ABSTRACT
This chapter examines U.S.–Japanese dialogue regarding the strategic significance of the 1960 U.S.–Japan Security Treaty. First, it examines a series of U.S. interdepartmental studies and initiatives regarding the U.S. military and administrative control of Okinawa. Second, it discusses how Washington and Tokyo reassessed U.S. bases in Japan and Japan’s defense effort in order to ensure free use of U.S. bases in Japan for conventional combat operations in regional contingencies. Third, this chapter explores U.S.–Japan secret agreements and disagreements regarding the entry of nuclear weapons into Japan. Finally, it explores the origins of the question of Japan’s nuclear options in relation to the rise of China’s nuclear weapons program. The conventional interpretation claims that after the widespread public demonstrations against the revision of the U.S.–Japan Security Treaty in June 1960, the Japanese government shifted its principal focus from security issues to trade and economic interdependence.1 Constructivists in Political Science, such as Berger and Katzenstein, argue that the so-called Anpo Crisis of 1960 was a major turning point in the establishment of the culture of anti-militarism in the post-WWII Japan.2 The Japanese government, under the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, resisted U.S. pressure by stressing the Constitutional prohibition on the use of armed forces abroad. Japanese leaders also emphasized the concern on the part of the Japanese public, as well as that of people from other Asian countries, about the revival of militarism, and voiced fear of entrapment into U.S. regional conflict. Essentially, former Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida famously claimed that Japan should rely on U.S. military protection until it had rebuilt its economy as it gradually prepared to stand on its own two feet.3 As this chapter explores, however, during the 1960s, the U.S. continuously urged Japan to increase its defense and regional responsibilities in accordance with the growth of its economic might. As the tensions caused by the June 1960 crisis declined, Washington and Tokyo sought to restabilize the bilateral political relationship. In March 1961, President John F. Kennedy appointed a distinguished Japan expert from Harvard University, Edwin O. Reischauer, as the U.S. Ambassador to Japan in order to facilitate a multifaceted dialogue with Japan based on “equal partnership.” Reisch auer attempted to educate Japanese officials and citizens about the need
for the U.S. to maintain military strength in the Western Pacific in order to stabilize the region. He encouraged them to overcome their unwillingness to take their share of responsibilities in world affairs.4 Prime Minister Hayato Ikeda advocated an “income doubling plan” to be attained within a decade and maintained a low profile with regard to national security. In Reischauer’s words, it was “a process of educating his public, not pushing them.”5 For the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the term “equal partnership” was the reflection of Japan’s growing desire to regain equal status with Western states in the international system.6
