Eminent Japan Scholar John W. Dower On Eight Problematic Legacies Of 'The San Francisco System' ○Stephen Harner, Forbes (2014.03.03)

【Comment】

以下是Stephen Harner對 John W. Dower 文章 The San Francisco System: Past, Present, Future in U.S.-Japan-China Relations 的評論。

John W. Dower 寫過日本戰敗的歷史報導經典《擁抱戰敗》。

這本書是「政治不正確」的書。我也是透過這本書中才認識「潘潘女郎」。這潘潘女郎，在NHK的《負けて、勝つ ～戦後を創った男・吉田茂》劇中安排在第一幕：日本戰敗後內閣緊急開會，要準備1000位慰安婦，以免日本婦女受侵害。需要多少億日圓做為經費。慰安婦，從來就有兩面性！

但在台灣，還有高級人稱自己貼身女士為「小潘潘」呢！

Stephen Harner 文章大意這樣：

所謂的舊金山體制，主要包括〈舊金山和約〉與〈美日安保〉兩條約，兩者在同一天簽署。美日安保條約，日本賦予美國有權在日本境內與附近駐軍 (in and about Japan)。

〈中蘇友好條約〉簽於1950.02.14，韓戰於06.25爆發，〈和約〉簽於韓戰中的 1951.09.08，日本在韓戰中仍是佔領狀態。

中共或國府都不被和會所邀請，兩韓也被拒絕。蘇聯則拒絕簽署，理由是和會未邀請PRC。美國將整合日本軍力到冷戰架構中。這樣，日本被拉離鄰邦，日本一邊，中韓一邊。至今此架構仍塑造亞洲。

多邊的〈舊金山和約〉要搭配雙邊的〈美日安保〉，讓美國基地續存日本，排除PRC，讓美國軍力保衛日本，這是吉田的抉擇。日本無武裝的中立化加上多數決的和約，延長了日本主權重建的路子與美國佔領的時間。

SFPT的故事：1.  沖繩與兩個日本；2.  領土問題未解決；3.  駐日美軍基地；4.  重新武裝；5.  歷史問題；6.  核子傘；7.  圍堵中國與日本偏離亞洲；8.  臣屬的獨立

中蘇威脅並不真實，反而美軍持續駐留將是日本只能是美國全球軍事政策與實踐的一員。安倍將集體安全正當化，將使日本成為美國全球軍事政策與實踐的一員。

美國持續壓制對廣島核爆的評論以免以起反美風潮，但美國政策改變，鼓勵日本接受核武（在美國掌控中）為日本防衛的一部份，也鼓勵日本發展核電。日本佔領結束，但日本反核運動規模仍很小，直到日本漁民在比基尼島抓到1954年3月2日氫彈試爆後的輻射魚。

約2000位國民在靜岡縣參加氫彈試爆60週年紀念會，並反對311後重啟核電。2月25日，安倍內閣批准能源政策草案，要重啟48座核電中的多數。無視國民的反對。

Eminent Japan Scholar John W. Dower On Eight Problematic Legacies Of 'The San Francisco System'

○Stephen Harner, Forbes (2014.03.03) http://www.forbes.com/sites/stephenharner/2014/03/03/eminent-japan-scholar-john-w-dower-on-eight-problematic-legacies-of-the-san-francisco-system/

For anyone concerned about Japan’s future and U.S.-Japan-China relations an essay entitled “The San Francisco System: Past, Present, Future in U.S.-Japan-China Relations” by John W. Dower, MIT professor emeritus of Japanese history, is must reading.  The essay is in the current issue of theThe Asia-Pacific Journal (link here).

Dower is one of America’s most eminent Asian scholars and historians.  Dower’s most famous book is Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II, published in 1999, winning a Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award.

That he cares deeply about Asia and the future of its peoples is evident from his essay.  So is his alarm at the current Asian of disharmony and malaise.  Dower has no difficulty tracing many of the causes to actions and strategies of the United States in the immediate post WWII period.

By “The San Francisco System” Dower is referring to two treaties: the multinational Treaty of Peace with Japan that had 48 signatories, and the bilateral U.S.-Japan Security Treaty.  It was under the latter that Japan granted the United States the right to ‘maintain armed forces … in and about Japan,’ and, according to Dower, “the United States supported and encouraged Japanese rearmament.”

Both treaties were signed in San Francisco on September 8, 1951and came into effect on April 28, 1952, the day the occupation ended and Japan regained sovereignty.

This image was selected as a picture of the week on the Malay Wikipedia for the 44th week, 2009.  (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Dower underscores two fateful and problematic realities surrounding and informing the San Francisco peace conference.  The first, that “Japan was still occupied and under U.S. control when the treaties were signed, and the Cold War was at fever pitch….a Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Alliance was concluded on February 14, 1950.  On June 25, 1950, war erupted on the divided Korean Peninsula….Four months later, in late October, Chinese forces entered the war….The Korean War dragged on until July 1953, and the peace and security treaties of September 1951 were signed during a protracted stalemate in this conflict.”

Second, “equally significant….Neither Communist China nor the Chinese Nationalist regime that had fled to Taiwan were invited to the peace conference…Both South and North Korea were excluded….The Soviet Union attended the peace conference but refused to sign the treaty on several grounds, including the exclusion o f the PRC and Washington’s transparent plans to integrate Japan militarily into its Cold War policies.”

Thus, writes Dower:  “Viewed from the perspective of the separate peace, the San Francisco settlement thus laid the groundwork for an exclusionary system that detached Japan from its closest neighbors.”

The history of the period continues to define and shape Asian politics.  Dower continues:

“The corrosive long-term consequences of this post-occupation estrangement between Japan on the one hand and China and Korea on the other are incalculable.  The wounds and bitter legacies of imperialism, invasion, and exploitation were left to fester—unaddressed and largely unacknowledged in Japan.  And ostensibly independent Japan was propelled into a posture of looking east across the Pacific to America for security and, indeed, for its very identity as a nation.”

As many people in Japan now appreciate with deep regret, if not resentment, “the conservative Yoshida government that negotiated Japan’s acceptance of the San Francisco System faced a fundamentally simple choice in 1951.  In return for agreeing to Washington’s stipulation that a multinational peace treaty had to be coupled with Japanese rearmament, continued U.S. bases in Japan, and exclusion of the PRC from the peace conference, Japan gained independence plus assurance of U.S. military protection.”

Concludes Dower: “In the real world of power politics, the alternative that Yoshida’s liberal and leftist domestic critics endorsed—namely, to insist on Japan’s disarmed neutrality in the Cold War and a non-exclusionary ‘overall’ peace treaty— meant postponing the restoration of sovereignty and submitting to continued U.S. military occupation.”

Against this background, Dower’s essay is largely an analysis of “Eight Problematic Legacies” of the San Francisco System.  These are: (1) Okinawa and the “two Japans”; (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 deflection from Asia; and (8) “subordinate independence.”

There is not space to elaborate Dower’s exposition of these “legacies.”  Suffice it here to highlight one especially important point Dower makes and, to note two news items.

The point relates to Pax Americana, i.e., the military/security order in Asia after WWII, maintained by the U.S. through unchallengeable hegemonic military power, an essential component of which has been the U.S.-Japan alliance and the U.S. bases in Japan.

Dower writes: “It is not plausible that Japan’s hypothetical enemies—the Soviet Union and China in the Cold War, China and North Korea today—have ever really posed a serious threat of unprovoked armed attack on Japan, as the rhetoric in the original security treaty implies.  On the other hand, there can be no doubt that the continued presence of the bases ensures that in the future, as in the past, Japan will have no choice but to become a participant in America’s global military policies and practices, even where these may prove to be unwise and even reckless.”

It would seem that Prime Minister Abe, in his push to legitimize “collective defense,” would be a willing participant.

The news items relate to “the nuclear umbrella,” or more generally to Japan’s policies toward nuclear technology, including nuclear power.  Dower describes how U.S. Occupation authorities, fearing that they would fan anti-American sentiment, suppressed personal accounts and commentaries on the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  As the Cold War deepened, however, U.S. strategy changed to one of encouraging Japan to accept nuclear weapons (in the hands of the U.S.) as an integral part of Japan’s defense, as well as to push Japan’s development of nuclear power plants.

Dower notes the curiosity that after the Occupation formally ended, Japan’s domestic anti-nuclear movement remained small and subdued, until one remote incident caused it to burst out in force.  This was the exposure of the crew of Japanese fishing boat to radiation poisoning from a test of a U.S. hydrogen bomb at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands on March 2, 1954.

The 60th anniversary of this event received prominent coverage in all Japanese media last week, including NHK television.  Some 2000 people marched in Yaizu, Shizuoka prefecture, Saturday to mark the anniversary, and to demonstrate against restarting nuclear plants in Japan after the 3.11.11 Fukushima nuclear plant disaster.

Just a week before, on February 25, Abe’s Cabinet accepted a new draft energy policy proposal calling for restarting most of the country’s 48 commercial nuclear reactors, all of which were shut down after Fukushima.  Despite a now robust anti-nuclear movement, Abe’s government is expected to approve the policy this month.