ABSTRACT
As Japan sought to rebuild its relationships with countries in Asia after World War II, the settlement of reparations posed a major obstacle, and negotiations with Southeast Asian countries had run into difficulties. In 1957, Japan finally concluded an agreement on reparations payments with Indonesia, which was the “anchor” of maritime Asia. This came at a time when the United States was lending its hand to an insurgency seeking to topple the government of President Sukarno, who was himself busy stripping the vested interests of the Dutch and ousting the former colonial master that had continued to retain a privileged position even after Indonesia attainted its independence. It was at such a junction that Japan re-entered Indonesia by concluding the reparations agreement, and in some ways it was as though Japan was replacing the Netherlands.
