‘Positive Neutrality’-The Foreign Policy of the Japanese Socialist Party

First published in Asian Survey, Vol. II, No. 9, November 1962 (Institute of International Studies, University of California)

THE SOCIALIST PARTY of Japan has proclaimed ‘positive neutrality’ as the basis of its foreign policy. The Party Congress of January 1962 defined this term as follows:

Positive neutrality is the party’s fundamental standpoint in its struggle for peace and the relaxation of tension. It means nonalignment, that is, non-participation in the military blocs of East or West, with the aim of eventually dissolving these blocs; thus it is neutrality on a military plane. In our case such a position is backed up by our Constitution, which prohibits armaments or war, and is supported by the people’s desire for peace.