THOSE DOUBTING ASIANS

Mears, Helen

Those Doubting Asians by HELEN MEARS One evening recently I was at home brooding about international relations. Just before leaving on one of his good will tours President Eisenhower had made a...

...It is the Chinese Communist government, backed by the U.S.S.R...
...For instance...
...Rau, dropped in...
...You Americans are certainly touchy...
...Do you call this prosperity...
...Rau looked uncomfortable...
...Rau, it is neither the United States nor Japan that has been guilty of responsibility for war or threats of war in the Far East...
...I challenged...
...Only twenty-six per cent favored a United States-Japan alliance...
...Just remember how warmly you greeted President Eisenhower when he visited you...
...You see, your treaty-making with Japan directly concerns the hundreds of millions of human beings whose homelands are in the Far East, and the rest of Asia as well...
...He had said that his "mission" was to try to clear up some misunderstandings about our national aims...
...I knew that Mr...
...What's wrong with that...
...This new treaty gives you the right to keep your forces and bases there for at least another eleven years...
...Your own press openly asserts that your government plans to turn Japan into an arsenal for your anti-Communist policies in Asia...
...Let me see if I understand...
...On the practical side, my government does not believe that a policy that is openly hostile toward other governments can conceivably advance the peace and stability of Asia...
...When we are skeptical about such statements you accuse us of being pro-Communist, or anti-American...
...Of course...
...Your brinkmanship alarmed even the most conservative pro-American governments, and I assure you popular opinion became almost hysterical...
...Your government has had military forces and bases in Japanese territory for fifteen years, on terms dictated by the U.S...
...you continue to make statements to the effect that you will hold them 'as long as the international situation makes it necessary.' "There is a terrible irony here that you Americans refuse to recognize...
...Mr...
...But, Mr...
...Your government spokesmen want the Asian governments and peoples to believe that Communist governments lie as a matter of principle, whereas you tell the truth...
...My government felt that the U.S government was unjustly seizing these islands as spoils of war...
...Oh, Mr...
...Everybody knew that the Japanese government hadn't been given a free choice to accept or reject the security treaty...
...Well, the most recent example is that new mutual security treaty with Japan which your government signed in January...
...You know very well I don't do that...
...After all, since your government insists that your great nation needs a defense perimeter stretching across the Pacific, swallowing Japan and Formosa, holding South Korea, and reaching into our neighbors in Southeast Asia, why should it seem so surprising that Peking should feel it needs to create its own defense perimeter, by establishing a few border outposts...
...Then why do you always criticize my government's foreign policy, and make excuses for other governments...
...The consequences of those bad policies were only what could be expected...
...I believe I remember them correctly...
...A short time ago, at a Communist gathering in Hungary, Janos Kadar, the head of the Hungarian Communist government, declared that Soviet troops would remain in Hungary 'as long as the international situation makes it necessary.' American correspondents saw this statement as typical Communist hypocrisy...
...And because the Japanese government wished it, we also signed a security treaty by which we consented to keep troops and bases there to protect Japan...
...In my opinion, prosperity that depends on military contracts, and jobs in war industries, and money spent by foreign military forces, is not true prosperity...
...government the right to hold and administer, as virtual U.S...
...First, my government believes that international agreements should be honored...
...We are simply trying to be a good partner in this business of searching for peace, which means, in the long run, searching also for methods in which we, the nations, independent nations together, cooperate to find a better life for all of us, and that means politically and materially...
...There are millions on the thin edge of subsistence...
...It was that, really, I had come to discuss...
...government, later on, declared that those southern islands would eventually be returned to Japan...
...I constantly see headlines about Japan's prosperity and trade boom...
...But you also feel that our treaties with Japan did not bring peace to the Japanese, but, instead, turned their country into a military base, and so exposed them to a constant threat of war...
...So what was troubling him...
...She it the author of three books, "Year of the Wild Boar," "Mirror for Americans—Japan," and "The First Book of Japan...
...Rau frowned: "If you will forgive me, I find your habit of always shifting responsibility onto the Communists one of your least endearing qualities...
...It had been agreed at a wartime summit conference that Formosa should be given to China...
...If the U.S...
...Moreover, the charges are not baseless...
...Then I began to think aloud...
...We see—and how can we ignore it?—that no matter how many times your government spokesmen tell us that you do not want an inch of anybody's territory, and do not seek to violate any nation's rights, you have in fact taken a great deal of Japan's territory, and have violated its rights as a sovereign nation...
...I asked...
...If my government is neutralist, as you put it, it is because today we see the world as polarized between two great powers which are quite different in their domestic societies, but which, in their relations with other nations, have as their active principle their own asserted national power...
...This statement was in my mind as I read my New York Times...
...As I see it, your government's policies were bad policies...
...To my surprise, he bristled...
...protectorate, your spokesmen were also declaring that Japan was now a sovereign, equal, independent nation...
...Second, your government tied your security treaty with Japan to the peace treaty...
...Rau," I objected, "your discussion entirely leaves out the problem of the Chinese Communist menace...
...I'm sure you believe you have just made a correct summary, but it is an inaccurate and misleading statement...
...government spokesmen make the identical statement about U.S...
...Nothing at all, as words, of course...
...As I tried to find some way of expressing my understanding, Mr...
...position as merely obvious good sense...
...What we criticize in your foreign policy is the fact that your deeds are not worthy of your principles...
...Mr...
...But your government ignored them...
...You know perfectly well how much I like America and Americans...
...This means that you can't be sure what my government's aims and intentions really are...
...I greeted him by expressing sympathy about the situation along the China-India border...
...If this is your idea of defense, it is not shared by the Japanese...
...I know that the U.S...
...I, too, see such articles, and I must read them more carefully than you, for the very same reports that begin by extolling Japan's prosperity, give statistics that prove the situation is anything but truly prosperous...
...and although I had read about anti-treaty riots in Japan, and some heated debates in the Japanese Diet, the New York Times had assured us editorially that the opposition came from a "small and largely pro-Communist minority...
...I thought of how many facets of our relations with other people we Americans never even considered...
...I looked up at Mr...
...I said in some distress...
...For example, here is how our President summed them up when he explained the message he was taking to India and other countries...
...and insisting, in the words of your then Secretary of State Acheson, that the security treaty was a 'voluntary arrangement between free peoples.' And your then President Truman, and Mr...
...Your own government spokesmen admitted this openly on repeated occasions...
...We sat in silence...
...He had gone on to say that he and others had tried to emphasize our pursuit of peace but it still "doesn't seem to come through...
...You just don't like America...
...You have to remember that the Japanese were never given a choice...
...Very well, for the sake of argument, can you tell me what the Indian ideas were about the treaty which you apparently believe would have been more successful in securing peace in the Far East...
...government decided that these objectives had been accomplished, it called a peace treaty conference, in September 1951, and the nations at war with Japan signed a peace treaty ending the war...
...What's wrong with that...
...but I also notice that in the meantime you continue to strengthen them as nuclear bastions...
...If people like you, they must also like your poodle, even if he chews up our rugs and makes messes in our living room...
...bases in Okinawa, or Japan, these same correspondents accept the U.S...
...I'm afraid," he said, "that such headlines illustrate again an unwillingness, or inability, to look at Asian problems in a realistic way...
...If your government had gone to war with China over those Chinese islands, Japan would have been involved automatically without one word to say about it...
...We Indians are stubborn enough to ask: If Japan now has a 'somewhat more equal' position, what sort of position did she have before that...
...My government felt that since Japan was an Asian country, and the issue of peace in Asia was so important, the views of the Asian governments should have been respected...
...government...
...For example, as you may know, both Moscow and Peking at once denounced the revised mutual security treaty with Japan, and declared that it was a provocative act, designed to prevent the lessening of tensions, and intended to prevent solutions for Far Eastern controversies...
...Rau was not a Communist, or pro-Communist...
...But we Asian people, who are naturally concerned about what happens in our own living room, must look sharply to see whether in practice your government lives up to its expressed high principles...
...The point is not personalities, but principles and programs...
...It can't be considered an independent sovereign nation...
...Your government evaded this commitment, and this evasion has been a major cause of controversy and a constant threat to world peace...
...I counted ten, and then said quietly, "I simply don't believe that many Indians feel that way about us...
...Mr...
...And naturally our forces stayed on in Japan to disarm their militarists and to reform their militaristic institutions...
...government felt free to seize territory for its defense perimeter, why should not other nations do the same...
...As written, it was so unsatisfactory to the governments of the nations which were Japan's neighbors, and your wartime allies, that not only the U.S.S.R., but India and Burma refused to sign it...
...But I thought the Japanese people wanted us there...
...Would you say that she was a genuinely independent nation, or, instead, your satellite...
...I do wish you would remember," I interrupted, "that six of those fifteen years were years of Occupation...
...that we seek nobody else's territories or possessions...
...Rau sighed...
...The highest figure I saw for Japan's gross national product for last year worked out at less than $340 per person...
...It is clear that the treaty did not contribute to the peace of the area...
...And only one per cent favored an alliance with the Chinese-Soviet bloc" "But hasn't my government helped Japan become a prosperous country...
...For protection you seem unable to think of any solutions except those which also assert your own military power and dominance...
...That is, one of the articles of the peace treaty stated that Japan had asked the United States for a security treaty to come into effect along with the peace treaty...
...There was a report about the "aggressions of Red China" against India, and the Times seemed to feel that these Chinese aggressions might open the eyes of the Indian government to the sincerity of our own government's anti-Peking policies...
...Yet at the same time that the U.S...
...I was astonished...
...Now, can't you understand that this sort of double talk arouses doubt about your real intentions...
...What he wanted to do, the President said, was to explain that "our basic aspiration is to search out methods by which peace in the world can be assured with justice for everybody...
...Yes, that's about it...
...Such solutions inevitably cause the very situations they are supposed to prevent...
...I knew that he was not anti-Japanese, or anti-American...
...And what's wrong with our principles and programs...
...We naturally fought back...
...Even if these charges were wholly baseless, it is still true that a policy which arouses such hostility and suspicion cannot be a sound method of pursuing peace...
...And furthermore, it is a policy challenged by many Japanese as unconstitutional under Japanese laws, which, ironically, were written for Japan by Americans as recently as 1946...
...he cried...
...My government does not believe that anti-Communist alliances are legal under the United Nations Charter...
...Then when the U.S...
...As I said goodby to my friend, I was thinking that perhaps the first step for Americans, if we want other people to understand us, is to look more closely at ourselves...
...Rau continued...
...Rau shrugged impatiently...
...Is this what you mean...
...Rau," I protested, "the security treaty is intended to defend Japan...
...But what we Asians are looking for is deeds...
...But the press in general was bitter about it...
...The average monthly pay of all workers in Japan last year was given in your press as about $50, and I suspect this is high...
...And what does 'somewhat more equal' really mean...
...Yours, if I remember correctly, was around $2,800...
...For a time we were silent...
...I found the President's statement, and read it aloud: "I want to prove that we are not aggressive...
...you continue to administer them as though they were your own territory...
...Yet when the U.S...
...For example, a poll by the newspaper Yomiuri last October reported that fifty per cent of those polled said they believed a neutral policy was the soundest defense...
...No Chinese government signed it, and no Chinese government was even invited to the peace treaty conference...
...I know that it is difficult for an American to see any parallel between your government's policies in the Far East, and Soviet policies in the Far East and in eastern Europe...
...After all, the Japanese attacked us...
...You want to believe that my government is sincerely searching for peace with justice and freedom, as we put it today...
...You'll find the same opinion expressed during discussions last year...
...Of course such a policy must seem provocative to Japan's neighbors...
...Rau is a correspondent for several newspapers in India, and he occasionally asks my opinion about some United States policy he HELEN MEARS, who has lived In both China and Japan, hat written for many national publications...
...And if war broke out between the United States and China, and possibly the U.S.S.R., too, the ninety-two million Japanese people crowded into their small islands would stand a splendid chance of being totally vaporized...
...You feel that my government professes high ideals which are shared by your government and people...
...My government objected to this provision because it turned Japan into a United States protectorate...
...The new treaty extends United States control over bases and forces in Japan for at least another eleven years, and it binds Japan to an anti-Communist alliance...
...Your policies for the Japanese tell us what you offer us as protection and prosperity...
...My government could not believe that a treaty which was bound to produce hostility and distrust among Japan's neighbors could possibly advance the peace and stability of the region...
...finds puzzling, and explains some Indian point of view that similarly puzzles me...
...The Japanese peace treaty is an important factor in that distrust...
...So when your bad policies bring about bad consequences your government and you at once disclaim responsibility and charge whatever is wrong is the fault of the Communists...
...I gather that you also feel that, by excluding China from any share in the peacemaking, and by openly taking sides in a Chinese civil war, my government created a situation which has repeatedly threatened major war...
...You want us to believe that Communist governments make international agreements only to break them, while you accept such agreements as sacred obligations...
...As I understand it, this new treaty is merely a revision of other treaties and agreements, made at the request of the Japanese government in order to give Japan what our press calls a 'somewhat more equal position.' " "Exactly," said Mr...
...But you feel that my government also proclaims objectives of national military power which directly contradict its high principles...
...It obligates the Japanese government to rearm, and pledges further United States help in this project...
...The Indian government felt at the time—and was proved correct—that as a method of achieving peace, such a treaty was defective...
...You sometimes act as though your foreign policy is a pet poodle...
...But, Mr...
...You seem unwilling to look at the evidence of your own policies, which are the real source of our distrust of your sincerity in the pursuit of peace...
...But Mr...
...possessions, several groups of islands south of Japan proper, including Okinawa...
...You may feel that this is ancient history, but your government claims to be bewildered by the fact that the Indian government seems to distrust your intentions in Asia...
...Such an attitude does not encourage us to have confidence in the maturity or wisdom of your government's methods of searching for peace...
...So your government says, but we are not sure we know what it means by 'defend.' It is a fact that your government's policies toward Formosa, and toward Quemoy and Matsu, have repeatedly threatened to provoke war...
...I don't like America...
...In the first place, the peace treaty and the security treaty were written by John Foster Dulles—at least so he himself told the Japanese...
...Mr...
...If this is the best you can do, I am afraid that millions of Asians will continue to have doubts about your real sincerity...
...I was pondering this when my Indian friend, Mr...
...We like Ike, too...
...There had been very little about this treaty in our daily press or news periodicals...
...Of course...
...It permits the United States to continue to hold the Japanese southern islands as major bases...
...For example, in January 1950 Secretary Acheson said flatly that 'the Ryukyu Islands, including Okinawa, are essential parts of the defense perimeter of the Pacific and they must and will be held.' "Now, my government felt this seizure of Japanese territory was not only contrary to American principles, but that it also set a bad precedent for other nations...
...Dulles, the architect of the treaty, said much the same thing...
...Is Japan now independent, or is she still your satellite...
...As for prosperity, here, too, your solutions seem to be tied in with your military policies...
...government was turning Japan into a U.S...
...I think," he had said, "that we can conclude, from all of the reports that come to us from abroad, that there is a great deal of doubt remaining in the minds of many people, including our allies and other friends, as to America's real sincerity in our pursuit of peace...
...Just before leaving on one of his good will tours President Eisenhower had made a statement which kept ringing through my mind...
...Many who argued for the new treaty did so on the grounds that the old treaty was humiliating and unjust, and since the choice was between the old treaty, and a somewhat less humiliating version, the new treaty must be accepted...
...A 'protected' country doesn't control its own foreign policy...
...we do not seek to violate anybody else's rights...
...On the contrary," he said stiffly, "your government's eagerness to hold nuclear umbrellas over Asian peoples may very well be one of the reasons for China's activities along India's border...
...I commented that he would now see that the U.S...
...This may shock you, but to many Asians who are interested in these matters, your government's relations with Japan have been, and apparently still are, like the Soviet's relations with its European 'protectorates.' "There was a third point in the peace treaty that the Indian government criticized...
...Your government seems to feel that for a nation to be incorporated into your military system is the same thing as being given peace with justice and freedom, but if you were a Japanese you might feel differently...
...Read Japanese publications, back in 1951, and you'll find that, as they saw it, their only choice was to sign the treaties or remain an occupied country...
...We believe that your government has no right under international law and international agreements to make a policy of active anti-Communism the basis for your government's Asian alliances...
...I asked...
...The evidence is strong that given a real choice the great majority would choose not to belong to any military bloc, and would choose not to re-arm...
...Isn't this true...
...I leave it out because my government believes that the problem of Communism in China is a domestic affair of the Chinese people...
...government had been right all along about the Chinese Communists, adding that his government would soon see the good sense of accepting the protection of the United States' umbrella...
...This was a provision that gave the U.S...

Vol. 24 • September 1960 • No. 4


 
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