Japanese Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru signs the San Francisco Peace Treaty on September 8th, 1951
On September 8th, 1951, representatives from Japan and the United States signed the Security Treaty Between the United States and Japan in San Francisco, California. In five articles, the Treaty dictated the future of American involvement in and around Japan. The treaty, which established a long history of military cooperation between the United states and Japan was negotiated by John Foster Dulles and signed by Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida.
Immediately after World War II, General Douglas MacArthur and the Allied Powers were largely concerned with Japanese rearmament. In pursuit of this goal, the Allied Powers mandated Japan relinquish its military upon surrender in 1945 and all but forced the Japanese government to add Article 9 to its constitution in 1947 which prevented them from maintaining any land, sea, air, or any other war potential. When the Korean War broke out in 1950, the Allied Powers radically changed their East-Asian policies. The goal of stopping Japan’s remilitarization became subordinate to the goals of containing communism, and Japan was allowed to create the National Police Reserve, a lightly armed, 75,000-strong paramilitary, “peacekeeping” force on the Island of Japan. Over the next year, the United States approved the creation of two more peacekeeping agencies that armed more than 115,000 additional Japanese soldiers. In 1951, the Security Treaty Between the United States and Japan codified the arrangements made in 1950. Japan was now responsible for preserving peace and security within its borders. Allowing Japan to rebuild its military power came with strict restrictions, however. Japan lost control of Okinawa, gave the U.S. complete control of bases in East Asia, and lost the privilege to grant military privileges to other nations without American consent. In return, the United States pledged to defend Japan against foreign aggressors.
As with most political debates, options on how the U.S. should manage Japanese relations greatly differed in the early 1950s. In his 1952 article Rearming Japan Queried, published in the New York Times, J. Passmore Elkinton questions the United States’ support of rearmament. His opinion, however, is based not on fear of future Japanese aggression, but rather the concern of a communist revolution. Elkinton argues that if the United States pressures Japan to use its limited resources to buy weapons rather than to repair its crumbled infrastructure, the people will become “more resentful towards the West and [Japan’s] poverty will increase the advocates of communism.” The Japanese, Elkinton argues, will then turn its weapons in support of a Marxist agenda. Others paraded the Treaty as a great victory for America in the East. In the anonymous article For Japan’s Defense the author argues that a power vacuum was created in East Asia when Japan was defeated and “communist imperialist expansion would naturally move toward such a vacuum.” Arming Japan, the article argues, is the only way in ensuring effective cooperation with the free world against “the slave world.”
While opinion differed on the correct means of involvement in Japan in 1951, the Security Treaty provided the base for one of America’s strongest allies. Japan would later go on to join the United Nations in 1956 and has since used its Self-Defense forces in numerous UN missions around the world. Furthermore, Japan remains one of the most peaceful nations in the world 70 years after the War.
Works Cited
Guthrie-Shimizu, Sayuri. “Japan, the United States, and the Cold War, 1945–1960,” In The Cambridge History of the Cold War, eds. Melvyn P. Leffler and Odd Arne Westad,:.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010: 244–265
Passmore Elkinton, J. 2. “Rearming Japan Queried: Giving Her Real Independence and Withdrawing Troops Recommended.” New York Times, Nov 8. 1952: 16
“For Japan’s Defense”. New York Times , Sep 10, 1951: 20