Japan Stands Pat
NAOI, TAKEO
Conservatives win new mandate Japan Stands Pat By Takeo Naoi Tokyo Japan's ruling conservative party, the Liberal-Democrats, lost three seats while the opposition Socialists gained eight in May...
...Chinese Foreign Minister Chen Yi, in a heated statement, declared that Kishi had deliberately sabotaged the Tokyo-Peking trade pact "to curry favor with the United States...
...He charged the Government with subservience to the United States and bungling in its negotiations for a private trade pact with China and for fishery agreements with the USSR...
...forces to place nuclear weapons in Japan...
...The Liberal-Democrats rejected this proposal, whereupon the Socialists issued their own declaration pledging their efforts to barring nuclear weapons from all Japanese territories—including Okinawa—and to preventing the establishment of missile bases...
...The Government's social-security program also took wind out of the Socialist sails...
...Socialist Jotaro Kawa-kami set the tone...
...Japanese trade representatives in China were sent home...
...A postwar record of 76.6 per cent of the eligible voters went to the polls...
...Chen's statement was followed by an article in the Peking People s Daily, entitled "We Accuse Kishi %0f Seats, Party Vote Seats 1957 LiberalDemocrats 57.8 287 (290) Socialists 33.0 166 (158) Independents 6.0 12 ( 2) Communists 2.5 1 ( 2) Others 0.7 1 ( 0) Again," which urged Japan "to decide to shed America's control and get on the road of peace, independence and democracy...
...Peking also charged that some Japanese vessels destroyed a Chinese boat and fishing nets, and caused the drowning of a Chinese fisherman...
...The Soviet note quoted two Socialist Diet members who charged that U.S...
...The resulting losses amount to millions of dollars...
...Despite—or, rather, because of such Soviet and Chinese intervention, Socialist election gains fell below expectations...
...Both Peking and Moscow intervened in the campaign...
...Indeed, the election was a loss for the Communist powers in a deeper sense, for their intervention forced Kishi, who has often been accused of straddling key issues, to retort sharply...
...Japan's Foreign Office responded that these Chinese acts and statements showed an unfriendly attitude and constituted an attempt to interfere in Japan's internal affairs...
...Conservatives win new mandate Japan Stands Pat By Takeo Naoi Tokyo Japan's ruling conservative party, the Liberal-Democrats, lost three seats while the opposition Socialists gained eight in May 22 elections to the House of Representatives...
...Backing up these words, China canceled all trade contracts with Japan—including a five-year steel trade agreement—and nullified all the business deals already under way...
...Foreign policy—relations with Red China and the USSR and the nuclear-weapons issue—dominated the campaign...
...The Socialists, who expected to gain 20 to 30 seats, were disappointed, especially since they had helped arrange the dissolution of the Diet which brought on the election...
...Thus the issue of Communism and neutralism was aired for the first time in an election campaign...
...But he warned that there can be no such guarantee now, since America has no intention of leaving its bases in Japan...
...On the closing day of the Diet session...
...President Haraguchi of Sohyo (the General Council of Japanese Trade Unions) had written him asking if the Soviets would promise not to use nuclear weapons against Japan if she renounced them and freed herself of foreign military bases...
...His statement also used such words as "provocation," "insult," "assault" and "imperialistic" in reference to an incident in Nagasaki, where a young worker had hauled down a Chinese Communist flag at a philatelic exhibition...
...B-47s and B-57s at several Japanese bases were armed with atomic and hydrogen bombs...
...The Japanese are independent-minded people and do not like to be hectored by foreign governments...
...The independent press unanimously supported the statement, but the Socialists blamed the Government, and several intellectual and business associations, in an "appeal to the people," declared that Japan could not achieve economic and political independence without trade and normal relations with China...
...At this point, the Soviet Government sent a note asking the Japanese Government whether or not it has allowed U.S...
...On May 8, the Socialist party invited Kishi's party to issue a joint declaration pledging Japan not to acquire nuclear weapons or permit them to be placed on its territories...
...Finally, at the campaign's end, Soviet Premier Khrushchev intervened personally...
...Khrushchev replied that, if Japan had no foreign bases, she would be spared nuclear attacks...
...Because 10 of 12 Independents and a single minor-party representative will support the Government, Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi's position is actually stronger than ever...
...At the same time, the Chinese Communist fleet seized 14 Japanese fishing boats for "trespassing on the non-fishing zone" along the Chinese coast...
...Apart from the foreign-policy controversy, Kishi was helped by the general improvement in living standards...
...Kishi and other Government leaders have repeatedly denied this...
Vol. 41 • June 1958 • No. 23
