia, which, like Japan, depend heavily on such services. This is but one aspect of Japan's major conflict of economic interests with the outside world, which is with western Europe rather than the United States and involves her whole export trade and search for raw materials as well as her shipping interests. Because of American interest in the economic well-being of western Europe as well as of Japan this is certain to become a major area for careful negotiation, if not for open disagreement, between the United States and Japan.

The only way for Japan to develop an adequate economy is to increase her export of manufactured goods and services to the parts of the world which can absorb them best, that is, primarily the less technically advanced areas of the world in southern and eastern Asia, Africa, and South America. But western Europe too depends on exports of the same kind to these areas. For the United States to encourage the growth of such exports from Japan or western Europe at the expense of the other area would be a policy of robbing Peter to pay Paul. But because of the American interest in both areas and their common continuing need for American cooperation if not outright aid, it seems certain that the United States will be forced increasingly into the role of impartial judge between them. This, of course, will be a position of the greatest delicacy and one which is almost certain to breed resentment and hostility from at least one side, if not both.

Thus the position of western Europe greatly complicates American relations with Japan in the economic field, but it should be noted in passing that this is not true with respect to Japanese-American relations in the political and military fields. Here the countries of western Europe and America's allies in the Pacific tend to serve as a buffer rather than as a source of friction. Western Europe naturally is primarily concerned with its own defense problems and therefore is inclined to minimize the need for Japanese rearmament or American defense preparation in the Pacific. Our Pacific allies, Australia, New Zealand, and the Philippines, take an even more negative view of Japanese defense. In these countries hatred of Japan for her past aggressions and atrocities remains fresh and is a strong factor in domestic politics. The result is open opposition to American efforts to encourage Japanese rearmament. Thus, America's allies in Europe and the Pacific, by opposing American views of Japan's defense needs, help to bring the American and Japanese positions on this question closer together, at the same time that the economic interests of our allies in western Europe show signs of becoming a serious source of friction between the United States and Japan.

An even more immediately dangerous area of economic dispute lies in the future relations between Japan and her Communist neighbors on the mainland of Asia—China Proper, Manchuria, and North Korea. This area is important to Japan as ​a great potential market, but it is even more crucial to the Japanese economy as the best source of two essential raw materials—coking coal and iron ore. These can be supplied from other parts of the world but only at costs which in the long run may prove prohibitive. Before the war this vast continental area was already of the greatest economic importance to Japan. Today with her economic situation far more precarious and her dependence on heavy industry greater than ever before, continental coking coal and iron ore, as well as China's fabled four hundred million customers, loom very large to the Japanese.

The question of trade between Japan and the continent is a source of current uneasiness in American-Japanese relations and a possible area of specific future disagreement which could assume major proportions quite suddenly. In it the problems of economy and defense merge, and the difference in approach between the United States and Japan becomes all too clear.

The Communists are not likely to trade on a large scale with Japan except for industrial goods of a type which contribute directly or at least indirectly to military power. Unless there is spectacular improvement in Chinese-American relations, it seems improbable that the United States will be prepared to permit, much less approve, an unrestricted flow of such strategic materials to the Chinese Communists. The Japanese, on the other hand, while ready to abide by temporary embargoes, are certainly not ready to forgo trade with the continent indefinitely. To them there seems much less risk in strengthening the Chinese industrial economy and military potential in this way than in continuing to hamper the Japanese economy by preventing the normal interchange of goods between Japan and the continent.

In the United States some feel that the question of Japanese-Communist trade is academic, because the Communists are not likely to offer terms which even Japan will find desirable to accept. This may well be true, but it does not make the problem an academic one so far as Japanese-American relations are concerned, for the Japanese cannot discover the impossibility of doing business with the Communists until they first make a sincere attempt to trade with them, unhampered by American-inspired restrictions. So long as this attempt has not been made, the dream of profitable economic intercourse with the Communists will be a powerful political force pushing the Japanese toward a realignment of their external economic and political relations and serving as a potent source of friction and misunderstanding with the United States.

The problem of Japanese trade with the Communist continent, thus, is likely to become more acute with time. How it develops or is eventually solved depends to a large extent on the unpredictable course of world events as a whole, but it is not hard to imagine a situation in which it would become the prime cause for a complete disruption of cooperation and friendship between the United States and Japan. For instance, if the Japanese economy remains as weak as seems probable, the Japanese are likely to become more insistent on the necessity for substantial trade with China just at a time when the United States may be demanding a greater degree of rearmament in Japan. Instead of compromising these demands each country might become more intransigent because of what it consideres to be the unreasonable attitude of the other, widening the cleavage between them by alternating acts of attempted coercion or defiance. Thus the ​Japanese might start a limited trade with China in strategic materials, perhaps on temporarily favorable terms because of Communist interest in separating Japan from the United States; the United States in response might then withhold certain economic aid from Japan; and this in turn might inspire the Japanese to widen their trade relations with the Chinese. Through such successive steps American and Japanese economic and military cooperation might in time be completely disrupted, with the resultant collapse of the whole economic and security structure in east Asia on which are based Japan's best hopes for the future and America's best prospects for stemming the further rise of Communism in that part of the world.

This is, of course, an extreme picture of the gloomiest possibilities rather than a prediction of what is to come. It does, however, help to indicate the dangers in differences in emphasis even between countries with fundamentally compatible objectives. It also suggests the need for corrective measures to prevent the problems inherent in Japanese-American relations from developing into crises.

One corrective measure might be for the United States to make conscious efforts to extricate itself so far as possible from Japanese politics. In part this might be accomplished by a more effective program of information and intellectual exchange. In part it might be achieved by a de-emphasis on bilateral relations and a further strengthening of multilateral organs of cooperation with Japan. There is great enthusiasm in Japan at present for the United Nations and the whole concept of international government. As a result international arrangements for defense or economic aid would not only lessen the irritating and sometimes humiliating contrasts of bilateral relations between the United States and Japan but would also arouse far more enthusiastic support than any purely Japanese-American arrangement.

More fundamental than this is the need for a tolerant realization of our divergent points of view and a practical willingness to attempt to compromise our differences. It is only natural that to Americans the problems of defense seem all-important, and economic problems are felt to be of concern largely because of their bearing on security. But it is equally natural for the Japanese to regard their economic problems as the more important because they are in the long run the more difficult to solve. To them there seems every bit as much reason to view relations with Communist countries in the light of Japan's economic plight as to reverse the process, as we do. Because of this Japanese emphasis on economic over defense problems, the United States should attempt to be as conciliatory as possible on economic issues and particularly on those economic matters, such as trade relations with the Communist world, in which the two sets of problems tend to merge. Rigid insistence by the United States on the priority of defense over economic problems could contribute to essential failure in both fields. Only through flexible negotiations unhampered by strong domestic political pressures are the United States and Japan likely to maintain a tenable balance between their divergent interpretations of common interests.

Such a condition is easier to describe than to produce. American-Japanese relations are no longer a game of diplomacy played between experts, but the ​relations between two aroused and deeply concerned peoples. Unless the American and Japanese voters permit a tolerant attitude in the relations between the two nations, the official representatives of both sides will not be in a position to work out the necessary compromises between our differing emphases, and our desires for mutually beneficial cooperation on major problems may be nullified by brittle inflexibility on details.

As almost everywhere else in the world, there is a pressing need on both sides of the Pacific for a clearer comprehension of the fundamental issues on which we and the Japanese are in agreement and for a more sympathetic understanding of our points of difference. The American public must have a more tolerant appreciation of why the Japanese think differently, and conversely, though this is usually overlooked, the Japanese public needs to have an equal realization of why reasonable Americans do not necessarily see things in the same way as reasonable Japanese.

This need for tolerant understanding of our differing views on economic and military problems suggests that perhaps the most crucial area of American-Japanese relations is to be found in still a third field—the intellectual. This is not an area of existing problems so much as one still to be explored. So little has been attempted that the possibilities of this field, and perhaps its dangers, cannot as yet be mapped even in roughest outline. But it is a field which will need rapid exploration and successful development if the more pressing problems of economy and defense are to be overcome satisfactorily, so that there can be a fruitful cooperation between the United States and Japan on those major objectives and interests which they share in common.

October 24, 1952