The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 12 | Issue 8 | Number 2 | Article ID 4079 | Feb 23, 2014

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The San Francisco System: Past, Present, Future in U.S.-Japan-China Relations サンフランシスコ体制　米日中関係の過去、現在、そして未来

John W. Dower

NOTE: This essay, written in January 2013,appears as the first section in a book co-authored by John W. Dower and GavanMcCormack and published in Japanesetranslation by NHK Shuppan Shinsho inJanuary 2014 under the title Tenkanki no Nihone: "Pakkusu Amerikana" ka-"Pakkusu Ajia" ka("Japan at a Turning Point-Pax Americana? PaxAsia?"; the second section is an essay byMcCormack on Japan's client-state relationshipwith the United States focusing on the EastChina Sea "periphery," and the book concludeswith an exchange of views on current tensionsin East Asia as seen in historical perspective).An abbreviated version of the Dower essay alsowill be included in a forthcoming volume on theSan Francisco System and its legacies editedby Kimie Hara and published by Routledge.

As the endnotes reveal, many of the issuesaddressed here will be familiar to closefollowers of The Asia-Pacific Journal. The essaywas written for a general audience rather thanfor specialists, with particular concern forcalling attention to (1) the interwoven nature ofcontentious current issues, and (2) theirhistorical genesis in the early years of the coldwar, and in some cases earlier. Apart from afew very minor stylistic changes, the contentsof the several texts of the essay are identical.No attempt has been made to incorporatedevelopments since early 2013. Only thispresent version introduces illustrations.

Legacies of the past are never far from thesurface when it comes to present-day

controversies and tensions involving Japan,China, and the United States.

Take, for example, a single day in China:September 18, 2012. Demonstrators in scoresof Chinese cities were protesting Japan's claimsto the tiny, uninhabited islands in the EastChina Sea known as Senkaku in Japanese andDiaoyu in Chinese-desecrating the Hi no Maruflag and forcing many China-based Japanesefactories and businesses to temporarily shutdown.

Simultaneously, Chinese leaders were accusingthe United States and Japan of jointly pursuinga new "containment of China" policy-manifested, most recently, in the decision tobuild a new level of ballistic-missile defenses inJapan as part of the Obama administration'sstrategic "pivot to Asia."

And September 18 in particular? This, theChinese were keen to point out, was the eighty-first anniversary of the Manchurian Incident of1931-the staged event that the Japanesemilitary used as a pretext for seizing the threenortheastern provinces of China and turningthem into the quasi-colony they renamedManchukuo.

The disputed islands, the containment-of-Chinaaccusations, even the bitter "history issue"involving recollection of imperial Japan'smilitarism all have toxic roots in the early yearsof the Cold War. Together with other present-day controversies, they trace back to the SanFrancisco System under which Japan re-entered the post-war world as a sovereign

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nation after being occupied by U.S. forces forover six years, from August 1945 to the end ofApril 1952.

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The tensions of September escalated in theweeks and months that followed, and the alarmthis generated was occasionally apocalyptic.Pundits spoke of "flash points"-in this case, theSenkaku/Diaoyu confrontation-that could leadto an "accidental war" in which U.S. forcessupported Japan against China. This, it wasobserved, would be consistent with America'sobligations under the bilateral security treatywith Japan that lies at the heart of the SanFrancisco System.

That this worst-case scenario could be takenseriously in 2012 is both surprising andunsurprising. It is surprising because this wastaking place forty years after both Japan andthe United States belatedly normalizedrelations with the People's Republic of China(PRC), dramatical ly abandoning the"containment" policy that had defined Cold WarChina policy prior to 1972. Over the course ofthose four decades, the economies of the threecountries had become interdependent,seemingly creating a foundation for durablepeace.

What makes the crisis of 2012 unsurprising, onthe other hand, is the fact that China'semergence as a major economic power hasbeen followed by intense nationalistic pridecoupled with resolute commitment to militarymodernization. This may have been predictable,but it nonetheless came as a shock to thosewho took the overwhelming military supremacyof the Pax Americana for granted.

The San Francisco System and this militarizedPax Americana go hand in hand. They havedefined the strategic status quo in the Asia-Pacific area since the early 1950s. They haveshaped (and distorted) the nature of the post-war Japanese state in ways beyond measure.

They have involved both peace-keeping andwar-making.

As the events of 2012 made much clearer, thissystem and these structures now stand at aturning point.

I. The Contorted Origins of the SanFrancisco System

The San Francisco System takes its name fromtwo treaties signed in San Francisco onSeptember 8, 1951, under which the terms forrestoring independence to Japan wereestablished. One was the multinational Treatyof Peace with Japan that forty-eight "allied"nations signed with their former World War IIenemy. The second was the bilateral U.S.-JapanSecurity Treaty, under which Japan granted theUnited States the right to "maintain armedforces … in and about Japan," and the UnitedStates supported and encouraged Japaneserearmament.

Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru signs thebilateral security treaty with the United

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States on September 8, 1951. Secretary ofState Dean Acheson (right) and specialambassador John Foster Dulles standdirectly behind him. The Japanese officialon the left is Ikeda Hayato, who served asprime minister from 1960 to 1964.

Both treaties came into effect on April 28,1952, the day the occupation ended and Japanregained sovereignty.

Two aspects of these agreements are notable.First is the timing. Japan was still occupied andunder U.S. control when the treaties weresigned, and the Cold War was at fever pitch.The Soviet Union tested its first atomic bombon August 29, 1949, triggering the nucleararms race. The victorious Communistsproclaimed the People's Republic of China onOctober 1 of that same year, and a Sino-SovietTreaty of Friendship and Alliance wasconcluded on February 14, 1950. On June 25,1950, war erupted on the divided KoreanPeninsula, drawing in U.S.-led United Nationsforces immediately. Four months later, in lateOctober, Chinese forces entered the war tocounter what China's leaders perceived to be aU.S. threat to advance through North Korea upto-and possibly across-the border with China.The Korean War dragged on until July 1953,and the peace and security treaties ofSeptember 1951 were signed during aprotracted stalemate in this conflict.1

Equally significant but less well remembered,the San Francisco settlement was a "separatepeace." The omissions from the list of nationsthat signed the peace treaty were striking.Neither Communist China nor the ChineseNationalist regime that had fled to Taiwan wereinvited to the peace conference, despite thefact that China had borne the brunt of Japaneseaggression and occupation beginning a fulldecade before Pearl Harbor and the U.S. entryinto the war. Both South and North Korea were

excluded, although the Korean people hadsuffered grievously under Japanese colonialrule and oppressive wartime recruitmentpolicies between 1910 and 1945. The SovietUnion attended the peace conference butrefused to sign the treaty on several grounds,including the exclusion of the PRC andWashington's transparent plans to integrateJapan militarily into its Cold War policies.

Viewed from the perspective of the separatepeace, the San Francisco settlement thus laidthe groundwork for an exclusionary system thatdetached Japan from its closest

neighbors. In the months following the peaceconference, the United States tightened thescrews on this divisive policy by informing adismayed and reluctant Japanese governmentthat Congress would not ratify the peace treatyunless Japan signed a parallel treaty with theChinese Nationalist government in Taiwan,thus effectively recognizing that regime as thelegitimate government of China. Failing this,the U.S. occupation of Japan would beperpetuated indefinitely. Japan acquiesced tothis ultimatum in the famous "Yoshida Letter,"dated December 24, 1951 (from the Japaneseprime minister Yoshida Shigeru to John FosterDulles, the U.S. emissary in charge of the peacesettlement). The ensuing peace treaty betweenJapan and the "Republic of China" ensconced inTaipei was signed on April 28, 1952-the sameday the peace and security treaties signed inSan Francisco came into effect.

Although the Soviet Union and Japanestablished diplomatic relations in a jointdeclaration signed on October 19, 1956, theydid not sign a formal peace treaty and leftterritorial issues regarding control of thedisputed islands between Japan and the SovietUnion unresolved. Japan and South Korea didnot normalize relations until June 22, 1965 (in aTreaty on Basic Relations between Japan andthe Republic of Korea). Diplomatic relationsbetween Japan and the PRC were not restored

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until 1972 (in a joint communiqué issued onSeptember 29), and it was only in 1978 that thetwo countries concluded a formal Treaty ofPeace and Friendship (on August 12).

The corrosive long-term consequences of thispost-occupation estrangement between Japanon the one hand and China and Korea on theother are incalculable. Unlike West Germany inpost-war Europe, Japan was inhibited frommoving effectively toward reconciliation andreintegration with its nearest Asian neighbors.Peace-making was delayed. The wounds andbitter legacies of imperialism, invasion, andexploitation were left to fester-unaddressedand largely unacknowledged in Japan. Andostensibly independent Japan was propelledinto a posture of looking east across the Pacificto America for security and, indeed, for its veryidentity as a nation.

II. Eight Problematic Legacies

The conservative Yoshida government thatnegotiated Japan's acceptance of the SanFrancisco System faced a fundamentally simplechoice in 1951. In return for agreeing toWashington's stipulation that a multinationalpeace treaty had to be coupled with Japaneserearmament, continued U.S. bases in Japan,and exclusion of the PRC from the peaceconference, Japan gained independence plusassurance of U.S. military protection. In thereal world of power politics, the alternative thatYoshida's liberal and leftist domestic criticsendorsed-namely, to insist on Japan's disarmedneutral ity in the Cold War and a non-exclusionary "overall" peace treaty-meantpostponing the restoration of sovereignty andsubmitting to continued U.S. militaryoccupation.

Even Yoshida's staunchly pro-American andanti-communist supporters in Japan expressedanxiety about the price to be paid for agreeingto Washington's demands. Acquiescing in thenon-recognition and isolation of the PRC wasunpopular, especially in business circles. The

uncertain future scale and disposition of post-occupation U.S. bases throughout the nationwas worrisome. And Washington's demandsthat Japan rearm rapidly were deemed short-s ighted and foo lhardy . Prec ip i tousremilitarization, Yoshida and others argued,would provoke major opposition bothdomestically and among the recent foreignvictims of Japanese aggression.2

Despite such reservations, the government andmost of the populace welcomed the 1951treaties and ensuing restoration of sovereignty;and, by and large, this Cold War settlementcontinues to be applauded in mainstreamJapanese and American circles. The reasonswhy are not far to seek. The peace treaty itselfwas non-punitive and generous to Japan. Andthe U.S.-Japan military relationship hasremained the cornerstone of Japanese strategicand diplomatic policy to the present day. Underthe San Francisco System, Japan hasestablished itself as a democratic, prosperous,and peaceful nation.

Rather than viewing the San Francisco Systemas an unmitigated blessing, however, it isnecessary to recognize the many specific waysin which it has become a straitjacket-a systemthat locked Japan into policies and attitudesthat have become more rather than lessproblematic with the passage of time. The"blessing" and the "straitjacket" are notmutually exclusive. They coexist, and callattention to intractable contradictions thathave been inherent in the system since itsinception.

Eight of these problematic legacies deserveparticular attention: (1) Okinawa and the "twoJapans"; (2) unresolved territorial issues; (3)U.S. bases in Japan; (4) rearmament; (5)"history issues"; (6) the "nuclear umbrella"; (7)containment of China and Japan's deflectionfrom Asia; and (8) "subordinate independence."

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Left: U.S. Bases in Japan as of 2011. Right:Bases in Okinawa as of 2012.

1. Okinawa and the "Two Japans"

One of the tragic legacies of World War II andthe early Cold War was the creation of dividedcountries-notably Korea, Vietnam, Germany,and China. In a perverse way, the SanFrancisco System made Japan another dividedcountry by detaching Okinawa Prefecture, thesouthern part of the Ryukyu Islands chain, fromthe rest of the nation and turning it into a U.S.military bastion.

This was not a tragedy on the scale of the otherdivided countries. It was, moreover, aterritorial partition that involved Tokyo's closeand even avid collusion with Washington. In

Amer ican eyes , Okinawa became anindispensable "staging area" for U.S. forces inAsia from the moment the war ended-a policythat the Soviet atomic bomb, the Communistvictory in China, and the outbreak of theKorean War all hardened beyond any possiblechallenge. To Japanese policy-makers, Okinawaand its residents were simply an expendablebargaining chip. Well before the San Franciscoconference, planners in Tokyo began drawingup proposals to sacrifice Okinawa if this wouldhasten the restoration of sovereignty to the restof Japan.3

The San Francisco settlement formalized thispolicy by excluding Okinawa from the"generous" peace terms. The prefectureremained under U.S. administration, with only"residual sovereignty" vested in Japan. Duringthe Korean War, B-29 Superfortress bombers(which only a few years earlier had firebombedthe cities of Japan) flew missions to Korea fromOkinawa's Kadena Air Force Base. Between1965 and 1972, Okinawa was a key stagingarea for the devastating U.S. air war againstNorth Vietnam as well as the secret bombingattacks on Cambodia and Laos. Althoughadministration of Okinawa was restored toJapan in 1972, after twenty-seven years ofdirect U.S. control, this did not diminish theprefecture's role as the centerpiece ofAmerica's forward military posture in Asia.

The on-going impact of this "two-Japans" policyoperates at many levels. Most obvious is thedegradation inevitable in any such gargantuanmilitary-base milieu, including GI crimes, noisepollution, and environmental destruction. Lessvisible is the institutionalized practice of non-transparency, duplicity, and hypocrisy by boththe U.S. and Japanese governments-as seen inrevelations of secret activities and agreementsinvolving storage on Okinawan soil of bothnuclear weapons and chemical weapons suchas Agent Orange.4

Most pernicious of all, perhaps, is the shameful

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spectacle of a government that has consigned aspecific portion of its land to extensive militaryuse by a foreign power, and simultaneouslytreated its populace there as second-classcitizens.

2. Unresolved Territorial Issues

Five territorial disputes that plague relations inthe Asia-Pacific region today trace back toissues of sovereignty left unresolved in the SanFrancisco Peace Treaty. Nor was this ambiguitya matter of simple inadvertence or oversight.On the contrary, much of it was deliberatelyintroduced in the final drafts of the peacetreaty by the United States, in conformity withWashington's overall strategy of thwartingcommunist influence in Asia.5

Unsurprisingly, these disputes mostly involvecountries that did not participate in theseparate peace: notably, the Soviet Union (nowRussia), South Korea, and China. Three of thedisputes involve Japan directly; all of them havebecome highly contentious issues in thedecades fol lowing the San Franciscoconference. National pride and strategicconcerns naturally underlie these conflictingterritorial claims, but in several cases theirintensification in recent years also reflects thediscovery of maritime resources such asundersea oil and natural gas deposits.

Japan's territorial disputes with Russia,Korea, and China all trace back to the"separate peace" signed in San Franciscoin 1951, which excluded China and Koreaand was opposed by the Soviet Union.

The territorial dispute with Russia involveswhat Japan calls the "Northern Territories" andRussia "the southern Kurile Islands"-focusingon four islands or island clusters north ofHokkaido. The issue hinges in considerablepart on whether these islands are properlyregarded as part of the Kurile chain or ofHokkaido, and it is complicated by the SovietUnion's abrupt transformation from ally toenemy in American eyes during the course of1945 to 1947. At the secret "big three" Yaltaconference in February 1945, the United Statesand Britain agreed that the Kurile Islandswould be "handed over" to the Soviet Unionfollowing Japan's defeat. This was one of theinducements the Anglo powers used topersuade the USSR to enter the war againstJapan; and when the war ended Soviet forcestook over the Kuriles, including the nowdisputed islands. The United States reversed itsposition as the Cold War took hold and, by the

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time of the San Francisco conference,essentially viewed the contested islands asJapanese territory under Soviet militaryoccupation. Although the 1951 peace treatystated that Japan renounced "all right, title andclaim to the Kurile Islands," it neither assignedthe Kuriles to the Soviet Union nor mentionedthe names of the disputed islands.

The Cold War linkage between this territorialdispute and the "two Japans" policy, wherebythe United States detached Okinawa from therest of Japan, emerged in a revealing mannerfive years after the San Francisco conference.Prior to the finalization of the peace treaty,both U.S. and Japanese policy-makers gaveserious consideration to the argument that thetwo southernmost of the four islands (Shikotanand the Habomais) were not part of the Kuriles,but that the other two islands (Etorofu andKunashiri) might reasonably be regarded assuch. When high-ranking Soviet and Japaneseofficials met to negotiate a projected peacetreaty in 1956, the former proposed such acompromise "two island return" solution to theterritorial dispute, which was initiallysupported by the Japanese foreign minister,Shigemitsu Mamoru. Such a trade-off wasfoiled when the U.S. secretary of state, JohnFoster Dulles, informed Shigemitsu that ifJapan conceded sovereignty over the Kuriles tothe USSR, the United States would regard itselfas "equally entitled to full sovereignty over theRyukyus." Although the 1956 negotiations ledto resumption of diplomatic relations betweenMoscow and Tokyo, this U.S. threat helpedprevent conclusion of a formal peace treaty.6

Territorial confrontation with South Koreacenters on small islets in the Sea of Japancalled the Liancourt Rocks in English,Takeshima in Japanese, and Tokdo (also Dokdo)in Korean. Early U.S. drafts of the Treaty ofPeace with Japan explicitly recognizedTakeshima/Tokdo as part of Korea, but inDecember 1949-immediately followingestablishment of the PRC, but before the

outbreak of the Korean War-U.S. treaty draftsreversed course and assigned the islands toJapan. U.S. drafts beginning in August 1950became "simple" and made no specific mentionof Takeshima. The final peace treaty vaguelymentioned Korean independence, but did notdescribe Japan's territorial limits. In August1951, a month before the San Franciscoconference, the United States did inform thegovernment of South Korea that it regardedTakeshima as Japanese.7

On January 18, 1952-three-plus months beforethe peace treaty went into effect-the presidentof South Korea, Rhee Syngman, issued adeclaration defining his country's maritimeborders. He described the purpose of this" R h e e L i n e , " w h i c h e n c o m p a s s e dTakeshima/Tokdo, as being to protect Korea'smaritime resources, referring in this caseprimarily to fisheries. On May 23, 1952-roughlya month after Japan regained sovereignty-anofficial of the Japanese Ministry of ForeignAffairs informed a parliamentary committeethat the ministry had approved use of thedisputed islands for bombing practice by U.S.forces, the assumption being that this wouldconfirm Japanese sovereignty over the disputedislets. B-29s operating out of Okinawa had infact used Takeshima/Tokdo as a target as earlyas 1948, but in practice South Korea succeededin enforcing the Rhee Line by imposing controlover the area with its coast guard. Therestoration of relations between Japan andSouth Korea in 1965 did not resolve thesovereignty issue, although an accompanyingfisheries agreement eliminated the Rhee Line,under which South Korea had seized hundredsof Japanese fishing vessels in the interveningyears.8

The Senkaku/Diaoyu dispute involving Chinaand Japan that erupted with alarming intensityin 2012 involves a small cluster of islets androcks in the East China Sea, situated betweenOkinawa and Taiwan and often collectivelydescribed in the media as "barren rocks." Here,

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the territorial issue is entangled not only withthe "two Japans" legacy of the San Franciscosettlement, but also with "history issues" thatdate back to the end of the nineteenth century.Japan first laid formal claim to these islands in1895, following its crushing victory in the firstSino-Japanese War.

Taiwan was the great territorial prize extractedfrom defeated China in 1895. Although Japanacquired nearby Senkaku/Diaoyu that sameyear, it did not do so as part of its war spoils.Rather, after declaring these uninhabited rocksto be terra nullius, or "land belonging to noone," Japan simply annexed them. They weretreated thereafter as part of OkinawaPrefecture-and passed into U.S. hands as suchafter World War II. The Americans used themfor occasional bombing practice. When theUnited States returned sovereignty overOkinawa to Japan in 1972, Senkaku/Diaoyu wasincluded-albeit under protest from both thePRC and the Republic of China on Taiwan.

In late December 2012 a Chinese-languagememorandum surfaced in Beijing that suggeststhe territorial issue might well have beenresolved without great difficulty if the PRC hadbeen able to participate in the peacesettlement. Dated May 15, 1950-before theKorean War, and at a time when Chinaapparently still anticipated being invited to thepeace conference-this ten-page memorandumused the Japanese rather than Chinese name(that is, characters) for the islands andreflected ambiguity concerning theirsovereignty. At one point the islands wereexplicitly identified as part of the Ryukyus, butelsewhere in the memo it was noted that theirproximity to Taiwan required furtherexamination. 9

In theory, the Treaty of Peace with Japan thatcame into effect in 1952 restored all territoriesseized by Japan between 1895 and the end ofWorld War II to the nations to whom theyoriginally belonged. As the 1950 Chinese memo

indicated, the point at issue is whether theSenkaku/Diaoyu islands are properly regardedas part of Okinawa or part of Taiwan-and in the1970s, when Japan and the PRC establishedformal relations, it was tacitly acknowledgedthat this question was too complicated to beresolved at that time. In preparatory talks forreconciliation in 1972, Zhou Enlai told aJapanese politician, "There is no need tomention the Diaoyu Islands. It does not count[as] a problem of any sort compared torecovering normal relations." Six years later,when the two countries signed a formal peacetreaty, they reached a verbal agreement topostpone discussing the issue. Chinese recordsquote Deng Xiaoping, the PRC's supremeleader, as telling Japan's foreign minister thatissues involving the Diaoyu Islands andcontinental shelf "can be set aside to be calmlydiscussed later and we can slowly reach a waythat both sides can accept. If our generationcannot find a way, the next generation or theone after that wil l f ind a way." In hisextraordinarily successful October 1978goodwill tour of Japan-the first such visit everby a Chinese leader-Deng said the same thingin response to a journalist's question at a hugepress conference in Tokyo. The militantconfrontations of 2012 made clear that suchoptimism was misplaced.10

The fourth "island" dispute, the greatest of all,pre-dates the San Francisco conference butwas integral to the very essence of the separatepeace-namely, the separation of Taiwan fromthe People's Republic of China. This blunt ColdWar intrusion into sovereign affairs can bedated precisely to June 27, 1950, two days afterthe outbreak of the Korean War, when theUnited States dispatched its Seventh Fleet tothe Taiwan Strait to prevent the ChineseCommunists from consolidating their victory.The bilateral "treaty of Taipei," which theUnited States forced Japan to conclude with thegovernment on Taiwan on April 28, 1952,reinforced this intervention. In the eyes of thePRC, this amounted to perpetuating the

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dismemberment of Chinese territory: first, byJapan's seizure of Taiwan among its spoils ofwar in 1895 and, now, by Japan and the UnitedStates collaborating to thwart Taiwan's returnto China.

Although the United States and Japan bothrecognized the government in Beijing as thesole government of "one China" when relationswith the PRC were established in 1972, this didnot alter a major premise of U.S.-Japan militaryplanning under the San Francisco System. Tothe present day, Pentagon projections haveconsistently emphasized the threat of conflictbetween the PRC and Taiwan-and, conversely,China's accelerated military modernizationfocuses strongly on deterring U.S. interventionshould such conflict arise.

The fifth territorial dispute left unresolved atthe 1951 peace conference in San Franciscoinvolves the sparsely populated Spratly andParacel islands (plus the Scarborough Shoal) inthe South China Sea, a strategically situatedarea that in the late-1960s was discovered tobe rich in oil and natural gas. Here, sovereigntyclaims by China were put forth in the late1940s-first by the Nationalist government andthen by the Communists-in the form of asweeping "nine-dash-line" on a maritime map.This claim is challenged by the Philippines,Vietnam, Malaysia, and Brunei.

At the request of France, which still maintaineda colonial presence in Vietnam, the peacetreaty signed in San Francisco included aclause stating "Japan renounces all right, titleand claim to the Spratly Islands and to theParacel Islands." Although China's claim wasdeliberately ignored, the treaty did not specifyto whom the islands belonged. In the words ofthe leading historian of territorial disputesstemming from the San Francisco conference,this ambiguity left one more potential "wedge"against China, creating a source of futureconflict that it was anticipated would"conveniently serve to contain communism" in

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3. U.S. Bases

The original professed rationale for maintainingan extensive network of U.S. military bases inJapan-as elsewhere throughout the world-wasdefense against a perceived threat ofcommunist aggression directed by Moscow.Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in1991, the United States vacated around sixtypercent of its overseas bases. Following theinvasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in2003, it constructed many hundreds of newfacilities in the Middle East, before dismantlingmost of them as it prepared for withdrawal inthe 2010s. Still, America's worldwide "empireof bases" is today more extensive than everbefore. U.S. military personnel are stationed inaround 150 foreign countries, and reasonableestimates place the total number of overseasU.S. military sites at over 1,000-some of themenormous, some of them small, and increasingnumbers of them secret and engaged in covertactivities.12

Pyongyang, North Korea, following a U.S.air raid in the early stages of the KoreanWar in 1950. U.S. bombers operatingmostly out of Japan dropped more tonnageof bombs on Korea than were dropped onJapan during the entire course of WorldWar II.

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In th i s f amous Sep tember 1965photograph, a mother and her children fleeU.S. bombing of their village in SouthVietnam. As in the Korean War, bases inJapan were crucial to the devastating U.S.bombing campaign in Vietnam that waslater extended to Cambodia and Laos.

U.S. bases in Japan must be seen in this largercontext. They are rooted in the occupation ofJapan and the ensuing Cold War, with theirongoing presence being formalized in the 1951security treaty and subsequent bilateralagreements. At the same time, they are but onesmall part of an American military empire thathas taken on a new post-Cold War momentum.In current scenarios, China is a major projectedenemy.

From the outset, maintaining a militarypresence in Japan has served three purposes inthe eyes of American planners. First andforemost, it provides an offshore staging areaclose to continental Asia and Russia. Second,and little remembered today, this presenceensures control over Japan should the countryever be inc l ined to revert to a moreautonomous and militaristic course. (Thisargument was often heard in the 1950s, whenmany Americans and other foreigners had

reservations about Japan's trustworthiness. Itresurfaced in the early 1970s, when the UnitedStates normalized relations with China.) Third,and most popular among supporters of thebases, the stationing of U.S. forces in andaround Japan contributes-as stated in Article 1of the 1951 security treaty-"to the maintenanceof international peace and security in the FarEast and to the security of Japan against armedattack from without."

In the wake of the "3-11" disaster of 2011,when Japan's Tōhoku region was stricken by anearthquake and tsunami, followed by nuclearmeltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi powerplant, U.S. forces in Japan assumed a new andhighly praised role by providing emergency aidand humanitarian rel ief . Codenamed"Operation Tomodachi" (Operation Friend), thisinvolved input from bases situated throughoutthe country.

In practice, the most conspicuous use of thebases has been to support U.S. combatoperations outside Japan. They were a majorstaging area for the air war against Korea,where U.S. warplanes dropped more tonnage ofbombs than in the air raids that devastatedJapan in 1945. (General Curtis Le May, whocommanded the firebombing of Japan beforemoving on to Korea, later observed, "Weburned down just about every city in North andSouth Korea both…. we killed off over a millioncivilian Koreans and drove several million morefrom their homes, with the inevitable additionaltragedies bound to ensue.") Between 1965 and1972, this use of bases in Japan for deadlycombat elsewhere was repeated againstVietnam, Cambodia, and Laos-where U.S.forces dropped more than seven million tons ofbombs, well over twice the total tonnagedropped by U.S. and British forces in theEuropean and Asian theaters combined inWorld War II. Bases in Japan, particularly inOkinawa, also have been used to support theU.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, although notfor launching bombing missions per se.13

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Preserving the peace in Asia and the Pacificthrough multinational security agreements isobviously an essential endeavor, but pastexperience under the Pax Americana indicateshow destructive this may become in actualpractice. It is not plausible that Japan'shypothetical enemies-the Soviet Union andChina in the Cold War, China and North Koreatoday-have ever really posed a serious threat ofunprovoked armed attack on Japan, as therhetoric in the original security treaty implies.On the other hand, there can be no doubt thatthe continued presence of the bases ensuresthat in the future, as in the past, Japan willhave no choice but to become a participant inAmerica's global military policies and practices,even where these may prove to be unwise andeven reckless.

4. Rearmament

When the U.S.-Japan security treaty was signedin 1951, it was clear to both sides that Japan'scommitment to rearm was unconstitutional. In1946, when the new "peace constitution" wasbeing debated in the Diet, Prime MinisterYoshida responded to a question about Article 9and the charter's "no war" provisions bydec la r ing tha t th i s p roh ib i t ed anyremilitarization whatsoever, even in the nameof self-defense. As late as January 1950,Yoshida was still talking about "the right ofself-defense without force of arms"-vividlyevoking an old samurai image to clarify thatthis meant "self-defense which does not employeven two swords."

The United States began pressuring Yoshida tobegin rearming Japan even before the outbreakof the Korean War. When that conflict eruptedon June 25, 1950, rearmament was in factinitiated. The United States envisioneddeploying Japanese ground forces in Korea, andpushed for extremely rapid remilitarization.Yoshida's policy, by contrast, was to go slow.When the bilateral security treaty endorsingJapanese rearmament was signed, it was with

the understanding on both sides that thiscommitment to rearm was legally precariousand would require constitutional revision in thenear future.14

Neither Washington nor the conservativegovernment in Tokyo anticipated that popularsupport for the anti-militarist ideals embodiedin Article 9 would block constitutional revisiononce Japan regained its independence, andwould continue to do so for decades to come.The ensuing debate has rattled Japanesepolitics for over six decades. Failure to revisethe constitution has not prevented thegovernment from engaging in "revision byreinterpretation" and creating a technologicallyadvanced military with a continually redefinedmission. At the same time, the constitution hasretained sufficient influence to place restraintson both the weaponry these "self-defenseforces" can acquire and the missions in whichthey can participate (such as supporting theUnited States and United Nations militarily inoverseas conflicts).

These DVDs issued in 2013 promoteJapan's Ground Self-Defense Forces,Maritime Self-Defense Forces, and Air Self-Defense Forces under the s logan"Understand well!"

The constitutional crisis is the most widelydiscussed outcome of Japan's legally dubiousrearmament, but it is not the only problematic

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legacy of this aspect of the San FranciscoSystem. Rearmament has two additionalramifications. First, like the military bases inJapan, it locks Japan into U.S. tactical planningand strategic policy. Second, it goes hand inhand with downplaying, sanitizing, and denyingwhat the Japanese military actually did in itsearlier incarnation, when the emperor'ssoldiers and sailors ran amok in Asia.

Supporters of revising the constitution toremove restrictions on rearmament argue thatthis will enable Japan to become a "normalnation," to participate in international peace-keeping operations under the auspices of theUnited Nations, and to develop an autonomouscapability to defend itself. In fact, the moreJapan rearms, the more it will be placed underirresistible pressure to make ever moresubstantial contributions to America's war-fighting activities.

5. "History Issues"

Prime Minister Kishi Nobusuke with hisgrandson Abe Shinzō. Abe served as prime

minister in 2006-7 and returned to thepremiership in the closing days of 2012.

The l ink between rearming Japan anddecontaminating the nation's past becomesclear when we recall how little time elapsedbetween Japan's defeat and the inauguration ofthe San Francisco System. Yesterday'smilitaristic enemy was being rehabilitated astoday's peace-loving ally-while at the sametime, yesterday's World War II ally China wasdemonized as part of a "Red menace" thatthreatened wor ld peace. Promot ingrearmament dictated playing down Japan'stransgressions and China's victimization-notonly in Japan, but also in the United States andinternationally.

This sanitization of imperial Japan's conductbegan before the San Francisco conference.The U.S.-led war crimes trials conducted inTokyo between mid 1946 and the end of 1948,for example, suppressed atrocities that wouldpoison relations between Japan and its Chineseand Korean neighbors when exposed decadeslater. One of these crimes was the murderousmedical experiments conducted on prisoners bythe imperial army's "Unit 731" in Harbin.Another was the abduction of women, mostlyKoreans, who were forced to provide sexualservices as "comfort women" (ianfu) to theimperial forces. Once the Tokyo trials of high-ranking "Class A" defendants ended inNovember 1948, moreover , fur therinvestigation of war crimes and prosecution ofaccused high-level war criminals wasterminated.

In an ideal world, the 1951 peace conferencemight have been an occasion for forthrighthistorical summation and engagement withissues of war responsibility. Instead, the SanFrancisco settlement did not just exclude thetwo countries most deserving of apology andredress, China and Korea, but also became anoccasion for spinning history and encouragingamnesia. In the favorite adjective of official

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Washington, the San Francisco treaty was to bea "generous" peace. When participatingcountries such as Britain and Canadarecommended that the peace treaty include"some kind of war guilt clause," the Americansopposed this idea.15

Korean press coverage of Prime MinisterAbe Shinzō's inflammatory May 2013 photoshoot in a jet fighter. The plane bears thesame ID number as the Imperial Army'snotorious "Unit 731" that was based inHarbin and conducted lethal experimentson prisoners during the Asia-Pacific War.

The separate peace did not just endorseexclusion over overall reconciliation and leavethe deepest wounds of imperialism and warunaddressed. In Japan, the San Franciscosettlement also paved the way for the return ofpoliticians and bureaucrats who had beenpurged for militarist activities during theoccupation and in some cases even arrested forwar crimes. By 1957, the prime minister was aformer accused (but never indicted) warcriminal, Kishi Nobusuke; when the U.S.-Japansecurity treaty came up for revision andrenewal in 1960, it was Kishi who rammed thisthrough the Diet in the face of massive popularprotests. (In the final month of 2012, in themidst of the intensifying Senkaku/Diaoyu crisis,Kishi's right-wing grandson Abe Shinzō

assumed the premiership for a second time andimmediately announced a renewed campaign topromote patriotism and challenge the allegedwar crimes of his grandfather's generation.)

Coupled with the many years that elapsedbefore Japan established formal relations withSouth Korea and China, the return to power inthe 1950s of a largely unrepentant old guardensured that troublesome history issues wouldbe passed on to later generations. Still, thejoint communiqué that restored diplomaticrelations between Japan and the PRC in 1972did state that "The Japanese side is keenlyconscious of the responsibility for the seriousdamage that Japan caused in the past to theChinese people through war, and deeplyreproaches itself." Twenty-six years later, in1998, another Sino-Japanese declaration offriendship and cooperation similarly included aparagraph emphasizing the importance of"squarely facing the past and correctlyunderstanding history," in which, for the firsttime, the Japanese government endorsedcharacterization of Japan's actions "during acertain period in the past" as "aggression."16

The anomaly of the "history problem" thatblights present-day relations between Japan onthe one hand and Korea as well as China on theother is that uses and abuses of the recent pastbecame hugely contentious only afterdiplomatic ties were belatedly established.Reconcil iat ion and the cult ivation ofconstructive relations went hand in hand withintensification, rather than dissolution, ofstrident nationalism on all sides. There havebeen many official Japanese apologies to Chinaand Korea since the 1970s. These expressionsof remorse, however, have been undercut withalmost metronomic regularity by thewhitewashing and outright denial by prominentpoliticians and influential individuals andorganizations of imperial Japan's overseasaggression and oppression.

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Prime Minister Abe visiting YasukuniShrine on December 26, 2013.

The escalating Sino-Japanese clash over historyissues unfolded in often jarringly tandem steps.Conclusion of a formal peace treaty betweenJapan and the PRC in 1978, for example,coincided with the secret enshrinement offourteen Japanese convicted of Class A warcrimes in Yasukuni Shrine, which honors thesouls of those who fought on behalf of theemperor; they were entered in the shrine'sregister as "martyrs of Shōwa" (Shōwajunnansha). Visits to Yasukuni by politiciansfirst precipitated intense domestic as well asinternational controversy when Prime MinisterNakasone Yasuhiro and members of his cabinetvisited the shrine in an official capacity on thefortieth anniversary of the end of the war in1985-which, as it happened, was the same yearthe Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall opened inChina. As time passed, Chinese fixation onJapan's wartime aggression and atrocities grewexponentially at every level of expression, frommuseums to mass media to street protests-while conservative and right-wing denials ofwar crimes grew apace in Japan.

A January 2014 Chinese cartoon responseto Prime Minister Abe's visit to YasukuniShrine

In part (but only part), "history" became morecontested after Japan normalized relations withChina and South Korea for a simple reason:interest in the recent past was rekindled on allsides, and historical resources became moreaccessible. The best scholarship on Japanesewar crimes and war responsibility-concerningthe Nanjing Massacre, criminal experiments ofUnit 731, exploitation of non-Japanese ianfu,etc.-dates from the 1970s and after. Thisinvestigative work, much of it by Japanesescholars and journalists, was provocative bynature. It triggered patriotic rebuttals in Japanand rage outside Japan. It was tinder fornationalistic sentiments already on the rise onall sides-and grist, as well, for political leaderspreoccupied primarily with domestic problemsand audiences.

At the same time, it is hardly a coincidencethat, in both Japan and China, burgeoningnationalism rode on the back of burgeoningeconomic growth. In Japan's case, the prideand hubris that accompanied the so-calledeconomic miracle of the 1970s and 1980sspilled over into patriotic campaigns to erasethe stigma of the "Tokyo war crimes trial viewof history" (a favorite right-wing pejorativephrase). In China, the turn to capitalism

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introduced by Deng Xiaoping beginning in 1978displaced prior fixation on Marxism andMaoism and left an ideological gap filled with anew nationalism focusing on victimization byforeign powers, Japan foremost among them. Inthe several decades following establishment ofthe PRC in 1949, Communist propaganda hadmuch to say about the military threat posed bythe United States and Japan, but relatively littleto say about historical grievances againstJapan. That changed abruptly after the briefperiod of amity and goodwill that accompaniedreconciliation in the 1970s.17

In both China and Japan, this convergence ofhistory and nationalism has turned "memory"into propaganda and "history issues" intohistory wars that have no end in sight.Denunciation versus denial of Japanese warcrimes has become a multi-directional andalmost ritualistic cycle. In Japan, cleansing thepast is integral to attempts to inflate a waningspirit of national pride. In China, manipulatinghistory involves an even more convoluteddomestic dynamic. Repetitious attacks on bothJapan's war crimes and its alleged post-warfailure to show genuine contrition do more thanjust pump up patriotic ardor. These attacks alsoprovide a distraction from domestic problemsand grievances. At the same time, lambastinghistorical sanitization by the Japanese divertsattention from the PRC's own top-downhistorical sanitization concerning crimesagainst the Chinese people inflicted after 1949by the Chinese Communist Party itself.18

6. The "Nuclear Umbrella"

In becoming incorporated in the San FranciscoSystem, Japan placed itself under the U.S."nuclear umbrella." This is a seductiveeuphemism-suggesting that in American handsnuclear weapons are purely defensive. Bycontrast, the Soviet Union's acquisition ofnuclear weapons, following its successful testof an atomic bomb in 1949,

was portrayed as provocative and threatening.

The same perception was extended to theacquisition of nuclear weapons by China andNorth Korea (first tested in 1964 and 2006.respectively).

It is challenging to sort out the quirks andcontradictions in this "umbrella" argument. TheUnited States was, and remains, the only nationto use nuclear weapons in war; and afterHiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan was in a uniqueposition to bear testimony to the abominationof such weapons. When the San FranciscoSystem was being assembled, however, thereexisted no significant anti-nuclear movement inJapan. Until 1949, U.S. occupation authoritieshad censored writings or visuals about theatomic-bomb experience, out of fear this couldprovoke anti-Americanism and public unrest.Only marginal public attention was given thesubject thereafter, until the occupation ended.Astonishingly, the first serious selection ofphotographs published in Japan of the twostricken cities appeared in a magazine datedAugust 6, 1952-the seventh anniversary of theHiroshima bombing, and over three monthsafter the peace treaty came into effect.Essentially, the Japanese government tookshelter under the "nuclear umbrella" before theJapanese people had seriously confronted thehorror of their own nuclear experience.19

At the same time, however, it was known wellbefore the San Francisco conference that U.S.planners were considering using nuclearweapons in the Korean War. President Harry S.Truman caused an international uproar whenhe refused to rule out using atomic bombs in apress conference on November 30, 1950,following China's all-out intervention in theconflict two days earlier. Subsequent fears (andpremonitions of "World War III") did not goaway. We now know that nuclear scenarioswere seriously discussed at various levelswithin the U.S. government and military froman early date. On July 24, 1950, almost exactlyone month after the war began, for example,General Douglas MacArthur anticipated that

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Chinese intervention would create "a uniqueuse for the atomic bomb." Five months later,shortly after Truman's inflammatory pressconference, MacArthur actually submitted aplan to the Joint Chiefs of Staff that projectedusing thirty-four atomic bombs in Korea. By theend of March 1951, at the height of theconflict, atomic-bomb loading pits had beenmade operational at Kadena Air Base inOkinawa, lacking only the nuclear cores for thebombs. The following month, in a significantdeparture from previous policy, the U.S.military temporarily transferred completeatomic weapons to Guam.20

The "Castle Bravo" U.S. thermonuclear testover Bikini Atoll on March 1, 1954, thatirradiated crew of the Japanese fishingboat "Lucky Dragon #5."

The most harrowing contingency studyinvolving bases in Japan took place in lateSeptember and early October of 1951, a fewweeks after the peace conference in SanFrancisco. Codenamed "Operation HudsonHarbor," this secret operation involved flightsof B-29s operating out of Kadena and carryingout simulated nuclear attacks on targets inKorea. These trial flights, which did not

actually carry atomic bombs, were coordinatedfrom Yokota Air Base, near metropolitanTokyo.21

Although the possibility that America might usenuclear weapons against its latest Asianenemies (China as well as North Korea) wasalarming, anti-nuclear sentiment did not gainwidespread support in Japan until almost twoyears after the country regained sovereignty.The catalyst for this popular opposition was theBikini Incident, in which fallout from a U.S.thermonuclear (hydrogen bomb) test on theBikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands on March 1,1954, irradiated over 7,000 square miles in themid-Pacific. The destructive force of the Bikiniexplosion was roughly 1,000 times that of thebomb that devastated Hiroshima. Contrary toU.S. denials, radioactive fallout was extensive.And this fallout quickly took on an intimatelyhuman dimension when it became known thatashes from the explosion had rained down onthe twenty-three-man crew of a Japanese tuna-fishing vessel named Daigo Fukuryūmaru(Lucky Dragon #5), which was outside thedanger zone declared by the United States inadvance of the test. The entire crew washospitalized with symptoms of radiationsickness upon returning to Japan, and theship's radio operator died over half a year later,on September 23, 1954.

The Bikini Incident precipitated the greatestcrisis in Japan-U.S. relations since World WarII. Public concern over the plight of thefishermen was compounded by fear that fishcaught in the Pacific were contaminated, andthese concerns in turn spilled into outrage atdismissive or deceptive responses by U.S.officials. By mid 1955, a nationwide petitioncampaign to ban hydrogen bombs had garneredtens of millions of signatures, and a spectrumof grassroots organizations had coalesced toform Japan's first anti-nuclear organization.22

The emergence of this anti-nuclear movementcoincided with the secret intensification of U.S.

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nuclear deployments in the Asia-Pacific area. InDecember 1954, the United States introduced"complete nuclear weapons" in Okinawa for thefirst time, and simultaneously approvedintroducing "non-nuclear components" (bombcasings or assemblies capable of being quicklynuclearized) to bases elsewhere in Japan. In theyears immediately following, military plannersin Washington gave serious thought to usingthese nuclear weapons against China on atleast three occasions: in September 1954,during the First Taiwan Strait Crisis; in theSecond Taiwan Strait Crisis, which erupted inAugust 1958; and during the Cuban MissileCrisis in October 1962, when Mace nuclearmissiles in Okinawa were placed on a fifteen-minute nuclear alert.23

Between 1954 and the reversion of Okinawa toJapanese administration in 1972, nineteendifferent types of nuclear weapons were storedthere, mostly at Kadena Air Base and probablytotaling close to 1,000 at any given time. At therequest of the Japanese government, thesewere removed when reversion took place. Thenuclear-ready "non-nuclear components" onbases elsewhere in Japan appear to have beenremoved in 1965, but this did not prevent theU.S. military from bringing nuclear weaponsinto Japan. In 1981, former ambassador EdwinO. Reischauer caused a commotion byacknowledging what he himself regarded ascommon knowledge: that nuclear-armed U.S.warships regularly entered Japanese watersand ports.24

In the aftermath of the Bikini Incident,supporters of the "nuclear umbrella" in andoutside Japan lost no time in mounting a multi-front offensive. Then and thereafter, the anti-nuclear movement was both castigated asbeing manipulated by hardcore communistsand belittled as reflecting a "pathologicallysensitive" victim consciousness. This is whenthe pejorative term "nuclear allergy" becameattached to the Japanese-as if loving the bombwere healthy, and fearing and deploring it a

kind of sickness. At the same time, the UnitedStates launched an intense campaign to divertattention from the nuclear arms race bypromoting the peaceful use of atomic energythroughout Japan. The success of this "atomsfor peace" crusade became widely recognizedover a half century later, when the meltdown ofthe Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in2011 highlighted the country's greatdependence on nuclear energy. The Fukushimadisaster also served as a reminder of the extentto which Japan's advanced nuclear technologyhas made it a "paranuclear state" or "virtualnuclear weapons state," with extensivestockpiles of separated plutonium that make itcapable of transitioning to the development ofnuclear weapons within a year or so should adecision be made to do so.25

From the 1950s on, Japan's conservativeleaders have been caught between a rock and ahard place where nuclear policy is concerned.Beginning in the 1960s, they responded todomestic opposition to nuclear weapons withseveral grand gestures designed to associatethe government itself with the ideal of nucleardisarmament. These included the highlypublicized "three non-nuclear principles"introduced by Prime Minister Satō Eisaku in1967 and endorsed in a Diet resolution fouryears later (pledging not to possess ormanufacture nuclear weapons, or permit theirintroduction into Japanese territory). Japansigned the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in1970 (ratifying it in 1976), and Satō shared the1974 Nobel Peace Prize for his anti-nuclearperformances.

At the same time, however, living under thenuclear umbrella has engendered secrecy,dupl ic i ty , and unf lagging Japanesesubservience to U.S. nuclear policy. In thewake of the Bikini Incident, and for yearsthereafter, Japanese officials accompanied thegovernment's public expressions of concernover U.S. thermonuclear tests with privateassurances to their American counterparts that

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these should be understood as merely "a sop tothe opposition parties in the Diet and …primarily for domestic consumption." Theirpublic protests, they explained confidentially,were just "going through the motions."26

When the mutual security treaty was renewedunder Prime Minister Kishi in 1960, a secretaddendum (dating from 1959) referred toconsultation between the two governmentsconcerning "the introduction into Japan ofnuclear weapons including intermediate andlong-range missiles, as well as the constructionof bases for such weapons."27 Similarly, thereversion of Okinawa to Japanese sovereigntyin 1972 was accompanied by a prior secretagreement between Satō and President RichardNixon (in November 1969), stating that theUnited States could reintroduce nuclearweapons in Okinawa in case of emergency, andalso sanctioning "the standby retention andactivation in time of great emergency ofexisting nuclear storage locations in Okinawa:Kadena, Naha, Henoko and Nike Herculesunits."28

On various occasions during and after the ColdWar, influential Japanese politicians andofficials have made clear-sometimes privatelyand frequently publicly-that they themselves donot suffer any "nuclear allergy." In May 1957,for example, Prime Minister Kishi told aparliamentary committee that the constitutiondid not bar possession of nuclear weapons "fordefensive purposes." Four years later, in aNovember 1961 meeting with the U.S.secretary of state, Kishi's successor IkedaHayato wondered out loud whether Japanshould possess its own nuclear arsenal. (Hewas told that the United States opposednuclear proliferation.) In December 1964, twomonths after China tested its first atomic bomb,Prime Minister Satō informed the U.S.ambassador in Tokyo that Japan might developnuclear weapons. A month later, Satō told theU.S. secretary of state that if war broke outwith China, Japan expected the United States

to retaliate immediately with nuclear weapons.Despite having signed the Non-ProliferationTreaty, moreover, Japanese politicians andplanners have secretly examined the feasibilityof Japan acquiring tactical nuclear weapons.Over the course of recent decades, variousconservative politicians and officials havep u b l i c l y s t a t e d t h a t t h i s w o u l d b econstitutionally permissible and strategicallydesirable.29

Lost in these charades-and probably lostforever-has been the opportunity for Japan tobuild on its own tragic nuclear experience andmove beyond rhetoric and token "motions" totake a vigorous leading role in promotingnuclear arms control and ultimate abolition.

Lost, too, is any apparent concern that whatAmerican and Japanese supporters of thenuclear umbrella present as "deterrence" is, inthe eyes of the targets of this arsenal,threatening and provocative.

7. Containment of China and Japan's Deflectionfrom Asia

It is perhaps inevitable that, nearly seventyyears after World War II, Japan and China havestill failed to establish what might be called,idealistically, deep peace. Beginning with theintrusion of the Western powers into East Asiain the mid-nineteenth century, the respectiveexperiences of the two nations could hardlyhave been more different. To contemporaryChinese, the narrative of their nation's moderntimes is in great part a story of humiliation atthe hands of foreign powers. In each and everyretelling, moreover, it is made clear exactlywhen this began: in 1840, with the country'sshattering defeat in the First Opium War andthe subsequent imposition of unequal treatiesby Great Britain and other Western imperialistpowers.

Japan's response to the Western challenge, bycontrast, was in the terms of the times aresounding success , in which rap id

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"Westernization" was carried out under suchprovocative slogans as "throwing off Asia." Thesignal event in this putative success took placein 1895, when Japan joined the imperialistcamp by crushing China in the first Sino-Japanese War, imposing its own unequal treatyon the defeated foe and acquiring Taiwan as itsfirst colony. (Korea was annexed in 1910.) Inthe larger global arena, the spoils of war forJapan included being treated as a great power.Imperial Japan's subsequent depredations inChina up to 1945 rested on this 1895 base. Intheory, the 1951 San Francisco peacesettlement took 1895 as its chronologicaldemarcation point for stripping Japan of an ill-begotten empire and restoring its parts to theirrightful sovereigns.30

The humi l ia t ion o f be ing de feated ,dismembered, invaded, and occupied by Japanbetween 1895 and 1945 has not been expungedin China, and never will be. Nor, on the otherhand, has the arrogance of a one-timeconqueror (and erstwhile pre-war successfulWesternizer as well as post-war economicsuperpower) been dispelled from Japan. Deeplydiscordant historical narratives, kept alive bythe potent machinery of manipulated memory,thus blight contemporary Sino-Japaneserelations in especially harmful ways. At thesame time, it should be kept in mind that thehistorical humiliation that fuels contemporaryChinese nationalism extends beyond Japan toinclude the Western powers.

The piling up of historical grievance did not, ofcourse, end for China with Japan's defeat inWorld War II or the Communist victory in 1949.Rather, it was compounded by the exclusion ofthe PRC from the 1951 peace conference andJapan's subsequent incorporation in the policyof non-recognition and "containment"mandated by Washington. For two decades,ending only in 1972, Japan was deflected fromthe Asian continent and wrapped in theembrace of its new American partner. The ColdWar mindset welcomed and encouraged

protracted hostility between Japan and China.Reconciliation and healing were thwarted,while trends detrimental to the process ofcoming to terms with the past were given timeand space to take root.

The proclaimed premise of Washington'scontainment policy was elemental. An America-led "free world" confronted a monolithiccommunist bloc directed by Moscow. Chinawas but a puppet or satellite of the SovietUnion. And Japan, with its potential to becomeagain the "workshop" of Asia (like WestGermany in Europe), could tip the globalbalance of power if allowed to interact closelywith the communist side of this bipolar divide.31

Less openly acknowledged, another premisebehind detaching Japan from China was racist,and entailed exploiting the old "throwing offAsia" mentality. John Foster Dulles, whochoreographed the drafting of the peace andsecurity treaties (before later becomingsecretary of state), conveyed this in aconfidential conversation with a Britishdiplomat in Tokyo in January 1951, in which hecalled attention to how "the Japanese peoplehave felt a certain superiority as against theAsiatic mainland masses," and consequently"would like to feel that they belong to, or areaccepted by, the Western nations." (The twoAnglo diplomats also referred to affiliation with"an elite Anglo-Saxon Club.") Less than sixyears after the end of an atrocious war, Japan'srecent enemy was envisioning a partnershipbased on a fusion of Caucasian supremacy withJapan's warped envy of the West and contemptfor other Asians.32

For largely practical reasons, many Japaneseconservatives disagreed with the Manichaeanoutlook that set Japan against China; whereJapan was concerned, the containment policywas never watertight. Between 1952 and 1972,a modest level of trade took place between thetwo nations, as well as exchanges involvingnon-governmental or semi-official political,

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cultural, business, and labor delegations. At thesame time, Japan was inhibited from restoringdiplomatic relations with Beijing or recognizingthe Communist government as the solegovernment of China.

President Richard Nixon's visit to China in1972, orchestrated by his national securityadviser Henry Kissinger, caught Japan andthe rest of the world by surprise and endedthe containment policy that had been onebedrock of U.S. cold war policy.

This changed dramatically in July 1971, whenPresident Richard Nixon unexpectedlyannounced that the United States wasabandoning containment and that he wouldsoon visit the PRC. America's volte-faceshocked the world and caused particularbitterness in Japan, where the government wasinformed of the new policy fifteen minutes in

advance of Nixon's announcement. Such publichumiliation replicated the cavalier manner inwhich Japan had been forced to participate inthe containment of China two decades earlier-only now the spin was in the opposite direction.Nixon's rapprochement with China paved theway for restoration of Sino-Japanese diplomaticrelations in 1972.

The full significance of this abandonment of thecontainment policy lay in its confluence withother developments. These included not onlythe winding down of the Vietnam War andrestorat ion o f Okinawa to Japaneseadministration, but also early harbingers ofJapan's "economic miracle" and the uncertaine f fec t th i s might have on Japaneseremilitarization. Secretary of State HenryKissinger, who laid the groundwork forrapprochement in top-secret talks with PrimeMinister Zhou Enlai in 1971, informed Nixonthat "fear of revived Japanese militarism was amajor theme throughout our discussions." Thissame theme carried over to the president's ownconversations with Zhou in Beijing thefollowing year. Had Japan's leaders been privyto these exchanges, the mortification theyexperienced upon being given only a fewminutes' advance notice that Nixon would visitChina would have seemed negligible bycomparison.33

In the course of his long conversations

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with Prime Minister Zhou Enlai, HenryKissinger spoke disparagingly aboutJapan ' s un t rus twor th iness andnationalistic inclinations.

As conveyed by Zhou, the PRC feared thatJapan's economic boom was bound to lead toexpansion abroad, which in turn wouldinevitably be accompanied by militaryexpansion-especially given "their tradition ofmilitaristic thinking." At one point, Zhoureferred to Japan as a "wild horse," makingc lear that the PRC was part icu lar lyapprehensive that Japanese military forcesmight in the near future be dispatched toTaiwan and South Korea. What China wished tosee was abrogation of the U.S.-Japan securitytreaty and Japan's reversion to a position ofunarmed neutrality.

Kissinger and Nixon rejected this unrealisticscenario not by dismissing fears of a resurgentJapanese militarism as irrational, but rather byarguing that ( in K iss inger 's words)"paradoxically, the presence of US troops onJapan helped to restrain the Japanese ratherthan the reverse." As Nixon put it, continuingthe U.S.-Japan defense relationship "canrestrain Japan from following a course whichthe Prime Minister correctly pointed out couldhappen, of economic expansion being followedby military expansion…. If we don't have thatclose relationship they aren't going to pay anyattention to us."

Such frank acknowledgment that a basicrationale for U.S. bases in Japan was toexercise control over the Japanese wasembellished with other statements that wouldalso have made Japan's faithful pro-Americanleaders cringe. Kissinger argued that Japaneseneutralism "would probably take a virulentnationalist form," while Nixon agreed that,without the U.S. defense partnership, theJapanese as a people, given their "drive and a

history of expansionism," would be "susceptibleto the demands of the militarists." At one point,in responding to Zhou's expressed concerns,Kissinger delivered an extended indictment ofthe Japanese national character. He observedthat "China's philosophical view had beengenerally global while Japan's had beentraditionally tribal," described Japan as a nation"subject to sudden explosive changes," anddeclared that the Americans "had no illusionsabout Japanese impulses and the imperatives oftheir economic expansion." When Zhou opinedthat the U.S. nuclear umbrella tended to makeJapan more aggressive toward others, Kissingerdeclared that the alternative was "much moredangerous. There was no question that if wewithdrew our umbrella they would very rapidlybuild nuclear weapons." Absent the restraint ofthe bilateral security treaty and U.S. bases inJapan, there was no way of predicting whatJapan might do beyond near certainty that itwould be destabilizing.

Zhou Enlai and Mao Zedong meet withPrime Minister Tanaka Kakuei in Beijingin September 1972, following U.S.abandonment of the containment policy.

The Americans won this argument hands down,to the extent that the PRC subsequently ceasedto criticize the U.S.-Japan security relationship.

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Even as America's highest officials wereendorsing Chinese mistrust of Japan, Japan andthe PRC were separately working out their ownjoint declaration of reconciliation. In thishoneymoon period of U.S.-Japan-PRCrapprochement, shared strategic preoccupationwith the Soviet Union helped persuade thethree nations to submerge their priorantagonism.34

Formally, the reconciliation of Japan and Chinawas affirmed in four joint documents between1972 and 2008. These pronouncements createdand reinforced a bilateral relationship underwhich mutually beneficial exchanges flourishedacross the board, with particularly spectacularresults in areas such as business, commerce,and technology transfer. Despite thesedeclarations of friendship and concretemanifestations of bilateral integration,however, reconciliation remained fragile anddeep peace elusive. The ratcheting up of theSenkaku/Diaoyu islands dispute that took placebeginning in September 2012 was the mostalarming example of this fragility, but thissimply exposed tensions and fissures that hadalready become apparent in the 1980s, soonafter the normalization of relations.35

The parallel but contradictory trajectories ofgenuine Sino-Japanese reconciliation after1972 on the one hand and, on the other hand,intensified tensions that trace back to creationof the San Francisco System are both dramaticand disturbing. The Senkaku/Diaoyu dispute isbut one example of this. Taiwan is anotherexample. For four decades after Washingtonand Tokyo recognized "one China" under thesole government of the PRC, Taiwan remains asource of discord and distrust, as the Chineseperceive that neither the United States norJapan actually desires reunification. On thecontrary, much U.S.-Japan joint militaryplanning remains predicated on responding toa crisis in the Taiwan Strait.36 "Containment ofChina" is yet another reminder of the linkagebetween early post-war policy and present-day

affairs. In the second decade of the twenty-firstcentury-six decades after the Cold Warcontainment policy was introduced, and fourdecades after it was ostensibly repudiated asan "abnormal state of affairs"-the air is bluewith American and Japanese strategists andpundits warning about a new China threat andcalling for a new policy of military containment.

Perhaps the most corrosive deep legacy ofmistrust lies in the contention over "warhistory" that became so b i t ter af ternormalization of relations. Where China isconcerned, anti-foreign nationalism waspromoted to compensate for the waning ofMarxist ideology, as market-oriented reformsgained traction beginning in the 1980s. ThatJapan became the prime villain in a historicalnarrative of victimization and humiliation wasunsurprising, given its predatory activities inChina beginning with the first Sino-JapaneseWar. This demonization, however, has beenabetted in ways beyond measure by thepostwar eruption of right-wing nationalism inJapan, in which denial of imperial Japan'saggression and war crimes plays a central role.

In a convoluted way, Japanese neo-nationalistsare driven by much the same mixture of prideand humiliation that propels their Chinesecounterparts: pride at throwing off adversityand becoming a post-war superpower, andhumiliation, in this case, from seeing theirerstwhile holy war turned into a criminal andatroc ious undertaking. Much of theconservative retelling of Japan's war historyreflects an attempt to eradicate, or at leastdiminish, this stain on Japan's national honor.And much of this revisionism is directed atdomestic audiences and a domestic electorate,with scant regard for how negatively it is seenby outsiders.

The onus of defeat, coupled with accusations ofcriminality, weighs heavily indeed in thesecircles-more rather than less so as time passes-and this has inflicted Japan with a debilitating

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malaise. Sanitizing the war years andrepeatedly undercutting official apologies andexpressions of remorse is widely perceived byothers-including not just foreigners, but alsomany thoughtful Japanese-to be not onlydishonest, but also appallingly insensitive tothe victims of imperial Japan's expansion andaggression. Certainly among Chinese andKoreans, this conveys the impression of anutter lack of empathy, identity, responsibility,guilt, or repentance. It suggests that Japan isonce again "throwing off Asia."

No matter how often and how sincerely Japanand China have pledged to work together forthe peace and progress of Asia from the 1970son-and no matter how great their interactionsand economic interdependence have become-what matters most decisively to Japan's leadersin the final analysis is continuity of the intimateU.S.-Japan relationship.

8. "Subordinate Independence"

Strategically, materially, and psychologically,Japan's current status in Asia-and in the worldmore generally-is riddled with ambiguity. Inconsiderable part this reflects China'semergence as a major economic power,coupled with the countervailing spectacle ofJapan's relative decline since the 1990s. Thelabels that were attached to Japan in the 1970sand 1980s-"economic superpower," "miracle,""Japan as number one," and so on-haveevaporated where Japan is concerned, but theyhave not disappeared. They have been more orless transposed to China.

There is a great deal of exaggeration in thisrole-reversing and relabeling, of course: Japanremains a major power, and China facesdaunting economic, polit ical , social ,demographic, and environmental challenges.Still, there has been a tectonic shift in statureand influence since the early years of the ColdWar, when Americans referred to the Pacific asan "American lake" and Japan was projected asthe great workshop of Asia. All eyes now focus

on China as the mesmerizing rising nation-statein the Asia-Pacific region, and on the uncertainconfiguration of power politics this portends-especially where the "triangle" of the UnitedStates, China, and Japan is concerned.

This is a lopsided triangle, however, for it iscomprised of two indisputably autonomousnations (the United States and China) and athird, Japan, which still lacks genuineindependence. This may be the mostintractable legacy of the San Francisco System,and it is especially ironic when one considersthe original premise of the Cold Warcontainment policy. Global communism wasmonolithic, it was argued then, and the newlyestablished People's Republic of China but apuppet or satellite of Moscow. China'sindependence has been clear for all to see sincethe Sino-Soviet split erupted in the early1960s,and no one today could possibly question itsautonomy. The same cannot be said ofWashington's "free world" ally Japan.

Japan's circumscribed autonomy is inherent inthe nature of the U.S.-Japan mil itaryrelationship. Although the two countries havebeen at odds on many issues since the SanFrancisco System was created, especiallyduring the heyday of Japanese economicexpansion that began in the 1970s, even themost acrimonious trade disputes were neverallowed to disturb the security alliance. Withfew exceptions, Washington's basic strategicand foreign policies go unchallenged in Tokyo.Even staunch supporters of the allianceacknowledge that it is "inherently andunavoidably asymmetrical." Harsher appraisalsemploy the language of subordination andsubservience, arguing that since the end of theCold War Japan has become an American"client state" in ever deepening, rather thandiminishing, ways.37

It can be argued that this unbalancedrelationship has brought phenomenal benefitsto Japan in the form of peace and prosperity. At

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the same time, however, it can also be arguedthat post-war Japan never actually faced aserious external threat from the Soviet Unionor so-called Communist bloc, and that thenation's prosperity derives far more fromJapanese efforts than from Americanpatronage. Be that as it may, peace andprosperity for Japan has come at the cost ofbeing a cog in an American war machine thathas indeed kept the peace at various times andin various places-but that also has squanderedresources, precipitated arms races, flirted with"first use" of nuclear weapons, committedatrocities (like targeting civilians andpracticing torture), and inflicted enormousdestruction and suffering in Korea, Indochina,Iraq, and Afghanistan. Client-state status hasalso required giving generally unstintingsupport to less overtly militarized U.S. foreignpolicies that are often shortsighted andcounterproductive. It has inhibited geopoliticalflexibility and stifled any real possibility ofinnovative statesmanship on Japan's part.

To more than a few Japanese, ranging acrossthe full political spectrum, this protractedpatron-client relationship is as "abnormal" asthe state of affairs Japan and China repudiatedwhen they restored relations in 1972. To some,this poses basic foreign-policy questions aboutJapan's orientation and identity, particularly asan "Asian" power. To others, the root issue isnational pride. In conservative and right-wingcircles, agitation to become a "normal" nationfocuses on revising the constitution andthrowing off constraints on remilitarization. Butthe notion that accelerated militarization is apath toward more bona fide independence orautonomy is delusory. Japan cannot escape theU.S. military embrace. In fact, the UnitedStates desires a more militarized partner, freeof constitutional restraints, to support itsevolving strategic visions not only in Asia, butglobally.

Asymmetry is not exceptional in relationsbetween the United States and its allies. On the

contrary, hierarchy is integral to the hegemonicnature of the post-war Pax Americana.Notwithstanding this, it can be argued that noother bi lateral relationship betweenWashington and its allies is more conspicuousand commented-upon in its structuralimbalance than the U.S.-Japan relationship.Even among Japanese who accept the fact thatwisdom and restraint have often been wantingin post-war U.S. war and peace policies, it iscustomary to hear the argument that goingalong with the dictates of Washington is a smallprice to pay for maintaining the preciousfriendship that has been forged between thetwo countries.

Obviously, especially when one recalls thehatreds and horrors of the Pacific War, thatfriendship is indeed precious. The price paidfor this under the San Francisco System,however, has been higher than is usuallyacknowledged-whether measured by thehumiliation of being regarded as a client state,or by Japan's inability to speak with a trulyindependent and persuasive voice aboutmatters of war and peace. This is anunfortunate legacy to carry into the seconddecade of the twenty-first century, when powerpolitics are in flux and talk about an impending"Asian century" is more compelling than everbefore.

III. Present Uncertainties

It is generally acknowledged that the U.S.restoration of relations with China in 1972-coupled with the winding down of the VietnamWar-ushered in almost four decades ofuncontested U.S. strategic supremacy in theAsia-Pacific region. In return for Washingtonrecognizing its legitimacy, the Communistgovernment in Beijing dropped its criticism ofthe U.S.-Japan security alliance and refrainedfrom criticizing or challenging America'soverwhelming military superiority. Sharedenmity toward the Soviet Union helped cementthis Sino-U.S. agreement. So did U.S.

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assurances to China that Japan would not, andindeed could not, re-emerge as a major militarypower so long as the bilateral security treatywas maintained.38

This tacit understanding amounted to China'sleaders accepting a gross imbalance of powervis-à-vis the United States in the Pacific untiltheir country became more prosperous-andprosperity arrived more quickly thananticipated.39 Beginning in 1978, reformsintroducing capitalist market principles led toannual growth rates averaging around tenpercent. In 2008, China surpassed Japan as thebiggest foreign holder of U.S. Treasurysecurities and became the largest creditornation in the world. Two years later, thenation's gross domestic product (GDP)surpassed Japan's, making China under "statecapitalism" the second largest economy in theworld after the United States. Predictions ofwhen China's GDP would surpass America'susually look to a mere two decades or so hence-that is, to around 2030.

One outcome of this stupendous growth wasincreasing interdependence between China andthe rest of the world, including the UnitedStates and European Union, not just China'sAsian neighbors. China became the world'sbiggest recipient of direct foreign investment,as well as its biggest trader. The PRC soonemerged as Japan's largest trading partner inboth exports and imports, while the UnitedStates became China's major export marketand its second largest overall trading partner(after the European Union). China's integrationinto the global economy seemed to signal amaterialization of converging interests thatcould and would become a sound foundation forfuture peaceful relations.

By the second decade of the twenty-firstcentury, such shared interests seemedimperiled. Economic globalization wasaccompanied by China asserting its status as agreat power more generally-and these great-

power aspirations extended to overturning themodus vivendi negotiated forty years earlierand challenging the military status quo. This isthe milieu in which so many of the problematiclegacies of the San Francisco Systemresurfaced in disquieting ways-including notjust territorial disputes and contested historyissues, but also accelerated Japaneseremilitarization. The U.S. response to thisunsettled and fluid situation has been toengage in new levels of strategic planningaimed at maintaining an unchallenged PaxAmericana in the Pacific.

Given the enormous domestic challenges Chinawill face for many decades to come, the goal ofits military transformation is not to achievestrategic parity with the United States. That isnot feasible. Rather, the primary objective is tocreate armed forces capable of blunting ordeterring America's projection of power intoChina's offshore waters-to develop, that is, amilitary strong enough to dispel what HenryKissinger has called China's "nightmare ofmilitary encirclement."40 In military jargon, thismission is referred to as China's pursuit of"anti-access/area denial" (A2/AD) capabilities,and the area of particular strategic concern lieswithin what Chinese (and others) refer to asthe "first island chain" or "inner island chain,"which includes the Yellow Sea, East China Sea,and South China Sea. Central to this area-denial strategy is developing "asymmetriccapabilities" that will enable Chinese forces tooffset America's ability to intervene militarilyshould, for example, a conflict over Taiwanarise.

This accelerated militarization on China's partreflects more than rising economic clout andassertive nationalism. It is also driven bytechnological imperatives that escalated to newrealms of sophistication when the collapse ofthe Soviet Union in 1991 essentially coincidedwith the takeoff of digital technology and therevolutionary transformation of precision-guided warfare. The so-called asymmetric

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capabilities under development in China covera broad range of weaponry: nuclear warheads;41 short-range and medium-range ballisticmissiles, including a "carrier-killing" anti-shipballistic missile (the Dong Feng 21D); long-range cruise missiles; "fourth generation" jetaircraft as well as a "fifth generation" stealthfighter (the Chengdu J-20); missile-carryingsubmarines, warships, and aircraft; anenvisioned albeit still far-distant fleet of aircraftcarriers; fiber-optic command and controlcenters; advanced laser and radar systems;satellite surveillance systems; anti-satellite andcyberwar capabilities; and so on. Shouldconflict with U.S. forces arise, China's responsepresumably would include missile attacks onU.S. bases in Guam and Okinawa (notablyKadena Air Force Base).42

Such an agenda of military modernization by alate-arriving power in a new world of high-techwarfare is predictable. Also predictable is thealarm it has provoked among those who takeAmerica's overwhelming military superiority forgranted, especially in the United States andJapan. Rhetorically, the American response tothe rise of China often calls to mind the earlyyears of the Cold War. Anti-communism nolonger defines this rhetoric. What remainsrelatively unchanged is an assumption offundamentally adversarial rather thanconvergent American and Chinese values,interests, and agendas. In 2012 alone,Americans were bombarded with headlines andbook titles about "The China Threat," a new"Cold War with China," an impending "Strugglefor Mastery in Asia." "Containment of China"was resuscitated as geopolitical wisdom froman earlier generation. More detachedcommentators called attention to a pervasive"China-bashing syndrome."43

"China-bashing" itself carries distorted echoesfrom a more recent past, notably the 1970s and1980s when Japan was still being mythologizedas a superpower and "Japan-bashing" was allthe vogue in America. There is, however, no

real comparison. Japan-bashing focusedexclusively on economic issues, and Japan'smoment in the sun was ephemeral. No onebel ieves China's r ise to be a passingphenomenon. This poses an unfamiliarchallenge to the United States: the notion ofexercising power in the Pacific from a positionof other than overwhelming superiority. Thereis no post-war precedent for this.

In U.S. strategic planning circles, the mostwidely publicized concept aimed at countering"emerging anti-access/area denial challenges"is called Air-Sea Battle (ASB). First mentionedpublicly by the secretary of defense in 2009,this calls for integrated air, sea, space, andcyberspace forces capable of overcoming the"asymmetric capabilities" of adversaries. AnAir-Sea Battle Office (ASBO) was established inthe Pentagon in August 2011, and an acronym-heavy release from the ASBO explains, informulaic language repeated in other officialstatements, that "The Air-Sea Battle Conceptcenters on networked, integrated, attack-in-depth to disrupt, destroy and defeat (NIA-D3)A2/AD threats." Another official report typicallynotes that the goal is "to preserve U.S. andallied air-sea-space superiority."44

In published reports, China is the primaryfocus of the Air-Sea Battle concept.

U.S. officials usually take care to declare thatASB does not specifically target China and is ageneral and still rudimentary projection. In

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fact, the concept dates from war gamesinitiated around a decade and a half earlier thatidentify the PRC as the major projectedadversary (with Iran a distant second). Thesescenarios make clear that disrupting,destroying, and defeating China's anti-access/area denial capabilities may involveoperations such as destroying surveillancesystems and missile defenses located deepinside the country, followed up by "larger airand naval assault." 45

The Air-Sea Battle projections have provokedcriticism in U.S. strategic planning circlesconcerning costs, risks, and implications forexisting U.S. bases and operations in Asia.Much of this debate, however, involves inter-service turf battles and efforts to reconcile ASBwith an alphabet soup of other currentstrategic formulations. These include thePentagon's overarching JOAC (Jo intOperational Access Concept); Army and MarineCorps projections such as the GMAC (Gain andMaintain Access Concept) and JCEO (JointConcept for Entry Operations); and the Navy'sMDBS (Mutually Denied Battlespace Strategy).As summarized by a strategic analyst in Asia,the Army-Marines JCEO strategy focuses on"amphibious, airborne and air assaultoperations to gain and maintain inland accessto the adversary's territory," while the Navy'sMDBS plan would "rely on U.S. maritimesuperiority to deny access to Chinese warshipsin their own waters and [Chinese] commercialshipping in the surrounding oceans."Consistent with these projections, in 2012 theUnited States announced plans to shift long-range B-1 and B-52 bombers as well as a fleetof high-altitude surveillance drones from theMiddle East to the Pacific.46

The "A2/AD" (anti-access & area denial")concept lies at the core of U.S. strategicplanning vis-à-vis China.

These strategic guidelines, all easily accessiblein declassified form, entered the public domainvirtually hand in hand with widely quotedofficial pronouncements that the U.S. would"pivot to Asia" or "rebalance toward the Asia-Pacific region" as it withdraws from itsmisbegotten wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The"pivot" term emerged during PresidentObama's trip to Asia in November 2011, andSecretary of State Hillary Clinton followed withan article on "America's Pacific Century" thatsame month. This rhetorical offensive waswidely interpreted as indicating that thehegemonic Pax Americana would be maintainedin the face of proposals to work towardattaining some sort of less confrontational andmore balanced multinational power sharing.47

The pivot to the Pacific involves two distinctlevels of projected integration. One, embodiedin the Air-Sea Battle concept, focuses on jointU.S. military operations that optimize cutting-edge weaponry and technology. The other

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involves promoting greater strategicintegration with Asian allies like Japan andSouth Korea. Although all parties speak withapparent sincerity about restoring the spirit ofcooperation and interdependence with Chinathat was initiated in the 1970s, the inherentlyconfrontational and hierarchical aspects of theSan Francisco System still define this evolvingrecalibration of power.

Where Japan is concerned, the concurrence ofNorth Korea's traumatizing development ofnuclear weapons and mounting tensions withChina has given new direction to the twobedrock policies that date back to inaugurationof the San Francisco System: taking shelterunder the U.S. military shield and promotingincremental militarization under the stillunrevised "peace constitution." Pyongyang'stest of a ballistic missile in 1998 triggered aseries of policy decisions in Tokyo thatprioritized establishing a multi-layered missiledefense system in close collaboration with theUnited States. (Among other things, thisinvolved revising earlier Japanese restrictionson arms exports plus lifting a ban on themilitary use of space.) Virtually in tandem withthis, new "National Defense ProgramGuidelines" issued in 2004 expressed concernover China's military modernization for the firsttime.48

Revised guidelines issued in December 2010reaffirm Japan's peaceful goals of defense anddeterrence under the U.S. nuclear umbrella,but take note of a "global shift in the balance ofpower … along with the relative change ofinfluence of the United States." Whileacknowledging that Japan faces no seriousthreat of being invaded, the guidelines callrenewed a t ten t ion to d i spu tes andconfrontations that must be prevented fromescalating into war. These "gray zone" areas ofconcern include the Korean Peninsula, theTaiwan Strait, and the spectacle of China"widely and rapidly modernizing its militaryforce" and intensifying its maritime activities in

surrounding waters. Essentially, the 2004 and2010 guidelines reflect the shift in Japanesesecur i t y focus away f rom Co ld Warpreoccupation with the Soviet Union towardheightened concern about Korea, China, andthe seas and islands to the south. They alsoreflect the same technological imperatives thatdrive war planning by the United States andChina.

Air-Sea Battle projections have alreadyentered the realm of popular war gaming.

The breakthrough concept in the 2010guidelines is creation of a "dynamic defenseforce" (dōteki bōeiryoku) capable of "immediateand seamless response to contingencies." Thisenvisioned force, which replaces prior focus ona more static "basic defense force" (kibantekibōeiryoku), will "possess readiness, mobility,flexibility, sustainability, and versatility …reinforced by advanced technology based on

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the trends of levels of military technology andintelligence capabilities." Attaining thesecapabilities will "further deepen" the securityalliance with the United States in areas such ascontingency planning, joint training andoperations, information gathering (extending tocapabilities in outer space and cyberspace),and "technology cooperation," with particularattention to ballistic missile defense. At thesame time, the new emphasis on "dynamicdeterrence" points to a conspicuously moreproactive defense posture on Japan's part.49

In November 2011, almost a year after theguidelines were issued, the Japanesegovernment announced that it was looseningrestrictions on arms exports that had beenintroduced in 1967 and reformulated in 1976 asa general ban "regardless of the destinations."One early result of this, it was anticipated,would be selling submarines to countries likethe Philippines and perhaps Vietnam-anotherexample of the strategic regional integrationenvisioned under the "pivot" to Asia. InSeptember 2012, Japan announced that itwould host a second U.S. advanced anti-ballistic-missile radar system. Althoughostensibly directed against North Korea'snuclear provocations, this was denounced byBeijing as another step toward the containmentof China. In December 2012, the Wall StreetJournal praised Japan for now possessing "themost sophisticated missile-defense systemoutside the U.S.," describing this as "a systempoised for export to other nations."50

Sixty years later, containment of China hasclearly evolved into something radicallydifferent and more complex and contradictorythan when this policy was first introducedunder the San Francisco System.

IV. Fears and Hopes

The thrust of these developments is disturbing.The rise of China challenges the Pax Americanathat has prevailed in the Asia-Pacific area sincethe 1950s. A stepped-up arms race looms-now

pitting the United States and Japan againstChina rather than the Soviet Union, and drivenby the impact of the digital revolution onprecision warfare and cyberwar. We haveentered a new era of strategic escalationwithout leaving reliance on brute force behind,and without any reason to believe thatadvanced hardware and software has produceda wiser generation of leaders.

All participants in this arms race naturallyclaim to champion peace: their militarization isbubble-wrapped in the rhetoric of "defense"and "deterrence." On all sides, however,strategizing shades into paranoia. Chauvinismburns ever more feverishly. The structures ofgoodwill and interdependence between Chinaand the res t o f the wor ld tha t werepainstakingly built up beginning in the 1970sappear brittle. Warnings of "accidental war"hang in the air.

There is no reason to believe that theproblematic legacies of the San FranciscoSystem will disappear soon, or that new threatsto stability can be held in check easily. Rivalnationalisms are here to stay, manipulated byjingoists in and out of public office and passedon to younger generations. History wars will goon unabated, hand in hand with the cynicalcultivation of historical amnesia for domesticaudiences and agendas. Territorial disputesthat were embedded in the peace treaty signedin San Francisco and aimed at thwarting"communism" in Asia will fester for years tocome. The American empire of bases will keepcontracting and expanding like a shape-shiftingmonster, as it has done since the end of theCold War; but the disgrace of Okinawa and the"two Japans" will not change drastically in theforeseeable future. Japan's incremental butnow "dynamic" remilitarization under thenuclear umbrella will continue to accelerate-even more dynamically if the constitution isrevised, but never to the point of eliminatingthe material and psychological constraints ofsubordinate independence under the eagle's

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wing.

"Asymmetry" is a central concept incommentary on the rise of China and the U.S."pivot" to Asia. The term has numerousconnotations. It calls attention to the patron-client nature of the U.S.-Japan relationship, forexample, and also characterizes China'spresent and projected military capabilities vis-à-vis the prodigious arsenal of the UnitedStates. As America's experience in post-WorldWar II conflicts makes clear, however,asymmetrical capabilit ies can stymieoverwhelming superiority in weaponry. Thiswas the (unlearned) lesson of the Vietnam War,repeated in the U.S. debacles in Iraq andAfghanistan. China's military modernizationrests on recognizing the potential effectivenessof materially inferior forces in deterring whatAmerican strategists hubristically refer to as"full spectrum dominance." The U.S. response,epitomized in concepts like "Air-Sea Battle" andjargon about "A2/AD" threats and "NIA-3D" in-depth attacks, guarantees that strategists andweapons manufacturers on all sides will neverbreak out of this vicious circle.

There is also asymmetry of a political nature inChina's challenge to continued domination ofthe San Francisco System: the PRC is anauthoritarian state, whereas democraticprinciples underlie governance in the UnitedStates and Japan. This is a critical difference.At the same time, it should not obscure the factthat powerful dysfunctional influences are inplay in all three states. Transparency isblatantly absent in the PRC, but secrecy andnon-accountability are not peculiar to China.Beginning with the onset of the Cold War-andwith almost exponential acceleration afterSeptember 11, 2001, when terrorism enteredthe picture as an obsessive security concern-the United States has become a national-security state of unprecedented bloat andclandestine activity. Special interests influenceand pervert policy-making in all three nations.So does corruption, and so do delusion and

wishful thinking. Time and again, pathologiesrather than rational policies and practicesinfluence the course of events.

Where, then, do hopes for a more stable andconstructive future lie? They do not lie infixation on military confrontation, although thisis where political resources and mediaattention tend to be directed. Nothing hopefulcan come from perpetuat ing hatefulnationalisms, although this has becomeaddictive in China, Japan, and Korea throughceaseless rekindling of the history wars. Norcan stability be secured by postulating a zero-sum struggle between China and the old PaxAmericana for domination over the Asia-Pacificarea. The United States is no longer the solegreat power in the region, but it maintains anawesome military juggernaut coupled with asprawling network of alliances consolidated inthe early years of the Cold War. China's long-delayed re-emergence as a great power isirresistible-unlike imperial Japan's doomedaggression in the early twentieth century andpost-war Japan's short interval as a putativesuperpower in the 1970s and 1980s-but bothdomestic and external factors militate againstChina imposing hegemonic influence over thearea.

Future hope lies in returning to the visions ofpeaceful integration that accompanied thenormalization of relations with the PRCbeginning in the 1970s, and in strengtheningthe many concrete areas of cooperation andeconomic interdependence that gave substanceto these optimistic projections. As regionaltensions heated up in 2012, "power-sharing"became the phrase of choice for postulating aless confrontational new order. This foundexpression in formulations such as a "Concertof Asia" or "Pacific Community" or "PaxPacifica" (as opposed to the Pax Americana).51

This is more easily imagined than realized, ofcourse, especially when territorial disputes andmilitary expansion have been elevated to issues

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of national honor as well as security. "Asia-Pacific" regional organizations have been activesince the 1990s and provide an object lesson inthe unwieldiness of multinational forums, aswell as their potential for promotingconstructive engagement.52 Ultimately,however, the success of power sharing dependson expanding the non-governmental civiliannetworks that lie at the core of genuineinterdependence and mutual understanding.These crisscrossing personal and corporateconnections run the gamut from NGOs andmultinational corporations to cultural andeducational exchanges to tourism and popculture. They are the bedrock of grassrootscollaboration and integration-and, as such, theantidote to ultranationalism and bellicoseconfrontation.

These networks are already substantial. Thequestions that demand attention are: Why havethey failed to decisively tip the balance againstvoices of extremism and unreason? Can they doso? And if so, how?

John W. Dower is emeritus professor ofhistory at the Massachusetts Institute ofTechnology. His books include Empire andAftermath: Yoshida Shigeru and the JapaneseExperience, 1878-1954 (1979); War WithoutMercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War(1986); Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake ofWorld War II (1999); Cultures of War: PearlHarbor / Hiroshima / 9-11 / Iraq (2010); andtwo collections of essays: Japan in War andPeace: Selected Essays (1994), and Ways ofForgetting, Ways of Remembering: Japan in theModern World (2012).

Recommended Citation: John W. Dower, TheSan Francisco System: Past, Present, Future inU.S.-Japan-China Relations, The Asia-PacificJournal, Vol. 12, Issue 8, No. 2, February 24,2014.

Notes

1 Great Britain, which formally recognized the

People's Republic of China in January 1950,supported PRC participation in the peaceconference before bowing to U.S. pressure inJuly 1951. The ostensible reason for excludingKorea was that, as a Japanese colony, it had notbeen a belligerent party against Japan in WorldWar II. On August 16, 1951, Zhou Enlai,serving simultaneously as foreign minister andprime minister of the PRC, released astatement criticizing the treaty and conference.South Korea also expressed outrage wheninformed it was being excluded. For China andKorea, see John Price, Orienting Canada: Race,Empire, and the Transpacific (University ofBritish Columbia Press, 2011), 245-48.

2 The third distinguishing feature of the SanFrancisco settlement (alongside the Cold Warsetting and "separate peace") was the "unequaltreaty" nature of the bilateral U.S.-Japansecurity treaty. As Secretary of State ChristianHerter told a Senate committee when thetreaty came up for revision in 1960, "Therewere a number of provisions in the 1951-1952Security Treaty that were pretty extreme fromthe point of view of an agreement between twosovereign nations"; U.S. Senate, Committee ofForeign Relat ions, Treaty of MutualCooperation and Security with Japan, 86th

Congress, 2nd Session (June 7, 1960), esp.11-12, 27, 30-31. This gross inequalityprovoked considerable tension between Tokyoand Washington in the 1950s, promptingrevision and not just renewal of the treaty in1960. Various backstage exchanges andcommentaries on this issue are included inDepartment of State, Foreign Relations of theUnited States, 1958-1960. Japan; Korea, vol.18; see 23-29 for a representative expressionby the U.S. ambassador in Tokyo of U.S.apprehension concerning "the stigmas anddisadvantages now associated in Japan with thepresent Security Treaty."

3 Nishimura Kumao, who played a leading rolein Japanese planning for the restoration ofsovereignty, details the evolution of post-war

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strategic projections, including Okinawa, in hisilluminating San Furanshisuko Heiwa Jōyaku,vol. 27 in Kajima Kenkyūjo, ed., Nihon GaikōShi (Kajima Kenkyūjo, 1971). As early asSeptember 1947, a letter from EmperorHirohito himself was delivered to GeneralDouglas MacArthur, the supreme commanderof Allied occupation forces, proposing thatOkinawa be leased to the United States fortwenty-five or fifty years, or "even longer," tosupport the struggle against communism andhasten the end of the occupation. The letterwas uncovered by Professor Shindō Eiichi andreported in "Bunkatsusareta Ryōdo," Sekai,April 1979, 31-51 (esp. 45-50).

4 The major investigative work on Agent Orangeand other toxins in Okinawa has beenconducted by Jon Mitchell. See his "US MilitaryDefoliants on Okinawa: Agent Orange" and"Agent Orange on Okinawa-New Evidence,"both in volume 9 of the The Asia-Pacific Journal(September 12, 2011, and November 28, 2011,respectively); these are accessible here. Seealso Mitchell's articles in Japan Times: "AgentOrange 'tested in Okinawa'" (May 17, 2012);"25,000 barrels of Agent Orange kept onOkinawa, U.S. Army document says" (August 7,2012); and "U.S. Agent Orange activist bringsmessage of solidarity to Okinawa" (September15, 2012). Secret agreements on nuclear issuesare discussed and annotated below under "The'Nuclear Umbrella'." The most detailed andincisive critical commentary on Okinawa inEnglish appears in various publications byGavan McCormack, including most recently hisco-authored (with Satoko Oka Norimatsu)Resistant Islands: Okinawa Confronts Japanand the United States (Rowman & Littlefield,2012).

5 The major scholarly study of the origins ofthese territorial issues is Kimie Hara, Cold WarFrontiers in the Asia-Pacific: DividedTerritories in the San Francisco System(Routledge, 2007, 2012), which devotesseparate chapters to each of the disputes. Hara

reiterates the thesis of deliberate ambiguity inthe San Francisco peace treaty concisely invarious essays. See, for example, "50 Yearsfrom San Francisco: Re-examining the PeaceTreaty and Japan's Territorial Problems,"Pacific Affairs (Fall 2001) and "Cold WarFrontiers in the Asia-Pacific: The TroublingLegacy of the San Francisco Treaty," The Asia-Pacific Journal (September 2006). For anotherdensely annotated treatment, see SeokwooLee's online article, "The 1951 San FranciscoPeace Treaty with Japan and the TerritorialDisputes in East Asia," from Pacific Rim Law &Policy Journal, 2002.

6 For the U.S. response to the 1956 Japan-Soviet negotiations, see Department of State,Foreign Relations of the United States,1955-57. Japan, vol. 23, part 1:202-5, 207-13.See Hara, Cold War Frontiers, 71-99 on the1945-1951 background, and 96 (andaccompanying citations) on the thwartedcompromise of 1956.

7 Hara, Cold War Frontiers, 14-49, esp. 31-35,47.

8 The densely annotated entry on "LiancourtRocks dispute" on Wikipedia includes manyreferences to Korean-language sources. TheDemocratic People's Republic of Korea (NorthKorea) also declares the islands to be Koreanterritory.

9 The May 15, 1950, memorandum wasreported by Japanese journalists affiliated withthe Jiji Press news agency in Beijing; see theDecember 27, 2012, Beijing Jiji dispatch"'Senkaku wa Ryūkyū no Ichibu'" online, as wellas coverage in the Asahi Shimbun on December27 and 28.

10 For Zhou and Deng, see Yinan He, TheSearch for Reconciliation: Sino-Japanese andGerman-Polish Relations since World War II(Cambridge University Press, 2009), 194; M.Taylor Fravel, "Something to Talk About in theEast China Sea," The Diplomat, September 28,

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2012; and Ezra F. Vogel, Deng Xiaoping andthe Transformation of China (HarvardUniversity Press, 2011), 303-4. Speculationabout potential oil and gas resources in theEast China Sea dates from the late 1960s, andobviously influenced both China's and Japan'sperceptions of the Senkaku/Diaoyu dispute. Theincreasingly intransigent Chinese position thatdeveloped after Zhou and Deng's downplayingof the dispute in the 1970s is that there is adeep historical record showing that the islandshave traditionally been regarded as part ofChina. The U.S. position is that it is agnostic onthe sovereignty issue, but obliged to side withJapan militarily if Sino-Japanese tensions overthe Senkakus lead to conflict. For an almostelegiac essay on the early history of the islandsbetween China and Okinawa, see "Narrative ofan Empty Space: Behind the Row over a Bunchof Pacific Rocks Lies the Sad, Magical Historyof Okinawa," The Economist, December 22,2012.

11 Hara, Cold War Frontiers, 157.

12 The concept of an American "empire ofbases" was introduced by the late ChalmersJohnson in The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism,Secrecy, and the End of the Republic(Metropolitan Books, 2004). For an informativerecent overview, see David Vine, "The Lily-PadStrategy: How the Pentagon Is QuietlyTransforming Its Overseas Base Empire andCreating a Dangerous New Way of War,"posted online in July 2012 at Tom Dispatch.

13 See Curtis E. LeMay with MacKinlay Kantor,Mission with LeMay: My Story (Doubleday,1965), 382. LeMay spoke similarly in an April1966 interview for the J. F. Dulles Papersarchive at Princeton University; cited in BruceCumings, The Korean War: A History (ModernLibrary, 2010), 151-52. He was not taking pridein this devastation, but rather arguing thatimmediate and massive bombing of key cities inNorth Korea might have been more effectiveand less costly in human terms than the

devastation wreaked in the protracted air war.The cities in South Korea were bombed whenthey were occupied by North Korean orChinese forces. On the air war in Korea ingeneral, see Cumings, Korean War, 147-61;Callum A. MacDonald, Korea: The War BeforeVietnam (Free Press, 1986), 226-48, 259-60;and Taewoo Kim's two-part treatment: "Waragainst an Ambiguous Enemy: U.S. Air ForceBombing of South Korean Civilian Areas, June-September 1950," Critical Asian Studies 44, no.2 (June 2012) and "Limited War, UnlimitedTargets: U.S. Air Force Bombing of NorthKorea during the Korean War, 1950-1953,"Critical Asian Studies 44, no. 3 (September2012). Bombing tonnage varies depending onthe source. Cumings (Korean War, 159)calculates that the United States dropped635,000 tons of bombs (plus 32,557 tons ofnapalm) in Korea, compared to 503,000 tons inthe entire Pacific theater in World War II.Marilyn Young puts the volume of bombsdropped in the Korean War at 386,037 tons(and 32,357 tons of napalm), with a total of698,000 tons when all types of airborneordnance are included; "Bombing Civilians: AnAmerican Tradition," The Asia-Pacific Journal,April 19, 2009, accessible online. At the peak ofthe bombing in Korea, U.S. planes weredropping around a quarter-million pounds (125tons) of napalm per day-with napalm tanksinitially manufactured in Japan; see the"Napalm in War" entry here, and alsoStockholm International Peace ResearchInstitute, Incendiary Weapons (MIT Press,1975), 43. The total tonnage of bombs droppedby the British and U.S. air forces combined inWorld War II was slightly over two million tons,of which 656,400 tons were dropped in thePacific theater. In the U.S. air war thatdevastated over sixty Japanese cities, the totaltonnage dropped was 160,800 tons (24 percentof the Pacific theater total); see United StatesStrategic Bombing Survey, Summary Report(Pacific War), July 1, 1946, 16. In the air waragainst Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, thevolume of bombs dropped by U.S. forces

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escalated to over seven million tons.

14 Yoshida's early arguments in defense ofArticle 9, and the later shift in policy, areannotated in J. W. Dower, Empire andAftermath: Yoshida Shigeru and the JapaneseExperience, 1878-1954 (Council on East AsianStudies, Harvard University, 1979), 369-400.

15 See, for example, Department of State,Foreign Relations of the United States, 1951.Asia and the Pacific, vol. 6, part 1:831. In theend, Article 11 of the peace treaty simplystipulated that "Japan accepts the judgments ofthe International Military Tribunal for the FarEast and of other Allied War Crimes Courtsboth within and outside Japan"-a proviso thatrequired the Japanese government to obtainpermission of the foreign governments involvedin these trials before altering individualsentences that had been imposed.

16 The translations from 1972 and 1998 arefrom the English renderings released by theJapanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The fullapologetic phrasing of the 1998 "JointDeclaration on Building a Partnership ofFriendship and Cooperation for Peace andDevelopment" reads as follows: "The Japaneseside is keenly conscious of the responsibility forthe serious distress and damage that Japancaused to the Chinese people through itsaggression against China during a certainperiod in the past and expressed deep remorsefor this." The 1998 declaration was issuedduring a state visit to Japan by China'spresident Jiang Zemin, and accompanied byacrimonious public exchanges over Japan's warresponsibility that are not reflected in the textof the declaration itself. See Kazuo Sato, "TheJapan-China Summit and Joint Declaration of1998: A Watershed for Japan-China Relations inthe 21st Century?", CNAPS Working PaperSeries, Center for Northeast Asian PolicyStudies, Brookings Institute, 2000-2001;accessible here.

17 The escalating acrimony from the 1980s of"war history" issues on both the Chinese andJapanese sides, including the politics propellingthis, is a major theme in He, The Search forReconciliation.

18 The devastating famine that resulted fromthe Great Leap Forward of 1958-1961, thedestructive Cultural Revolution of 1966-1976,and the Tiananmen Square Massacre of 1989,for example, are all taboo subjects in China-ignored in textbooks, censored on the Internet,and brushed over in historical exhibitions suchas at the recently renovated National Museumof China in Tiananmen Square.

19 On censorship of the nuclear bombing ofHiroshima and Nagasaki, see John W. Dower,Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of WorldWar II (Norton & The New Press, 1999),413-15, 620-21. The first major collection ofphotographs appeared in the August 6, 1952edition of Asahi Gurafu.

20 For U.S. considerations concerning the use ofnuclear weapons in the Korean War, see BruceCumings, "Korea: Forgotten Nuclear Threats,"Le Monde Diplomatique, December 8, 2004,accessible here and reproduced as "NuclearThreats Against North Korea: Consequences ofthe 'Forgotten' War," available here; alsoCumings, "Why Did Truman Really FireMacArthur? The Obscure History of NuclearWeapons and the Korean War Provides anAnswer," History News Network (GeorgeMason University), January 10, 2005,accessible here. See also Malcolm MacMillanCraig, "The Truman Administration and Non-use of the Atomic Bomb during the KoreanWar, June 1950 to January 1953" (M.A. thesis,Victoria University, New Zealand, 2009),accessible online.

21 Operation Hudson Harbor is discussed inCraig, "The Truman Administration and Non-use of the Atomic Bomb," 119-21.

22 The literature on the impact of the Bikini

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Incident is enormous. For a descriptiveoverview that places Japanese anti-nuclearprotests in a global context, see Lawrence S.Wittner, Resisting the Bomb: A History of theWorld Nuclear Disarmament Movement,1954-1970 (Stanford University Press, 1997),vol. 2 of The Struggle against the Bomb, esp.8-10, 42-43, 241-46, 321-24. Wittner alsodescribes the high-level U.S. response to theBikini Incident, which included identifying theLucky Dragon as a "Red spy outfit" and theship's captain as being "in the employ of theRussians" (this by the head of the AtomicEnergy Commission), denying that the fishingboat had been outside the officially announceddanger zone, emphasizing the "high degree ofsafety" of American nuclear tests in general,and asserting that the vessel's radio operatorhad died of hepatitis rather than "radiationsickness," as the Japanese government itselfreported. In a cable to Washington, the U.S.ambassador to Tokyo described the popularoutrage in Japan as "a period of uncontrolledmasochism" as the nation "seemed to revel in[its] fancied martyrdom." See ibid., 146-48,153-54.

23 Robert S. Norris, William M. Arkin, andWilliam Burr, "Where They Were," Bulletin ofthe Atomic Scient is ts , vo l . 55, no. 6(November/December 1999), 26-35. Onmobilization during the Cuban Missile Crisis,see Jon Mitchell, "'Seconds Away fromMidnight': U.S. Nuclear Missile Pioneers onOkinawa Break Fifty Year Silence on a HiddenNuclear Crisis of 1962," The Asia-PacificJournal, July 20, 2012; accessible online.

24 Norris, Arkin and Burr, "Where They Were."Reischauer's statement came in an interviewwith the Mainichi Shimbun on May 18, 1981;for an English summary, see "Nuclear 'Lie'Strains U.S. Ties," Time, June 8, 1981.Reischauer threatened to resign as ambassadorin 1967 when he "discovered that there was acraft at Iwakuni, the Marine base on the InlandSea, which held a store of nuclear weapons." In

his view, this was entirely different from thelegitimate transit of nuclear-armed shipsthrough Japanese waters, and violatedunderstandings with the Japanese government.He regarded the uproar that greeted his 1981acknowledgement of the latter as a "fiasco";see his memoir My Life between Japan andAmerica (Harper & Row, 1986), 249-51,276-77, 280, 299, 346-47.

25 See, for example, Yuki Tanaka and PeterKuznick, "Japan, the Atomic Bomb, and the'Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Power'," The Asia-Pacific Journal, May 2, 2011; accessible here.The "paranuclear state" language appears in alengthy treatment of nuclear development inJapan titled "Nuclear Weapons Program,"accessible here. As of late 2012, it wascalculated that Japan's stockpiles of separatedplutonium totaled more than nine metric tons,enough to make "more than 1,000 nuclearwarheads"; "Rokkasho and a Hard Place:Japan's Nuclear Future," The Economist,November 10, 2012. See also Frank N. vonHippel and Masafumi Takubo, "Japan's NuclearMistake," New York Times, November 28,2012. The easy conversion from civilian nuclearprograms to weapons projects is addressed inMatthew Fuhrmann, Atomic Assistance: How"Atoms for Peace" Programs Cause NuclearInsecurity (Cornell University Press, 2012); see221-25 on Japan.

26 The two quotations are from internalDepartment of State memoranda, both datedM a y 4 , 1 9 5 6 ( D O S f i l e n u m b e r711.5611/5-456), but many similar diplomaticnotes and exchanges took place beginning inthe mid 1950s. See Wittner, Resisting theBomb, 109, 116-17, 166-67, 388, 505n69,514n17. For an accessible sample of theseapologies (and the patroniz ing U.S."understanding" they prompted), seeDepartment of State, Foreign Relations of theUnited States, 1955-57. Japan, vol. 23, part1:495-98, reporting on a September 1957meeting in Washington between Secretary of

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State Dulles and Foreign Minister FujiyamaAiichirō, who had just delivered a speech at theUnited Nations calling for an end to nucleartesting. Fujiyama took the occasion of thismeeting with Dulles to essentially dismiss whathe had said to the United Nations. His apology,as the State Department summarized it, ran asfollows: "The Japanese people, old and young,are very sensitive on this question. It is notmerely a question of communists. The JapaneseGovernment was placed in a position where ithad to lodge a protest. The handling of thismatter is vital for the conservative government.The psychological situation in Japan compelsthe Government to stand for disarmament, theabolition of war, and the establishment ofpeace, and against the manufacture and use ofall nuclear weapons." Dulles replied that heunderstood that "the Japanese Government hasa special problem that is more emotional thanreasonable. The American people perhapsreason about this, while the Japanese view theproblem emotionally, and the JapaneseGovernment must take that into account."

27 Eric Johnson, "Nuclear Pact Ensured SmoothOkinawa Reversion," Japan Times, May 15,2002, quoting from a declassified U.S.document dated June 20, 1959.

2 8 Many declassified English-languagedocuments pertaining to the 1960 and 1969secret agreements have been assembled byRobert A. Wampler and made available in twowidely separated releases by the NationalSecurity Archive at George WashingtonUniversity. See (1) "Revelations in NewlyReleased Documents about U.S. NuclearW e a p o n s a n d O k i n a w a F u e l N H KDocumentary," May 14, 1997, covering thirteendocuments and accessible online; (2) "NuclearNoh Drama: Tokyo, Washington and the Caseof the Missing Nuclear Arrangements," October13, 2009, covering eleven documents andaccessible here. (3) The November 1969 secretagreement between Satō and Nixon isdiscussed in Kei Wakaizumi, The Best Course

Available: A Personal Account of the Secret US-Japan Okinawa Reversion Negotiations(University of Hawaii Press, 2002); Wakaizumiwas an aide to Satō, and his book originallyappeared in Japanese in 1994. An online copyof the agreement is accessible here. Satō's copyof the secret agreement was made available byhis son in 2009 and reproduced in AsahiShimbun, December 24, 2009. (4) See alsoShinichi Kitaoka, "The Secret Japan-US Pacts,"in Research Group on the Japan-US Alliance, InSearch of a New Consensus: The Japan-USAl l iance toward 2010 ( Inst i tute forInternational Policy Studies, December 2010),15-27. Kitaoka, who headed a Foreign Ministrycommittee investigating the secret agreements,a t one po in t re fers to the Japanesegovernment's "intentional avoidance ofclarification." He also quotes Satō stating, inOctober 1969, that "the three non-nuclearprinciples were a mistake." The full Institute forInternational Policy Studies publication isaccessible online. (5) Henry Kissinger discussesthe Nixon-Satō agreement (without calling itsecret) in The White House Years (Little,Brown, and Company,1979), 325-36, 1483.

29 For Kishi, see Department of State, ForeignRelations of the United States, 1955-1957.Japan, vol. 23, part 1:285; Kishi was followingup on a similar statement by the head of theDefense Agency the previous month. For Ikeda,see Jon Mitchell, "Okinawa, Nuclear Weaponsand 'Japan's Special Psychological Problem',"Japan Times, July 8, 2010. For Satō as well asothers on Japan possessing nuclear weapons,see "Nuclear Weapons Program," op. cit., here.Satō's bellicose statement about attackingChina with nuclear weapons is cited in "TheU.S. Nuclear Umbrella, Past and Future," aDecember 27, 2008, editorial by HiroshimaPeace Media Center, accessible online; theirsource is a declassified Foreign Ministrydocument. Beginning in the late 1950s, U.S.diplomats and planners sometimes anticipatedthat Japan might acquire nuclear weapons inthe near future. See, for example, Department

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of State, Foreign Relations of the UnitedStates, 1955-1957. Regulation of Armaments;Atomic Energy, vol. 20:276-77 (minutes of aJanuary 1956 meeting involving the Joint Chiefsof Staff); also Foreign Relations of the UnitedStates, 1958-1960. Japan; Korea, vol. 18:27 (anApril 1958 dispatch from U.S. ambassador toTokyo Douglas MacArthur II).

30 The "throwing off Asia" (datsu-A) phrasecomes from a famous 1885 essay attributed toFukuzawa Yukichi. For an extended image-d r i v e n t r e a t m e n t c o v e r i n g M e i j iWesternization, the Sino-Japanese War, and theRusso-Japanese War, see the three-part onlinet r e a t m e n t " T h r o w i n g O f f A s i a " a tvisualizingcultures.mit.edu.

31 For the pivotal role assigned to Japan by U.S.Cold War planners, see John W. Dower, "TheSuperdomino in Postwar Asia: Japan In and Outof the Pentagon Papers," in Noam Chomsky andHoward Zinn (ed.), The Pentagon Papers: TheSenator Gravel Edition, vol. 5 (Beacon Press,1972), 101-42.

32 Department of State, Foreign Relations of theUnited States, 1951. Asia and the Pacific, vol.6, part 1:825-26. The fuller statement by Dullesexplains that the Japanese "have felt that theWestern civilization represented by Britain,more latterly the United States … represents acertain triumph of mind over mass which givesus a social standing in the world better thanwhat is being achieved in terms of the mainlandhuman masses of Asia, and … they think thatthey have also achieved somewhat the similarsuperiority of mind over mass and would like tofeel that they belong to, or are accepted by, theWestern nations. And I think that anything wecan do to encourage that feeling will set up anattraction which is calculated to hold theJapanese in friendly association with us despitethe fact that the mainland is in possession ofthe economic means of setting up an attractionwhich we, perhaps, in those particular terms ofeconomy cannot match."

33 For basic documents covering Nixon's talkswith Zhou in February 1972 and declassifiedfor the National Security Archive, see WilliamBurr, "Nixon's Trip to China," posted December11, 2003 and accessible here; two long reportsfrom Kissinger to Nixon summarizing his talkswith Zhou in July and October 1971 can beaccessed through note 4 here. Although thesedeclassified documents are only lightlysanitized, some lines and passages pertainingto Japan have been excised.

34 The strategic considerations underlying therapprochement are summarized in He, TheSearch for Reconciliation, 182-89. Thehoneymoon wording is hers.

35 The four key bilateral documents are asfollows: (1) The landmark "Joint Communiquéof the Government o f Japan and theGovernment of the People's Republic of China,"issued on September 29, 1972, announcedtermination of "the abnormal state of affairs"and established the basic terms reiterated insubsequent statements. Japan recognized the"Government of the People's Republic of Chinaas the sole legal Government of China," andexpressed understanding and respect for thePRC's position that "Taiwan is an inalienablepart of the territory of the People's Republic ofChina." The two nations declared commitmentto peaceful coexistence as embodied in thecharter of the United Nations, and pledged to"refrain from the use or threat of force" in anydisputes that might arise between them. Japanexpressed regret for "serious damage" inflictedon the Chinese people in the past, and China inturn renounced i ts demands for warreparations. Reparations had also beenrenounced by the Republic of China in 1952and by South Korea in 1965. (2) The "Treaty ofPeace and Friendship between Japan and thePeople's Republic of China" that followed sixyears later, on August 12, 1978, wasexceedingly brief, consisting of an introductiondeclaring continued adherence to the principlesenunciated in the 1972 communiqué, followed

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by five platitudinous articles.

(3) On November 26, 1998-twenty years afterthe peace treaty was signed, and seven yearsafter the collapse of the Soviet Union and endof the Cold War-the two countries issued alengthy "Japan-China Joint Declaration onBuilding a Partnership of Friendship andCooperation for Peace and Development,"accompanied by a list itemizing thirty-threespecific areas of proposed collaboration. Inaddition to apologizing for Japanese aggressionin the past, this declaration opposed nucleartesting and proliferation, and called for "theultimate elimination of nuclear weapons." (4)The fourth joint statement-issued ten yearslater, on May 7, 2008, and bearing the lengthyheading "Joint Statement between theGovernment of Japan and Government of thePeople's Republic of China on ComprehensivePromot ion of a 'Mutual ly Benef ic ia lRelationship Based on Common StrategicInterests'"-took care to emphasize that the twonations "are partners who cooperate togetherand are not threats to each other."

36 See, for example, Ronald O'Rourke, ChinaNaval Modernization: Implications for U.S.Naval Capabilities-Background and Issues forCongress (Congressional Research Service,October 17, 2012); also Jianwei Wang,"Confidence-Building Measures and China-Japan Relations," February 2000 report to theStimson Center (Washington, D.C.), accessiblehere.

37 For the asymmetry quotation, see Gerald L.Curtis, "U.S. Policy toward Japan from Nixon toClinton: An Assessment," in Curtis (ed.), NewPerspectives on U.S.-Japan Relations (Tokyo:Japan Center for International Exchange,2000), 39-40; this forty-three-page overview ofU.S.-Japan relations after 1972 is accessibleonline. Gavan McCormack develops the client-state argument in detail in two books: ClientState: Japan in the American Embrace (Verso,2007) and, with Satoko Oka Norimatsu,

Resistant Islands. For a capsule summary, seeMcCormack, "The Travails of a Client State: AnOkinawan Angle on the 50th Anniversary of theUS-Japan Security Treaty," The Asia-PacificJournal, March 8, 2010; accessible here.

38 The power-shift argument has been advancedby Hugh White of Australian NationalUniversity, among others. For a concisepresentation, see his "Power Shift: RethinkingAustralia's Place in the Asian Century,"Australian Journal of International Affairs 65,no.1 (February 2011), 81-93, esp. 82. For anextended analysis, see his The China Choice:Why America Should Share Power (Australia:Black Inc., 2012). White's arguments havegenerated considerable online discussion andcontroversy.

39 In 1991, Deng Xiaoping advised colleagues tomaintain good relations with the United Sateswhile building up China's strength; see AndrewJ. Nathan, "What China Wants: Bargaining withBeijing," Foreign Affairs, July/August 2011,154.

40 Henry A. Kissinger, "The Future of U.S.-Chinese Relations," Foreign Affairs,March/April 2012; this essay was adapted fromthe afterword to a paperback edition ofKissinger's book On China (Penguin Press,2011).

41 In December 2012, the newly appointedChinese leader Xi Jinping took care to makeone of his first public events a meeting with thenuclear unit in charge of ballistic and cruisemissiles (the Second Artillery Corps), praisingit as "the core force of our country's strategicdeterrent …. a strategic pillar of our greatpower status, and an important bedrock forprotecting our national security"; Jane Perlez,"New Chinese Leader Meets Military NuclearOfficers," New York Times, December 5, 2012.

42 For an overview of the revolution in precisionwarfare plus analysis of China's projected"A2/AD" capabi l i t ies , see Andrew F.

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Krepinevich, Why AirSea Battle? (Center forStrategic and Budgetary Assessments, 2010).Fear that China's growing sophistication inballistic missiles threatens America's hitherto"virtually invincible" Pacific fleet of carriers istypically expressed in a widely circulatedAssociated Press article: Eric Talmadge, "DongFeng 21D, Chinese Missile, Could Shift PacificPower Balance," Huffington Post, August 5,2010. For a concise sampling of currentmilitary jargon, see "China's Military Rise," TheEconomist, April 7, 2012.

43 Much of this bellicose rhetoric focuses oneconomic and financial issues. Its ubiquity canbe gleaned by online searches under phrasessuch as "China threat," "containment of China,"and "Cold War with China." Certain books alsotrigger extended online commentary. See, forexample, Aaron L. Friedberg, A Contest forSupremacy: China, America, and the Strugglefor Mastery in Asia (Norton, 2011); PeterNavarro, The Coming China Wars: Where TheyWill Be Fought and How They Can be Won (FT[Financial Times] Press, 2006; revised andenlarged in 2008); and Peter Navarro and GregAutry, Death by China: Confronting the Dragon-A Global Call to Action (Pearson Prentice Hall,2011). Death by China became the basis of afull-length documentary film with the sametitle. China-bashing intensified during the 2012presidential election, as noted in "The China-bashing Syndrome," The Economist, July 14,2012. The New York Times published aselection of opinions under the headline "AreWe Headed for a Cold War with China?" onMay 2, 2012.

44 See press releases from the Air-Sea BattleOffice (ASBO) dated November 9 and 10, 2011,and titled respectively "Multi-Service Office toAdvance Air-Sea Battle Concept" and "The Air-Sea Battle Concept Summary." For anotherconcise summary of the ASB mission by twoofficers affiliated with this office, Navy CaptainPhilip Dupree and Air Force Colonel JordanThomas, see "Air-Sea Battle: Clearing the Fog,"

Armed Forces Journal, May 2012; accessiblehere. The Defense Department's SustainingU.S. Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st

Century Defense, issued in January 2012, refersto "asymmetric challenges" by states such asChina and Iran, and italicizes its mission in thisarea as follows: "Accordingly the U.S. militarywill invest as required to ensure its ability tooperate effectively in anti-access and areadenial (A2/AD) environments."

45 China was targeted as a rising problem bythe incoming administration of PresidentGeorge W. Bush in 2001, but this was put asideafter the September 11 terrorist attacks andensuing fixation on the "war on terror." TheASB concept, with primary focus on China, isattributed to Andrew Marshall, the influentiallong-time head of the Pentagon's Office of NetAssessment. Its articulation is now stronglyassociated with the Center for Strategic andBudgetary Assessments (CSBA), a Pentagon-supported think tank; see Greg Jaffe, "U.S.Model for a Future War Fans Tensions withChina and inside Pentagon," Washington Post,August 1, 2012; this includes a map of the"inner" and "outer" island chains where"A2/AD" access is contested. For CSBA reports,see Krepinevich, Why AirSea Battle?; also Janvan Tol et al., "AirSea Battle: A Point-of-Departure Operational Concept," May 18, 2010,accessible online. Krepinevich includeschapters on China and Iran, while emphasizingthat the former is by far the greater threat toU.S. power projection; he also includes a mapof the "first" and "second" island chains. Air-Sea Battle represents a departure from "Air-Land Battle" concepts introduced after theVietnam War for countering the Soviet threat.

46 Department of Defense, Joint OperationalAccess Concept (JOAC), Version 1.0, January17, 2012. Army Capabilities Integration Center,U .S . A rmy & Mar ine Corps CombatDevelopment Command, U.S. Marine Corps,Gaining and Maintaining Access: An Army-Marine Corps Concept, March 2012. For a brief

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summary, see Michael Raska, "Air-Sea BattleDebate: Operational Consequences and AlliedConcerns," Defense News, October 30, 2012;accessible online and other sites. Raska isaffiliated with the Rajaratnam School ofInternational Studies in Singapore. On thetransfer of long-range bombers as well asGlobal Hawk drones to the Asia-Pacific area,see Thom Shanker, "Panetta Set to Discuss U.S.Shift in Asia Trip," New York Times, September13, 2012.

47 President Obama himself never used the term"pivot" during his Asia trip, although it wasused by his spokespeople. For officialpresentations, see "Remarks by PresidentObama to the Australian Parliament,"November 17, 2011, accessible at the WhiteHouse web site; Hillary Clinton, "America'sPacific Century," Foreign Policy, November2011; and Department of Defense, SustainingU.S. Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st

Century Defense, January 2012. Forindependent in-depth analyses, see KennethLieberthal, "The American Pivot to Asia: WhyPresident Obama's Turn to the East Is EasierSaid than Done," Foreign Policy, December 21,2011; Mark E. Manyin et al., Pivot to thePacif ic? The Obama Administration's"Rebalancing" Toward Asia, CongressionalResearch Service, March 2012; David J.Berteau and Michael J. Green, U.S. ForcePosture in the Asia Pacific Region: AnIndependent Assessment, Center for Strategicand International Studies, August 2012; andMichael D. Swaine et al., China's Military & theU.S.-Japan Alliance in 2030, CarnegieEndowment for International Peace, May 2013.

48 Masaki Toki, "Missile Defense in Japan,"Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, January 16,2009. The reference to China in the guidelinesissued in 2004 reads: "China, which has amajor impact on regional security, continues tomodernize its nuclear forces and missilecapabilities as well as its naval and air forces.China is also expanding its area of operation at

sea. We will have to remain attentive to itsfuture actions"; Prime Minister of Japan andHis Cabinet, National Defense ProgramGuideline, FY 2005~, December 14, 2004. TheJapanese government has also released veryslightly different translations of this document.The "Basic Space Law" was revised in August2008 to permit using space for defensepurposes.

49 National Defense Program Guidelines for FY2011 and Beyond, approved by the Cabinet andSecurity Council on December 17, 2010. Theofficial English translation can be found here.

50 For the 1967 and 1976 policies restrictingarms exports, see the report submitted byJapan to the United Nations in 1996 under thetitle Japan's Policies on the Control of ArmsExports; this is accessible on the U.N.website and Ministry of Foreign Affairswebsite. As noted in this report, in 1983exceptions were made for transferring militarytechnologies to the United States, leading tocooperation in the production of fighter aircraftand missile defense systems. For otherexceptions involving small arms and dual-usegoods, see Robin Ballantyne, "Japan's HiddenArms Trade," Asia Times, December 1, 2005.On the missile-defense system announced in2012, see Thom Shanker and Ian Johnson, "U.S.Accord with Japan over Missile Defense DrawsCriticism in China," New York Times,September 17, 2012; Chester Dawson, "JapanShows Off Its Missile-Defense System," WallStreet Journal, December 8, 2012.

51 "Concert of Asia" is the concept advanced byHugh White in widely quoted commentariesfollowing publication of his 2012 book TheChina Choice. For "Pacific Community," seeKissinger, "The Future of U.S.-ChinaRelations." The "Pax Pacifica" concept waspromoted in 2012 by commentators like KevinRudd, the foreign minister of Australia; see, forexample, "Rudd: Asia Needs 'Pax Pacifica' asChina Rises," summarizing a talk at the Asia

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Society of New York, January 13, 2012.

52 ASEAN (Association of Southeast AsianNations) dates from modest regionalbeginnings in 1967; became ASEAN Plus Threein 1997 with the addition of Japan, the PRC,and South Korea, bringing total membership tothirteen; and in 2010 expanded to ASEAN PlusEight by adding Australia, India, New Zealand,

Russia, and the United States. APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation), which presentlyhas twenty-one Pacif ic Rim "membereconomies," was established in 1989 and heldits first summit in 1993. The East Asia Summit(EAS), dating from 2005, added Russia and theUnited States in 2011; total membershipnumbers eighteen nations, including Japan, thePRC, and India.