The Eye of the beholder: Background notes on the US-Japan military relationship

Abstract

In the last half century, the pivotal steps in American-Japanese relations have been paced off at roughly ten-year intervals. At the Washington Conference of 1921-1922, American and other Western pressure brought about cancellation of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance and forced Japan to rely upon uncertain international guarantees for its security. The Manchurian Incident of 1931 dispelled the professed hopes of the twenties, and a full decade later Pearl Harbor marked the total bankruptcy of Japan's relationship with the West. At the San Francisco peace conference in 1951, America led forty-eight other nations in restoring Japan's sovereignty, and five hours after the signing of the peace treaty the U.S. summoned forth shades of the old Anglo-Japanese Alliance by signing its own bilateral military pact with Japan. Nine years later, nationalistic resentment against this security arrangement of 1951 erupted in Japan, forcing cancellation of President Eisenhower's proposed visit. Now another decade has passed, and 1970 is clearly destined to mark yet another watershed in the American-Japanese relationship.