Starting from December 1948, that is, when the looming of the Communists’ victory in the civil war in China forced the USA to make the Japanese Empire a pillar of the new Far-Eastern equilibrium, the objective of the occupation policy in Japan, which had hitherto been the destruction of the pre-existing militarist and imperialist structures and the democratic re-education, became the economic recovery and the political and military strengthening of the country.
In September 1950, in order to obtain an active Japanese collaboration in the new policy, the American government resumed the contacts for the stipulation of the peace treaty already started in July 1947, with the other member states of the CEO (Far East Commission). The Soviets argued that the drafting of the treaty was a matter for the Council of Foreign Ministers, but the Americans managed to get the majority of the states concerned to accept that the terms of the peace were discussed through normal diplomatic channels between the members of the CEO and some other states. on the basis of an American memorandum.
According to cachedhealth, the treaty was signed on September 8, 1951 in San Francisco by 49 states. The Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia and Poland, despite having participated in the conference, did not sign the treaty. India and Burma, not present in San Francisco, although invited, signed separate treaties with Japan, respectively on 9 June 1952 and 5 November 1954. A separate treaty was also signed by Japan with the (nationalist) Republic of China on 27 April 1952. Italy and Japan put an end to the state of war with an exchange of notes on 27 September 1951.
The treaty of San Francisco, consisting of a preamble and 27 articles, provided, in its territorial clauses: the recognition by the Japan of the independence of Korea, the renunciation of any right, title or claim on Formosa, the Pescadores, the Kuril, Southern Sakhalin, Spratly and Paracel, and on the Pacific islands already under mandate; the early recognition of the trusteeship of the USA on the Ryu Kyū (the northern group of the Amami Gunto was returned to Japanese sovereignty in December 1953) and on the Bonin, the Volcano and Marcus islands and other smaller islets. Other clauses provided for: the renunciation of the Japan of any right or particular interest in China, the recognition of the Japan of the right to individual (rearmament) and collective (alliances) self-defense and its inclusion in the international security system. As for reparations, the principle was affirmed that Japan could not bear the payment of adequate compensation and it was established that he would enter into bilateral agreements with the damaged countries “making available the technical and industrial capabilities of the Japanese people”.
On the same day, still in San Francisco, USA and Japan signed a “Mutual Security Pact”, with which the USA committed themselves to defend the Japan and this, in return, recognized the USA the right to maintain armed forces on the its territory and undertook not to grant military bases to other powers.
The signing of the two documents marks the beginning of a markedly pro-American phase in Japanese politics. A cautious and limited rearmament was set up under American pressure, within the framework of an “Agreement for the defense of Japan” – signed with the United States on February 28, 1952 as a complement to the San Francisco alliance, and subsequently amended in certain clauses concerning the criminal jurisdiction over American troops in Japan – and various agreements stipulated within the MSA, for which SUA undertook to provide military equipment for $ 150 million and to lend certain naval units. This policy, of which the liberal Prime Minister Yoshida was an exponent, met with opposition as well as in the two socialist parties with neutralist tendencies, and in the Communists, pro-Soviet,
Yoshida was overthrown in December 1954 by these opposing forces. Under his successor Hatoyama, a democrat, an agreement was reached with the USSR on October 19, 1956, in the form of a declaration ending the state of war, the Soviet side renounced the request for reparations, and committed themselves to to support Japan’s entry into the UN, and the repatriation of Japanese prisoners still in the USSR and the resumption of diplomatic and commercial relations between the two countries was established. The definition of territorial issues was postponed to a future peace treaty but the USSR continued to be assigned the southern part of the island of Sakhalin, the Kurils, as well as the rights lost in Manchuria in 1905 were recognized.
With the resignation of the second Hatoyama government in December 1956, a third phase of Japan’s post-war policy begins. Under the governments of Ishibashi (December 1956), Kishi (February 1957) and Ikeda (July 1960), (like those of Yoshida and Hatoyama expressions of the liberal-conservative forces) a policy of commercial and economic expansion towards the countries of Southeast Asia, Africa, Latin America, and there was a resumption, albeit partial, of traffic with the People’s Republic of China. The full reintegration of Japan into international society was sanctioned by his entry into the UN on December 18, 1956.
Divided into two groups of right and left (mostly the latter) until 1955, then also merged into a single party that obtained 158 seats on the Diet in 1955 and 166 in 1958, they split again at the end of 1959 in a socialist party and in a social-democratic party. It was above all the Socialists (the Communists in Japan have only one representative in Parliament and little following among the masses) who fueled the uprisings of June 1960 which, if they failed to prevent, as was their intention, the ratification of the renewed Japanese security treaty. -American, signed in Washington on January 19 and entered into force on June 19, 1960, however, forced President Eisenhower to give up a planned trip to Tokyo in June and resulted in N. Kishi’s resignation a month later. On July 14 he was elected president, by the Convention of the liberal democratic party, Hayato Ikeda, which tried to bring the country back to normal. The assassination, on October 12, 1960, of the socialist leader Inejiro Asanuma by a right-wing extremist, however, was a heavy prelude to the electoral consultation which on November 20 confirmed the dominance of the Liberal Democrats: they won 296 seats; 145 went to the socialists, 17 to the social democrats, 3 to the communists and 6 to the independents. Consequently, on December 7, Hayato Ikeda established his new ministry, thanks to such widespread support. You see strong of such wide consensus. You see strong of such wide consensus.
