50 years of Japan-U.S. Alliance - Illusion of ‘equality’

Japan Press Weekly

Japan Press Service Co., Ltd. is the only news agency providing information of progressive, democratic movements in Japan

50 years of Japan-U.S. Alliance - Illusion of ‘equality’ - Part III

Japan’s request to revise the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty refused flatly

Many people were aware that the Japan-U.S. military treaty was unequal. Prime Minister Hatoyama Ichiro, grandfather of the current Prime Minister Hatoyama Yukio, actually announced his intention to make the Japan-U.S. relation “equal.”

The Hatoyama administration’s intent was to get the U.S. government to accept “equal” Japan-U.S. relations by assuming an obligation to use its right to collective defense to prevent enemies from attacking the U.S. territory. In doing so, he sought to promote withdrawal of U.S. forces from Japan. This policy stance went totally against the Constitutional principle of peace.

Starting point of Japan’s military buildup

The memorandum issued by the U.S. State Department on July 28, 1955, contained a Japanese government proposal for a revision of the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty.

In the proposal, the Japanese government requested that the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty should be changed to a mutual defense treaty like the U.S.-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty and the Australia, New Zealand, United States Security Treaty (ANZUS), and that the U.S. ground forces should be removed from Japan within six years. It also requested that the U.S. Air Force and Navy should be also removed, that the purpose of the U.S. forces and bases in Japan should be changed to mutual defense (the right to collective defense), and the Japanese government would no longer make contributions to the U.S. forces in Japan.

In order to succeed in removing the provisions related to the stationing of the U.S. forces in Japan from the treaty, Foreign Minister Shigemitsu Mamoru on August 30, 1955, met with U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles in Washington D.C. Their conversation was recorded and a transcript of the talks was issued by the U.S. State Department.

The aforementioned requests made by Japanese government were turned down. In the joint statement released after their meeting, Shigemitsu was forced to agree that the U.S. ground forces in Japan would be gradually removed and that Japan would gradually strengthen its military power with a full-scale buildup of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces. Up until now, based on this agreement, the U.S. government has repeatedly urged the Japanese government to increase its military power. Since this agreement, the Japanese government has increased the annual military budget to five trillion yen.

Relocation site for U.S. forces is Okinawa

Despite the agreement to withdraw the U.S. ground forces in Japan step-by-step, the U.S. government refused to remove them from Japan and relocated them to Okinawa which was occupied by the U.S. under the San Francisco Peace Treaty.

Around 1951, as reserve combat forces for the Korean War, the U.S. Marines were deployed to various areas on Japan’s mainland, including Gifu, Shizuoka, and Yamanashi Prefectures. “As a result of the agreement with the Japanese government to withdraw the U.S. ground forces,” since 1955, the U.S. Marine Corps was redeployed to Okinawa in stages. In Okinawa, the U.S forces used “bayonets and bulldozers” to forcefully seize residents’ lands to expand their bases.

This was the result of the Hatoyama Ichiro administration’s attempts to achieve an “equal” status under the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty.

(To be continued)