Prospects for a Japanese Peace Treaty

Abstract

military occupation of Japan and its control leading to the defeated country's readmission to normal diplomatic intercourse and to membership in the community of states was provided for in a number of instruments of authority, implemented by even a greater number of agencies of control. The basic external objective of the Allied Powers was to establish peace in Japan and to prevent any immediate return to aggression. This was to be done through the disarmament and demilitarization of Japan, through the destruction of her economic basis of aggression, through the trial of war criminals, through reparations charges and the restitution of properties and through the limitation of Japan's territory and sovereignty to the four major and certain minor islands. The leading internal objective was to establish democracy and to uproot authoritarianism. The means toward this end included the setting up of a peaceful and responsible government, the elimination of militarism and ultra-nationalism, provision for individual liberties and human rights, the achievement of economic rehabilitation on a democratic and popular basis, and the establishment of a new culture, divested of state control, and supporting the new Japanese social, economic, and political system. A peaceful and non-aggressive Japan seems to have been established by the Allied powers. By means of the Surrender and Occupation measures, a sense of guilt and a mental climate for peace have developed. The enforcement of these measures has for the most part been considerate, moderate, and at times even benevolent. By the Japanese Constitution war, the use and threat of force have been renounced, and the status of belligerency is regarded as a thing of the past. The purges, conducted on all levels of rank and responsibility, have had a substantial effect. Mistakes were doubtless made, both in the selection of men purged, and in the means employed. The War Crimes Trials by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East brought home to Japanese of all ranks the meaning and consequences of aggression. A democratic Japan exists today in a real sense. New institutions speak eloquently of the revolutionary political, economic and social changes which have taken place. A new Constitution has changed Japan from an authoritarian state to a democracy, and has transferred sovereignty from the Emperor to the people. Under the new Emperor