U.S.–Japan Alliance

Military and diplomatic partnership between the world's two largest economies. Official diplomatic relations between the United States and Japan date to the Treaty of Peace and Amity at the Convention of Kanagawa in March 1854. Since 1951, with the signing of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty, the U.S. has been allowed to maintain bases in Japan in exchange for which the Japanese have received security guarantees, including the protection of the U.S. nuclear umbrella, a situation that has enabled Japan to maintain security at minimal cost.

History

In 1853, Japan was a country that had been sealed in a self-imposed isolation from the outside world for [Page 775]some 200 years. That era of Japanese history vanished with the appearance of four U.S. Navy ships under the command of Commodore Matthew Perry at Shimoda on July 8, 1853. The Treaty of Peace and Amity, signed the following year in Yokohama, established diplomatic relations between Japan and the United States. Japan opened itself to commerce and diplomacy with foreign powers and embarked on a lightning-quick modernization of its economy, infrastructure, education system, and military. With its formal annexation of Korea in 1910, Japan was fast on its way to becoming a world power. It also embarked on a collision course with its powerful Pacific Rim ally, the United States.

Japan's militarism and expansionism culminated in its 1941 attack on the U.S. fleet in Pearl Harbor, an act that brought the United States into World War II. Four years later, the Japanese empire came to a tragic end with the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and Japan's subsequent surrender. The war was followed by a seven-year American occupation, which saw the writing of a new Japanese constitution, the establishment of the National Police Reserve (the forerunner of Japan's Self-Defense Forces), the rebirth of the Japanese economy, and the signing of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty that laid the foundation for the current alliance. The postoccupation 1950s also saw the establishment of the ′55 system, through which the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has controlled the Diet (Japanese parliament) and Japanese politics alone or by coalition since 1955.

The 1960s were marked by several controversial developments in the U.S.-Japan alliance. In 1960, Japanese Prime Minister Kishi Nobusuke rammed through the Diet a revised U.S-Japan Security Treaty in advance of a scheduled visit by President Dwight Eisenhower. Although widespread public protests led to the resignation of Kishi and the cancellation of the Eisenhower visit, the revised treaty went into effect. Ideological tensions between the United States and Japan in the immediate post-occupation period were relieved by the economic-growth policies of Kishi's successors, Prime Ministers Ikeda and Sato.

The Vietnam War tested the strength of the U.S.–Japan alliance. Japanese university students protested the decision to allow U.S. planes to use the Japanese island of Okinawa as a base for bombing raids on North Vietnam. Tensions on university campuses in Japan mirrored those in the United States, and Japanese gathered outside U.S. military facilities to protest the war. At the same time, Japan's increasing economic might gave it the necessary leverage to negotiate the recovery of land held by the United States since World War II. In 1968, the Ogasawara Islands were returned to Japan and an agreement was reached to return to Japanese control large U.S. industrial facilities in the Tokyo area.

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